Chapter Text
1.
Things had been different. Not a good different, but not necessarily a loud one either, not blatant in the way a bad different usually was. The kind of different that hummed quietly in the background, and when it was finally noticed, it was too late.
Simultaneously, maybe it was predictable: two best friends drifting. Only, he thought it would never be the case for him and Stan.
Kyle had felt they were unbreakable. Well, that their bond was, at least. He had been dumb, but not so dumb as to think Stan would bear all that hardship without he himself crumbling.
Well, not truly, at least. Right now, with a bowl of bleach and activator mix sat in his lap atop his crossed legs, he sat in front of Cartman's bedroom mirror, touching up his bleached hair as if he'd ever be able to show it mercy in a lifetime.
And Kyle sat watching him. Well, not advertently, of course, that would be creepy. He occupied himself with arranging the air mattresses, inflating them with the foot pedal as, seemingly, the weekend sleepover plan was so fantastic — no siblings, no parents, the works — but no one actually made the effort to turn it into one.
Down to him, as usual.
“Anyone wanna lend a hand, or…?” Kyle directed his question at Kenny and Cartman, knowing Stan was busy.
“Yeah, can't,” responded Cartman half-heartedly, jabbing at his phone-screen while Kenny watched, occasionally having an interval of darting his gaze around the room, as if expecting something — or someone — to spring out.
He did that a lot.
“Kenny, you're not doing anything. Help me out here, dude.”
“I am, I am… look!” Kenny had Mr Kitty on his lap, petting the soft fur. “I'm not disturbin’ him.”
Kyle huffed. Sure, he was just about done with the air mattresses, but he was equally just about done with his friends’ bullshit, so they didn't have to know about the former predicament.
“Honestly, what's up your ass, dude?” Cartman asked, gaze not even flicking from his screen for a second. “This is supposed to be chill. You're makin' it feel like there is a parent here after all.”
When Stan snorted from the corner, Kyle lost the recurring battle of fighting a smile. “Got something to say over there?”
“No, no. Nothin’,” Stan snickered. “He's just makin’ a damn good point, is all.”
“Uh-huh,” Kyle grinned, finding Stan's eyes through the mirror, but they darted their gazes away as soon as they met. Even in doing so indirectly, pretty much virtually, they still couldn't get that right anymore.
A harsh ringtone blared through the room, startling everyone out of whatever thoughts they were stuck in.
“Yeah, yeah,” Cartman grumbled under his breath, tapping his phone and, for fuck's sake, holding it out in front of him, like anyone wanted to hear his goddamn conversations.
Tempestuous, Kyle gestured wildly at Cartman. TO YOUR EAR, he shout-mouthed.
Rolling his eyes, Cartman complied, for a while, they heard a shrill hum of a voice done the line. “—Yeah, yeah,” Cartman grumbled gruffly. “We will, we will — I know. Jesus fuck, Mom, yes! — Yeah, uh-huh…”
Kenny and even Stan visibly strained their ears, trying to hear the other side of the call, digging for gold until they came up trumps:
“I love you, sweetie.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Cartman's voice dropped significantly. “Love you too.”
“Say, what was that, Cartman?” Stan asked, grinning like an idiot, while Kenny offered a dramatised display of cupping his ear towards him.
“C'mon, say it louder so she can hear,” Kyle made a mock-encouraging gesture.
Safe to say, Cartman looked livid. He hung up and scowled at them one at a time, as if trying to pick off who he'd have the easiest time arguing with (none of them fit the description, naturally). “Assholes.”
“Was someone being nice to his mom, for once?” Stan teased.
“So, what, I was? Whatcha insinuating? You're not nice to your moms?”
“Hell naw,” Kenny chuckled uneasily.
Stan stayed quiet.
“Of course I am!” Kyle retorted. “I just know that you're embarrassed to admit it, for some reason.”
“Shut up, Jew!”
Kyle stuck his tongue out at him, but then noticed Stan in the corner of his eye. Suddenly, the latter was very engrossed in dyeing his hair. Approaching, he ensured to maintain a distance, as much as it hurt to the point that he felt a physical stab in his gut. “You alright?”
"Stupid hair," Stan sighed. "Can't see what I'm doing because of the stupid lighting," he grinned at Cartman through the mirror as he got a middle finger from him.
There were more layers in Kyle's question than that answer, just like Stan's stupid gorgeous hair.
