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The blunt hangs loosely from his lips as Kyle leans against the tree, staring up at the night sky as he takes a languid breath, watching as smoke dissipates into the air. A cloud barely covers the moon, dimming its illuminating light. There’s a couple of stars sprinkled throughout the dark sky, visible mainly due to the lack of light pollution that Stan’s farm seemed to offer.
It's peaceful. Tranquil. Completely unlike the scene currently present inside the farmhouse. Kyle’s pretty far out into the field, but he can still hear the faint hum of the loud music, the cacophony of teenage voices celebrating the end of yet another school year.
The tree is slightly uncomfortable against his back, and the grass is a bit wet from the previous night’s rain, but Kyle doesn’t find himself minding. It’s nice to get away for a bit. He enjoys celebrating with his friends, don’t get him wrong. Seeing drunken teenagers make complete and utter fools of themselves can be fine entertainment, but oftentimes, Kyle finds himself just needing a little bit of fresh air.
Ironic , he reminds himself as he inhales another hit of his blunt. He knows the damage he’s doing to his lungs with each puff, but he figures that since everyone can excuse the damage liquor can pose to one’s liver, he can give himself a pass on this one. The high allows him to feel more relaxed, the tension in his muscles dissipating with each exhale, the thrumming of the music only mere background noise in his created atmosphere of tranquility.
The other issue with the parties, Kyle finds, is that they’re often just too goddamn boring. They’re all the same formula. People get drunk, they pull out the games, people hook up, pass out, and then it’s all over social media. And it’s not like the people who hook up with each other ever change it up, no, it’s always the same damn couples. Stan and Wendy are notorious for this. Others include Clyde and Bebe, and Tweek and Kenny. It’s predictable, like reading the final page of the book when you’re really only halfway through.
Perhaps that’s why Kyle is smoking tonight. Usually he only indulges in some drinks, but being plagued by the impending predictability of the evening caused him to want to do something different. He also usually doesn’t escape this far, only going just outside onto the deck or against the side of the house.
It is peaceful, though.
He hears the crunching of twigs and leaves.
Well, it was good while it lasted.
Sighing, he turns his head to face the intruder. Immediately he scoffs and turns back to look at the sky. “The hell do you want, Cartman?”
“God, so rude,” Cartman snorts, kicking at a rock. Kyle watches it fly past him, barrelling down the field. “They're doing karaoke in there, and Stan was crying ‘cause he didn’t have his faggy ass best friend to perform a duet with him.”
Kyle takes a puff. “Not interested. Tell Stan to sing with someone else instead.”
“That’s the kicker. Butters offered to sing instead. I had to get the hell out of there. So here I am.”
Kyle glances at Cartman, who stares back at him with a similar, intense gaze. The other boy has his hands stuffed in the pockets of his shorts, clearly having no intention of leaving.
Kyle exhales through his nose in frustration. There goes his nice moment of peace. Talk about predictability—he can always count on Cartman to interrupt whatever pleasant moment he’s having.
“I also kind of want to bum a bit of that blunt off of you.”
Kyle snorts as he takes the blunt from his mouth. “You’re kidding.”
“Kenny said he ran out. I think you have the last couple.”
“What makes you think I’d willingly do that?”
Cartman scoffs. “Oh, don’t be such a greedy Jew. Sharing is caring. Didn’t your mommy ever teach you that?”
“Didn’t your mom ever teach you how to eat healthy?”
Cartman lets out a chuckle and sits down right next to Kyle. “Come on. A couple of puffs.”
“No.” Kyle puts the blunt back in his mouth. “I’m not getting your Cheesy-Poof, germ-infected mouth on this blunt. That’s revolting.”
It’s not that Kyle is a germaphobe by any means, he truly doesn’t care. In fact, he’s shared blunts with him before. It’s just that this back and forth is a script that he instinctively feels the need to follow. A part of their friendship (can they even call it that?) that pretty much has been the foundation ever since it formed. And it’s similar to that of the party—easily formulaic. Cartman calls him a Jew, Kyle calls him a Fatass, and they get into arguments about stupid, random shit.
