Kenny McCormick's life wasn't great. Still one of the poorest families in South Park to this day, Stuart and Carol McCormick may have been cowed by Mysterion into cleaning up their act enough to actually call themselves parents, but they were still alcoholics with a tendency to use and therefore be negligent and somewhat abusive. House fuller than ever before, Kevin had dropped out of school a few years back to get a full-time job, but on the downside he was engaged with both a baby on the way and a kid from a crazy ex-girlfriend. Karen was at that age and just starting to date; given the family track record, it was highly likely that her story would only end in another statistic for teenage pregnancy. As the protective older brother, Kenny had taken every opportunity to teach her to be better than what the rest of them were, however, she was unfortunately at that rebellious stage where she knew everything and everyone else was either "retarded or a major asshole that was trying to control her life". Thankfully at heart she was still that sweet timid girl she always had been, but that additional attitude wasn't always the most fun to deal with.
Home shit aside, that wasn't to say that the blonde didn't have some things going in his favor. For one thing, he did have a means of coping when life got a bit too intense; the select stash kept tucked on his person at all times and a beaten old flask in his back pocket opposite a second-hand flip phone were his two best friends. For another, the boy had his dashing good looks, winning sense of humor, and the unbeatable combination of dreamy baby-blues and a crooked smile that could make any girl and a number of guys putty in his hands. Ok, so maybe he wasn't perfect on the inside or the out, but if there was anything in his life he could say was truly stable, it would be habit: his parent's habits, his brother's habits, his own. It didn't matter, because if your last name was McCormick, chances were better than good that the night ended the same way - you woke up drunk in a ditch smelling of cigarettes and vodka, missing a shoe and sporting a black eye. Fun times for a night, not a fucking lifetime.
Goddamn, his life fucking sucked. Reflection the norm, the poor kid tossed to his back with a pronounced sigh - ribcage tender from being kicked around as the vigilante Mysterion and aching bruises crying out in protest from getting slapped around some more by his drunk mother and inebriated father, he closed his eyes and thought. Kicking ass and taking names was one thing, but those quiet moments lying bed just waiting so patiently for sleep to take him? Most nights it started out as worry for his little sister, and then it would translate into a blanket effect for her and his nephew, but not tonight. Tonight he was replaying the events of that day, mind rewinding to the very first moment they met the new kid that had moved into the house between the bus stop and where Butters lived. It was the same house that King Douchebag used to live in.
Sepia-toned in crudely fluctuating degrees, the scene flickered dim as an antiqued film reel in his mind as he endeavored to relive the moment. A canvas of bright blues as rich as an uncut jewel that had been selfishly tossed in the sea by an old woman on the eve of her death, the sky was home to a lingering tail of snowy cocaine spilled from God's back pocket and the darkened, crappy cutouts of a bunch of birds in flight. Desensitized to the presence of humans, or maybe it was just that dumb and/or suicidal, a tawny dear sniffed at the crisp air by the side of the road before getting frightened and leaping off. Over three feet at this time, and for pretty much most of the year, the blanket that covered the town was as fresh as the purest sugar. When the snows did actually melt away, there was revealed the most fertile brown earth and grass as green as emeralds. As was only possible for a mountainous region, the temperature was just low enough to be able to clearly discern one's own breath hanging in the air like an apparition of mist. There was a homeless guy across the street who was missing most of his teeth and part of his shoe, but he was passed out from the countless bottles that surrounded him, or maybe he was dead; either way, he was of no consequence to anyone.
"Guys, guys!" Panting from the 'extreme' effort of blazing up the pavement like the excitable fat-ass he still was, Eric Cartman raced up to the bus stop as fast as his stunted legs would carry him, one hand stretched out for the other guys as if they would dare to leave him behind. They had tried once or twice, but it was a cold day in hell when it happened without consequence.
Jesus, Kenny had thought to himself while pulling out a home-rolled cigarette from the front pocket of his coat, if only it could have been that easy. Kyle and Stan particularly loathed the habit, but the redhead was the only one of them that was especially vocal about it, always chiming in about the risks smoking posed to both Kenny and those around him. Stan made a little more sense, going at it from the angle that if he did the same he criticized his parents for, it made him no better than they were. Removing a lighter from the opposite cavity, the blonde ignored the glare the bookworm threw his way and lit up the bent paper stick.
