Somewhere Only We Know


AN: This is my first story...yeah. Criticism welcome. I don't own South Park, or the song, "Somewhere Only We Know" by Keane. I'm not cool enough, sorry. Enjoy, I guess?


I walked across an empty land,

I knew the pathway like the back of my hand.

I meandered slowly along a dirt trail toward the house of an old friend. I walked slowly, stopping every so often to kick a clump of dirt from my path. It had been a couple years since the trail had been used and it had some grass trying to breach the sides, but I had a plan in place to help stop that. I was heading to Stan's house, the back way.

The boy had been avoiding me lately and I wanted to know why. It didn't matter how long Stan was gone, I still missed him. One day or four weeks, it was all the same. I needed Stan beside me, laughing with me at all the strange things that tended to happen in South Park.

There was just one problem. Stan had been slowly drifting into oblivion in the past few days. After school on Friday, just a day ago, Stan hadn't even rode home with me, something he had done ever since I had gotten my license. I distinctly remembered asking Stan if he wanted to come over like every other normal weekend, but the dark haired boy had just looked at me, politely declined, then proceeded to walk out of the school to board the bus. Stan hadn't rode the bus in months. I knew why. The bus sucked ass.

That's what made no sense. What could possibly make Stan so paralyzed that he could sit on a wretched bus and not even care? I, his Super Best Friend, could drive him home. We even listened to a mix of indie rock and rap specially made for our rides home.

I had first gotten worried when Stan didn't eat his mashed potatoes at lunch on Tuesday. He had always ate his mashed potatoes, ever since third grade. Kenny had to eat the remnants off his tray that day. No one seemed to notice anything different except me. A nervous twinge had started to tickle my stomach as I thought about the warning signs. It seemed as though Stan was dangerously close to entering depression again. I'd checked with Wendy and they were still together as far as she knew.

The only thing that I could remember that had been different was the previous Monday when Stan and I had played football out in Stan's yard.

We almost never played sports together, considering that I wasn't nearly as good as him. He was roughly twenty pounds more packed with muscle than me, the lanky Jew.

After tackling each other in the yard for an hour, we'd both been covered in sweat, grass stains, and mud. Stan had offered me the chance to take a shower and I had accepted gratefully, not seeing why I wouldn't want to wash the crud off of my skin.

After thoroughly cleaning myself, I had stepped out of the shower, only to find Stan wiping his face off with a hand towel. I had tried to step back in, but Stan hadn't noticed that I was out.

He blinked his eyes open to find a shiny, still soaking wet, me in my birthday suit. Stan eyes grew large, his face went red, and he covered his face with the towel he had just used.

"Sorry man!" He apologized quickly, turning away and leaving the bathroom in a rush. I hadn't seen the big deal. Stan and I had seen each other in just underwear plenty of times before. We hadn't seen each other completely nude in a couple of years though. That explained the embarrassment. I shook my head. Stan shouldn't be worried. At least he is straight. If the role had been reversed, I would have had a much harder time dealing with the consequences of seeing the one boy you were gay for completely naked.

Besides that, nothing else had been out of the ordinary. Stan usually wasn't affected by nudeness anyway. He changed next to me and Kenny for soccer. I snuck glances every so often at Stan's bare chest when he changed his shirt because it was just too tempting, and nobody ever noticed. Stan had nothing to worry about. I should have been the guilty one.

I shook my head, getting my mind out of the gutter. Thinking about Stan had clearly disrupted my mission. I was standing in the middle of the path, in a clear open field behind Butter's house. I started to walk again, just focusing on putting one foot in front of the other. I knew what I would find inside Stan's house most certainly wouldn't be a happy sight. I crossed my fingers and hoped that it wasn't as bad as when Wendy broke up with him. My mind began to wander again to what I would say when I arrived at Stan's house, but I kept walking because after all, I knew the pathway like I knew the contents of my iPod, and rest assured, I knew every song in my music library.

I felt the earth beneath my feet,

sat by the river and it made me complete.