“You want help? You've missed a little at the back; I can do that for you?”
With the mirror's help, they locked eyes again, but this time like a hairdresser and their client.
An acquaintance.
Stan bobbed his head in a nod. “Yeah, um. Okay,” he slid off the gloves, handing them to Kyle. “—And also, here, d'ya see?”
“Yeah, yeah. ‘Got it.”
This was more difficult than it looked, trying to dye Stan's hair without running his fingers through it. The only thing that stopped Kyle was the stupid-obvious knowledge that the action would result in burning Stan's scalp.
It didn't have to take long, but Kyle ensured every last strand was touched up, so Stan would have no chance of being left disappointed, something he'd experienced way too much… even if this instance was only about hair. "Why are you even doing this here, anyway?" Kyle chuckled as he worked.
Stan shrugged with a smile. "’Thought it would piss Cartman off. But, uh... for once, he doesn't seem to care, typically. At least my hair gets touched up outta it, though.”
“You're so random, honestly… — Hey, would you stop fidgeting? This is difficult enough as it is!”
“I'm not even…! Like- look, look. See?” Stan made a show of being still, earning a subsequent eyeroll from Kyle.
“Idiot,” Kyle grinned.
Stan smiled back, the both of them finally meeting gazes in the mirror for a while. Finally at the stage of More Than Mutuals In A Friend Group.
"Wow, we can see ya makin’ eyes at each other, by the way," Kenny grinned, his hand still in Mr Kitty's fur as he purred on his lap.
Sharpish, Kyle darted his eyes away, spending the remaining thirty seconds of the task wondering if Stan had reacted the same, whether he ever cared for Kenny's jokes or not, because the way he always chuckled at them said otherwise. The way he clearly found the idea of him and Kyle so, so insane… “There, all done. ‘That okay?”
Stan tilted his head side-to-side, the process flicking his locks back and forth. “Wow, perfect. Thanks, dude.”
“Yeah, no problem.”
“Ugh, ‘you finally done?” Cartman grumbled. “That was hella scary. ‘Thought you'd get it all over my carpet.”
Stan beamed. "Ah, mission accomplished! I knew it would piss ya off, after all!" He bounced up, an unbroken spring in an otherwise old mattress, and traipsed over to his bag, grabbing a change of clothes and his purple shampoo. "Gonna wash the bleach out. I'll be back.”
With Kyle's attention bouncing back as soon as Stan darted out the room, he again turned to the air mattresses, now supplementing them with blankets and pillows, an excessive amount just to steal as much of Cartman's stuff as possible. Feeling Kenny's eyes on him, his gaze flicked back up.
“What?” Kyle dared ask, his eyes narrowing.
“Nothin’, nothin’.”
“The shit-eating grin says otherwise.”
Kenny played it off with a shrug. “I'm smilin’. ‘That not allowed? — Fine, fine, jus’… you were standin' very close to Stan then, makin' eyes, the works. Tha's all.”
Utterly used to this, Kyle rolled his eyes. “Kenny, you would insist there's chemistry between you and your reflection.”
It was then that Mr Kitty hopped out of Kenny's lap, the boy visibly holding back a whine of protest. Suddenly, Kyle was overcome by his usual instincts, but before he could act on them, Kenny stood walking over to the mirror. “I mean… you gotta admit, we'd make a pretty good pair,” Kenny teased, grinning at his reflection with his gappy teeth.
When they hit Middle school, Kenny finally seemed to realise that the wear and tear counterbalanced into an… attractive look. It was something Kyle had thought about, but had easily come to realise that he only noticed in a proud, honorary-big brother-watching-the-younger-one-thrive sort of way, unlike the way he instantly clocked how Stan's jawline became sharper, his arms and legs more toned…
And, maybe, in a hint-of-jealousy way. Somewhere profound, Kyle had thought that, maybe, if he looked like Kenny, he would be less occupied with the guy who was currently occupying Fatass's bathroom.
This ideology was squished down around a year ago, however, when Kenny began to glance at the next guy or girl less and stare at Butters more, and now they'd been dating since, going strong. Kenny was sick as a dog with it, too, having the whole field to play but settling for that same, familiar, worn-out spot (Kyle knew this was hypocritical as fuck, alright?)
He was startled when Cartman's bedroom door swung back open, revealing a hoodie- and sweatpants-clad Stan, freshly blond hair tousled from the shower.
“Took ya long enough,” Kenny retorted.