Speaking of corpulent cancers, if they hadn't all witnessed it for themselves over the course of their lifetimes, none them would have believed that their little Hutt could have grown into most of the excess weight so that he now resembled a human being. In other words, Cartman might have now been of a more acceptable stature (he was still obese, but at least now there wasn't a medical staff on hand should he slip into cardiac arrest during class), but they would always rip on him for being the fat one. "You homos will never guess what I just saw! Come on you guys, guess!" There was an uninterested silence that followed the open invitation, and Kyle simply rolled his eyes. Proximity mandatory, time told them beyond the shadow of a doubt that being ignored didn't sit very well with the bulky brunette. "I said guess, Goddammit!"
Forced to tolerate him only because there was no other choice in the matter - shy of murder - the three boys peered disconsolately between each other to see who would take this one for the team, Kyle was the first to shrug it off with a silent 'I did it last time'. Interested in his tattered sleeve all of a sudden, the resident blonde in the group examined a fraying thread that had loosened itself amongst the ratty henna fur that cuffed his new (new being a relative term) orange parka, which left Stan to reply. Honestly speaking, the raven-haired youth was more preoccupied with beating a rather challenging level of Angry Birds on his cell phone than pretending to listen to his so-called friend's ranting. Or maybe this week it was Candy Crush. "What?"
Grinning ear-to-ear like the jackal he was, giddy as a schoolgirl that they - or at least one of them, as in his reality all Cartman really required was just one single person to address his bullshit - were finally paying this new development (and him) the proper attention, the cruel butterball pointed at the red house nearest the sign post, although now it was no longer the same hue as a cherry. Not the first family to move in since the boys had been in fourth grade, the house had gone from looking like a strawberry to transmuting into a pale, sherbety orange to a dreamy "hippie" purple, going back to candy apple red, then to a picturesque white, followed by a drab russet, and now it was a blue that leaned closer to teal on the color wheel. "There's a new family in town!"
As if none of them could see the lumbering Move N' Store truck parked in the front lawn, or see the 'for sale' sign that had been taken from the lot but left to rest against the side of the newly-painted walls. Nondescript silver and tagged 'DddyLaw1', the never-before-seen compact hybrid that was parked in front of the garage was also a dead give away. The self-described heart-breaker also noted the fact that there were still boxes in front of and behind the windows. "So what dude?"
"Yeah dude, we've had people move in and out of town before, so who cares?" Having observed the progress of the move but having yet to actually meet the entire family for himself, Stan sounded as psyched about finding out what the new neighbors might be like as he was for getting a tooth pulled. It was no more than how many fucks Kenny gave. Kyle, on the other hand, didn't really seem to have a response either way, which made the pessimistic raven and platinum lech alike curious. Still though, what the fuck was the big deal?
Only somewhat abashed by the lack of enthusiasm put forth at this news, Cartman pressed on. "Because, Kahl," ignoring the fact that it was Stan being his usual bleak self, fat-ass practically beamed at the glare that earned him from the Jinger Jersey Jew, "I had Butters watching the house ever since that sign went up." Gullible and diligent in his efforts, it was more than easy to envision the blonde stalking the property with a set of gigantic binoculars and a walkie-talkie or journal for keeping records. It was probably both. "Last night my efforts paid off, and he told me that he saw them unpacking a lot of really kewl expensive stuff! I don't know why they'd want to move to this street with all the Jews, conniving poor people, and riff-raff, but this is great for us!" Clearly Cartman took this move to mean more people to exploit, so he had it in his mind that this was the best news they must have had all day.
Irked by Cartman already working on several possible ways to worm his way into the good graces of the new neighbors - seriously, they could all hear the oily cogs and grinding gears of Eric's manipulative brain shifting into action - Kyle looked as if he had come to a crossroads. Kenny had no clue what the other boy was thinking, but he could surmise that the first option on his list was to chew Eric out for how he was treating Butters again, yet for the second branch this conversation could have taken... If the redhead wasn't such a bookworm that took more solace in studying than anything else, the party king might have suspected that he had something up his sleeve that even his best friends knew nothing about.
