Chapter Text
After every death and rebirth, Kenny found that his appearance would alter. His hair would be a different color or texture, his eyes, nose, and lips would be shifted slightly, and his teeth would be in a different pattern. This made it hard for him to figure out who he was. Without the reliable constant of a body, he was stuck with everything changing around him.
It was exhausting.
Nobody around him noticed his occasional change in appearance, save for his parents and Cartman. The only people that know about his curse to begin with.
As time went on, he became more used to his permanently impermanent reflection in the mirror. The one person that always stayed by his side was Kyle. Stan moved out of South Park as soon as he could, nobody had heard from Cartman in years, and he wasn't really as close with anyone else. Save for Butters, but he'd been grounded for the last... god knows how long. So it was just him and Kyle.
The two of them were in their early twenties. Kyle was 23, and Kenny was 22. Kyle still lived in South Park, getting his own apartment, and Kenny lived with him.
Kenny stared into the bathroom mirror with tired eyes. His head throbbing from dying the night before in a car accident, and coming back to life the morning afterward. Being reborn wasn't as easy as it used to be. It took longer for his body to reset, and he would ache for days. He'd have to explain to Kyle what happened to his truck as well, but that could wait for now.
Kenny’s eyes glazed over as he analyzed his face for new differences. He could barely recognize himself regardless. His eyes were a darker blue than they were before, his chin was more square, his hair was closer to being brown than blond, and his freckles had returned for the first time since he was a kid.
But Kenny was focused on his teeth.
They made his mouth sit weird. Opening more on one side than the other when he spoke, his two front teeth being different lengths, and the four on the bottom alternating between being in front and behind. His canines sat too high on his gums and nearly poked through his lips, making his smile look strange. One of his bottom teeth jutted out further than all the others. It made his jaw sit lopsided. It didn't look right.
None of it did.
He poked and prodded at the jagged teeth with the pads of his fingers, going one at a time until they began hurting. It hurt his fingers more than his mouth, but once he saw his swollen gums, his heart began to feel heavy.
This wasn't his body.
Kenny moved slightly forward to lean on the countertop, feeling the cold marble touch his hands as he lifted to stand on the balls of his feet. He stared into his own eyes, not an inch away from the mirror, as if he was trying to find some semblance of who he was. His eyes became cloudy. He dare not blink, lest the dam of welling tears burst open and flood over his cheeks. He watched as his face slowly turned red from the strain. His lower lip quivered like a child’s, and despite biting it in an attempt to still the movement, it persisted. It made him look even worse. He sniffled. The sound echoed through the small and silent bathroom, snapping him back into his surroundings.
Kyle walked up to the bathroom and leaned in the doorway.
“You okay dude?”
Kenny fumbled back, quickly recomposing himself and wiping his eyes with the hem of his tank top and meeting his roommate’s gaze.
“Huh? Yeah. All good. What’s up?”
Kyle’s eyes narrowed.
“...’Kay. Well, I was gonna head to the library, was wondering if you’d wanna come along.”
The blond sniffled again.
“Sounds good, yeah, I’ll go. Uh, just gimme a minute ta get ready, yeah?”
“Alright.”
He pushed off from the doorframe and walked off, leaving Kenny with his thoughts again.
—
The smell of paper and ink in a fresh book was one of Kyle’s favorites. He always loved the library. It was quiet, it smelled nice, and he loved browsing the books and DVDs in hopes he’d find something good to rip on his computer. Studying there was always nice too, just being able to drown out the world and work peacefully. Something he wasn’t often able to do outside of the apartment.
Sometimes Kenny would tag along with him as well. Since it was a Saturday, he figured Kenny would have something better to do, but he’d ask anyway. Kenny had been just standing in the bathroom with the door open, probably doing his hair or brushing his teeth or something. When he walked over, he heard a sniffle. Huh.
Kyle peered inside and was met with Kenny just… staring at himself. Very, very closely analyzing his face in the mirror.
“You okay dude?”
He watched as Kenny jolted. He was clearly thinking about something. Lost in thought. Kyle felt a wave of concern when he noticed Kenny’s face was all red. He wiped his face off with the bottom of his shirt and they locked eyes before Kenny glanced away.
“Huh? Yeah. All good. What’s up?”
‘All good’ my ass.
Kyle thought. He hesitated before speaking.
“...’Kay. Well, I was gonna head to the library, was wondering if you’d wanna come along.”
After a small sniffle and a rabbit-like scrunch of his nose, Kenny responded.
“Sounds good, yeah, I’ll go. Uh, just gimme a minute ta get ready, yeah?”
“Alright.”
Kyle shifted his weight and pushed off the doorway, walking off with a sigh. Obviously something was wrong with Kenny. But he couldn’t just ask, could he? No, that was too gay. He had to do it discreetly.
—
Kyle was crouched in the sci-fi section, looking at the bottom shelf for something that looked interesting. Kenny was across the room in the DVDs for the same purpose.
The car ride to the library was relatively quiet. Cool air from the outside filled the car through the open windows. Kenny’s arm rested just outside the window, while Kyle drove. What I Got by Sublime played through the speakers. Both men hummed along to the song, bringing a sense of familiarity. Serenity.
When they arrived, they went their separate ways inside, silently planning on meeting back up after they’d looked around enough. Kenny looked through the DVDs and picked out a few movies to check out. Afterward, he went to the graphic novels but didn’t find anything. Kyle went head first into the books, looking for a new novel to read. Sci-fi, action, drama, he’d read most genres. And he looked through most genres, before picking out a book that caught his eye. After checking out, Kyle saw Kenny standing by the door, DVDs in one hand, phone in the other, probably texting someone. Kenny looked up as he saw someone in his peripherals walking over to him.
“Find anything good?”
“Yeah, these 3.”
Kenny held up the movies he checked out: Superbad, The Bob’s Burgers Movie, and Sonic 2.
“You find anything?”
“Interesting assortment. Yeah, I uh, got this.”
He held up the book he found. The Lord of the Rings.
“Haven’t you already read that?”
Kenny raised an eyebrow.
“Yeah, but what’s one more time?”
“Can’t argue with that.”
They headed out to Kyle’s car.
The car beeped after Kyle hit the button on his keys, which reminded him.
“I saw this thing earlier talking about a crazy accident that happened downtown. A truck that was like, the same make and color and everything of yours was in the accident.”
There was a pause while they entered the car.
“Yeah, I heard about that too. Heard that the guy in the truck died in a gnarly way too.”
“I heard that the body was missing.”
Kyle turned the key and his car sprung to life.
A chill went down Kenny’s spine. He’d told Kyle about his deaths before, but it always resulted in concern and denial, and Kenny didn’t want to deal with it. But these last couple times, Kyle had seemed to remember more and more. Piecing together random evidence of Kenny’s past lives and evidence of incidents around town all coincidentally leading back to Kenny somehow.
“And your truck isn’t at home.”
…
“Man, I dunno. That’s weird.”
Kenny mumbled and looked out the window, licking his teeth beneath his lips and thinking.
“Mm.” Kyle grunted.
That was all Kyle could muster.
But he’d be getting answers sooner rather than later.