Cat's Cradle
Disclaimer: I do not own South Park. I do own action figures of South Park, however.
He liked to be strangled. The act of fingers pressing against his throat, the heady feeling of the loss of oxygen, the burning in his lungs, the gasping breaths, the black engulfing his vision.
Most people thought that there had to be a strong bond between two people. He knew that all it took was one person who didn't mind dying and another that was soulless enough to not mind someone dying because of their actions. Those two fit the profile perfectly. The trilingual boy doesn't utter a sound as the German berates him, black bangs hiding his lifeless sapphire eyes. Every word bounces off him as he waits for everything to be over.
The walk to the ice rink is a long one, feet dragging against the winding sidewalks. "Stan!" He looks up at the two smiling Brofloski boys and attempts a grin. It's become easier to fake happiness lately. "You ready for the game today, Coach?" Kyle teases, putting his arm around Stan's shoulder.
"You should be asking Ike about that. He's the Captain. And he's been around longer."
Kenny was envious of Kyle's relationship with Stan. He wished that he were Stan's other half instead of Kyle. He considered Stan his best friend since he was the only person who was nice to him and he admired Stan. Though most people, if they were being honest, admired Stan. He watched the three in the parking lot from the roof of the rink and wondered if he should feel jealous of Ike too.
Stan listened to Cartman. It was his fault after all. Stan couldn't figure out what attracted him. It certainly wasn't his looks. Maybe it was that if Stan told Cartman to choke him, he'd do it without hesitation.
Today, however, Cartman seemed to loath even his existence. "Afraid I'm going to turn you into a Jew? Or has the fat ass finally gotten a soul?"
"Go to hell, Marsh."
Stan looked around and then turned back to Cartman, "Look's like I'm already there. So what do you want to begin with?"
Stan Marsh likes to play god. His thoughts full of images of his friends dying at his hands. Especially Kyle. It was nearly always Kyle. It was these thoughts that led him to Cartman's house. He absolved his sins by placing his life in Cartman's hands.
Kenny wonders why Stan seems to be spending all of his time with Cartman. "Kyle? Do you know why Stan's spending so much time with Cartman?"
Kyle looks at him, probably wrapping his mind around the idea that his other half is becoming best buddies with his worst nightmare. "I don't know. Maybe he's trying to work something out with Cartman."
Wide-eyed but passive, Kyle watches Stan as he gets into the passenger seat of Kyle's car. Bruises from thick, meaty fingers stand out making a deep purple ring around Stan's throat. Kyle sees the blood and mud covering Stan's clothes. "The blood's not mine, Kyle." Kyle lets out a sigh of relief.
"Who did you kill, Stan?"
The first time Stan kills Kenny, it's a dark and stormy night. "I'd rather be in some part of your life than not. Even if it means letting you kill me."
There's blood everywhere and he's dissecting Kenny like he's some kind of mad scientist, memorizing every organ and wondering if Kyle's insides look just like this. He doesn't even attempt a burial, just kisses stone cold lips and turns his back on his victim.
When he finally ends up on Cartman's doorstep, he has to make him strangle him, putting his hands on his neck and applying just enough force. As he exits, he can hear Cartman whisper, "If it were anyone else I wouldn't have any problem."
Kyle knows he shouldn't have asked Stan who he killed but it slipped out. He hits the locks on the doors, fearing that if he doesn't, Stan will slip out into the night and he'll never see him again. "Kenny," Stan whispers.
"Kenny?"
"Oh my god," he states as though he's just figured something out, "I killed Kenny." They could both hear the 'You bastard!' hanging in the air between them. "He wanted to die. He wanted me to kill him. Why the hell did I do it, Kyle? What the hell was I thinking?"
Kyle ignores that question in favor of another, "Who hurt you, Stan?" In a way, he already knows the answer. There is only one person in South Park who has fingers shaped like the prints around Stan's neck.
"I did," he mutters and Kyle watches him, ignoring the fact that they're in front of Stan's empty house. "I made him do it. He didn't want to but he doesn't get it. Someone has to do something to me."
Kyle turns Stan's face to face his, forehead touching his. "I'm going to clean you up, Stan. And then you're going to go to sleep, alright?" Stan merely nods in the dim light.
Kenny's smiling the very next day. Kyle wonders why on earth he'd be smiling. Stan killed him last night, didn't he?
