I was feeling very nostalgic for Joan of Arcadia, and actually got this idea while on the way home from seeing Spring Awakening. I saved it as a draft text on my phone and then wrote about it this weekend. At first, I didn't think it was really going to fly, but the more I worked into it, the more crazy ideas I had, the more I thought, "Hey, what the hell, it doesn't have to be a master piece, I'll just make it a quickie." Well... this quickie now looks to be about a 5 maybe 7 chapter dedication. We'll see. Tell me if it's worth continuing or not.

Disclaimer: "Comet... it tastes like Listerine. Comet... it makes your mouth turn green. Comet... it makes you vomit. So buy some Comet and vomit today!" (In case you didn't know, that was German for: "I don't own South Park, so don't sue me you cheeky bastards." Maybe - just maybe - you should learn how to speak German. Then you would know these things...)

Enjoy!

I'm Not Insane, I'm Catholic

"Hey… Hey! You dropped your wallet!"

Stan meandered to a stop, hefting his backpack over his shoulder to keep it balanced. He was annoyed at having to actually talk to someone. All he wanted to do is go home; he had long ago been stricken with a sever case of Senioritis and with graduation only a week away, it had been flaring up. But it was a nice enough day, the summer breeze balmy and shallow. He supposed he could spare a few seconds of his time.

The guy trotted up to Stan, a goofy smile spreading his lips. He took a moment to catch his breath with a low chuckle and flicked his brown hair out of his eyes. His irises were stunning; either an Athena gray or an icy blue. It was hard to tell, and even harder not to get lost in them. Stan had to blink a few times to break the trance.

"You dropped this." He bit his lip and grinned again, holding out a worn and ragged wallet. He was wearing a black and white striped shirt with a dark gray vest. He also had one fingerless glove on his right hand, and Stan glanced at it in haughty disbelief before taking the wallet back. The teen – he must have been Stan's age or maybe even younger – wiped his hands on his faded blue jeans. They had sharpie scrawled over them… where there weren't already rips and tears in the fabric.

With a discreet pat, Stan checked his back pocket and raised an eye brow with indignation. "This isn't my wallet," he explained. His wallet wasn't brown, but a dull green. And it wasn't made of leather, but hemp (it had been tailor made especially for him). He offered the thing back, but the kid wouldn't take it. Stan shook the wallet wildly with impatience, "It's not mine!"

The weird boy scrunched up his face and crossed his arms over his chest. "But… isn't your name Stan Marsh?" Stan growled under his breath, staving off the urge to check his watch. Couldn't he just go home? No, he was too courteous to just leave a guy hanging. He opened the wallet and checked all the pockets until finally:

"Look, see here? This ID says 'Luke Matthews.'"

"So you are Stan Marsh!" the kid simpered coyly, nodding his head in triumph.

Stan stepped back to assess the situation, his mouth open as he pondered. He pointed at the kid, trying to find the right words. "Is this… is this all just a ploy to get to know my name? What, are you hitting on me, or something?"

Shrug. No answer. Stan was merely treated to another knowing grin and a sparkle in the boy's eyes. Stan sighed and shoved the wallet into the guy's chest and turned away. Enough of this nonsense. The boy just let the thing fall to the ground with a slap, never once taking his gaze from Stan.

Stan kept on his way home with diligence, already forgetting about the incident. He had more important matters to wrap his mind around. Such as Kyle's recent obsession with his Jewish religion. They had been friends for so long, but never once had spirituality came into conflict with their relationship before. And as of yet, they hadn't truly fought over it. More like debates, really. Still, Stan didn't like the third degree questions that he didn't even have the background to answer. His family was technically Roman Catholic but… well… yeah. He was afraid this new hobby of Kyle's would drive them into separate stereotypes that didn't accurately define them anyway.

It was only by chance that Stan noticed the steady echo keeping in time with his footsteps, and his ears perked up with suspicion. He whirled around on his feet, hoping to take the kid by surprise and gain a psychological advantage. But the guy didn't even flinch. If anything, his smile just grew mockingly wider, stretching into a thin line across his face.

"Stop following me," Stan commanded. Thinking that was the end of it, he continued on his way. He didn't take four steps before he realized that his order had had gone unheeded. Ugh, of course.

"Okay!" he shouted, pivoting again, holding up his hands in faux surrender. "Do you have a name or should I just keep referring to you as 'Creepy Stalker Dude?'"

The boy hmphed and pulled out a cigarette. Real cool dude, you're obviously too young to be smoking. He put it between his lips, but didn't light it. "You can call me God."

Stan's face dropped in a mix of frustration and fear. "Are you… are you gonna like… rape me or something? Like one of the sociopathic serial killers? Cause that's totally old news – that happens in South Park like, every other week." He didn't particularly feel threatened; he was obviously bigger than this boy, towering a full head above him. And his gut didn't have that twisty feeling you'd think you'd get when faced with an aggressor. So he deemed it safe to be at least a little snippy.

"Yeah," the kid huffed, unconvincingly, taking the cigarette from his mouth between his two fingers. "I'm gonna drag you into that alley there, and rape you."

"A simple 'no' would have sufficed, dude."

"Nothing is ever simple with you, Stan," the kid chuckled, leaning against the nearest fence as if he owned the damn thing. "You only ever understand two languages: sarcasm and faggy poetry."

"Look, kid," Stan growled, his new walking buddy becoming highly abrasive. "Do you want me to beat the shit out of you? Is that why you're here? You've got some sort of… S and M fetish?"

"No," the guy answered shortly. "But I know you've got a blood fetish. Little morbid, Stan. Just a little. I'm not entirely sure Kyle would be up for that kinda thing."