"Mm... whatever," Stan hummed. "don't think Cartman would want his pillows bein' customised with bleach.”
"Hell, no, I don't."
Stan chuckled. “Anyway, does it look good?”
Kyle's eyes raked over Stan's entire form and, fuck yeah, it looked good.
“Nope, looks like shit,” Cartman remarked, not even looking up from his screen. Right, they were only talking about Stan's hair. Just that.
“Shuddup,” Kenny rolled his eyes. He crossed over to Stan and reached up, tousling Stan's hair further as if purposely, directly, trying to make Kyle's life more agonising. “Yeah, you look like a stupid li'l' golden retriever.”
Stan batted Kenny's hand away. “Har-har. Aren'tcha all the greatest(?) So supportive(!)”
“Stan, it looks-... it looks fine,” Kyle just about managed, wanting to hide under the blankets and smother himself with a pillow when Stan's watercolour gaze flicked his way, the blue a much darker colour than he remembered, these days verging on more of a grey.
“Yeah?” He murmured, voice softening around the edges before he straightened up again. “See, guys? It wasn't so hard to answer me like that, huh?”
Kyle could definitely argue with that. Yes, it was harrowing to only constrain it, water it down to that he looked “fine”. “Fine” didn't even scratch the goddamn surface.
Moving to sit with the others, Stan chuckled to himself, unprompted. If Kyle wasn't more concerned about how flat and lifeless the laughter was, he'd probably have a nosebleed at how deep the sound had gotten, rumbling through Stan's chest. "Can we watch a movie?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Cartman threw a chubby hand carelessly at the TV.
After five minutes of bickering over what to watch, they settled for a simple Marvel movie, a sign they were all resigned to the easiest option just because it shut them all up. Cartman sat on his bed, while Stan and Kyle sat on the air mattress pushed against the side of the bedframe. Kenny sprawled out in front of them on his stomach, head in his hands as he watched.
The entire time, Kyle was hyperaware of Stan just shy of a couple of inches away from him, one knee propped up with his arm slung across it while the other leg lay flat. He watched intently, his lashes fluttering as his eyes flitted across the screen. Right now, Kyle hated Stan for the smell of his purple shampoo, a berry-like aroma mixed with a scent of body-wash, something indiscernible but undeniably good because it was Stan-smelling.
Eventually, Kyle resurfaced out of the shallow waters he'd drowned himself into to finally realise what was going on in the real world, where Stan was only pretending to tolerate him, and nothing more: Stan had become more and more quiet throughout the movie, his godawful posture slouching further against Cartman's bedframe.
“Hey, you okay?” Kyle whispered into Stan's ear, watching as he shivered at the tickly breath (not that Kyle had caused it on purpose… he thought, anyway).
“Hm?” Stan hummed, not turning fully to glance at him, his empty gaze distractedly trained on the screen but not watching the movie in the slightest. “Yeah, I'm good. Just… totally mellowed out.”
Unconvinced, Kyle pushed on. “You've gone quiet.”
Stan blinked. “Yeah, because we're watchin' a movie,” there was a sharp edge to his voice, not enough to dart out and stab, but Kyle knew he would catch the edge of it if he got too close. Unconvinced, he nodded curtly, deciding to keep an eye the best he could.
After a strenuous paradise in hell, the movie came to a close, and the credits began to roll. “Boring!” Cartman felt the need to announce.
“Yeah, yeah. As if ya weren't glued to the screen,” Stan had sprung back, apparently, chuckling dryly again, lacking the softness but not in an unpleasant way. Just in a way that made Kyle worry further.
“What else was there to do?”
“You agreed to the stupid movie.”
“Yeah, but now I wanna play stupid video games.”
Kyle rolled his eyes, entirely loathing the way Stan and Cartman bounced off each other so casually.
“I'll get snacks,” Stan decided, swiftly making for the door.
Kyle practically leaped up. “I'll come with.”
When he followed, he heard Cartman and Kenny snicker after him and blushed what must've been crimson at the palest. He just prayed that by the time they got to the kitchen it would clear, and was relieved that he found Stan with his back to him, rooting around the pantry.
"Hey," Kyle murmured after a while, unsure of what other choice he had. "How are you-... how are you doing?"
Stan turned with an armful of chips, handing some to Kyle before digging for more supplies in the pantry. "Whaddaya mean?"