The rain pours late that night and Stan's kissing Kenny, hard. "Why do you let me kill you?" Stan still has his arms snaked around Kenny's waist, hands slipped into the back pockets of his jeans. He stares into the deep cocoa orbs and wonders what goes on in the 'most often killed kid in South Park' 's head.
Time stands still as Kenny thinks of a way to phrase it without scaring Stan off. "Murder is a very intimate crime, Stan. Especially when you commit it. There's something, a bond of sorts, formed between the killer and their victim. It leaves the murderer unable to forget whom they've killed and how they'd done it. Besides, this is something only I can do for you."
The second time he kills Kenny it's with arsenic. Kenny never suspects that his drink was laced with the tasteless, odorless poison. Stan dissects Kenny again, this time dissecting his organs too. He kisses his lips, a farewell until tomorrow.
Kyle makes the mistake of looking at Stan's sketchbook during Art class. He sees how Kenny died last night, body dissected, organs poked and prodded but it isn't Kenny's body that's lying on the forest floor. Kenny's taller than that, thicker, and that isn't his face, hair, or…hat.
"Who is it you really want to kill?" Kyle asks Stan at lunch. Kenny looked between the two of them and considers leaving the table and looking for Cartman. Stan's lips are bruised and his wrists are covered in red marks shaped like fingers. He tells himself that he doesn't want to know what happened to Stan, but he knows he will later.
Stan fidgets with his drink, eyes downcast and probably filled with fear. "Like it really matters, you stupid Jew. If you can't figure it out on your own…well I wouldn't be surprised. Marsh, you owe me. Unless you've forgotten."
Stan shakes his head, tossing the rest of his lunch to Kenny before swinging his backpack back on his shoulders and following Cartman out of the lunch room.
Kenny turns back to Kyle, eating Stan's leftover lunch, "What did you see that made you ask that question?"
"There's a drawing in Stan's sketchbook," Kyle hesitates, "Of me. Dead. With my organs dissected."
Kenny shrugs. "He's obsessed with you. It's bound to spill over into his other thoughts. Besides, you'd look good dead. Stan would look even better."
Kyle nods in understanding. Stan is probably one of the only people who would still look attractive dead.
"It's nice of Stan to do that for Cartman."
"Do what?"
"If it wasn't for Stan, Cartman wouldn't get off." Kyle turns pale. "Are you going to eat that?"
Admittedly no one understood Stan. They understood why he liked Wendy. They would have understood, even accepted him liking Kyle or Kenny. But Cartman? Was he crazy? Well yes. He was crazy. And he had a death wish.
Cartman wasn't nice to him. For Cartman's standards he was, of course, but from anyone else, it would have seemed cruel. Stan liked that. No one else was that mean to him on a daily basis. With the exception of his ex-girlfriend but if they ever got back together again, she'd be nice again.
He liked the fact that Cartman was such an asshole. And even the fact that Cartman was racist. He expelled racial slurs and bigot remarks as easily as Stan did tolerance and complete honesty.
"We're complete opposites, Cartman."
"We were complete opposites. Now you're probably just as bad as me."
Stan beamed at him, clasping their hands together, "Wanna ditch class? I could go for some lunch."
"You're paying."
"Then you're driving."
Kyle couldn't say he was surprised when he didn't see Stan the rest of the day. Disappointed? Yes. Stan always seemed to pick the worst people to latch on to. "Wendy and Cartman for example. What does he see in either of them? Other than the fact that they're both complete assholes. Wendy's probably just as Anti-Semitic as Cartman is. Considering that I 'took' Stan away from her. I wonder what I should do for the handful of hours I have before I pick up Stan, after he kills Kenny and visits Cartman. Why am I so ok with all of this?"
"There's this game I used to play when I was a little kid." They were sitting on a rock, staring up at the full moon. "It involved string. The whole point was to be able to pull the string and have your fingers come loose. I could do it every single time I tried."
Stan strangled Kenny with his scarf, nimble fingers easily tying the long, deep blue scarf, tight around his throat. Kenny turned a violent shade of red before going completely pale.
"Why won't you choke me, Stan? Afraid you won't be able to?"
Stan shook his head. "I'm afraid that if I start I won't be able to stop."
"Where's your scarf?" Kyle asks Stan as he gets into the passenger seat, tiny gold chain around his neck visible even in the dim light. That chain was hidden from Cartman by the scarf. Stan shrugs.
