Chapter Text
Friday, June 7:
Day 0 of summer break
Of course Kyle is looking forward to his last summer vacation of high school.
Three months spent dicking around with his best friends? He’s excited. He’s f*cking pumped. Obviously. Someone needs to relay that message along to his nervous system though, because he can’t help the sinking feeling of dread whenever he thinks about it.
He’s always scoffed at adults that referred to high school as the “good old days”, citing the fact that their only reasons for believing that must be their dead end jobs and loveless marriages and ungrateful children. Kyle has zero intention of peaking in high school. It’s merely a transitory period in his life, something he can reminisce on and laugh about in ten, twenty, thirty years, but won’t actively miss. He’s always known this.
But as graduation looms just a year away, Kyle is finding that he doesn’t really love the sense of finality associated with everything these days. This nagging voice in the back of his mind likes to ask him, no matter the occasion, is this the last time? Not that he’s getting sentimental about, like, his last time slipping on black ice in the parking lot and falling on his ass. Or the last pointless worksheet of his junior year Anatomy class. The last summer of his adolescence seems like a fairly big bridge to cross though, and he knows that this time next year, he’ll likely be planning for his exit from South Park. Away from everything he’s ever known and loved: from his parents, from Ike, from Stan, from Kenny, and from, well. Cartman, he supposes.
Right now, he can feel Cartman’s presence in the back of the Anatomy classroom like a nail in his foot: painful and difficult to ignore. Cartman had made it a point to sit in the seat directly next to Kyle on day one of the school year. This had lasted about a week before their teacher had moved them to opposite ends of the classroom. Kyle had been initially relieved, since he didn't think he could manage a full year next to Cartman without getting suspended, but he should know by now not to underestimate Cartman’s dedication to getting on his nerves twenty-four f*cking seven.
And this is how Kyle knows he’s gone slightly insane, because anyone in their right mind would be counting down the days to when they can be free of Eric Cartman. It’s an inescapable truth that Cartman is so deeply intertwined with the nostalgia and familiarity of his hometown that now he may even, ugh, miss him when he graduates?
Gross. Speak of the f*cking devil.
“Jew!” Cartman whisper-shouts from the back row. He’s been trying to get Kyle’s attention for the better part of half an hour— he’d started out with wadded up sheets of paper targeting his head, but Cartman’s apparently run out of paper since he’s graduated to whatever supplies remain in his bag. Kyle feels a pencil bounce off the back of his head and grimaces. “Hey! Jewboy!”
He regrets choosing Anatomy from the Junior science track everyday. Stan and Kenny are in Environmental Science right now, probably in the back of the class playing Crazy Eights rather than spending the past two semesters swatting away Cartman’s spitballs. Environmental Science, which Cartman refused to register for because it was, quote, “fa*ggy hippie bullsh*t”. Kyle should’ve taken that and ran with it, but his mother encouraged him to sign up for Anatomy. Something about it looking good on medical school applications? As if med school applicant reviewers are going to give a flying f*ck about what science track he was in his Junior year of high school.
“Jersey! Hey!” Another pencil thumps against his head. Kyle resists the urge to rub the sting away and focuses his attention even harder on his worksheet, irritation simmering on low. Can’t give Cartman the satisfaction.
Kyle doesn’t even know if he’s cut out for medical school, the way his stomach doesn’t quite agree with the messiness of the class dissections. Back in February, when they’d dissected pig hearts for Valentine’s Day, his lab partner had to take the scalpel and finish cutting when Kyle’s vision had started swimming in response to the gush of unspecified fluids spurting out of the incision. This was made all the more embarrassing by the fact that his lab partner was Kevin Stoley, of all people. Cartman noticed, of course, but his teasing was suspiciously short lived. He’d left class early claiming to be nauseous. Kyle made a mental note to give him sh*t for it as he’d walked to his locker to put his books away for lunch.
God must have been trying to teach him some sort of lesson when Cartman’s locker was assigned just two left of Kyle’s this year, but thankfully Kyle rarely witnesses him using it. Cartman claims to carry everything he needs in his backpack, and “everything he needs” usually ends up being a few loose sheets of paper and a handful of broken graphite pencils. Yet, when Kyle walked to his locker after class, there was Cartman, cheerfully rifling through his own textbooks that had remained untouched all year.
“What the f*ck is he doing here?” Kyle asked Stan, who’d traded his assigned locker with Clyde so they could be next to each other. Kyle was never sure why Stan bothered with his locker between classes. Wrestling the door closed against the tower of sh*t threatening to avalanche on top of him never seemed all that much easier than just carrying around a heavier backpack.
“Wha— Who? Cartman?” Stan grunted with the effort of shoving his door shut. “Um, looks like he’s using his locker.”
“He never f*cking uses his locker!” Kyle snapped.
Stan opened his mouth to reply, but jolted at the sound of a deafening crash from behind the door he’d just forced to close.
“Um, dude—” Kyle began, but Stan quickly waved him off.
“It’s fine. I’ll deal with it after lunch.”
“Stan, you should really—”
“Dude, it’s fine. After lunch.”
Kyle internally prepared himself to launch into a lecture on the importance of keeping an organized and alphabetized locker, but his train of thought was interrupted by Cartman clearing his throat behind him.
“Well, gentlemen, I’m heading to the cafeteria, if you care to join me.” This obnoxious theatrical tone of voice that he likes to adopt always, always precipitates a battle of some sort. Kyle geared himself up to fight, but for once, he was kind of hoping it didn’t come to that. He still felt a little queasy and off-kilter from the dissection.
Cartman walked off before Kyle could get any sort of retort in, which, in hindsight, should’ve been a glaringly obvious red flag. If Kyle didn’t witness him consume four thousand calories every lunch period, he’d suspect that Cartman’s primary source of sustenance was Kyle’s insults, the way he constantly sought them out and almost seemed to thrive off of them. It’s f*cking weird, but he’d be hard-pressed to find a single thing about Cartman that isn’t weird.
(When Kyle had pointed this revelation out to Stan and Kenny months ago, they’d both shared a look that seemed to convey the emotion of, Well, duh. In fact, Kenny had cautiously raised an eyebrow and asked if Kyle didn’t think it was possible that he shared a similar proclivity. Nobody present had encouraged Kenny to clarify what he meant; they all knew that Kyle strangely relished in entertaining Cartman’s antics that the rest of the student body had just learned to ignore with time.
Kyle had quickly changed the subject.)
“You ready?” Stan nodded in the direction of the cafeteria.
“Ah, yeah, let me just put my Anatomy book away.” Kyle quickly unlocked his padlock and pulled his locker door open.
The smell of formaldehyde hit him before anything else.
“Oh, dude, sick,” he heard Stan gag beside him. Kyle just stood, stock-still and frozen, gaping at the sight before him. Strung up between the two coat hooks in his locker was one of the specimens from the dissection— a piglet roughly the length of his forearm, with a single incision straight down its midline. Its sides were pinned open so its ventral cavity was on full display, but it was conspicuously missing every single one of its organs except for its heart, still intact, right there in the center of its chest.
“What the f*ck,” Kyle whispered, words drowned out by the sound of Stan dry heaving.
Harsh laughter cut through the hallway and Kyle whipped around to see Cartman observing from behind the corner. “Aww, Kyle, I think someone sent you a Valentine.”
Stan immediately puked on the floor next to Kyle’s shoes. He made a promise to himself to deal with that later and stepped directly over the puddle, seeing as more important things were calling for his attention at the moment.
“You. sad*stic. Motherf*cker.” Kyle’s mind had cleared the way it always did before a fight with Cartman, his fists already balled and trembling with adrenaline, his earlier apprehension forgotten. The fits of rage that only Cartman could send him into always felt weirdly meditative, as if the whole world had narrowed down to this point between the two of them. Cartman’s smile just grew as Kyle stepped closer and closer.
“What’s wrong? Back in class you seemed like you were—” Whatever bullsh*t taunt Cartman planned on throwing at him was cut off by the sharp crack of Kyle’s fist hitting his jaw.
And that’s how Kyle wound up spending his Valentine’s Day in after-school detention with Eric Cartman as his sole source of company. Cartman looked uniquely pleased with himself the entire time, which is surely only amplified by the fact that now, four months later, Kyle still can’t entirely rid his locker of the stench of formaldehyde and piglet juices.