Kyle bustled about for a moment, trying to collate the huge bags and keep them in his grasp. "You know what I mean."
Stan paused for a moment, his shoulders tensing. He didn't turn, continuing to dig around for nothing in particular. "I hope I don't. Because that would mean you're bringing up somethin’ that happened a year ago now…or even two, depending."
"Sorry, sorry. It's just... we haven't spoken in a while, so..." Kyle murmured, making the unwise decision to persist. “I mean, ‘it still goin’ good at your Uncle Jimbo and Ned's?”
“Yeah, fine,” Stan responded, voice as cool and chilly as the kitchen tiles, despite the approaching, sad excuse for a summer the mountain town had to offer. “Same as usual. They're just… whatever. We don't really talk.” — Kyle's heartache was briskly forgotten when Stan swivelled and continued: “‘Point still stands. Stop bringing shit up.”
“I-”
But he shoved past, his shoulder bumping Kyle's harshly. Stan was shorter, and only had what must've been five pounds on him at a push, but if he didn't nearly send him flying…
Instantaneously, Kyle decided he was narked. “What's your problem?” he hissed as he chased after him up the stairs.
“Literally nothin’,” Stan sighed. “Not until you came along anyway.”
Kyle rolled his eyes, hoping it would quell the burning in them. He watched in mild disgust yet awe as Stan reentered Cartman's bedroom, his stupid, sweet grin audible through his voice. It buzzed around the walls like a loose guitar string, too musical. Too fake. “What're we playin'?”
“MarioKart!” Kenny announced happily, and Kyle couldn't fight the fond smile.
"Ready for a feast of Cartman's food, Kenny?" Stan grinned, dumping the massive pile on the carpet.
“Ay! When you said “snacks”, ‘didn't think you meant the whole damn inventory!” Cartman protested.
“What else would I mean?” Stan shrugged, dropping to the mattress. There was an air around him, one that merely dared Kyle to sit anywhere near.
Fine. Kyle knew where he wasn't wanted. He'd danced this dance with him too many times. Plonking down next to Kenny, he reached for a share-size Takis bag and placed it between them.
“‘You ready to get thrashed?” Kyle challenged.”
“Hell, no. You're dogshit at this game. Don't even,” Kenny chuckled, hastily reaching for a handful of chips.
As predictably as ever, Kyle absolutely sucked at the game. Most of the time, it was Stan and Kenny battling it out, caught up in boisterous banter that bounced warm energy off the walls. Best believe, Kenny stocked up on snacks like he was going into hibernation, and after three hours hit a sugar crash, waiting for permission to slip into a food coma.
Likewise, Cartman let out an obnoxious yawn. “Well, I'm wiped,” he announced, falling backwards onto his bed.
Kenny hummed in agreement, curling up on the air mattress, his cheek moving to lay against Kyle's knee. Automatically, his hand buried in Kenny's hair, trailing through the dirty blond locks. “Go to sleep, honey,” he murmured, the term of endearment something he was prone to using on him as well as Ike lately. Stan paused the game, his gaze flickering over. Something Kyle only knew from the way the back of his neck burned, a sixth sense when it came to Stan's eyes on him due to its sheer importance.
Not much later, Kenny was fast asleep in Kyle's lap. Endeared, he smiled softly to himself. Honestly, he awaited a quip, but Cartman too looked on, surprisingly fond. "Same guy who said he wanted to pull an all-nighter," he snickered softly. “— Fuck, I'm wiped.”
"Ditto, let's get settled," Kyle murmured, gently moving away from Kenny. But now, Kenny had taken half of the double mattress, so Kyle couldn't sleep close to Stan, who immediately went for the single mattress, nearly on the other side of the room. Sure, he loved Kenny to bits, but he couldn't help but feel irritated by the fact that he'd passed out on the double mattress, he and Stan losing the opportunity of being physically close again, at the least. Screw the other aspects, Kyle's shallow heart banished.
“Do not snore, either of you,” Cartman instituted.
"You're the snore-r, fatass," Kyle chuckled. "—Night, guys."
"Yeah, night..." Cartman mumbled.
Stan didn't respond.
With a hefty sigh, Kyle lay back, attempting to sleep on the even further social distance of the boy he had once been inseparable with. When Cartman switched off the light, Kyle's heart clenched as he sensed more than heard Stan's breath catch in his throat.
It was going to be the longest night in a while, he figured, but the next thing he knew, he was woken up to Stan switching Cartman's lamp on, casting the room in a gentle glow.