And while his arguments with Cartman can be considered the more entertaining parts of his day, even they have started to lose their flair, and Kyle finds them a bit underwhelming.
Is that just a part of growing up?
Cartman huffs, annoyed. “You’re such a—”
“Greedy Jew, I know, ” Kyle interrupts dryly.
This takes Cartman slightly aback, and he raises his eyebrows. “Geez, why do you have—”
“Sand in my vagina?” Kyle interrupts again. “You’re so predictable.” He shakes his head, gesturing vaguely with his hand not holding the blunt. “I mean, don’t you have other material to use? I’ve heard you insult others. You have quite a colorful tongue, Cartman. Why do you use the same bullshit for me?”
Cartman blinks at him before adjusting the backwards baseball cap that sits on his head. “Hold on, are you saying that I’m not insulting you well enough?”
“No,” Kyle scoffs. “I’m saying it’s like you don’t even try . I mean, it’s the same shit every time.”
“Well, it seems to piss you off.”
“Well, you in general just piss me off.”
“Right, so if my presence is enough to get you going, what’s the point in putting in effort?” Cartman crosses his arms. “Now what’s this really about? You’re sitting by yourself when there’s a party going on, smoking a blunt, and you’re having this cryptid conversation. Are you emo? Do I have to take a shotgun and kill you before you dye your hair black and wear eyeliner?”
Kyle scoffs as he inhales another puff. The joint is already almost done, having been mostly wasted on talking with Cartman. “ No, I’m not emo. I guess I’m just tired of this predictability.”
“That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”
Kyle whips his head and snarls. “You’re telling me that you don’t get bored of this constant day-to-day?”
“No!” Cartman shakes his head. “Kahl, it’s only predictable for you because you don’t do anything different. You do the same shit, man. Every day, you show up to school. You kiss the teacher’s ass. You get good grades, you study hard, you get your good little A’s and your high honor roll. You bring the same shit for lunch every day, those dumb sandwiches your mom still makes you. You go to basketball practice every Tuesday and Thursday. You play the clarinet every band practice. You don’t do anything different. So the fact that you’re prattling on about the world around you being so predictable is laughable, because you’re the fucking prime example of it.”
Kyle blinks, stunned by Cartman’s words. “Well…I care about my future!”
“Play hooky for once,” Cartman snorts. “Missing one day of school isn’t going to curtail your entire career.” He shakes his head again. “You think I’m predictable? You get mad at the simplest things. I told you, that’s why it’s not even worth it to ‘try’ as you say, because I can get you going by just insulting your fucking nose.”
Kyle stares at Cartman, wide-eyed and slack-jawed. His face flushes a brilliant red at the prospect of being called out like this, and a mixture of shame, embarrassment, and the slightest bit of anger overtakes him as he throws his blunt down on the ground. He stomps on it, putting it out with a huff. Cartman watches him with a smug look on his face, as if knowing he set off a bomb. He pushed the right buttons, knew exactly how to put together the pieces in order to get Kyle to feel like this. He—
Kyle pauses.
He’s right. He is the predictable one.
“Shit,” Kyle breathes, relaxing back into the tree. “Okay, maybe you’re right about that stuff. The shit about me. But the parties always go the same. Hell, even the same couples are all hooking up all the time.”
Cartman waves that away. “So what? That shit doesn’t matter. Who gives a fuck about it?”
“ I do. It’s boring.”
“So do something about it.” Cartman counters, meeting Kyle’s eyes. “You’re in control of your own life, dipshit. If the party is boring, change it up.”
Kyle doesn’t say anything, just lets out a scoff and shakes his head. He knows Cartman is right, but God, does Cartman have an annoying way of saying it. He crosses his arms, leaning back further into the tree, the uncomfortable bark scraping into the thin material of his t-shirt as he looks back up into the sky. The cloud that thinly veiled the moon has since past, revealing its full glory. A breeze brushes past, and for a minute, Kyle feels calmer.
