All I Want Is You
(pieces of a love story)
A/N: Mostly, when I have written relationships in this fandom, it has all been based around conflict and hardship. That is out of character for me. I normally write cheerful, banter-y scripts full of thriving, ongoing relationships. So, I decided it was time I contributed something more like that: something about when things just work out and it's easy. And people banter.
This is proper, sappy, cliché-laden slash fic. No unconventional endings this time!
It is not really a story, as such. It is just meant to be comforting. Please, be comforted by it. Writing it has certainly comforted me. ^^
"All I want is you, will you be my bride? Take me by the hand and stand by my side. All I want is you, will you stay with me? Hold me in your arms and sway me like the sea."
~ 'All I Want Is You', Barry Louis Polisar
The season was setting in hard. The air had begun to grow solid; it slammed into people's faces as they stepped from the glowing comfort of morning homes. Dull silence blew in, sweeping away the birdsong and the rustle of leaves from the trees, while the snow piled higher and became spitefully treacherous. Life gradually slowed and dimmed around the people of South Park. At nights, the windows of the houses gleamed like beacons: a last bright line of defence against the winter dark.
The light from the energy-saving bulb which hung from the ceiling of the Marsh's bathroom was dewy and cocooning. The familiar hum of the central heating and the gentle weight of the ale in Kyle's stomach flushed spots of colour to his cheeks as he stood, woozy, before the bathroom mirror, with his toothbrush clutched secure in one fist. Saturday nights spent this way, hiding from the freeze in the warmth of Stan's house, were what made winter bearable.
"I'll race you," Stan said, lifting his toothbrush towards his gleaming grin.
Kyle stared at his friend's reflection in the mirror.
"Are you fucking kidding me?" he asked, although it came out as nothing but a mumble and a ungraceful dribble of toothpaste, seeing as Kyle's lips were already wrapped around the head of his toothbrush and his cheeks bulging with froth.
"Yeah. Race," Stan repeated, and nudged Kyle aside to reach the tap. Kyle spat into the sink and then watched as Stan draped a minty turd of toothpaste across the bristles of his brush.
"You're, like, the most retarded person ever," Kyle said, to which Stan merely snorted and smiled like he was so superior. "Anyway," Kyle said, "I'm already way ahead. I did my first spit already, dude."
Stan shrugged. He met Kyle's gaze in the mirror and lifted his toothbrush at the ready. Kyle's mouth was already open to reiterate why he was so far above such juvenile pastimes as a teeth-brushing race, – and really, how the hell were you even supposed to win such a thing? – when Stan barked, "Go!" and they were suddenly both scrubbing frantically at their teeth as though it might just save their souls from hell. Wrist muscles honed by video games and masturbation kept pace, as they both jerked their elbows from angle to competitive angle. Their reflections exchanged narrowed glances. The foam they spat out melted together and oozed down the plughole as one uniform mass.
A final rinse and spit completed almost simultaneously, they both lunged to replace their brush in the cup, jostling with shoulders and hip bones to slow one another down. It was too close to call. The cup clattered to the floor between them, empty and unfulfilled. Kyle nearly stumbled backwards over the rim of the bathtub in the commotion; Stan instinctively snatched a handful of Kyle's shirt, and then had to grab hold of the sink to stop Kyle taking them both down. There was a ringing crack as the handle of Stan's toothbrush snapped beneath his hand.
The laughter nearly killed them. It brought tears to Kyle's eyes and made him choke and splutter.
"Wow," Stan said, eventually, holding up his toothbrush and still gasping giggling breaths, "Time to retire this baby."
"It had its day," Kyle replied, laying a comforting hand on Stan's elbow.
"Yeah. Put it to pasture now."
Still sluggish and stumbling, they hushed their way down the sleeping corridor towards Stan's bedroom, where there were duvets and futons and the dreamy glow of LED clock displays. The futon thudded dull against Kyle's back and he lay sprawled, one arm tossed over his head, his toes burrowing beneath the blankets.