I was nearing Stan's house when the path turned into sand. My sneakers sunk in, letting the sand slide in between my socks and the soles of my shoes. My eyebrows knit in frustration, considering the fact that I hated sand. I always have. I sat down in the grass beside the trail, pulled off my shoes and socks, and began to dump the small grains of sand out. I cursed at the sand as I shook my socks, reminding me of the time I had spent spring break with my four friends camping near the local river. The sand there hadn't been too bad, until Cartman had dumped a pail-full into my duffel for spite against me. I stole his marshmallow the night before. Big deal.

I had been so pissed in the morning when I found everything I brought thoroughly covered in nasty sand. I had continued in my wrath to wake Cartman from sleep, grasping his throat and gripping as hard as I could. I almost suffocated the fat bastard but Stan came up behind me and laid a hand on my shoulder, causing me to lose focus momentarily. It allowed the fatass to squirm away.

"Fuck you, Jew rat," Cartman rasped, coughing and sputtering while trying to regain oxygen.

"Don't let him get to you, Kyle," Stan had said softly into my ear. "I'll help you clean up, if you'd like."

"Thank god, because I don't think I could handle blowing every grain of sand from my belongings by myself!" I sighed, grabbing the straps to my duffel bag and slipping outside the tent.

We proceeded to take a seat by the river where we could beat the clothes against the rocks, shake the sand out, and wash everything else waterproof in the shallow water. I had ranted for awhile about Cartman's idiocy, but then we fell into a contented silence of work. I had been smiling the whole time, despite the circumstances, but Stan had that effect sometimes. The way he was so willing to help and never complained made the whole chore go so much faster. Stan had chuckled at my remarks towards Cartman while never instigating, because he knew me all too well. My heart felt so full of love from our friendship that day, but I knew there was a budding secret that was starting to appear in my heart.

No one else knew, but I had been in love with Stan for as long as I could remember. It was just toward the end of ninth grade that I started to have more need to fulfill my dream of being with Stan.

Oh, simple thing, where have you gone?

I put my socks and shoes back on, smiling at the memory I had just relived. I wondered where the days had gone. Stan and I had been so close back then. Where did the years go when we could be close friends without question? Now whenever we spent too much time together, everyone assumed we were gay. Stan always denied it, as usual, but I had started to wonder if Stan ever thought about if it could be true like I did. I tried to convince myself that Stan didn't, but I couldn't help but wonder. The reaction of Stan in the bathroom that Monday didn't help me find a solid answer either. I neared Stan's back door and temporarily cleared the thoughts from my mind.

I'm getting old and I need someone to rely on.

I cracked the back door open and knocked softly. I heard a noise come from the living room and soon Sharon appeared in the kitchen.

"Oh, Kyle. Come on in, honey. Stan's up in his room. He's been up there a lot lately. I assumed he was up there with you. You been over here?" A flurry of words bombarded me as I moved completely through the doorway.

"Um, not really. I was over here on Monday," I answered as I closed the door behind me. "I haven't been here since though."

"Jeez, it's been four days, boy!" She chuckled, causing me to smile a little. "Can you talk some sense into him?" Her face suddenly becoming worried. "He hasn't been himself lately." She shook her head as she picked a dish off the counter and opened to dishwasher to put it in.

"I'll try. I noticed something different about him too. I'll go see what I can do," I mumbled as I headed off toward the stairs.

"You'd think that a teenager could handle his own feelings, but it's still like he's ten," Sharon muttered to herself, loud enough for me to overhear.

"Hey Kyle," Randy greeted from the couch as I passed through the living room.

"Hey Randy," I returned lifelessly.

I continued on up to Stan's room, stopping to kick Shelly's door on the way there. After hearing her shriek of rage from behind the closed door, I walked calmly into Stan's room. I found said raven laying on his bed with giant Skullcandy headphones on. I walked quietly behind him, all the way around to the other side, then jumped up next to him. It scared the living shit out of him, I was sure. His eyes widened more than I'd ever seen, and he'd pushed himself away quickly, causing him to roll right off the bed.

"What the fuck?" I heard him shout from the floor. I was laughing quite hard by the time I saw Stan's head pop up above the bed. "Why do you keep scaring me?" He spat while standing up. He took his headphones off, tossing them onto the floor in disgust.