“Have you stopped being emo yet? Can I have that blunt now?” Cartman’s grating voice once again interrupts the peacefulness of the moment.
Kyle’s about to bark a quick “no,” before he stops himself. He inhales sharply through his nose before exhaling. “If I share one with you, will you leave me alone out here?”
“Uh, yeah. I only came out here for one. What, you think I care about you or something?”
Kyle rolls his eyes as he digs into his pocket for the bag that housed his remaining joint. “You seem to know a lot about me. Down to what I eat for lunch every day.”
Cartman averts his gaze suddenly. “That’s ‘cause you literally have the same thing every day.”
“Yeah,” Kyle snorts. “Okay.”
He thumbs the joint in his hand, studying it for a moment. It’s a poorly rolled joint; one Kenny had made himself and given to him for safe-keeping, but they were fairly decent in regards to their highs. Despite the tense talk that happened just minutes prior, Kyle still feels relatively at ease.
If the party is boring, change it up.
As Kyle digs through his pocket to find his lighter, he’s suddenly hit with a memory of Kenny talking about an experience he had with Tweek one night. They had been sharing a blunt, but Tweek had brought up the idea of something called shotgunning. Kenny described it as blowing smoke into the other’s mouth as a way to get high, rather than directly passing the blunt. It seemed grossly intimate and honestly not something he had any desire to partake in. Kenny had laughed at him and said that sounded about right—he wouldn’t be asking Kyle to shotgun with him any time soon.
He glances at Cartman, who picks mindlessly at a scab on his thumb.
He can change things up a bit. He can be a little… spontaneous.
“Tell you what,” Kyle flicks the lighter on and off. “I’ll share this with you on one condition.”
Cartman quirks an eyebrow. “I thought me leaving you alone was the condition.”
“Mkay, two conditions.” Kyle maintains his gaze, trying to keep it firm and steady. “Shotgun this joint with me.”
Cartman actually looks stunned for a moment, blinking. “Uh…” He quickly recovers. “No way, dude! Shotgunning is gay as fuck.”
Kyle shrugs, placing the joint in his mouth. “Okay, see ya.”
“The fuck? What the hell, dude?” Cartman sputters a bit, looking fiercely annoyed. “You don’t just promise someone a hit just to take it away!”
“Too bad.”
“Why would you even want to shotgun with me?”
“It’s not just that it’s with you , Fatass,” Kyle huffs, lighting the joint with ease. “It’s the fact that I’ve never done it, and it’s something that people wouldn’t think I would do. Add the fact that I’m asking you to do it with me, and it’s a bonus to the unpredictability, which you said I don’t have.”
“Oh my God, this is just to prove a stupid, faggy point?” Cartman pinches the bridge of his nose. “Unbelievable.”
Kyle exhales a cloud of smoke. “Last call, Fart Breath.”
Cartman’s cheeks are tinted a light pink as he sighs. “Fine.”
Kyle adjusts himself so that he’s facing Cartman, still sitting cross-legged on the damp grass. Cartman shifts to completely face Kyle as well, scooching just a tad bit closer, his legs spread so his ankle rests just next to Kyle’s knee. His heart is ablaze with nerves, bouncing wildly in his chest, but he tries to remain steady. He’s doing this to prove a point to himself—that he can be different, that can be the change around here, that he can be unpredictable.
He tries to remember how Kenny described what he did, but he finds himself drawing a blank as he stares at Cartman’s face. His eyes almost twinkle in the pale moonlight, the faint flush on his face just barely present.
“Get on with it,” Cartman huffs. Kyle watches as his flush deepens. Clearly Cartman doesn’t like being watched this closely. Maybe Kyle will have to remember that. That can be one of Cartman’s buttons that he can remember to push.