"Dude," came Stan's voice through the dark, as Kyle tried to arrange his limbs into some kind of order.
"Yeah?"
A meaningful pause to reign in laughter, and then,
"I'm totally still holding half a toothbrush."
Kyle could only snort, face turning into his pillow.
"Retard. You were putting it to pasture. Put it to pasture, you said."
"This jockey just can't give up his faithful steed."
There was another pause. The darkness and the silence seemed to settle. Kyle felt his brain begin to relax with sleep.
"Maybe that's what I'll do with my life," Stan's voice broke through the silence once more, "I could be a jockey."
Kyle felt his mouth drag smooth against the cotton of the pillowcase as a smile curved up his lips.
"Yeah. Cock jockey, maybe," he said and grinned the wider when Stan's answer came.
"Sure. But, could you actually call that a career, though?"
"Go to sleep," Kyle ordered because he had two assignments due on Monday and could not afford to spend half of his Sunday asleep on Stan's floor. Again. And it might have been fine; they might have left it at that, had Stan not felt compelled to add,
"Alright, dude. Sweet cock-jockying dreams."
By the time Kyle stopped laughing that time it was practically dawn and so they both ended up sleeping in until two.
* * * * * * *
Two days later, in the library, Stan was hunched over college prospectuses, his fingers wound tight into his hair, hoping that if he stared at the Sports Science pages long enough, the perfect course would leap out and weave its future-making magic all around him. Kyle sat at his side, calm in the knowledge that he had already breezed the interview for his college of choice. Kyle, at least, could rest easy on the laurels of his phenomenal predicted test scores. The genius was currently trying, without success, to force his new car key onto the same key-ring as his house keys. The twitching movements and huffed curses kept drawing the corner of Stan's gaze in Kyle's direction.
"You're supposed to be helping me," Stan blurted, eventually, unable to tolerate Kyle's distracting presence any longer.
"I'm totally helping," was his friend's instant response.
"How? How is you fucking around with that thing of any use to me?" Stan snapped, kind of sharper than he meant it, because, actually, the fact that he still hadn't settled on a course or a future or anything was starting to fucking worry him.
Kyle stuttered an irritable look back at Stan, before returning his attention to his keys.
"Dude. Chill. I told you to look at Physio, like, an age ago. And you ignored me anyway. So," Kyle said.
"I don't have the Biology scores for Physio," Stan replied, rubbing a weary hand over one eye.
"Want mine?" Kyle offered, carelessly, not even glancing up from what was becoming an ever more epic battle with the key-ring. Stan gave a scorn-filled snort and followed up with a sarcastic,
"Thanks dude, yeah. That'd be awesome."
"Not a problem, my friend," was Kyle's smug response.
Resigned to an utter lack of genuine support from his friend, Stan returned his attention to the pages of gleaming photographs and pristine lettering. He couldn't help but feel that the world these booklets were trying to promote was a world in which Stan did not belong. Force and twist as he might, he was beginning to suspect that this particular puzzle piece simply wasn't going to fit. Stan didn't care about studying. He didn't care about the future. All he really wanted was to be healthy and happy and, since he already seemed to have both those things, this whole going to college and finding a career bit was beginning to seem kind of obsolete.
"I can't do this," Kyle spat eventually, throwing down the keys as the force of his lost temper crackled sudden and electric in the air. Stan heaved a sigh and picked up the keys.
"Jesus Christ. You're such a goddamn wuss," he said.
"No," Kyle protested, "It's like. It's bending my fingernail backwards. I can't get a fucking hold of it properly."
"You're a wuss," Stan repeated. "Real men don't have fingernails to bend back."
"What the hell is this, then?" Kyle scoffed, reaching out and flicking at the thumbnail Stan was using to prise apart the folds of the key-ring.
"I need that. For my guitar."
"Right. Convenient," Kyle muttered, as Stan parted the strips of metal with swift, strong fingers. He watched the tendons of Stan's wrist flexing smoothly beneath the skin and couldn't help but kind of covet those muscles for his own.