"This is the first time, dude," I answered, confused. "What other time was there?" Stan cleared his throat and nodded in the direction of the bathroom. I snorted loudly. "That was your fault, my man. I was the innocent one just taking a shower." I put a hand to my chest like I was shocked. "You," I pointed, "shouldn't have been in there."

"It wasn't completely my fault. You just stood there and didn't even try to cover yourself!" Stan threw his hands up in the air.

"I'm sorry. I was too busy trying to get back in the shower to avoid being eye raped!" I sat up on my knees, holding my hands up in surrendering position. "Of course, you wouldn't have gotten such a nice look if I'd done that," I said, raising my eyebrows.

"I didn't see THAT much," he muttered, sitting back down on the bed.

"In that case," I stopped, pulling my shirt off. "You need another look to finish the mental image, don't you?" I came up behind him and wrapped my arms around his middle.

"Get off of me, pervert," he chuckled, leaning backward, causing me to fall down onto the bed. He fell back too so that we were laying next to each other.

So tell me when you're going to let me in.

"Stan, what's going on?" I asked him, bluntly. I didn't want to waste any time beating around the bush. Something was going on with him and he needed to be brought back to his lovely reality.

"It's...it-who am I kidding?" He sat up quickly, the loss of his body heat leaving me wanting more. "I'm torn."

"Um, may I ask why?" My eyebrows raised, considering the fact that Stan usually refrained from bursting out like this. He must have been thinking about it beforehand. I glanced down at his iPod, still playing the song he'd been listening to before I had pounced. All-American Rejects. He almost never listened to them anymore. Something must really be bothering him because he only went nostalgic right before he went full on Saosin. After Saosin...I don't want to go there.

"I'm falling in love with someone else," he explained, pinching the bridge of his nose. "I still love Wendy, I mean, she's all I've ever known."

"How do you know that this other person isn't just a crush?" I was becoming more and more curious at the second. If this mysterious person could pull Stan even the slightest bit away from Wendy, I could go to them for advice on how they managed to accomplish such a feat.

"How do I know? I don't know, that's just it. I just, feel-" He paused, looking back at me, a questioning look on his face. "Wait, do you even care?"

"I asked, didn't I?" I sat up to be beside him, his eyes following my every move.

"My mom put you up to this, didn't she?" His eyes changed to a sheen of betrayal.

"Well, yes,-"

"That's all I needed to know," he said, standing up and moving to the window on the other side of the room.

"That's not why I asked. I was coming over here to check on you myself." I explained quickly, trying to regain his attention.

"Nice save, but I don't believe you." He shook his head, pulling back the curtain and staring out at the fields and the nearby woods.

"Stan, you didn't eat your mashed potatoes this Tuesday," I said, standing up and heading for him. I placed a hand on his shoulder and was surprised when he didn't move away.

"You would notice that, Ky," he chuckled just a little bit, turning his head to look into my eyes.

What I saw on his face was shocking. He was a little angry, his eyebrows furrowed, but his eyes looked vulnerable and broken, and his mouth was in a slight grin still from my previous comment.

My hand slid off his shoulder as he leaned back against the window. "Can we go outside?" He suggested it out of the blue.

"Um, yeah, sure." I wasn't exactly sure why he wanted to go out there, but it wasn't a particularly bad day, so I didn't see why not.

He walked quickly out of the house, me close behind. I caught a glimpse of Sharon watching us as she wiped the counters. She had a worried look on her face, but I shot her a quick smile and she waved back. Hopefully she understood that I had the situation somewhat under control.

I'm getting tired and I need somewhere to begin.

I followed Stan closely, never letting him get more than a few paces ahead of me, but I never quite caught up. He had his head down, padding through the woods at a moderate speed. He seemed to know the path quite well, contrary to me. I yawned, the lack of conversation making the effects of a late night become more apparent. I ran various conversation starters through my head, but I couldn't settle on one that wouldn't seem too intrusive on Stan's private thoughts. He seemed to not notice anything around him, not even when I tripped or cracked multiple sticks in my path. He just kept walking, weaving around branches and jumping patches of thorns.

I came across,

a fallen tree.

Soon enough, we were deep into the forest near Stark's Pond and I was starting to get a little worried.