"-DON'T SLAM THE DOOR WHEN I'M TALKIN-" Cut off mid-sentence as the glassy front door of the now blue house shut as quickly as it had been thrown open, the man that was screaming was impossible to see from the angle and distance they stood, but if Kenny had had to guess, he would have pegged a great oblong of a man in the early autumn of his life, the figure more than at home wielding a war hammer in some fantasy world. Despite the fact that it was a few measly yards away, that had to be the case to achieve the earth-shattering sound they heard. Had it not happened to himself on occasion, the teen might have wondered what had cased such a heated argument to happen so early in the morning.
Fiddling with a small hole on the upper thigh of sooty skinny jeans, a neon pink flush giving away that the new kid was wary of one of the four boys bringing up the scene back there, gray-blue eyes remained locked on sturdy leather boots as dark as the ebony pull-over that stole all sense of shape. The army jacket that had been thrown on over that field of smoke didn't really help to distinguish much else.
Tossing a worn messenger bag over one shoulder, the new kid turned to look at the four waiting at the curb for the school bus, daring to look up once they had melded into a mass of five (seven if you counted each of Cartman's asses). Scanning over the jock and the drama-queen in a single precursory glance, the new kid looked somewhat comforted as he beheld a pair of familiar jade eyes and vermilion curls poking from beneath a cozy green hat; nodding at the nerd (as a term of endearment) earth met ice and he gathered what nerve was available to greet the lot. So to speak.
As for the others bringing up what ugliness they had just witnessed, the only one to worry about was Eric Cartman; Cartman was the single most biggest asshole in all of South Park, and that wasn't entirely a dig at his weight. Anyone who knew Kyle knew that he was just too polite to blurt it on the spot in front of a group of people, even if most of said people were his friends, but something told Kenny that it wasn't him that this new boy was worried about. Between his thumbs twiddling over the surface of his cream-colored Samsung Galaxy s6 Edge, if anyone knew firsthand what the embarrassment of parents being jackholes felt like, it was Stan, so it barely even registered a place on his radar. Kenny, who could easily relate to what it was like getting shouted at first thing in the morning, was sadly accustomed to others seeing the worst his family could offer, so for him that kind of send-off was just a natural occurrence. Not to mention it would have been Cartman-levels of hypocritical to shine a light on the new kid, and anyways, the blonde was more attentive to the way that the stranger was eyeing him.
Dazed in a kind of retro 90's movie slo-mo shot that established who the main love interest was, the look on the unnamed kid's face suggested that everything had just stopped. Appearing to see more than just the patches in his worn jeans and the safety pins that held his backpack together, it was as if he saw something more than just a piece of meat behind those dazzling azure eyes, eyes that held such misery and solitude. Unsure if he saw anything or not beyond the stranger's smitten gaze, Kenny himself had already played a majority of the pieces that would play back by this point, so the idea of a fresh face in the love game was one he liked, even if he had the impression that the chase would be boringly cliché. Maybe it would be too easy, maybe the other boy would play the coy little virgin who got second thoughts whenever something exciting was about to happen, or maybe he would even use that 'I've never slept with a boy before' card. That mystery was what made it interesting, even if it was only mildly so.
Aware that he was staring, the new kid quickly looked away, the pink tint returning anew alongside what Kenny assumed was a mental lecture on being weird and gawking. Taking another drag off of his cancer stick, the blonde was curious to know if this state of shyness would last long, or if it was only brought out because of whatever drama he had going on with his old man.
"What the hell is that asshole's problem?" Cartman, unaware of the little thing (if it could even be called such) between Kenny and the newbie, gave the new kid no breathing room once the group swelled to five. Obviously he was calculating and mindful of trying to gauge how useful this new neighbor could prove, but being as obtuse and hateful as he was, Eric underestimated the additional millisecond the fresh blood scoped out the blonde, most probably chalking it up to the faults he himself always laid at Kenny's feet. "He on his period or something?"
In near perfect unison, Stan and Kyle rolled their eyes at the other boy's moronic question - no matter how many times they told him how it worked or how many health classes they took, the most despised boy in town still wouldn't stop insisting that anyone acting moody was menstruating. It was just his thing, and boy did he love to use it on Kyle.