As Kyle sat up, eyes bleary and sleep-ridden, poor Stan jumped out of his skin. "Sorry," he mumbled awkwardly.
“It's okay,” Kyle murmured gently, painfully on the cusp of a coo. He played it off as lingering grogginess. “What's the matter?”
"Nothin', just... yanno, can't sleep without it," Stan whispered uneasily, settling back onto the single mattress. His bones were rigid, as if a toy that had been wound up into full force.
Kyle sighed softly. “Want me to stay up with you?”
Stan shrugged, feigning indifference. With an eyeroll, Kyle moved over, shuffling as close to Stan as he could get away with. “You've always been scared of the dark, huh? Since we were kids.”
Again, Stan shrugged, the action infuriatingly, adorably repetitive. “Yeah, um-... when. When…”
Kyle sat up a little, his eyes softening as Stan wrestled with what must've been an impending confession, a secret only between the two of them like when they were little.
“When I… lived alone, I was in the dark most of the time,” Stan whispered, so quietly as if the dimmed crevices of the bedroom would reach out a hand and grab him if they sensed him. “Yanno, saving on power bills.”
Kyle winced. One of the many things that kept him up at night was wondering how he, and everyone else, didn't even notice that Randy had abandoned Stan and he'd been living in his house alone for an entire two months.
It had been a whole year since he found out, already. Kyle's heart panged for Stan once more, his stomach dropping. “God, I-...”
“Don't, uh-...” Stan huffed a mirthless laugh through his nose. “Don't make it weird, ‘s fine now.”
“Is it?”
Stan scowled, ignoring him. God, how Kyle ached to reach out and comfort him, pull him against his chest. Knowing this was particularly out of his depth, he settled for reaching for Stan's shoulder, offering a pat, but he shrugged it away. Dejected, he recoiled with a sigh. “C'mon, don't be moody,” he teased lightly.
“I'm not moody,” Stan responded gruffly, but when he turned, he offered the smallest twitch of his lips.
“Oh, you wanna smile so bad, I can see it. You wanna laugh terribly.”
“At you? Maybe, but never at your jokes, or whatever.”
“Wow. Wow.”
They chuckled for a little, but not in the usual Stan-Kyle way. More like colleagues exchanging phatic talk, pretending to withstand each other over a cup of coffee.
Stan's eyes were still dead and empty, and had been for years. Even before-
"Hey, remember that sleepover we had in 5th grade, where I exploded the pizza pockets in the microwave in the middle of the night?" Kyle chuckled.
Stan lit up. "Oh my God, you were lucky I was there, or your mom would've killed you on the spot!" he giggled.
Music to Kyle's ears, and he settled in the grace of it for a moment, just shy of taking long enough for Stan to notice. “Oh, trust me, I didn't hear the end of it for, like, a week,” Kyle snickered, observing quietly how Stan subtly leaned closer, just infinitesimally but not enough to go unnoticed in the slightest. With renewed courage, he slipped his hand onto Stan's knee, who glanced down at the contact, trying to be discreet. Adorable. “God, I was terrified, wasn't I?”
Stan snickered. “"P-p-pizza pockets...?”" he recalled Kyle's response to Sheila darkening the kitchen doorway at stupid o'clock, the tone of voice on point considering they were twelve at the time.
Kyle feigned mortification. “Oh my God, shut up!” he protested, only half-hearted under the surface. “No way did I sound like that!” His thumb began tracing unconscious circles on his knee through Stan's sweats, eliciting a shiver that Kyle felt vividly.
“It did, dude, trust me,” Stan snickered. They giggled softly until their laughter naturally died down. The reason Stan's gaze was half-lidded wasn't exhaustion; in fact, he seemed wide-awake.
"Are you not tired?" Kyle murmured.
Stan shook his head.
"Been asleep yet?"
Stan nodded.
Kyle smoothed his thumb over Stan's knee again. “Nightmare, or something?”
Stan dipped his head but he nodded.
"Like, about what?" Kyle murmured, his hand travelling up automatically, just barely at the bottom of Stan's thigh, causing their breaths to hitch.
"Don't wanna talk about it..." Stan whispered.
With a harsh swallow, Kyle nodded. Stan's hair had fallen over his eyes, and Kyle longed to reach out and brush it out of his face. “That's okay.”