The worst part was that Kyle didn’t even mind having detention with him all that much. They’d passed the time passing back and forth notes with crude doodles of one another scribbled on them, beginning with insulting caricatures that eventually evolved into legitimate sketches the more their boredom grew. Well, on Cartman’s end at least. Kyle’s drawings of Cartman were more reminiscent of stick figures with huge, brown cow eyes. Yet, Cartman’s half-assed sketches of Kyle had captured details he didn’t even think would translate to paper— the angle of his nose, the slight frizz of his hair, the hollows of his cheeks. Kyle knew on some level that he should’ve been weirded out, but he’d just felt strangely flattered. He’d shoved the paper into his bag when Cartman wasn’t looking.
Kyle is abruptly pulled out of his thoughts by the end of class bell ringing. Or, what should be the bell ringing, but since Cartman had decided to initiate his Senior pranks early, is overlaid by the grainy audio of the first Terrance and Phillip movie.
Shut your f*ckin’ face uncle f*cka
You’re a co*ck-sucking, ass-licking uncle f*cka
The class erupts in laughter as if this hasn’t already happened during every single f*cking passing period the entire day. If it’s not a Terrance and Phillip song, it’s something from High School Musical 2. Or 3. Whichever one takes place during the summer, Kyle isn’t entirely sure. What he is sure about is the embarrassment he feels from being associated with Cartman right now, who had been delighted to discover that the school’s ancient Intellilink system had not only never been uninstalled, but is shockingly easy to override. Nobody aside from Kyle has thought to point out to him how it makes no sense to take part in the Senior prank tradition while he’s still technically a Junior.
But if he didn’t fight him about it, he’d have to admit that he actually finds it kind of hilarious, and wouldn’t that just be uncomfortable for everyone involved?
You’re an uncle f*cka, yes it’s true
Nobody f*cks uncles quite like you
“Okay, everyone,” says their exasperated Anatomy teacher. Her voice is barely audible over the volume of Terrance and Phillip combined with the class rushing to leave. “Have a safe summer, make good choices.”
Cartman is at his side before Kyle even gets up to turn in his worksheet. “Hey. I was trying to talk to you, dickhe*d.”
Kyle’s eyes roll on instinct. “Really? I didn’t notice.”
“Shut your dirty Jew mouth. Anyways, as you know, my birthday is coming up—”
“Your birthday isn’t for another month, you asshole!”
You don’t eat or sleep or mow the lawn
You just f*ck your uncle all day long!
Cartman clicks his tongue and sighs, as if Kyle is the one being a brat here. “Yes, so consider yourself lucky that I’m giving you enough time to prepare. I sent my Amazon wishlist to the group chat, but you’re only responsible for the gifts under the ‘K’ tag.”
“Forget it, fat*ss. You’ll get whatever I decide to give you.”
Their teacher is stationed behind her desk, glancing between the two of them with an exhausted expression on her face. It occurs to Kyle that they’re the last two students still in the classroom. And she is one hundred percent looking forward to the moment when she never has to see either one of them again.
“Kyle, for once in your life, stop being a greedy Jew. If anything, I deserve some kindness after putting up with you the whole year.”
Kyle whips his head around incredulously and all but screeches, “YOU deserve—? After all the sh*t you pulled this year?”
Their teacher quickly interjects. “Gentlemen, I suggest you take this into the hallway if this is going to escalate any further.”
Shut your f*cking face uncle f*cka
You’re a boner biting bastard uncle f*cka
“Don’t worry about me, I’m going,” Kyle grumbles.
Cartman trails cheerfully behind him. “Don’t forget! Everything with a ‘K’ tag!”
Lunch is surprisingly uneventful, aside from the mariachi band that Cartman had apparently hired to play in the courtyard as another inane addition to his failing prank lineup. To his disappointment, the school administration had quickly cleared them out. They’d managed to play exactly one song— a mariachi rendition of that Gary Numan one-hit-wonder, which Cartman insisted was supposed to be some sort of dig at Craig Tucker— before the threat of a trespassing charge outweighed whatever sum of money Cartman had given them.
“It’s not fair,” he’d groaned into his chili cheese fries. “It’s the last f*cking day, can’t they just let me have this one thing?”
“Hey, you’ve had Terrance and Phillip blasting through the PA system all day long and nobody’s made any moves to stop it,” Kenny pointed out. “You win some, you lose some.”
“That’s only ‘cause they’re all too stupid to reprogram it,” Cartman huffed, though his mood brightened considerably after this.
Nothing of note happens in Kyle’s Calculus AB and Economics classes, largely due to the fact that they’re both technically Senior classes so he doesn’t know anyone in them. Not that anyone really showed up anyways. It’s just Kyle and anyone else whose mom forced them to attend their final day of high school. Final exams ended earlier in the week, so there’s literally no reason for anyone to be present except to reach the 180 day minimum the government legally requires from schools.
The only class that Kyle shares with Stan, Kenny, and Cartman all at once is English, their last period. Unsurprisingly, Kyle finds himself looking forward to English class the most. Mr. Harding has threatened countless times to request that the front office split them into different classes due to the group being— and this is a direct quote, if Kyle recalls correctly— “exceptionally disruptive and completely out of control”, but he’s never actually followed through on it.
Kyle takes his seat in between Stan and Kenny’s. Neither of them have arrived yet, which usually indicates that they’re lighting up in the bathroom together. Cartman’s desk is the next one down from Kenny, and to Kyle’s miraculous luck, he’s already seated. Go figure.
“Got any grand finales planned, fat boy?” Kyle truly doesn’t want to know the answer, but he figures he can best defend himself from whatever it is if Cartman throws him some sort of clue.
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Cartman winks at him. He f*cking winks at him. Kyle isn’t sure if he wants to punch him or puke on him, the way his stomach suddenly twists.
Puke on him? He spends way too much time with Stan.
As if answering his prayers, Stan slips into the seat next to him, followed by Kenny. They both reek of weed. Kyle isn’t sure if he should be concerned about that, considering Stan is his ride home.
“How’s it going?” Stan asks. Kyle’s never met anyone else whose voice gets higher after they smoke, but it’s one of Stan’s many tells.
“Fantastic. We need to hightail it out of here after class, Cartman’s acting weirder than usual.”
Stan frowns. “Aw, okay. I haven’t signed Wendy’s yearbook yet though.”
“You’ll have all summer to sign Wendy’s yearbook, dude.”
Sometimes Kyle laments the fact that Stan has known him since they were in diapers, because now he knows all of Kyle’s weaknesses by heart. Stan sighs and gives him what Kyle has bitterly dubbed his “puppy dog stare”: his eyebrows pinch up, his mouth twists into a pout, and his impossibly blue eyes grow impossibly sad. f*cking hell, Kyle hates the way that face tugs at his heart strings.
“Ugh. Oh my God. Fine. Just– stop doing that.”
Stan immediately perks up. “Sweet. Promise I’ll make it up to you.”
“Whatever, I still have to return my textbooks anyways.”
Kenny leans over to rap on Kyle’s desk. “Hey. We’re still on for Stan’s tonight?”
Right. “Going to Stan’s” has become a sort of secret code between the four of them, because publicly admitting to having weekly slumber parties in your jim-jams with your besties at the age of 18 is social suicide. Honestly though, that’s exactly what they are. Slumber parties, just with less pillow fights and braid trains and more sh*ttily rolled blunts and Smash tournaments. The tradition never quite died after elementary school.
“Oh, f*ck.” Stan’s forehead loudly hits his desk. “Dude, I forgot that my mom wanted me to come to Shelly’s graduation dinner at CSU tonight.”
Kenny just shrugs. “ ‘S cool. I’m free tomorrow night too, as long as you guys are.”
Stan and Kyle both answer affirmatively, which for some reason makes Cartman scoff. Of course he does, he needs to find a problem with everything. “Uh, none of you assholes thought to ask me if I’m free tomorrow.”
“Cartman, you’re always free. Who the f*ck else are you going to hang out with?” Kyle’s expecting the usual grumbled ‘f*ck you Kyle’ response from him, but he watches with a growing sense of uneasiness as a serene smile spreads its way across Cartman’s face.
“Oh, Kyle. Kyle, Kyle, Kyle. You’re going to be very sorry you said that.”
What the hell is that supposed to mean? Before Kyle’s even able to ask, the Intellilink system buzzes to life with “Candy Shop” by 50Cent filtering through the PA speakers. Which is, admittedly, a nice break from Terrance and Philip: Mortal Cumbat.
“Huh.” Stan looks up. “That’s a new one.”