Tone bordering on insolence, voice having an innate rough edge to it, the boy opened his mouth to crack a joke at his father's expense, head tilting sideways to cast some serious shade at the man inside the house, "I thought he stopped rag-mastering it a week ago, but now I'm not so sure." Seriously, whatever was going on between parent and child was enough to earn a great amount of hostility. Shrugging as if to show that he couldn't care less, the boy tucked a strand of cinnamon back beneath a lip-less oversized beanie the color of cement. "He's just a controlling asshole that needs to butt the hell out of my life."
At those words, Kyle and the boy exchanged looks.
What did that mean? Rolling around in his bed in the dark with only the moon for company, Kenny pondered why the new kid had looked so intently at him in those first few moments if he had something already going with Kyle. The first part of that answer was pretty damned obvious, but Kyle's connection to everything was just too much to fathom. It became apparent rather quickly that the two had already met when the introductions rolled out, so was it so crazy to get the idea that maybe there was more to their relationship than mere friendship? The blonde knew that if he were to ask Kyle, the redhead would probably rebuff the notion, swearing up and down that that was not the case, that anyone who thought otherwise was just falling back into that juvenile answer that boys and girls couldn't be friends without sex entered into the equation. And if he were to ask Hunter...
True, the new kid had ditched out on detention and bailed on whatever plans he might have had in order to hang out with the blue-eyed blonde after school, but at this point Kenny wasn't sold that the pair of them getting drunk with Craig and his gang at Stark's Pond was enough of a bonding experience to say that they were much better than acquaintances. Yes, it was a fact that he learned in the course of that afternoon that when his mom passed away, Hunter had done everything in his power to step up to the plate, but the revelation that really shocked him came when Clyde had dared him out of his clothes and into his underwear.
That... Well it was certainly unexpected, but it didn't really change much else in how Kenny saw Hunter. No, what was really eating at him and convincing him that there was more to the story was the fact that at the end of the day, Hunter had asked about Kyle. It wasn't like he was being a dick and just assuming that no girl could ever be attracted to a bookworm - fuck, nerds got laid too - it was just that the blonde had been under the impression all day that Hunter was into him, not the redhead with the untamed Jew-fro. As a matter of fact, the blonde had labored beneath that belief until he had asked point-blank if he wanted to stay out after the group thinned down, and the other boy had told him it was getting late, that he had to go home to make dinner for the family. It made sense to Kenny given the way he had come to understand the family dynamic, so he didn't question it, and honestly he was kind of glad that that was the other's answer. Confusing as the signals were thus far, it would be boring if Kenny didn't have to put some work into wooing Hunter. And then, just when he thought things were shaping up, Hunter asked him how Kyle liked his burgers. What the fuck had that been about?!
Author's Note:
Hello all! As some of you may or may not be aware, this story is a reboot of my original South Park story "Just Another One of the Boys". No, I did not finish that story, nor do I think that I will. Honesty I got really stuck with it, and between time and just general steady improvement to the craft, it was just impossible for me to go on with it. This one will take heavy inspiration and story elements from that fic, but if you have read it, please try not to confuse the two. For example I stuck with a similar mold for Hunter, but unlike in the original story where the hair is black, it is now red. It may seem a pointless change, but frankly I feel as if too many of my characters have the same color hair, so I opted to tweak with Hunny's general appearance a bit. Also, there is another notable difference, but I don't want to spoil it.
Oh, and for reference, I'm pretty much using the map from the Stick of Truth as cannon of where everything is.
Reviews would be the best possible thing I could hope to get, but if anyone has any comments or questions, feel more than free to ask me! I'm more than happy to answer your PMs. I try to get to my reviews asap, and in the following chapter I will thank you for taking the time, so if you don't want that, just tell me. I enjoy keeping an active conversation going with you guys :)
*Update 12/22/16*
Interest rejuvenated, I looked back at this and realized there was some room for improvement. Pretty simple stuff, so the outline is unchanged.
The only thing I can claim is the Bloodworth family, the rest belongs to Trey Parker and Matt Stone or whoever.