"There," Stan said. He slid Kyle's keys back to him across the table, followed by the open pages of a glossy prospectus. "Now help me properly."
* * * * * * *
The movie that Sunday, at Cartman's, cracked Kenny's shit up. He was gasping for breath and crying real tears by the time it was only halfway through, and Kyle could feel Kenny's body trembling with laughter where it rested heavy against his side. He had so far tolerated this intrusion into his personal space because it was Kenny and Kenny really hadn't been programmed to understand about personal space, but when one bony elbow landed a particularly sharp blow to his ribs, the rest of Kyle's tolerance evaporated.
"Man, fuck the hell off of me!" he snapped, pushing Kenny hard enough to send him reeling sideways into Cartman's cushioning bulk.
"Mother of God, you guys!" Cartman exploded, lurching out of his seat and slamming one stodgy palm against the light switch. "What are you, fourteen? Get a fucking grip already, Kyle."
"Dude, it's not me! It's Kenny. How the fuck am I supposed to sit and watch a film when you're, like, convulsing next to me like some kind of-" Kyle began, glaring at Kenny.
"Aw, come on!" Kenny cried, when he saw Kyle's look. "Come on, you guys, this is totally soft porn! Fucking Nazi soft porn! Man, I can't take that shit seriously."
"It's China, Kenny," Cartman said, "There were no Chinese Nazis."
"Whatever, fatass. You made sure that Kyle is sitting here and then you're showing us Nazi porn."
"Goddamnit, it's not Nazi porn!" Cartman interjected in a shriek.
"You jerk off to this shit in your own time, okay? Spare me and Kyle the awkward of sitting next to you while you do it." Kenny settled comfortably back in his seat, one knee crooked, foot resting on the edge of the coffee table, only to have Cartman seize his ankle and jerk it down again.
When Stan finally turned up five minutes later with a six-pack of Budweiser and two bags of Doritos, they were still watching 'Lust, Caution' and Kyle felt his heart soar. The food would soothe Cartman's anger; the beer would keep Kenny distracted. And for Kyle himself, Stan's presence in a room always served as an instant shot of calm. Stan sank easily into the space left empty for him next to Kyle, eyes riveted to the pale, writhing bodies on screen.
"Dudes, really?" Stan said, "And I was, like, fucking rushing to get here. What happened to Slumdog?" The hair at the nape of Stan's neck was still damp from the shower and his cheeks were flushed pink with recent exercise. Kyle made a mental note to ask later how the game had gone, when they weren't still watching Chinese porn.
"Man, I tried," he said. "It had my vote. But this is more Cartman's idea of romance. Apparently."
"I fucking know this isn't romantic, dickhead!" Cartman barked from the other end of the sofa. "I'm not some kind of fucked-up sadist."
"Serious? No shit?" Kenny said, slanting an incredulous glance at Cartman. "Sounds like a pretty good fit to me."
"I chose this because I didn't want to spend my evening watching that sentimental bullcrap," Cartman said.
"I think Slumdog's an awesome movie," Stan said.
"That," Cartman replied confidently, "is because you are a faggy little hippy, Stan."
"You don't watch it for the romance, though. You watch it for that hot Indian chick. And the guns," Kenny said. Then, he removed the cap of a beer bottle with his teeth, and launched it over the coffee table in one strong spit. Cartman watched its flight, his top lip curled in disgust.
"Goddamnit, Kenny. I can't even explain how much I hate you."
It was a touching exchange, but not enough of a distraction from the awkwardly pale hitching of the limbs on the TV screen. Those pained noises and androgynous hips did not make for easy Sunday night viewing. So, to keep Stan from his wincing and shuddering on the poor woman's behalf, Kyle nudged one of Stan's knees with his own, inclined his head towards Stan's.
"I have a new ringtone for you on my phone, dude," Kyle said, smooth and conversational and such a world away from the questionable consent of fingers clawed into damp bed sheets that it eased away the frown lines between Stan's eyes.