“It was my personal request.” Kenny throws his hands up. Stan’s eyes narrow in response, seemingly offended.
“Wait, why didn’t I get a personal request? The f*ck, Cartman?”
“Because if you took up the offer, Kyle would get pissed and extract his dick from your rectum,” Cartman explains like this should be obvious. “I’m not gonna be responsible for your lovers’ quarrel.”
For some ungodly reason, that response actually satisfies Stan and he drops the subject. Kyle knows that he could stand to take a masterclass from Stan in the skill of ignoring Cartman. He’s tried to follow his lead on several occasions, but it just never sticks. Only three things in his life are certain: Death, taxes, and Cartman getting a rise out of him.
Kyle keeps his eyes firmly trained on Cartman throughout the entire class period, waiting for any tics or twitches that might betray whatever he’s planning. Cartman seems to intrinsically know this, since he remains calm and composed the whole hour, sending innocent smiles in Kyle’s direction that do nothing to quell the anger that he feels building.
Mr. Harding has clearly given up on attempting to wrangle the class because he assigns them a worksheet on The Taming of the Shrew that a monkey holding a crayon could probably complete. Annoyingly enough, Cartman manages to finish it before Kyle. Kyle watches him, unblinking, as he works his way to the front and places his paper on Mr. Harding’s desk, before he turns around as if preparing to address the class.
“Well, Mr. Harding,” Cartman says theatrically. Kyle suppresses a groan. “I’ll always cherish the memories we shared together this year. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to use the restroom, those cafeteria chili cheese fries are not sitting well.”
Mr. Harding doesn’t even look up from his book to speak. “There’s really no need to announce yourself, Eric.”
Kyle nearly leaps out of his seat when Cartman very pointedly makes direct eye contact with him. “Just making my plans clear,” he responds chipperly. The second he steps into the hallway, Kyle begins wildly motioning for Stan to look at him.
“See! I told you!” Kyle frantically whispers. Stan just blinks at him. “He left early to get ready for whatever bullsh*t he’s going to pull next!”
“What, you mean his retarded Senior prank thing?”
“Yes, his retarded Senior prank thing!” Kyle ignores the angry shushing noise that someone makes across the room. “Think about it. Everything he’s done today is so tame. He’s planning something big.”
“Dude, don’t you think we would’ve heard about it if he was?” Stan makes a decent point with this, since the only thing Cartman seems to love as much as he loves f*cking with people is bragging about f*cking with people, but Kyle shakes his head.
“No. Not if it involves one of us.” By ‘one of us’, Kyle really means himself, which might seem a little self-absorbed, but come on. As if Cartman derives any pleasure from tormenting the other two the way he obviously does with Kyle. Last time he checked, Kenny and Stan weren’t getting piglet cadavers hung in their lockers.
Oh, f*ck. That’s it. Cartman has to know that Kyle hasn’t returned his textbooks yet, and that’s already more information than Kyle is comfortable with him having. Stan’s eyebrow raises at whatever expression of horror must be written on his face, but he waves him off.
Kyle’s hand shoots up in the air. “Mr. Harding? May I please use the restroom?”
Their teacher licks his finger to turn the page of his book. Ew. “As soon as Eric brings the bathroom pass back, you can leave.”
“Please? It’s an emergency.” He tries his absolute hardest to convey the desperation he’s currently feeling to no avail. Why does this school only hire f*cking sad*sts?
“Either wait for the bathroom pass or risk spending your afternoon in detention. Your choice.” Kyle briefly weighs his options. For a moment, he remembers his mother’s wrath and the fear of God passes through him, but then he calls the teacher’s bluff. There’s no way that anyone was willing to accept detention supervision duty on the last day of school, and regardless, Mr. Harding is a f*cking puss* that never follows through on his threats. The four of them are all still in the same English class, after all.
“I’ll take my chances, thanks.” Kyle quickly gathers his things and books it out the door. A half-hearted protest rings out behind him, which he’s pretty sure is voiced by Stan, and the text his phone buzzes with once he’s in the hall confirms this.
wtf are u doing
Kyle doesn’t slow down to type back a response, his feet only pick up in speed until he’s practically sprinting down the hall. He can answer Stan once he’s put a stop to Cartman. The adrenaline coursing through his blood roars louder the closer he gets to his locker. He thinks he’s so f*cking clever. Well, Kyle’s going to catch him in the act this time.
His stomach drops to his ass when he turns the corner to find Cartman, standing at his own open locker, humming some vaguely familiar Madonna song. f*ck. Is he too late? There’s no way. It can’t have been more than five minutes since he left the classroom. What could he have possibly done in five minutes?
Cartman can definitely hear him panting with the exertion of sprinting through the school, but he makes no move to turn around. He must be waiting for him to speak, to set whatever game he has planned into motion. Kyle gets the horrible sense that he’s walked directly into an ambush.
“What the f*ck are you up to?” Kyle settles on asking. Cartman immediately stops humming, silence ringing through the hall forebodingly. When he turns around, he has that same innocent smile from earlier plastered deceivingly onto his face.
“Why, I’m just cleaning out my locker, Kyle.” Kyle notices, then, the plastic trash bag in Cartman’s left hand. He drops a beaten, torn up paper folder into the bag as if to emphasize his point.
Kyle huffs out a laugh. “Yeah, right. What are you actually up to?”
Entirely too conspicuously to be a coincidence, Cartman’s eyes dart in the direction of Kyle’s locker. The pit of rage and dread pooling in Kyle’s gut yawns a little wider at this. He really is too late, isn’t he? He should’ve never taken his eyes off of him, should’ve followed him right out of the classroom. Cartman works unsettlingly quickly.
“Has anyone ever told you how nosy you are, Kyle? It’s not a very attractive trait.”
“Shut up, fat*ss.”
“It’s okay, I know you can’t help it. I’m sure your heritage must have—”
“SHUT UP!” Kyle cringes at the way his voice echoes down the corridor, but nobody pops out of any of the surrounding classrooms to tell him to be quiet, so he figures he’s in the clear. When he speaks again, it’s low and measured. “What did you do to my locker?”
Cartman immediately beams with happiness, as if Kyle’s taken the bait just as planned. sh*t. “Who said anything about your locker?”
“You didn’t have to,” Kyle responds, trying to regain some control of the situation. “You’re just too obvious. So, what is it this time? Another animal corpse? A pipe bomb?”
Kyle wishes he could say that Cartman is predictable after so many years, but if there’s one thing Cartman is good at, it’s defying expectations. He’s been clearly delighted to discover recently that the more f*cking weird he acts, the more uncomfortable Kyle gets. Cartman slowly steps closer to Kyle until they’re sharing the same air. Kyle also wishes he could say he didn’t get so flustered by this weirdness, but here he is, flushing at their proximity and the way Cartman gazes up at him through his eyelashes. Cartman’s voice dips an octave lower when he says, “Why don’t you find out?”
His tone is such a stark contrast to the usual flamboyance he tends to perform whenever they’re arguing that it throws Kyle off. Kyle is well attuned to his role in these fights: Where Cartman is dramatic and hammy, as if there’s a spotlight shining down on him, Kyle is grounded and sensible. Or, at least, he makes a real effort to be. Sense usually goes out the window around the time that the first punch is thrown.
This, though? Kyle has no idea what to do with this. Cartman’s been whipping this strategy out more and more recently since Kyle clearly has no clue how to respond to, well. Flirting. Not that he believes Cartman is genuinely flirting with him. No way. It’s just another way of irritating him that he’s gleefully taking advantage of, but the lidded eyes and the bizarrely seductive tone he adopts could probably fool any outsider.
“Maybe I will.” Not Kyle’s greatest comeback, but his brain is short-circuiting at the moment. God, he really needs to find a way to not let Cartman’s bullsh*t get to him.
Spurred on by his dying fire, Cartman shuffles even closer. Their breath mingles in the space between them. Kyle knows retreating backwards would be taken as a sign of weakness, so he stands his ground, though not without some difficulty.
“C’mon, Kyle,” Cartman murmurs his name sweetly. For some reason, Kyle’s heart rate picks up, equal parts fear and anticipation. Anticipation of what? There’s nothing to even anticipate right now besides a dead animal in his locker. He pushes that strange thought right back down. “Open it up. You know you want to.”
Before Kyle can shove him off, Cartman side-steps out of his way. There’s nothing between him and his locker door now. God knows what’s in there, but if he ever wants to go home today, he knows he needs to open it. All six of his textbooks are in there, and it’s about a $40 fine for each one that he hasn’t returned by tomorrow morning.
