You tell your best friend you're gay. He pretends its no big deal but eventually you realise he doesn't come around that much anymore.

You tell your family you're gay and its all 'it's okay bubbulah!'. But eventually you realise that look in their eyes.

In a fit of frustration you tell your worst enemy you're gay, and for some reason he just stands there and - who'd have thought - can't think of anything to say.

And then Kyle realised that Cartman didn't hang around him any less. Nor did he look at him any differently because there was only so much distaste you could fit into a glare anyway.

Actually, if anything, Cartman was being nicer. But ha-ha, Kyle wasn't going to fall for it. Stupid fatass.

------

"Kahl, I think I know what'll cheer you up," Cartman said, drifting to the side. He was in Kyle's room, having wandered in sometime after school.

"Fuck off, fatass," Kyle replied, and swivelled around.

"Kaaaaahl!" Cartman whined, "get that sand out of your vagina and look at meh!"

Kyle groaned loudly, and turned around - ready to yell at Eric when he saw the fatter boy sliding in a cassette into the player. Cartman grinned, and then that familiar music came on. He began thus to sing and dance.

"I will do my German dance for you,

It's fun and gay and tra-lah-lah,

I hope you will enjoy my dance,

Diddley-diddley-i-a!"

Kyle didn't bother readjusting his expression and for some reason that just spurred Cartman on. His face squished up in concentration.

"Would you like some sauerkraut?

German balls, German balls!

Yes I'd like some sauerkraut-"

"That's enough," Kyle said. He was tight-lipped, but smiling beside himself anyway, "you haven't done that thing in forever. "

"I was going to put the old costume on as well, but meem must have shrunken it," Cartman said.

"No fatass you've just got even fatter," Kyle said, "like that was even possible."

"Ay, shut up you kike! I was trying to be nice!"

Despite the insult, Kyle couldn't think of anything to say to that.

"You know what Kahl, fuck you! Is your precious Stan hereh? Where are those stupid Jew parents?" Cartman knotted his podgy hands into fists, "not hereh because they don't give a shit! I'm hereh and for fucks sake you never could be civahl to me could you?"

"What the hell are you talking about Cartman?" Kyle's eyes had become wide, "you've never been anything but hateful and intolerant towards me!"

"Yah but Kahl, you started it! It was you that started it when you called me a fatass, when you said I was stupid, when you called my meem a whore!" Eric was screaming so loudly his voice had become so high pitched Kyle was surprised he could decipher it, "so…yah. Maybeh, if you weren't such a self-righteous asshole all the time…"

He trailed off. The German folk music was still playing, creating an oddly cheery backdrop to the conversation. Kyle, for the second time didn't know what to say. He just took at the boy in front of him. Cartman's hair was poking out of his hat, his face flushed from anger. He was staring right at Kyle, but Kyle suddenly noticed that his eyes weren't as angry as they should be. They were…hurt?

It was strange to notice that look in his eyes at such a moment but there was no mistaking it. Kyle was no stranger to it, something about himself he never quite understood. Whenever Cartman lost anything, whenever he was scared or truly insulted - there was that childish sadness. That impeccable vulnerability that nothing in the world could challenge because this was vulnerability itself. And as much as an amazing actor the brunette was, his fake 'pity-me' eyes - as brilliant as they were - were nothing compared to the real thing. Because all that good - all that humanity - inside of him had to go somewhere. As if to prove this, Cartman's eyes started to fill with tears. You could barely notice them but for a glisten.

This leader, this racist, stupid fucking asshole was creating tremors of thought throughout the Hebrew, and Kyle's ankle twisted in an outburst of escaped energy. Oh, the frustration of thought.

Was it really himself? Kyle thought, is this all my fault? Am I really the bad guy here? Cartman had just humiliated himself willingly for no hidden meaning Kyle could find.

"You know what fag," Cartman said the word and made sure it hurt, "I'm going."

"No!" Kyle said without prior thought, and Cartman froze in place.

"What Kahl?"

Kyle breached the few steps between them and crushed their lips together.

This was absolutely inevitable.