Still, not wanting to drag this out longer than he really had to, Kyle brings the joint to his lips, inhaling sharply and with purpose. Holding his breath, he grabs ahold of Cartman’s chin and positions it firmly as he leans in, but not too closely. He tries to keep his gaze on Cartman’s lips, not daring to look elsewhere. Cartman’s lips part, a signal for Kyle to go, and Kyle exhales his smoke into Cartman’s mouth.
Or, tries to, at least.
The smoke dissipates around Cartman’s mouth, some of it going in, most of it not.
Cartman huffs as he waves the smoke away, coughing slightly. “Weak, dude. You missed like, half of it.”
Kyle shrugs. “I don’t know. I’ve never done it before.”
“You gotta go closer,” Cartman explains. He gestures for the joint. “Here, I’ll show you.”
Kyle tosses him a strange look. “You seem eager for someone who didn’t want to do this.”
Cartman rolls his eyes. “Fuck you, Jewface. I agreed to your conditions. But you did a shit job at giving me a high, so I gotta show your dumbass how it’s actually done. Give me the joint.”
Kyle obliges, handing him the joint. Cartman inhales, before exhaling with a sigh of relief. “Oh, that’s nice.”
“Hey!” Kyle scowls. “Fucking dickhead.”
“Relax, it was just a hit. You owed me one, anyway,” Cartman smirks. He puts the joint back in his mouth. “Ready?”
Kyle nods. His hands suddenly feel awfully sweaty. He wipes them on his shorts before folding them in his lap.
Cartman holds the joint between his two fingers and inhales steadily, his eyelids fluttering closed as he does so. He brings the blunt away from his lips as he grabs Kyle’s chin, just as Kyle had done with Cartman’s before. Cartman’s hand is warm, and his thumb is resting just beneath his cheekbone. Kyle swallows as he watches Cartman’s eyes dart to his lips before leaning in close, stopping just short of their noses touching.
Through the pounding of his heart, Kyle takes a breath as he parts his lips.
Smoke directly fills his mouth, infiltrating his airways, a warm sensation flooding through him. He can feel the soft movement of Cartman’s thumb against his cheekbone as he inhales the smoke. Surprisingly, it’s not as disgusting as he thought it would be. It tastes the same as it usually does, bearing the same weight as any other high.
Cartman leans back, hand still holding Kyle’s jaw as he smirks. “See? Directly in the mouth, yeah?” He drops his hand, and the lack of warmth is immediately noticeable.
Kyle motions for Cartman to give him the blunt. “Let me try again.”
Cartman passes it to him and Kyle brings it to his lips, taking in a nice, deep breath, allowing his lungs and mouth to fill with smoke. He definitely feels a bit more relaxed about the situation. Despite its intimacy and who it’s with, the tension in his shoulders seems to have dissipated.
And he’s not bored.
Kyle takes Cartman’s chin in his hand again and leans in further this time, bumping their noses together to ensure their closeness. It should feel strange, being this close to someone as despicable and as annoying as Cartman, but it only seems to excite Kyle in an inexplicable way. He breathes out as Cartman opens his mouth, the other hand that holds the blunt moving to rest on Cartman’s thigh as he does so without realization. Cartman’s hand grabs at Kyle’s arm as if to steady himself as Kyle breathes into his mouth. Their noses are still touching as the smoke dissipates in the small space between them.
Kyle pulls away, but he notes to himself how difficult it seemed to be, like a magnet being torn from its polar opposite. And it’s not too far off from the truth, if he thinks about it—Cartman can be considered his polar opposite. Loud, annoying, fat, bigoted (though less so as he gets older), and an asshole (eh, Kyle can be one too, he admits).
Kyle’s always been a science geek. He supposes it’s logical.
It might just be the weed clouding his brain, though.
Cartman gestures for the joint, but he doesn’t take his gaze off of Kyle. There’s a look in his eyes that Kyle can’t seem to recognize. Kyle gives it to him, their fingertips grazing one another as the joint passes between them.