“If my books are covered in piss or sh*t, I promise I’m going to f*cking murder you,” Kyle finds himself saying.
Cartman chuckles lowly. Kyle’s stomach flips at the feeling of his breath on his neck. He’s still entirely too close to him. “I think that would be the least of your problems.”
What the f*ck does that mean? What did he do? “Yeah, I’m sure I’ll be more concerned with trying to hide your dead body.”
“Kyle wants my body? Wow, how forward of you.”
Kyle socks him in the shoulder, but it lacks the force it would typically pack. The humiliation of this is doubled by the fact that he feels his face heat at Cartman’s words. What is wrong with him? “Eat sh*t, asshole.”
When Cartman speaks again, he’s leaning over to speak directly into Kyle’s ear. His spine tingles pleasantly. “You first, Jew.”
It’s happened again. The entire world has narrowed down to this one tiny point between the two of them. Everything else may as well have disappeared, because the only thing that exists right now is Cartman’s evil little snickers and Kyle’s pounding heart. He takes some comfort in the fact that he can feel his rage building again, since that means he’s regained his footing after… whatever show Cartman just put on, but he knows any semblance of control he may have had over this has long since vanished. Cartman has him right where he wants him, and they both know it.
“Open it,” Cartman commands.
“I hate you.”
“Aw, I’m wounded. Now open it.”
“You’re such a jackass.”
“Is that so? Open it.”
Kyle’s eyes are starting to water with the intensity that he’s staring at the padlock on his locker. It’s already unlatched, as if Cartman wanted to skip any unnecessary formalities and cut right to the action. His imagination is running wild with the possibilities— he envisions disembowelments, decapitations, unnamed bodily fluids dripping down metal. Nothing is too gross for Cartman to handle, he’s sure.
“Kyle,” Cartman sing-songs. “Come on, Kyle. You’re gonna have to eventually. Rip the band-aid off, Kyle. Open it, Kyle.”
It’s probably not even an animal, Cartman never pulls the same trick twice. Maybe he was onto something with that pipe bomb guess. A live wire hooked directly to the door handle? A lit firecracker?
“Go ahead. Do it. Come on.”
Kyle erupts with a yell of frustration and lunges forward, hand connecting with the door and yanking it open. He braces himself, expecting the absolute worst. His other arm instinctively raises to protect his face from whatever horrors are surely lurking inside, whatever awful thing is waiting for him, his eyes frantically searching to find his—
His… textbooks.
He balks in confusion. What? There’s nothing in here, this is just a half-empty locker. No, this can’t be it. Something’s going to pop out any minute, something disgusting or deadly, something only the mind of Eric Cartman could dream up.
Nothing does.
The PA system suddenly crackles with some horsesh*t that Kyle distantly places as another High School Musical 2 song, indicating the end of sixth period. Every classroom door around him flies open and sends a flurry of cheering students into the hallway. The bustling noise would probably give him whiplash compared to the complete silence of just a moment ago if he wasn’t currently so preoccupied with staring into his locker in disbelief.
When Kyle whips his head to his left, Cartman is no longer sidled up next to him. He’s back to humming cheerfully at his own locker. Like nothing happened.
“What— How did you— What did you do?” Kyle stammers. Cartman smiles pleasantly at him.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about, Kyle.”
Un-f*cking-real. What, this was his master plan? Drive Kyle into a state of total paranoia with nothing to show for it? What a lame prank. Stupid. Dumb f*cking asshole sh*thead.
“Oh, good, you guys didn’t kill each other,” Kenny’s voice calls from behind them. When Kyle turns around, Stan is following, looking unimpressed.
“What was all that about?” He asks Kyle.
“I– I don’t—”
“Kyle here is just on his period. Had to go change his tampon,” Cartman casually explains.
Stan, to his credit, doesn’t even glance in Cartman’s direction. “Right. Well, I’m gonna go find Wendy. You’re returning your books, right? Meet at my car after?”
“Um. Yeah.”
“Dude, is everything alright?” Stan is suddenly looking at him with such genuine concern that Kyle physically feels his blood pressure drop a little bit. He takes a deep breath.
“Yeah. It’s fine. See you in a few minutes.”
Seemingly satisfied, Stan sends him a little wave and turns to walk in the direction of the cafeteria. Okay. Well. Kyle supposes there’s nothing left to do but gather his books and return them to the library.
He ignores the way his cheeks burn with embarrassment over the whole situation. Cartman is grinning at him expectantly, surely awaiting some trademark snarky remark. He should really cut deep. Payback for whatever the f*ck just happened.
Instead, all Kyle can manage is a mumbled, “f*cking dick.”
Cartman guffaws.
Saturday, June 8:
Day 1 of summer break
Kyle gradually stirs awake to the dull hum of Stan’s bedroom fan and the low buzz of the cheap television set on his dresser. He blinks at the ceiling, disoriented. The Superbad DVD menu music is barely distinguishable through the otherwise serene silence, but it gives him some part of reality to cling to as he emerges from a dreamless sleep.
It’s not a rare occurrence for him to wake up in the middle of the night like this. He’s a notoriously light sleeper, but typically jolting awake during one the group’s weekly sleepovers like this means bad news. Namely, Cartman-related antics. Yet, when Kyle scans his surroundings, he sees Cartman sprawled across the rug, eyes shut, breaths slow and even.
Kenny is curled up in Cartman’s own sleeping bag beside him. Every week, Cartman pretends to throw a fit about Kenny stealing it from him, but they all know that it’s just to keep up appearances at this point. Cartman naturally runs too warm to ever comfortably sleep inside of it, and Kenny will stay up all night freezing to death without it, regardless of the heat of summer.
It’s a weekly event, but it doesn’t change the fact that the display always makes something twist in Kyle’s gut. Something about seeing evidence of Eric Cartman’s humanity must creep him the hell out. It’s like that uncanny valley phenomenon, in the sense that Cartman gives off the impression of the human skin of a demon attempting to assimilate into society. Or something.
Stan shifts on the mattress next to Kyle, but he gives no other indication that he’s awake. If life were like a video game and dying didn’t have any real consequences, Kyle truly believes his respawn point would be Stan’s bedroom. Which is a weird thought, but it’s one that occurs to him often. It strangely feels more like home than his own bedroom, which he’s sure is owed to the fact that his friends all like to pile on top of each other to create this human cocoon of comfort and familiarity. Kyle is always the first person to encourage this by carrying in mountains of blankets and pillows from the Marsh’s linen closet.
‘Nesting’, Kenny had called it once. “You’re like our Mama Bird,” he’d teased.
“Ew,” Cartman had immediately chimed in. “Don’t let him start spitting his food in our mouths.”
Kyle had smacked him for that, but not before laughing in spite of himself. Cartman had looked incredibly pleased.
A smile dances on his lips at the memory, coupled by a sad tug in his gut. It’s moments like these— alone, in the quiet, in the dark— that he can acknowledge that sinking feeling in his stomach for what it is. Fear.
Fear of the unknown, maybe, but mostly fear of leaving all of this behind. They all only have one year left together, and then what? Going their separate ways is unthinkable after all this time, but are they just supposed to trail after one another forever? Yeah, right, and then maybe they can all get married to each other.
None of the others are really going to approach things logically, that’s Kyle’s job. But right now, he can’t help but feel suffocated when he tries to plan that far into the future. Someone has to do it. That someone tends to be the Mama Bird.
Before the sound of his own thoughts can wake anyone else in the room up, Kyle is carefully slipping out from Stan’s blankets and tip-toeing across the room. They’d left the window cracked to air out the smoke from the joint they’d passed around earlier, so thankfully he doesn’t have to fret about the noise of unlatching it. He slides the glass up as quietly as possible until the opening is wide enough for his lanky frame to fit through. Stan’s room in this house is right above the garage, so all anyone needs to do to get up to the roof is step onto the garage eaves and hoist themselves up. Kyle does exactly that, sitting down on the flat edge of the house’s roof. His head’s already a little clearer from the cooler, thinner outdoor air.
When the Marshes had moved back into town from the farm in eighth grade, Randy hadn’t come with them. This was a subject nobody knew how to broach for a while. Stan certainly didn’t seem eager to talk about it. Kyle had danced around the topic a few times, only to be met with warning glares from his best friend that cut him off mid-sentence.