"I killed Kenny with it. So he has it."
Kyle doesn't say anything, driving back in silence. "Cartman asked me why I wouldn't choke him like he does me. I told him that if I started, I wouldn't be able to stop. How sick is that, Kyle? How completely messed up am I?" Kyle grips the steering wheel, hard and doesn't utter a sound. He doesn't want to know what he thinks about anything anymore.
"You're fine, Stan. For South Park, this is normal." A little white lie never hurt anyone. Except Kyle.
Stan turns on him. "You're just like the rest of them, aren't you? If we pretend that Stan's ok, it will no longer be a problem for us." He unclasps the chain, handing it to Kyle, "Keep your religion; your God's dead anyway." He throws open the door and thrusts himself into the night. Kyle, for the first time in his life, feels lost.
He watched the hockey team apathetically, making sure to avoid Kyle. What was he doing? Dragging those stupid boys into his 'House of Horrors'? He turned in his resignation after the game, mouth quirked slightly upwards. They didn't need his influence anymore.
He wanted to kill someone. That need invaded his thoughts and every time he saw Kenny, with his blue scarf around his neck, his fingers itched again.
Kyle couldn't concentrate. He wanted Stan. It felt like he lost the more important half of himself when Stan ran out that night. Kyle stopped being Jewish. All the words ran off.
Kenny remembered being forgotten, cast off like a broken toy. It was something his parents did. Like they cared where his next meal came from. Or if he died. He did that too often for anyone to care, save Stan. Even Kyle gave up on him. But Stan cared enough to do the killing himself. Now there was something wrong. And all he could do was wait.
The star had been burned into his chest. And he knew that just like his own religion, he couldn't run away from Kyle's. Even if it was dead.
Kenny stood over at the edge of the cliff. He was going to kill himself, no ifs or buts about it. It was the only way to stop the cycle. And the cycle had to end. To save Stan. Hopefully. Lots of people died and stayed dead. He wanted that. It sounded like music to his ears.
The best memory Kenny had was a handful of years ago, around the beginning of High School, right after Stan and Kyle got into a huge row, one of the few they'd ever get into. Stan came over to Kenny's house since no one was home and told him that he wanted to try out anything that Kenny was up for.
They started out with smoking, which wasn't a good idea considering that Stan had asthma. Then they drank. Again, not a good idea since both Stan and Kenny's fathers were alcoholics. Kenny considered himself lucky that he could rely on Stan's will power to stop them after the first beer.
Finally they found themselves kissing on Kenny's bed. "Is that what you were pondering about?" Kenny asked, when they broke for air. Stan nodded, bending down for another kiss. It was what Kenny admired about Stan. If it felt right, it was.
He could remember every brush of skin against skin and with Stan above him, within him, he felt complete. It was that night that he knew that he would do anything to help Stan. Fall on his sword one last time.
"Don't do this, Kenny, please. I'm sorry. Whatever I did, I'm so, so sorry." Stan whispered something in Latin, and Kenny, the devout Irish Catholic, answered back in turn before dropping off the cliff and dying for the last time.
The funeral was the first place he saw Kyle at after such a long time. They sat side by side, hands clasped together between them. Stan burst into tears at one moment, burying himself in Kyle's shoulder. It was then that Hebrew escaped from his mouth, flowing like a swift river but softly, and sensibly. Though his god and his faith were dead, the words came back. And hearing Stan answer back in the same language made him feel as though Stan had finally forgiven him.
Stan found Cartman at the pond, on the bridge they used to walk together on. "You don't know how much I've missed you."
"You attacked Kyle Brofloski. You promised you wouldn't."
"Not everything's about you. You're so selfish, Marsh, and you're such a tease. Did you ever think that I might want to die?"
"I'll kill you," Stan stated, softly, "If that's what you really want."
Cartman nodded. Stan began to strangle him.
Cartman got why Kenny let Stan kill him all the time. The last few seconds of his life, he saw that Stan looked almost real.
After Cartman's funeral, Stan sat alone in his empty bedroom, in his equally empty house. He pulled out a bundle of string that he used to play cat's cradle with when he was a little kid. He attempted the game now, moving his string in familiar patterns.
Kyle wanted to leave with Stan but he didn't want to ruin what little ground he managed to regain with Stan.
His fingers got caught in the thread.