"Stan?" I called, for he was starting to distance himself farther and farther away from me.

"What?" He turned, stopping to look at me.

"Where are we going?" I asked dejectedly. He'd better have a damn good reason for us to be this far back in the woods when it was close to dark.

"Here," he called, pointed a tad to his right. There was a vaguely familiar clearing that I hadn't noticed before. I ran down the path to catch him as he brushed a few tree branches aside.

We came to the clearing and it suddenly hit me. We used to come back here to play pretend when we were in second or third grade. We imagined everything back here. Indians. Detectives. Family. A pang of want hit my stomach at the thought of the last game. If only we could be together like a family now.

In the middle of the clearing was a log, the remnants of an old tree.

"Is this the tree we used to sit on and take turns drinking from Cartman's mother's flask?" I laughed in amazement, for I already knew it was.

"Yep, it sure is. I just rediscovered it a few days ago when I wandered back here. I thought I'd show it to you while you were around. It seemed like a good place to talk." He walking over to the tree, jumping up to sit right in the middle.

I felt the branches of it looking at me.

I walked over, about to sit up next to him when a flash of a strange pattern caught my eye. I paused, one hand on the trunk of the tree as I flicked my head to the right, looking for what I had just seen. Again, I found the pattern and I moved closer to get a better look. I traced my fingers across the pattern and found it to be a carving. It was sloppy, and the wood was slightly rotted, but I could still make out a few letters. "S & K was here," I read aloud, smiling. I remembered when Stan and I had carved that into the tree. It was the last time we had ever come back into this clearing. Cartman and Kenny had long since found better things to do on a Wednesday afternoon. It had been just Stan and me for that last year.
We still played games back then, but we had matured enough to be able to actually sit down and talk to each other about more important things than the fake healing properties of a particular leaf of clover like we did in our Indian game.

"Kyle," he had called softly while we were walking back and forth across the newly downed tree.

"Stan," I had replied, jumping up onto a high branch before swinging down to sit beside where he had stopped. He promptly dropped down beside me.

"I think I'm in love." My eyes promptly grew ten sizes.

"With who?"

"Wendy."

"Well, duh. You guys have been dating since third grade," I laughed, partly at myself for thinking that he loved anyone else.

"We've been dating, but I've never kissed her on the lips, without puking on her at least," he added the last part remorsefully.

"So you're going to kiss her?" I looked straight at him, daring him to actually do it.

"Yep. I'm gonna do it. But...I can't." He looked away, his gaze falling to the walnut on the ground.

"Why not? You can do it. Man up," I cheered, slapping him on the back.

"Maybe I will," he laughing, his gaze traveling to me once more. "Just promise me that if Wendy and I become more serious, you won't get jealous if I have to spend more time with her."

"Why would I be jealous?" I scoffed. Preposterous.

"Because we spend every waking minute together, and that might change."

"I won't get jealous, Stan." I looked him straight in the eyes to prove my point.

"You'll always be my super best friend, Kyle. Nothing will change that."

"You're my SBF too, Stan," I admitted, smiling.

"Handshake?" He asked, putting a hand up.

"Handshake," I agreed, proceeding to do the intricate routine we had made for our title as Super Best Friends. At the end, we laughed, hopping from the branch we had been sitting on and down to the ground.

"I guess we should stop coming here. We're getting a little old for this." Stan looked around, his eyes telling me that he was as sad about leaving as I was.

"Yeah, we've grown out of it, but let's leave a marker so we can come back someday," I suggested. "Got a knife?"

"Uh, yeah, why?" He asked, digging in his pocket and pulling out a Swiss Army knife.

"Watch," I instructed, opening the blade and walking over to the tree. I carved a K into the wood where we had been sitting. "K was here," I read, blowing the bark away from my new marking.

"Don't forget me," he said, carving an S and an & sign next to my K. "STAN AND Kyle was here."

"That's not grammatically correct," I laughed, grabbing the knife from him, about to scratch it out and fix it. Stan grabbed the knife from my hand, closing it in a way that only a true knife owner could.

"Leave it. Nothing has to be perfect." He grabbed my hand, pulling me away from the tree trunk, stopping at the edge of the clearing to take one more look. "Goodbye, magic tree," he whispered.