It all came to a head one afternoon when the four of them had been playing basketball after school, split into their usual teams of Kyle and Stan versus Kenny and Cartman. Stan and Kenny usually opted to observe Kyle and Cartman’s trash talking rather than participate in it, but Stan must have been feeling particularly peeved that day, cause the insults just kept on flooding out.
“f*ck you, you fat motherf*cker,” Stan spat at Cartman when he’d kneed the ball out of his hands for the third time. Which was, technically, against the rules, but go ahead and try telling that to Cartman.
“Real creative, Marsh,” Cartman called after him while Stan chased the ball across the court. “No idea how I’ll follow that one up.”
“f*ck you. Kenny, f*ck you, too.”
“The f*ck did I do?”
“Your teammate is cheating and you aren’t doing jack sh*t.”
“I’m not his mom, dude,” Kenny scoffed. “Take it up with him.”
“I’m not his mom either! Oh, wait, I forgot, his mom is too busy being a crack whor* to be a parent.”
“Ey!”
Kyle had snorted at that. It was a rare and joyous sight to see Stan actually landing hits on Cartman for once.
“I dunno why you’re laughing, Jew.” Cartman turned his attention towards him. “Your mom’s a fat kike bitch.”
“Go to hell, fat*ss. You’re just jealous cause I have a dad.”
“Yeah?” Cartman stood up a little straighter, clearly emboldened by whatever surely genius comeback he’d managed to think up. “What about your butt buddy over there? Haven’t seen his dad around in a while.”
All of a sudden, time had slowed down. Stan suddenly lunged forward, tackling Cartman to the concrete. Kyle watched in disbelief as he balled a fist, raised it, and swiftly brought it down onto Cartman’s nose.
“Hey, hey, woah!” Kyle was quickly rushing alongside Kenny to pull them off of each other. In retrospect, this was sort of hilarious, because Stan and Kenny never made any sort of effort to pull apart Kyle and Cartman whenever their fights turned physical.
Stan had allowed himself to be dragged away without much resistance, but Kyle was unnerved to find tears rolling down his best friend’s cheeks. “Dude, hey, it’s okay.”
“Not f*cking cool, man,” Kenny said to Cartman while helping him stand.
“He started it,” Cartman grumbled, words muffled by the steady flow of blood leaking from his nose, but he made no further protests.
Kyle grabbed a wad of tissues from his bag to help staunch the blood flow while they all huddled around Stan, who was still quietly crying. It had become an unspoken rule that tears were a hard line not to be crossed, and once they came out, all fighting ceased. Eventually, Stan was ready to speak, and finally, it all came spilling out. They’d listened while he confessed to the group that his parents had elected to get an amicable divorce— Randy would stay on the farm and help pay for Sharon and the kids to live in town, in a smaller townhouse a few blocks away from Stan’s childhood home. They’d reached an agreement that Randy would visit on weekends and holidays, but Stan hadn’t seen his dad in the few months since moving back to South Park.
“It’s dumb,” Stan sniffled. “I don’t even like him all that much these days, you know? But it sucks to feel like he feels the same way.”
They’d all gone quiet, unsure of what to say. Surprisingly, Cartman was the one to break the silence.
“That f*cking blows, man.” In Cartman’s language, this was as close to an apology as it could get. The sentiment was almost sweet.
Kyle likes recalling memories like this. It’s a little messy and ugly, but it’s real. If the group was perfect, they wouldn’t be themselves. It’s probably gay to admit, but he kind of loves the dynamic they’ve got going on. Despite everything, despite all their fights and accidents and mishaps and near-death experiences, they’re going to be there for each other.
Always. Right? He certainly hopes so. That sinking feeling of fear fills his stomach again.
“What are you doing, Jew?” Kyle jumps at a harsh whispered voice coming from below him. He looks down to see Cartman, peering out of Stan’s window, his bedhead rivaling Kyle’s.
Kyle screws his face up, a little annoyed that his peace and quiet has been disturbed. Fine, okay, he’ll admit that he cherishes his friends or whatever, but it’s not a crime to need alone time. Especially away from Cartman. “Don’t worry about it.”
Cartman rolls his eyes. “I’m not worried, I’m just wondering why you had to wake me up by going all Fiddler on the Roof out here.”
“Maybe I just needed space to think.”
“What, you can’t think inside?”
“I’m sorry, what’s the problem here?” Kyle asks, patience dwindling. “Just mind your business.”
Cartman looks pensive for a moment. That look is always a little unnerving to Kyle, he hates it when he can’t tell what he’s thinking. Then, he’s stepping out the window and onto the garage roof.
“What the f*ck are you doing?” Kyle hisses as he watches Cartman pull himself up alongside him. Cartman’s suddenly close enough that Kyle can feel his body heat, which is, hm. Actually not worth protesting, considering the chill of the mountain air.
“Maybe I need space to think, too,” Cartman responds plainly.
“You’re so f*cking annoying.” Kyle glares at him, but he doesn’t bother with any further argument. He’s cold and sleepy and Cartman is warm and weirdly comfortable.
He’s also surprised to find how comfortable the silence is. Besides the wind and their shared breathing, the air is quiet. They’re high up enough to see the hazy glow of Main Street. Kyle’s eyes track the movement of a red car down the length of the road, watching it disappear behind a line of pine trees before Cartman disturbs the peace again.
“What were you thinking about?” he asks.
“You’re already pushing it just sitting up here. I don’t need an interrogation too.” Kyle doesn’t actually expect him to drop the subject, since Cartman is nothing if not stubborn, but to his surprise, there’s no response.
There are no other cars on the road tonight. The red car has long since vanished from view, and Kyle is suddenly hit with how they’re, for all intents and purposes, completely alone right now. He’s not sure why that thought is comforting. “Alone time” with Cartman is functionally synonymous with “imminent doom”.
Another surprise: Kyle finds himself wanting to tell Cartman the truth. He chooses to blame his tired, half-baked brain for the words that escape from his mouth before he can stop them.
“We’ll all be graduating this time next year.”
In his peripheral vision, Kyle can just barely see Cartman co*ck his head sideways. “Well, yeah,” Cartman says. “Are you really out here sh*tting yourself over something a full year away? Wait, wait, d’aww. Worried you won’t be valedictorian and make Mommy proud?”
“That’s not it,” Kyle grumbles.
He can feel Cartman’s eyes boring into him, clearly awaiting further elaboration, but Kyle’s pretty sure what he’s going to say next will get him ripped on for the next nine months, at minimum.
“Do you…” Kyle begins, a little sheepish. “Do you ever worry that maybe we’ll all just drift apart afterwards?”
There’s hardly time for his words to marinate in the silence before Cartman is snorting with laughter. “Uh, you wish. Good f*cking luck getting rid of me, Jew.”
Kyle narrows his eyes. “I mean it. Who the hell is gonna want to stick around here once high school is over? I know I’m not.”
“What, you’ve got better things to do? Big ambitions at whatever Ivy League your Daddy picks out for you?” Cartman scoffs.
“As if you’re staying!”
“f*ck no I’m not! But that doesn’t mean we’ll all just, like, stop speaking, or something gay like that.”
“Fine, but what then? We’re gonna have lives, Cartman. Like, careers and marriages and– and kids. How many functional adults do you know that are still having sleepovers with their elementary school classmates?”
Cartman just stares at him for a moment. “God, you are so f*cking uptight. However much free weed Marsh gives you is clearly not enough.”
“Never f*cking mind. Forget I said anything.” Kyle turns away to face the street again. He regrets not thinking to check the time before climbing out the window, because he can just barely identify a sliver of pink beginning to peek over the Rockies.
A beat passes between them. Kyle is seriously considering just going back inside when Cartman pipes up. “Do you remember when I broke my arm in sixth grade?”
Kyle snorts in spite of himself because yes, he does. “Yeah, dumbass, you fell out of a tree. How could I forget that?”
It had actually been a little terrifying at the time. Mr. Kitty had climbed to the top of the massive Willow tree behind the basketball court and Cartman had just about blown a blood vessel screaming for her to get down. Kyle advised him to call his mom for help, but before he could finish his sentence, Cartman was scaling the tree of his own accord.
Gravity predictably took the wheel, and Kyle recalls helplessly watching Cartman’s pudgy body tumble out of the tree to the ground with an awkward thunk. He recalls growing faint at the horrible angle Cartman’s wrist was bent at, he recalls Cartman’s ugly sobs sending a rush of panic through his nervous system, he recalls Mr. Kitty lithely descending from the tree amidst the chaos.