"Yeah? What's that?"
Kyle rolled his hips enough to reach into his back pocket and flicked through the menus onscreen, before passing the phone into Stan's waiting hand.
"Snow Patrol," Kyle said, then smiled, smaller than he really meant, "The opening chords just remind me of you."
Stan tilted a sarcastically charmed gaze his way.
"Aww. Cute, dude," he cooed, so that Kyle laughed and took the phone back from him.
Cartman, eyes glued to the movie, one fistful of Doritos halfway to his mouth and another still churning between his teeth, managed to spare them a scornful snort.
"Weak. You guys are such fags," he mumbled around the chips.
"It's way normal," Kyle said. "Kenny? You have different tones for different people?"
"No, dude. If Nokia's 'Techno Dance' is good enough for me to hear, it's good enough to stand for all of you." Kenny flashed Kyle a wink and a jaunty smile. "Besides. Kenny likes to be surprised when he answers a call."
It was around that time that 'How To Be Dead' blared suddenly from Kyle's phone, because Stan was calling him from one cushion over on the couch, to remind himself of the chords which Kyle had assigned him. Cartman lost his shit entirely then, shouting at them that it wasn't 'worth trying to watch serious cinema with you retards anyway', and 'why don't you go watch American-fucking-Idol', and yanking the disc out of the DVD player in a fit of temper.
They ended up outside in the snow, hurling a football back and forth between them. Stan was still wired from winning his match earlier and wanted to play. Kenny had boundless energy after a couple of beers. Cartman spent his anger in rough elbows and heavily-weighted shoves. The sharp ache of the cold bit into Kyle's hands, even through his gloves, but the air was fresh and invigorating and leaked deep into his lungs.
When Stan tackled him hard to the ground, Kyle felt the raw ice drag against his cheek and he curled his fingers against the white for purchase, like a frantic clench at helpless sheets.
* * * * * * *
Over the next week, Stan came to the conclusion that he and Kyle weren't the same as most people.
For a start, they shared everything. This often meant unconsciously leading one another into things. Like, when Stan stumbled over a genuine talent for music and began to scour record stores for B-side albums and build giant, themed playlists on his laptop, Kyle trailed along after him and learned to be interested in it too. He would post links to new bands on Stan's wall on Facebook. He would pass flyers for gigs in Denver to Stan in homeroom. Together, they would navigate greyhound buses, strange, dark streets and cramped, intimate little venues where they could mosh practically in the band's laps, a mere breath away from them. Kyle came to be better than Stan at finding those things; he had a methodical knack for it.
On Kyle's birthday, Stan burned him CDs of his greatest playlists, bought him Atticus shirts, which he knew Kyle would love because Kyle's inner geek delighted at things like being able to understand dead bird metaphors. Stan would spend hours searching out the perfect design.
There were other ways they different as well; like how Stan found himself sweetly fond of the way Kyle's eyelids would flutter closed on the late night bus back from Denver, the way Kyle's head would loll backwards against the headrest, exposing his strong pale throat. It was different too, how Stan would have to fight the urge not lay his hand against the swell of those tendons and trail his fingers downwards. He would sit beside Kyle and marvel at how being attracted to him didn't feel alien, but instead just felt natural, and safe.
And then, somewhere along the line, Stan realised that they had already carved out a life for themselves. They factored each other into every decision and relied on one another at every turn. If Kyle had suggested a joint bank account, Stan probably wouldn't have batted an eyelid because it somehow felt that they were there already. Unfortunately, they'd gotten there too early and now there was no way to fit being together into the order they knew they had to follow. Life didn't leave space for those kind of diversions, not when there were finals and college and careers to think about. Staying in one place, no matter how perfect the fit, simply was not on the cards.
"It's sort of tragic," Stan breathed to himself, confused by it, and watched as his phone flashed Kyle's name again and again to the sound of The Cure.