Stan nodded and looked up again, grinning now. “Honestly, though, those sleepovers were somethin’ else. We'd never get anything as riveting as them now.”
“Yeah,” Kyle chuckled before adding, “nice pivot dude.”
Brows deepening, Stan glanced over at Kyle. “Huh?”
“Yanno? Changing the subject like that? You're very good at it, I gotta admit,” Kyle chuckled, although now tentative in doing so.
"Well, yeah. I said I didn't wanna talk about it." Stan snapped. “Why do you always do this?"
Kyle pulled his hand away from Stan as if he'd turned into a scalding hot radiator. “Do what?”
“Bring shit back up after I've finally been able to put it to rest.”
Kyle puffed a tired sigh out of his cheeks. “God forbid I wanna make sure you're okay,” he hissed back, again hyperaware that Kenny and Cartman were sleeping. “What about all your reminiscing just now about when we were kids? Yanno what we also did back then, Stan? We communicated. Now, it's like trying to squeeze blood out of a fucking stone.”
Stan clenched his jaw, letting out an annoyed huff at being insulted.
“Jesus, you can stop pouting,” Kyle grumbled quietly, unrelenting as ever, like a nuclear spill of toxic waste was falling from his mouth. “All I've wanted to do all evening is make sure you're okay — when you're obviously not — and-”
"No, I've been fine, actually. But you just assume I'm not because, what...? I've lost-... I've been-" he couldn't bring himself to say it. "You've ruined this, not me.”
“Ruined this? Pray tell, oh great, Self-Righteous Stanley, how is it me that’s ruined it?”
“Because you started it!" Stan snapped, way too loudly, waking up Cartman and Kenny.
“Wow, nice going,” Kyle hissed as the other two's protests began.
“Are you fucking with me?” Cartman snapped. “Not like any of us were sleepin’, but okay. Way to go, assholes.”
"Blame Stan, not me," Kyle chuckled mirthlessly. "He's the one that woke you up just now!”
"Seriously, Stan?" Kenny grumbled groggily, voice slurred from sleep. "I don't get to sleep properly as it is all week…”
Stan scowled. “God, I get it! Sorry! Jeez…”
“Wow, great apology there(!)” Kyle rolled his eyes. “Very sincere(!)”
“‘Such a non-problem,” Stan hissed aggressively at them. “I mean, it's not as if you can go back to sleep, right(?)”
"Just shuddup, Stan," Cartman grumbled, and everyone agreed. When they all turned away, Stan stood and flounced out, Kyle's heart taken with him.
Cartman sensed Kyle's wavering. “Dude, just leave him to sulk,” he mumbled, shuffling to lay back down. “Yanno what he's like.”
Yeah, Kyle did, above anyone. That's why he worried.
After a moment of dithering, he stood, making his way out the bedroom too. Stan was only out in the hallway, sat against the wall and curled up in a fetal position, his face buried into his knees. Kyle traced the outline of his form in the dark, expecting to see his shoulders shaking, but fortunately they weren't.
Taking a deep breath, he crossed over and slipped down next to him, keeping a safe distance. “‘You okay?”
No response, and Stan only shuffled minutely away.
Kyle's heart plummeted. “Hey, tell me what's the matter, Stanley. Please,” he whispered, hoping the use of his full name would sway him slightly, but it was to no avail. “You can't solve everything by shutting down.”
Nothing.
"Okay..." Kyle sighed. "Want me to stay?”
There was a shift of Stan's head in a nod, nearly missed from how little it was.
Kyle sighed, reaching over and ruffling Stan's hair. "Is it because we cornered you? Is that why you're upset?”
A shrug. That was a lot more than Kyle was expecting; proportionally positive. “‘S nothing.”
"It's not nothing…”
"It's nothing!"
Kyle retracted his hand and let out a sigh, knowing better than to snap back all over again. “Okay,” he whispered. “Okay.”
The silence stretched out, almost visible in front of them in the stillness of the night. Disturbing it, a car drove by.
The sound snapped Kyle back. “Stan, you've gotta help me out here,” he chided carefully, gaze flitting over the curled up ball by his side. “You can't just snap at me and expect me to be the one to fix it.”
"Then don't. Just leave me alone..." Stan's voice sounded dangerously laced with tears, leaving Kyle to feel like he'd been stabbed.
“No way,” Kyle responded, his annoyance dissipating. Stan didn't respond, just sniffled. Kyle bit his lip, his stomach flipping horribly. "You need anything?” he murmured gently. "Somethin' to eat or drink?”