“Yeah, yeah, whatever. Point is,” Cartman continues, “I think that was the first time I really noticed how everyone kinda fell into their own little roles. Like, Kenny was keeping us all calm, Marsh was all weepy and running to grab help. You were screaming medical advice at me. Like, to hold my arm still or something. Very effective crisis management. Organized chaos, you know?”
“Yeah, I’m still not understanding the point.”
“POINT IS,” Cartman reiterates, “we’re a good unit. The broship. Everyone’s always had their thing and they do their thing well. It’d fall apart if anyone was missing.”
“What are you even saying?” Kyle rolls his eyes. “The group’s never gonna split up cause we can’t function without each other? Is that supposed to make me feel better?”
“No, bitch, I’m saying that we work well as a team so obviously it’s in my best interest to keep everyone together. Heightens my chances of ruling the world someday. You should feel lucky to be my henchman.”
Kyle snickers. “You’re such an asshole, you know that?”
“Likewise, Jew.”
“Your arm freaked me the f*ck out, by the way,” Kyle says after another moment of not necessarily uncomfortable silence. “I was only yelling so much because I sorta thought the bone was going to pop out of your skin.”
“You didn’t seem freaked out,” Cartman muses. “Seemed like you had sh*t pretty under control.”
“Are you kidding?” Kyle scoffs.
“Uh, no? I was freaked the f*ck out until you started yelling commands at me. Then I was like, oh, if Kyle knows what he’s doing then things will probably be alright.”
“Why the hell would you put your faith in me like that? I was twelve, I didn’t know jack sh*t.”
“‘Cause you’re smart, you dickhole. I don’t know.”
Kyle chooses to ignore the way his cheeks burn at the thinly veiled compliment. Normally, if he and Cartman are in the kind of rare mood where they’re paying each other compliments, they’re buried under several layers of insults and jabs. Not outwardly stating each other’s positive traits.
“Whatever. I was scared. I hate when you do stupid sh*t like that, I always end up cleaning it up.”
When he turns to meet Cartman’s gaze again, the other boy is grinning at him in a way that has Kyle’s stomach doing all sorts of nervous gymnastics. Add that to the long list of deeply unsettling things about Eric Cartman. No one else could cause such an unexplained visceral reaction within him from just a smile.
“What’s that look for?” Kyle demands.
“Nothing, just. You really are our Mama Bird.”
Kyle groans and shoves Cartman’s shoulder. “Ugh, shut up. It’s not like I have a choice, you guys are morons.”
“You shouldn’t talk to your baby birds like that, mama.”
“Stop! You’re so goddamn weird!” Kyle is laughing though, and Cartman is smiling back at him, all wide and genuine the way it only ever is when they both let their guards down.
“Never said it was a bad thing,” Cartman says. “You’ll make a damn fine doctor.”
“Okay, now I know you’re f*cking with me.” Kyle scowls.
“What makes you say that?”
“Uh, because I can’t handle bodily fluids? Because I get grossed out doing high school class dissections? Those aren’t really indicators of a great doctor in the making.”
Cartman’s face screws up. “Newsflash, Jew, I don’t think anyone is all that stoked about getting piss or sh*t on them. They just get used to it. You’re smart, you’re logical when sh*t gets real, you think fast and act faster. Those are pretty good indicators, yeah?”
He says this all so nonchalantly that Kyle is left slack jawed in disbelief. “Are you high, fat*ss?”
“Little bit. Why?”
“Because you’re being nice to me. It’s f*cking weird.”
“Why would that be weird?” Kyle almost thinks Cartman’s being serious until he sees the way he’s faux-innocently batting his eyelashes at him. Asshole.
“Your Valentine’s Day gift to me was a dead animal,” Kyle deadpans. He’s expecting this to be met with a chuckle and some run-of-the-mill insult, not with a burst of ruddy color suddenly blooming across Cartman’s cheeks. Huh?
“What the hell was that for?” Kyle asks.
“I dunno what you’re talking about.” He averts eye contact as if this will somehow hide the flush on his face.
Kyle makes the probably wise decision to drop it and silence settles over the both of them again. The Eastern horizon is partially alight with the rays of the sun now, and it occurs to Kyle that if he were up on a rooftop watching the sunrise with literally anyone else on the planet, it’d be sorta romantic.
What an utterly bizarre thought to have.
“Thanks for, uh. Coming out here,” Kyle’s mouth forms the words before his brain thinks them, as though he’s been possessed. “I think I just needed to talk and I didn’t know it yet.”
He can’t quite place the expression on Cartman’s face. “Well, do you feel any better?”
“I don’t know. I guess so. Mostly I just feel like I’m kinda running out of time.” What the hell is he saying? Why is he telling Cartman this, of all people?
“That’s f*cking stupid, you haven’t even graduated high school. I think you need to look into getting that stick removed from your ass before it perforates your bowels.”
“f*ck you.”
“Just saying. I used to help Butters put in those little pills that go up your butt, gimme a call if you need a hand.”
“Suppositories? Why… Why the hell did you help Butters put in his suppositories?”
“Long story. Don’t wanna talk about it.”
“Yeah, no, I don’t really wanna hear about it either.”
They both snicker quietly together and Kyle’s hit with one of those weird realizations that he genuinely enjoys Cartman’s company. Finds it oddly soothing, even. He knows this, has known this for years, but that doesn’t make it any less alarming whenever he remembers. Maybe he’s a masoch*st.
“Anyways. If the group splitting up is really what you’re PMSing about, then don’t worry your pretty little head, Jersey. This band isn’t breaking up anytime soon. Wherever you run to, I’ll always be there to call you a dirty Jew.”
“Right, okay,” Kyle chuckles. Pretty little head? That’s so far out of left field that his heart just about skips a beat.
Then something funny happens. When Kyle opens his mouth to speak again, his eyes lock with Cartman’s, giving him pause. He couldn’t explain the swooping feeling he gets in his stomach if he tried. It’s the same feeling he gets when Cartman is doing that annoying fake-flirting bullsh*t, the same feeling he felt yesterday when Cartman was obnoxiously gazing up at him through his lashes, the same feeling that stirs low in his gut when he catches Cartman leering at him from across a classroom or the lunch table. His pulse quickens in a way that always, always correlates with Cartman-associated peril.
“Um. I should go back inside.” Cartman sounds a little panicked. “It’s late. Early. Depends how you look at it.”
“Huh?” Kyle’s surprised to find that he’s leaning far closer to Cartman than he was just a moment ago. When did that happen? “Oh. Yeah, probably.”
“Yeah.”
God, when did it suddenly get tense? Why does he feel like he’s being kept out of the loop of something he was entirely present for?
“Kay. Night, Jew.” Cartman almost looks torn. Which does nothing to alleviate Kyle's uncertainty.
“Night, Cartman.”
Kyle’s eyes catch on Cartman’s tongue darting out to wet his lips, and for some reason he feels his chest tighten. Before he has a chance to do any real introspection on his body’s reaction to that, Cartman’s disappeared under the roof and slipped back in through the window.
Kyle knows he should probably follow him back inside, but now his mind is reeling even more than it had been before. There’s no reason why his heart should be racing right now. This is ridiculous. Calm the f*ck down.
He takes a couple deep breaths and wills his fight or flight response to chill out. There’s nothing to fight and there’s nothing to flee from. So what the hell?
As he sits there for a few more moments, watching the sun rise over the top of the mountains, he’s overcome with the nagging feeling that he’s forgotten to do something very important.
Saturday, June 15:
Day 8 of summer break
“What the hell is a ‘rampart’?” Kenny asks from the backseat of Stan’s truck. Kyle looks through the rearview mirror to see him flipping through an ancient brochure for Rampart Reservoir, the closest and cheapest campground within 30 miles of South Park. According to Stan, it’s a man-made lake that you can’t swim or fish or boat in. So. Should be thrilling.
“f*ck if I know,” Cartman responds. “They sing about it in the national anthem though, so it must be something patriotic.”
“A rampart is a protective wall surrounding a fortress,” Kyle supplies helpfully.
Cartman cracks up. He always gets unnecessarily violent when he laughs, so Kenny is the unfortunate victim of several consecutive shoulder punches. “Oh, Christ. I forgot we had Steve f*cking Urkel in the car with us, you guys.”
“Shut the hell up, fat*ss! Kenny asked a question and I answered it.”