It takes a lot of energy, but Kyle tears his gaze away from Cartman to stare at the distant farmhouse. The lights are still on, of course, the music is still roaring. He can see the window of Stan’s bedroom, and he wonders if he brought Wendy up there yet. Kenny usually goes into Randy’s room, for some freak reason. Clyde chooses a closet. The others find random places, but it’s the same every time.
The sharp intake of a breath draws Kyle’s attention back towards Cartman. The end of the blunt glows as he inhales, illuminating his face, brandishing his long lashes and mildly freckled face. Kyle allows his jaw to be gripped again, feeling his muscles relaxing once more as Cartman inches closer. Their noses would have been touching, but Cartman decides to angle his head slightly, only leaving mere inches between their lips.
Kyle’s fingers twitch at his side. One hand moves to grip at Cartman’s thigh. The other stays buried in the damp grass.
When Kyle opens his mouth, Cartman exhales slowly. But instead of that relaxing feeling he had gotten before, he feels a surge of adrenaline.
Like the itching to do something different. To do something bold.
To do something…
Unpredictable.
The smoke doesn't even have time to dissipate before Kyle closes the gap between them. It’s a chaste kiss, a brief press of lips, but it lingers—just enough for Cartman to gasp softly.
When he pulls away, Cartman stares at him, eyes wide and searching.
Kyle carefully takes the blunt from Cartman’s grip. It’s now burned formidably into a small roach, and takes one final inhale before putting it out on the ground with a small hiss. He glances back up at Cartman, meeting his gaze.
“Point proven,” Cartman breathes, and grabs Kyle’s neck to draw him in, crashing their mouths together. Kyle immediately exhales the smoke into Cartman’s mouth as his eyes flutter close, easing into the kiss. The hand not gripping Cartman’s thigh flies up to Cartman’s bicep and squeezes it, his stomach flipping at the thickness of it.
As the kiss intensifies, Kyle’s nerves start to ignite like the blunt he had earlier. The mixture of weed and chips that should be unsavory and a tad revolting is nothing short of pleasant as his tongue probes Cartman’s lips. With a sigh, Cartman grips him tighter as he allows the kiss to deepen.
It’s exhilarating. It’s exciting.
It’s… new.
Kyle’s hands shift from their positions and fly up to Cartman’s hair, knocking his baseball cap off of his head and letting it lay forgotten in the grass below. He ensnares his fingers in the thick, wavy hair as he shifts to his knees. Cartman’s other hand snags at Kyle’s hip.
His mind goes back to the polarizing magnet theory—it’s the only viable explanation to the way Kyle is feeling right now. Add a little bit of weed, and a little bit of the egotistical urge to prove someone wrong, and the current situation presents itself.
For one night, he can allow for something to be different.
The two break away for a moment to pause and take a breath, panting heavily. Kyle can see Cartman’s eyes completely dark, pupils blown wide. His face is flushed and lips still parted. And his hair, thanks to Kyle, has been completely ruffled in a way that makes something in Kyle’s gut twist fiercely.
Panic begins to set in for a moment. Holy shit. Did he just make out with Eric Cartman?
“Do you still want me to leave?” Cartman asks, but it’s more of a hushed whisper. It brings Kyle back to the reality of the moment. His hands are still entangled in Cartman’s hair. He’s practically in Cartman’s lap.
Kyle presses his lips together in a thin line. Alarm bells still ring in his head, telling him to back away from the moment, to run from the situation, and never speak of it again. To push it into the confines of his mind, and forget all about it.
“No,” Kyle shakes his head.
“Fuck,” Cartman curses. “Okay.”
The faint hum of the loud music still wafts through the air. Teenagers are still getting drunk. Somewhere, in the farmhouse, Stan’s with Wendy, Kenny’s with Tweek, and Clyde’s with Bebe.
But out there, on the field, under the pale moonlight, in the damp grass, next to a forgotten baseball cap, something unpredictable occurs.
But, if science suggests that opposing forces do attract…
…is it really all that unpredictable?