Pulling his legs impossibly closer to his chest, Stan shook his head, face kept hidden in his knees. Kyle could never comprehend how that was comfortable at all.
“‘You sure?”
"M-mhm," Stan choked out. It was verging on a breakdown at this point, the world's quietest one at that.
With a shaky sigh, Kyle inched closer, testing the waters as he pressed his leg against Stan's, feeling the gentle convulsions of the latter's body. He couldn't bear it, seeing Stan cry. He couldn't remember the last time he had, not even at his mother's funeral.
Impulsively, Kyle reached out, squeezing Stan's shoulder, sending shivers down the tentatively devastated boy. “It's okay,” he murmured. “You can let it all out, yanno? Let it all go.”
Stan did so in dribs and drabs, which was better than nothing, at least. Now, he'd reached a hiccupy, sniffly stage.
“Just take some deep breaths, okay?”
Stan nodded, a sniffly inhale audible as he tried his level best. He still struggled here and there, breaths getting caught on chains of gaspy hics, but soon enough, he was able to calm down.
“There we go,” Kyle whispered. “You feeling better?”
Stan nodded.
“See? You did so good, Stan,” Kyle praised softly. “‘You sure you don't need anything? Maybe some water?”
Stan's head lifted at that, the remaining tears dripping down his already blotchy face with the force of it. It physically stung, like Kyle had been sucker-punched.
“C'mon. You probably need to refuel on some junk food too,” Kyle stood, offering his hand out. “Like, we're at Cartman's. We totally need to take advantage of all the stuff to pick from.”
Stan took Kyle's hand, allowing himself to be hauled up and, in Kyle's eyes, trusting he wouldn't be pushed back down again. “Yeah, okay,” he whispered, voice hoarse in an irrationally attractive way, considering the circumstances.
With their hands clasped, Stan's scent alarmingly heavy and sonorous, Kyle's mind blanked for a moment. He gazed at Stan, whose own darted away, never one for eye contact. It must've been wishful thinking that his cheeks appeared pink under next to no light.
Kiss him
Blinking, Kyle righted himself. “C'mon,” he coaxed, tugging Stan along.
It was a brief journey, giggling at the vast range of snacks Cartman bestowed. Now looking over them with a fresh (and damp) set of eyes, the fog cleared so the tension in the air wasn't too thick to see in front of them. With a smile, Kyle grabbed a bag of Cheetos and pressed them into Stan's hand. “My favourite,” Stan whispered, looking up as they exchanged a small smile.
This time, they settled at the top of the stairs, miscellaneous snacks sat between them like a degraded banquet, the two of them seizing up the night by the collar, daring it to pass too fast.
“Can we play a game?” Stan asked, sounding nauseous in a way Kyle couldn't explain… he just knew.
“Sure. What sort of game?” He couldn't help but think back to the Elementary School sleepovers, hidden under the blankets with a torch as they made shadow puppets or planned their next course of action as Tool Shed and Human Kite.
That's when it hit Kyle, how that simple naivety had been snatched from them mercilessly, the most of their problems having been getting in the slightest of trouble with a half-asleep parent who still showed some tenderness for them both anyway, in the end. It must've hit Stan too, the opportunity to play pretend having dissipated long ago without either of them noticing. “Can we play the question game?” he whispered.
Kyle nodded. They'd played it amongst themselves at every sleepover, when everyone else was asleep: simply ask each other anything (no question was too deep or too dumb), and answer honestly, often facilitated by a sleepy haze.
That's how they spent the night, back and forth, from “what was the most embarrassing moment of your life?”, to “what do you regret the most?”
Stan's expression dropped a little. “I regret… not saying all the things I should've. — To you, too,” he murmured, his head instinctively leaning on Kyle's shoulder. Kyle preened under it, wanting to go round with a badge that informed everyone that he was the only person Stan engaged any physical touch with anymore.
“Yeah? Like what?” Kyle's cheek nuzzled into the top of Stan's head, feeling the shower-soft, fluffy texture of the blond locks beneath him.
“Like…” but Stan trailed off, his words slurred with grogginess.
“It's fine, you don't have to say it right now,” Kyle whispered. “We have plenty of time.”
“Tomorrow, then. There's no way of knowing how long we have.”
Kyle's gut churned, wishing he could begin to understand, but vowing to at least share the weight.