Stan groans from behind the wheel. “Here we f*cking go.”
“Who the hell is Steve Urkel?” Kenny asks again.
Cartman feigns a dramatic gasp. “Kenny, I disown you.”
“Cartman, you’re the only person under the age of forty that knows who Steve Urkel is,” Stan protests, but Cartman is ignoring him in favor of belting out the first line of the national anthem.
“O say can you see,” Cartman begins, and Kenny quickly joins him.
“By the dawn’s early light,” They sing together.
“I can’t do two f*cking days of this,” Kyle grits out. Stan shoots him a sympathetic look.
“Come on, you guys would get bored without us,” Kenny insists, and Kyle resents the fact that they all know he’s right.
“And the rampart’s red glare,” Cartman continues singing.
“That’s not even how it goes.” Kyle grits his teeth.
“Oh, I’m sorry, go ahead and enlighten us, Francis Scott Key.”
“Can you stop making references nobody understands?” Kenny whines.
“Now I’ve gotta f*cking start over, you ginger bitch.”
“Please don’t,” Stan begs.
“And the rampart’s red glare,” Kenny sings. He and Cartman dissolve into furious giggles. Kyle discretely turns his head to hide his smile from the rest of the group.
Rampart Reservoir is, relatively speaking, a short drive from town, but that’s not saying much when town itself is in the middle of nowhere. They are so far removed from civilization right now that it’s almost unnerving. Almost. South Park has a danger radius so wide that they’re honestly probably better off the further out they get. Thankfully, Cartman and Kenny’s rendition of the Star Spangled Banner runs out of steam by the time they pull into the empty campsite clearing.
“Huh. Thought there’d be more people out here this weekend,” Stan remarks as he unloads the truck. He hands Kyle and Kenny each a tent to stack on top of their growing armfuls. Cartman does not jump at the opportunity to give them a hand. Of f*cking course.
“It’s still sorta cold out, that’s probably why.” Kenny shivers dramatically for effect.
“Kenny, you’re always f*cking cold,” Cartman hollers from where he’s sat, perched atop a tree stump like a princess. Kyle’s eye twitches.
“Hey, fat*ss, thanks for all your help.” Kyle shoots him a dirty look just to see him smiling back innocently.
“What? I’m just enjoying the view.” For a terrifying moment, Kyle thinks the ‘view’ he’s referring to is the sight of him hauling camping equipment, and his face flushes. Then he remembers they’re in the mountains. Surrounded by nature. And beauty. Or whatever. Obviously that’s what Cartman’s referring to.
A little embarrassed, Kyle’s knee-jerk reaction is to throw everything in his arms to the ground. Everyone whips their heads up at the sudden clattering noise.
“Pick it up,” he spits.
“The f*ck?” Cartman glances between him and the others like he’s waiting for someone to tell Kyle he’s being ridiculous. As if. Kyle is not the one being ridiculous. Someone’s gotta get the fat*ss on his feet, and it might as well be him.
“Kyle,” Stan complains. “That sh*t’s not cheap.”
“You didn’t tell us you’d be f*cking menopausal this weekend,” Cartman gripes.
“I said f*cking pick it up!” Kyle’s voice rings through the clearing. Behind him, Kenny mutters something to Stan about how they’ve been here all of five minutes and the married couple is already fighting. Stan just splutters in response.
“You dropped it, asshole. You pick it up,” Cartman scoffs.
Kyle is all too aware of the familiar sensations robbing him of his judgment. The warm cheeks, the coursing adrenaline, the furious unexplainable fluttering in his stomach. How does Cartman always manage to make him forget all sense? He doesn’t lose control around anyone else this easily. At least, he doesn’t think he does.
Unfortunately, self-awareness doesn’t fix the itch he has to take it further. Cartman cast the line and Kyle took the bait. Like always. Lather, rinse, repeat. Lather, rinse, repeat. He takes a step closer.
“Pick it up, you lazy piece of sh*t, or I’ll f*cking make you.”
Cartman’s eyes widen for just a split second before his lids lower in an overindulgent display. “Yeah? Tell me how you’d do that.”
Kyle blinks at the unnatural sultriness of his voice, caught off guard once again. f*ck. Why does he keep doing that? Surely Cartman sees how badly it throws him off, there’s no appropriate way to—
His train of thought is interrupted by Cartman leaping off the stump into a conveniently placed patch of wet dirt. Kyle recoils in disgust at the way mud splatters up onto him, coating his boots, his pants, his torso. Ew, ew, holy sh*t, ew. Cartman just grins up at him. Self-satisfied, cavalier, smile as wide as the horizon.
Kyle screams.
He doesn’t even register that he’s tackled Cartman onto the patch of mud until he feels a cold wetness oozing around his knees and seeping through the fabric of his jeans. “Jesus f*cking Christ, guys, already?” Kenny yells from back at the truck.
“You f*cking psycho!” Cartman screeches out underneath him. He’s the psychopath? He’s the f*cking psychopath? What a f*cking joke.
Kyle briefly loosens his grip on Cartman’s shoulders to grab at his wrists, but Cartman must predict the move somehow, because he surges forward and flips them over at the first sign of release. Without warning, Kyle’s staring up at the clear blue of the sky and the warm brown of Cartman’s eyes.
“Get off of me, dipsh*t.” Kyle rasps with the effort of trying to shove Cartman off of him. The fat asshole just bears his weight down onto Kyle’s lap harder.
“No way. You’re on a rampage, Jersey, I need to keep you restrained for everyone’s safety.” There’s a dangerous glint in Cartman’s eyes and it makes panic rise in Kyle’s stomach like bile.
“Get the f*ck off!” Kyle bucks his hips up in an attempt to throw Cartman off. He doesn’t even budge.
An unreadable expression passes over Cartman’s face. Kyle hates that, hates that so much, hates that he can’t tell what he’s thinking, hates that he can’t predict his next move. “Don’t do that,” Cartman commands, a shaky edge to his voice.
“f*ck you! Get off then!” Kyle’s hips thrust upwards again and Cartman rocks unsteadily on top of him.
“Christ, Jew, I said stop!”
“And I said get off!” Kyle strains. If he wasn’t in such a frenzy, he could take a minute to figure out why the hell his lower abdomen keeps clenching so painfully, but more pressing concerns demand his attention.
“You’re f*cking crazy!” Cartman’s voice wavers, and he moves to make the same miscalculation that Kyle did of attempting to grab his wrists. Kyle sees it coming from a mile away and knows, innately, that this is his only window of opportunity. He throws all his strength into the next buck of his hips, and Cartman’s thrown forward to the point that they’re eye level with one another. Before he has to confront their… precarious new position, he’s shoving him aside onto a protruding tree root and stumbling as quickly as he can to his feet.
His ears ring out harshly. Below him, Cartman is struggling to stand, panting with exertion and huffing out pained little curses under his breath. Kyle’s thoughts echo Cartman’s vocalizations— half-delirious utterances of What the f*ck? and Jesus f*cking sh*t.
Stan and Kenny gape at the two of them awkwardly. f*ck, that’s right. They had an audience for whatever the hell that display was. Kyle’s neck heats with the realization that he’d just been seen in a position that could, potentially, by some, be possibly misinterpreted as somewhat suggestive. It’s not like it was like that, though! Stan and Kenny have to know that. They were just fighting, like usual. Their fights turning physical isn’t anything surprising or noteworthy.
“Um.” Kenny says, tone almost accusatory. Kyle decides that this is unbearable and he needs to remove himself from the situation immediately.
“Going down to the water,” he snarls. “Need to rinse off.” He turns to begin his descent down the hill and ignores the shouts of objection following him.
“Dude, you can’t swim in that,” Stan yells. “You’ll get fined or something.”
Nobody’s going to f*cking fine him. If the park rangers in this county are anything like the local police force, they’re more concerned with racial discrimination and jacking off than they are with actually enforcing the law. Kyle rips his belt off and peels out of his jeans sodden with mud, grimacing at the shock of cold that jolts his body when he toes into the murky water. He throws his shirt to shore for good measure and clenches his eyes shut.
The sun hasn’t even set over their campsite yet and here he is. Half naked, covered in mud, and slightly humiliated. Not in the worst shape that Cartman has ever left him, but it is a little embarrassing that he keeps managing to crack earlier and earlier on. At least Cartman had the good graces to seem sheepish too. Possibly due to the fact that Kyle was practically dry-humping him. Jesus f*ck, that is so not something he wants to think about. Why the hell did he do that? There were definitely better ways to go about dealing with that.