Stan went rigid. "What did you say?"

"I'll let you in on a little secret," he hastily replied, waving his hands in front of Stan's face in order to catch his attention. "I don't like repeating myself, okay? So listen up when I'm talking to you, boy, and we can avoid the whole fire and brimstone phase."

"You can't talk to me like that," Stan half yelled, half laughed. "You're not God. I've met God before, way back in 2000. God looks like a hippo frog bear."

"Huh," the kid breathed, placing the cigarette just to his lips, lost in thought. "I could have sworn I looked more like a man bear pig…."

"You are so annoying!"

"I remember that, though! You were asking about your period. Peer pressure got you convinced you hadn't hit puberty yet. Which it hadn't, of course, but I bet you're satisfied now, Mister 18 year old. Hey, you can thank me later for 'bestowing' you so well, if you catch my drift." He elbowed Stan playfully in the ribs before lowering his hand and placing a solid pat onto the other's crotch. "Lots of guys would be jealous."

"God, don't touch me, you pervert!"

"Aw, Stan," the guy pouted. "You don't have to be so formal when addressing me, I answer to many names. But anyway, you took those hormone pills just to fit in. You had breasts, dude!"

"So what?" Stan shrieked, feeling his face grow red with an embarrassed blush. "It's not anything special that you know about that! It was the fucking new millennium, it was televised, half the world saw me make an idiot out of myself. If you wanted to impress me with your omnipotence, then you'll have to try harder. Everybody knows about that!"

"Yeah… cause it was hilarious!"

"Okay, this is really getting old. You're just a freaky little stalker kid who's an attention whore, and probably has an abusive, alcoholic father, negligent mother, and has to act out just to feel loved."

The kid put his finger to his chin and pursed his lips. "I think… I think you just described yourself."

"Shut up! You're not funny, so quit joking around!"

"This is no joke," the boy assured, holding out his hands in the universal sign for stop. But his tone was far too insolent for Stan's liking. This kid was rude, conceited, and total nut job. "You want jokes? I can do jokes. The dinosaurs, now that was a huge 'just kidding' moment. The uh… the whole genocide punch line got a little lost on them, but, what can you do?"

"Look, asshole, stop following me!" Stan turned his back but was wrenched again to his previous spot by one unusually strong arm.

"No, no," the guy chastised. "I didn't say you could go yet. Now, stop me if you've heard this one: so…" He placed the cigarette back into his mouth to free up his hands for gestures. "A Catholic priest is in Confession, right? All of a sudden, he really has to take a shit. He starts to panic, right? Slowly, he peeks out of the box and sees a huge ass fucking line, all the way out the door, of people waiting to confess! And all the while he really, really has to go to the bathroom. Finally, he just can't take it anymore. He covertly flags down the janitor. He tells the janitor to quickly trade places with him for ten minutes, be his stand in, you know? At first the guy is doubtful, but the Father writes him a list of all the things anybody could possibly confess for and their penance – thirty hails maries, all that shit. The janitor agrees and he gets in the box, and to his surprise, it's pretty easy. Then, one woman comes in. She says, 'Forgive me Father, for I have sinned. I gave my husband's brother a blowjob!' The janitor freaks out, right? The priest didn't write anything down about a blowjob. At the end of his rope, he peeks his head out the door and calls down the alter boy, and he says, 'Hey, alter boy! What's the Father give for a blowjob?' The kid looks at him and says, "Two Hershey bars and a Coke.'"

The boy smiled, trying to coax out a laugh from Stan. He was unmoved.

"That wasn't funny. Get out of here. I don't believe you're God."

The kid put his finger up and squinted his eyes knowingly. "I believe you believe you don't believe me."

"Why would God tell a joke about a pedophiliac Catholic priest?" Stan inquired, no longer enjoying this game, if he had even enjoyed it to begin with. "That's my religion, dude, don't mock it."

"John, Chapter 3, Verse 16," the teen rattle off. "What's it say?"

Stan swallowed hard. He half heartedly rifled through his memory, strangely determined to prove himself to this insane nobody. But he couldn't come up with right answer. He had seen that on cardboard signs being waved during the Super Bowl in the end zone but had never bothered to really look it up before. "I… I d-don't know," he answered at long last, cursing the shameful tremble in his voice.

"Oh…" the boy nodded, biting his lip again in disappointment. "And you call yourself a Catholic. He looked at his cigarette for a minute, as if remembering he had possessed it to begin with. He clicked his tongue, disapprovingly and turned to Stan one last time. "You got a light?"

"I don't smoke," Stan answered honestly, feeling pulled down from his once high perch. He felt exactly like he did whenever Kyle beat him in religious debates.

The kid rolled his eyes with a sigh and retrieved a black lighter from his jeans pocket. Striking it up and putting the cig to the flame, he took in a long, pensive drag before blowing it arrogantly into Stan's face. He shook his head slowly. "That's not what I asked."

He ground his feet into the pavement and brushed past Stan, offering a few final words. "See you tomorrow, Stan." He waved over his shoulder, knowing the Stan was examining him as he walked away. "Tell Kyle I'm watching over him."

"Kyle?" Stan wondered aloud, but the boy didn't respond. After a while he turned a sharp corner and disappeared.

"New friend of yours?" came a voice, and Stan jumped with a start. He turned around to see crimson red hair and deep emerald eyes holding his gaze. It was Kyle, fresh from school, his man bag slung across his torso, off to one side.

Stan glared back in bewilderment, letting his last conversation gradually sink in. After a while, the only answer he could come up with was, "I don't know…."

"I got worried," Kyle admitted, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. "He looked goth… and we all know what happens when Raven comes to town."

"Yeah…."