* * * * * * *
There was a stupid moment at New Year's when Stan tried, but failed, to explain himself. It was another house party, like the others, fuelled by bottles pilfered from household liquor cabinets and poured haphazardly together into mixing bowls. Stan clutched his Dad's hipflask, rolling the taste of Jack Daniels over his tongue and smiling until his cheeks ached. There were mis-matched and sporadic bursts of music and stumbled dancing. People made out messily against walls, on shameless display. Kyle's eyes were bright and joyful in the flickering light of Christmas tree bulbs. Cartman threw up on an icy patio and Kenny's hyena laugh cut through the party chaos to rattle harsh in Stan's ears.
He escaped through the front door and out onto the street as the countdown began, breathless from the crowd and the indoor heat. He drank in the sharp pricks of the stars, calming in the chill darkness, and did not need to look to know that Kyle had followed him; Kyle's presence clamoured for Stan's attention, always. As the sky exploded with fireworks, Stan found himself riding a sudden, mad rush of courage and whirled to face Kyle with arms tossed wide.
"I'm like, a bit in love with you," he slurred on Jack-laden breath.
"Aw, sweet. I love you too, man," Kyle returned with a smile and an indulgent wink, which was cute, but wasn't right, because Kyle obviously didn't get it.
"No. Not like that," Stan said, with a shake of his head that made the snow drifts surge like waves before his eyes. "No," he said again, "Like this." And he hooked one hand around Kyle's waist, tugged Kyle's ever-pliant body closer and nipped a kiss against one sharp cheekbone.
There was a quiet moment where Kyle's breath hitched and the snow just fell. Then, a laugh bubbled from Kyle's throat.
"Marsh. You are wasted," he said, "You need your bed and a bucket to puke in, man."
Kyle shifted like liquid in Stan's slackening grasp, placing them side to side instead of face to face, and slung one comradely arm across Stan's shoulders. "And, you can thank your lucky shit that I'm just the guy to hook you up with that," he grinned.
And what could Stan do? What was there to do except laugh along with it, act a bit drunker than he felt and allow Kyle to lead him back inside.
* * * * * * *
It was normal for a while, for the rest of that year, but then it got too close to the inevitable end. Things between them gradually became tense and strange as they approached the unthinkable 'moving on' that was never supposed to actually come.
They stood together on the front steps of Stan's house, half an hour after they were supposed to have said goodbye, both wracked with the knowledge that after tonight, everything was going to change. Stan found his breathing kind of rough and shallow. It escaped from him in obvious little puffs against the dark air. He could see Kyle shivering, folded snug within the depths of his coat.
And when Stan thought they had already run out of words, he found fresh ones rising suddenly in his throat, unpredictable, but honest.
"There's no way to fight this. Is there?" he said.
Kyle shook his head no.
"Man, fuck your future. Come join mine," Stan gasped out then, losing the little breath he had left, and when Kyle rolled his eyes easily and began to turn away, Stan couldn't stop from moving with him, blocking him in.
"I need you with me," Stan said on a smile that was so strained that it was in danger of rupturing. "I need you more than you need you."
And Kyle looked at him, exasperated and miserable.
"Dude. Hear yourself. For real. This is fucking retarded."
"I'm serious."
"Stan," Kyle began on a warning, but all Stan could think was a desperate 'God, this is so stupid' before he was catching Kyle's jaw in his hands and locking their lips together over Kyle's next warm breath. There was no resistance. The fit was so right and easy that Kyle kissed back instinctively, and it spilled through Stan's body like liquor; heating his blood, burning at his throat and curdling his brain.
Life would drag them apart anyway, as it was always bound to, but that wouldn't be so awful. In fact it would kind of be okay, because, as the trembling graze of lips assured them, there would always be a way home again.
A/N: I am aware that this is not 'Butterfly Effect'. Neither is it 'El Dia de los Muertos.' However, writing is really hard for me right now and this was something that I genuinely wanted to write.
It's revoltingly sappy but...gah, I needed that. I hope it made you smile a little. ^^