He wades further into the lake and startles at the splashing noise next to him. When he turns to look, Cartman is trudging in right alongside him.
“What the hell are you doing?” Kyle asks incredulously. He stifles the urge to cover up his bare chest like a girl.
“You got sh*t all over me too, asshole,” Cartman responds.
“You’re fully clothed!” Kyle exclaims. “At least take your clothes off before you get in!”
Cartman co*cks an eyebrow. “Y’know, if you wanna see me naked that bad, all you have to do is ask.”
“God, you are so f*cking annoying.” If Kyle thought it was impossible for his face to grow any redder, he was sorely mistaken.
“To answer your question, Jew, the mud is on my clothes too.” Cartman gets a little spark in his eye that guarantees he’s just thought of something painfully unfunny. “Heh. I’m washing me and my clothes, bitch.”
“So, what, you’re just gonna spend the rest of the day completely soaked?”
“See, Kyle, usually when people spend the night away from home, they bring a couple changes of clothes with them.” Cartman tilts his head. “I’m more than willing to share if your stingy ass didn’t bring any.”
“I brought extra clothes, dickhe*d. I’m just surprised you had the foresight to.”
Cartman seems a little offended. Not that Kyle cares. “I’m not the slob you think I am.”
“Right, sure. And your couch isn’t stained from all the times you’ve wiped your Cheeto dust fingers on it.”
“Pretty sure those are just Mr. Kitty’s piss stains.”
“WHAT?” Kyle shouts. “Why would you not tell me that before I sat on it a few hundred times?”
“Relax, I cleaned it off with a Clorox wipe.”
Kyle scoffs in disbelief. “Unbelievable. Every time I think you can’t get more disgusting—”
“I said I cleaned it!”
“That’s not cleaning!” Here it is again, the anger. The frustration building. The adrenaline pumping. The arguments get stupider and stupider every time; are they really about to fight over cat piss? The only explanation his mind can conjure up is that it’s just addicting. Kyle might as well be addicted to the rush. “Just like walking into a lake with your clothes on isn’t washing your clothes!”
“Wow, you’re really trying to get me naked.”
Kyle roars in frustration and splashes the freezing lake water on his face to cool down. He can’t knock Cartman’s teeth out right now. Stan would be upset with him for ruining the camping trip.
It’s quiet for a moment. The air between them is still charged with tension, but neither one speaks. The only sound is the soft lapping of water against their waists until they lock eyes again and abruptly burst out laughing.
“You look so stupid right now,” Cartman manages to get out through peals of laughter. “Your stupid Jew-fro is sticking up everywhere.”
Kyle reaches up to touch his hair self-consciously, but he doesn’t stop snickering. “You don’t look much better yourself. What’s that on your shirt?” He points at a spot just below Cartman’s collar.
“Where?” Cartman looks down and immediately gets his nose flicked back up by Kyle’s index finger. The expression on his face is enough to send Kyle into another fit of hysterics.
“How did you fall for that?” Kyle gasps. “That’s like, the oldest trick ever.”
“f*ck you, Jew,” Cartman says, but he’s grinning and playfully splashing Kyle and Kyle isn’t even trying to fend him off.
Maybe it’s nostalgia. Maybe it’s the freedom summer grants them. Maybe it’s the fact that he’s uncomfortably aware that he won’t get to have this for much longer, but there’s a renewed sense of warmth and excitement in their interactions. It’s always a little staggering how seamlessly they switch from being at each other’s throats to laughing together. What’s even weirder is the bizarre amount of comfort Kyle takes in it.
Cartman splashing him actually rinsed off a decent amount of the mud, so Kyle opts to return the favor. “Don’t do that,” Cartman complains. “There’s probably a ban on swimming ‘cause there’s a brain eating amoeba in the water or something.”
“Why are you allowed to splash me then?” Kyle asks, offended.
“‘Cause you don’t have a brain for it to eat.” Cartman beams.
“I hate you,” Kyle shoots back on instinct, but it completely lacks the bite it usually packs.
“Mm, okay.” And then they’re locking eyes again, and Kyle’s a little uneasy about the violent fluttering he feels in his stomach.
Kyle goes back to trying to scrub off the mud on his arms while Cartman continues singing to no one in particular.
“And the rampart’s red glare,” he warbles, and Kyle snorts unattractively.
“You’re so goddamn stupid.”
“Yeah, you’ve said that once or twice.” Cartman sticks his tongue out at him. “Time to think up some new material.”
All of a sudden, it hits him like a train. Kyle feels the wind knocked out of him by the force of the realization and finds himself unexpectedly trying not to lose his balance, trying not to stumble and stagger backwards into the lake. He wants to kiss Cartman. Right now, in this exact moment, he wants to shut him up by grabbing his idiotic looking face by his chubby cheeks and pulling him in for a furious kiss. What the f*ck? What the f*ck? The thought is completely absurd, but now that he’s thought it, it won’t leave his head.
Beside him, Cartman is thankfully oblivious to his obvious descent into insanity. Seriously, does he need to be institutionalized or something? Has he finally f*cking lost it? Cartman’s humming blissfully and cupping his hands in the water to fish out a dead bee and it only makes the urge to kiss him worse and God, oh God, he’s really f*cking gone out of his mind. Years of enduring Cartman’s antics and typical South Park weirdness have caught up to him and he’s completely melting down.
“I should go back and help them unload the truck,” Kyle says robotically. Good, good. Calm, cool, collected, nobody will suspect a thing.
“Kay,” Cartman responds. “Wait, hold on, c’mere.”
Before Kyle even has a chance to reply, Cartman is stepping closer and leaning up to brush Kyle’s hair. His fingers briefly swipe through his curls, combing out little specks of dirt and mud that Kyle had neglected to address himself. He’s gentle in a way that Kyle rarely, if ever, sees him, wouldn’t even know he had the capability to be if he didn’t see the way he interacts with things he considers precious. Like his cat. And his Nintendo Switch.
It would be so easy to close the distance. Feel his plush lips against his. Holy sh*t, holy sh*t, shut the f*ck up. Kyle is actually going to kill himself.
“There,” Cartman declares like he hasn’t just ruined Kyle’s entire life in a matter of seconds. “Now I don’t have to listen to you complain about me f*cking up your Jew-fro.”
Snarky response. Snarky response, come on, Kyle needs one right now.
“Uh-huh,” he instead says quite intelligently. He briefly weighs the pros and cons of drowning himself in the water.
Cartman turns away from him without a second glance and continues singing whatever George Michael song he’s moved onto and Jesus f*cking Christ on a cross Kyle wants to scream. This can’t be happening. He wades back to shore and walks right on past his pile of muddy clothes. This can’t be happening.
It’s not temporary insanity, he realizes on the short walk back up to camp. This has a precedent. He wanted to kiss him on the rooftop at Stan’s house. He wanted to kiss him when he was flirting with him like a f*cking harlot on the last day of school. He wanted to kiss him last month when they were playing Skate 3 alone in his living room, he wanted to kiss him when he was pummeling him into the ground on Valentine’s Day, he wanted to kiss him on his birthday last year when Cartman got him the Game of Thrones graphic novel he’d been secretly wishing for for months, holy hell, how far back does this sh*t go?
This cannot be happening.
When he clears the hill and camp comes back into view, Stan is struggling to hold a tent together and Kenny is tossing those tiny popping fireworks into the tiny campfire he has going.
“Oh, good, you’re back,” Stan grunts. “Once you change, can you just hold onto that stake right there?”
Kyle fishes through his duffle bag for a fresh shirt and pair of pants, then takes a seat on the ground next to Stan. “I take it Cartman’s not gonna come help out?”
Kyle’s stomach definitely does not flip over itself at the mere mention of Cartman’s name. “Fat chance,” he grumbles.
Stan snorts. “Pun intended?” He reaches over to begin hammering the stake Kyle is holding still into the ground.
This is good. Interacting with Stan and Kenny should take his mind off of things. There’s always a chance that he’ll wake up in the morning cured of his. Well. Confusion.
Deep down, he knows that’s a long shot. Deep down, he knows he’s been doomed from the moment the pieces in his head clicked together, and when Cartman’s head pokes up over the hill, clothes dripping and hair disheveled, Kyle realizes with a shock of horror that the warm, comforting, stomach fluttering feeling he’s been brushing off for so long probably has a name.
f*ck.