"Goodbye," I echoed.

Is this the place we used to love?

"I thought I'd never see this again," I said to Stan, looking back to see his reaction to my discovery. His eyes were lit with a fire of excitement I hadn't seen since Monday.

"It's still there?" He asked, jumping down from his perch so he could come look.

"Yeah! This is so cool!" I pointed at the carving, stepping back so he could get a good look at it too.

"Awesome, dude. I never thought we'd come back here again. I didn't even notice it when I found this place two days ago." He rubbed his head, looking around, seemingly trying to find something else that would have diverted his attention and made him not notice such a distinct marking.

"Didn't you come here to talk?" I asked, jumping up onto the log.

"Oh, right," he sighed, all the happiness draining out of his face. I immediately regretted asking. He climbed up to sit beside me, rubbing his palms in his hands, brushing the rotting bark off. "I just don't know if Wendy's worth it anymore."

"She had been kind of distant and bitchy lately, if I do say so myself."

"She has, hasn't she?" His eyes squinted, as if he was trying to remember all the times she had acted out.

"But then again, so have you." I laughed to myself.

"Hey, I'm just a...jumble of feelings right now and I-I just don't know what to do about it." He struggled to explain.

"Are you going to tell me the name of this other person you are falling for or am I gonna have to guess?" I was definitely curious about who this crush worthy person was.

"I'm not even sure I can tell you," he muttered.

"What?" I was kind of hurt that he had led me out into the forest just to tell me that I couldn't know every detail.

"I'm just not sure if it's even worth telling you about. You'll only worry with me, or try to make something happen that won't be good me, Wendy, or this other said person."

"I thought Super Best Friends told each other everything?" I pouted, looking at him with puppy dog eyes.

"Oh stop it, Ky," he said, pushing my shoulder. He laughed at my face, making me giggle. At least he was laughing. "I'll tell you when I'm ready. I promise. You'll be the first to know."

"Rain check?" I smiled.

"Yep." He hopped down and I followed suit, pushing myself off the tree.

"Hey," he said, grabbing my arm before I started to walk toward the trail. "Thanks for asking about me," he smiled, his cheeks flushed just the slightest bit. He moved forward, pulling me toward him. My body instantly tensed, anticipating a tight bear hug. Instead, his face came dangerously close to mine, so close that I could feel his warm breath on my nose. He moved just slightly to the side and kissed my cheek, leaving that spot flaming. The nerve endings in that side of my face went ballistic, leaving me blushing profusely. "You're the only one who really cares," he said, pulling away, smiling at my reaction. "Race you back?"

Before I could utter a simple vowel sound, he had taken off, leaving me facing the clearing. He kissed my cheek. What does that mean? What in the hell does that even mean?

Is this the place that I've been dreaming of?

I had been waiting so long for him to kiss me. If only I had moved my face a little to one side. I longed to feel the fire his lips caused on mine, on my neck and every other part of my body. I had dreamed of a moment like this and it had just happened at the most random time. Why hadn't I taken in every second just a little better? How would I be able to replay such a moment when I had barely been paying attention? It was over so quickly, and I didn't have time to dwell as the sun dropped in the sky. I ran after Stan, trying to make sure I didn't lose the sound of his feet crunching on the underbrush. I would not let him get away without an explanation for what he had just done.

And if you have a minute why don't we go,

talk about it somewhere only we know.

This could be the end of everything,

so why don't we go,

somewhere only we know.

He had taken me to a place that only we had known about, then kissed me on the cheek. This could change everything. It could end everything. It could start everything. All because he had decided to take a walk in the woods. He just had to pull that stunt on me, and he had absolutely no idea how I felt about him. Or did he? Did he know and was just trying to mess with me? I was becoming paranoid as I trailed the boy through the woods.

As I burst through the outskirts of the forest and into the small field, I saw Stan opening the back door to his house. I knew he had won the race, so I stopped briefly to catch my breath. I looked back at the path. I longed to visit the clearing again, just so I could replay that moment of his lips on my cheek. I'll remember this place, of course. So would Stan. It was somewhere only we know.