The loud bass shook the room in waves, shook Stan with it but he felt nothing. He barely felt the glass of pure vodka he was holding in his hand, it had grown into him and become a part of him. How many times had he filled it tonight? Four times to the brim, he had counted. He'd started counting his drinks at the last party, just for fun. It had always seemed to impress people just how much he could take, and now he had numbers to make it even more interesting.
Doubtless, his step was unsure and he stumbled now and then, but the world was still way too clear to him. He saw the drunken faces of his classmates and heard their intoxicated laugh and couldn't enjoy a second. It was embarrassing. Stan always forgot how much he hated drunk people until he was sober himself. There was Clyde puking into a plastic bag with the aid of Bebe, the hostess, and right next to them Kenny was making out with someone who hadn't even been invited.
Stan couldn't look at them anymore. He downed the rest of his glass and set it down on the nearest table. To his right he saw the closed door of the guest room where they all had once spun the bottle and played drinking games, giggling every time someone had to take three sips. That seemed forever ago.
The guest room door opened. A strange kid appeared at the door, just stepping out when he noticed Stan.
"You going in?" the kid asked.
A familiar scent was drifting from the room. Stan didn't answer.
"You got pot?" the kid asked this time. He was clearly high as a kite. "If yes, get the fuck in. If not, what the fuck man, get the fuck in!"
Stan imagined a room full of the school's hippies with their retro tie dye shirts and ukuleles. The thought was obnoxious enough to make him take a step back. "Uh.."
"It's alright, man, go on in. I'm just gonna go get some fresh juice now, so.."
The kid was holding out the door to him with the widest smile. Stan glanced at the empty glass he'd left on the table. Fuck, might as well. He stepped in.
The atmosphere in the room was grey and dim. It took a few moments to adjust to the darkness - and clouds of smoke. There were no hippies in sight, however. A huge Persian rug contributed to the atmosphere in their stead. Stan was surprised to find Tweek and Craig lying on top of it. At least he wouldn't be alone. A few almost-familiar faces later Stan spotted Token - sitting with the complete rich boy club, and Firkle, the new leader of the school's Goth kids, who he didn't dare to even look at.
Stan made his way over to Craig and Tweek as casually as he could. They barely noticed his sitting next to them, but Stan didn't care. He was only happy for the camouflage of belonging they offered.
The other people were lying around the room laughing, so content and calm it was difficult to comprehend. Some girl from school was wearing no pants whatsoever and another one was giving a twerking performance, encouraging Token to join her. After a careful scanning Stan decided there were only two hippies in the whole group, and they were by a safe distance.
The kid he'd seen at the door arrived just then. He opened his backpack and took out a fancy tobacco holder.
"Now who wants some?" he sang out enthusiastically, shaking the tobacco box in his hand.
Token was first in line. He mumbled something inaudible to the kid, who gave the whole box to him. The twerk girl came up to him to light up a joint, and it was slowly starting to dawn to Stan that coming here had been a very bad idea. He had no idea who the dealer kid was, the few people he did know here were tripping their balls off, and the rich kid club was throwing glances at him. Stan scanned the room for an escape. Shit, his hand felt so empty without a glass to hold, too, why had he ever put it down?
"Stan?" Token seemed to notice him just then. Stan startled a bit, but managed a wide smile.
"Shit, hey," he said, all casual as if he hadn't even seen him.
"I haven't seen you on this side of the party before," Token said, lighting up the joint.
"Yeah, no. I just happened to stumble here, I don't know."
Token sniggered. Really, he sniggered. Some of his rich ass friends did, too, but Stan doubted they even knew what or whom they were laughing at. "Sure. Take a hit?"
Stan grinned.
There came a voice from the rich kid corner. "Careful, are you sure he can afford that?"
It was Gregory Thorne, the worst kind of a rich kid – infuriatingly perfect. Involuntarily, Stan did find himself wondering if he could afford it. Honestly, he had no idea what this shit cost.
Token shook his head. "This one's on me, dude. Haven't ever seen you high."
"Yeah, haven't seen you either," Stan said, taking the joint. "Thanks."
Token laughed incredulously. "Really, Stan? Last Friday?"
Stan looked at him dumbly. Last Friday.. They'd had a match against Denver last Friday.
"We kicked some Denver ass," Token smiled.
"I didn't notice shit," Stan snorted. He put the joint on his lips, inhaled gently, and exhaled. He didn't feel much anything and the cloud of smoke he breathed out looked far less impressive than he'd imagined. So he breathed in again, and deep. Held it, felt it itch his throat, and blew it out. Grey smoke like straight from a picture. Stan choked back a cough.
"Fuck, you're really going for it," Token laughed. "Come on, why are you sitting there all alone on the floor? Did a girl dump you again?"
Stan gestured at Craig and Tweek, who seemed to live in a parallel universe. "I'm not alone."
"Those two couldn't tell you apart from a table," Token said. "Come on, let's go."
"To where?" Stan asked, although he was already standing up. As he stood up he felt his head swim, fuck yes, finally something, but it passed quickly enough. Stan took another long drag from the joint. He had no idea what to do with it once it was finished and didn't want to be there when it did, so he gave it back to Token.
Token led him straight to the rich guys' club. Stan didn't care to protest even if he only knew Token and, unfortunately, Gregory.
On second thought, he didn't even really want to protest. The snobby faces he knew from school looked so weird and out of place in the cloudy room, with their cloudy expressions.
"So you rescued the stray," Gregory laughed the second he saw him. He looked absurd among the stoned faces with his blazer and perfect hair - and a nearly finished blunt in his hand.
"You haven't had nearly enough," Token decided and tossed the tobacco holder to Gregory. "See if that'll chill you out."
Gregory caught the box without protest and stubbed his old blunt in an ash tray. Stan didn't really prefer to be getting high with him, especially when he'd never done it before. He glanced at Tweek and Craig and confirmed they were still in a vegetable state. At least he wouldn't look like such an ass with Token &co.
"Here, man," Token said, holding out another joint and a lighter. Stan took them hesitantly and put the joint on his mouth. No one looked at him weirdly so he supposed he was doing alright and there were no secret rituals associated with lighting up weed.
"What's your name, lad?" one of the preps asked. Stan had definitely not seen the guy before, his face was way too memorable. On top of that, he was wearing three wrist watches and a white collar shirt. To a party.
Stan blew out a cloud of smoke. "I'm Stan."
"Ledge."
Stan wondered how many of the strange students in the circle were British. He hadn't talked to any of them before, not even in passing conversation.
"I'm Francis," the boy said. Stan nodded, taking another puff.
"Are you going to pass it?" Gregory asked.
Stan stared. "Pass what?"
Gregory chuckled, and with him, the ring laughed. It wasn't a mean laugh, weirdly enough, and Stan kind of wanted to laugh too, it was so continuous, but he couldn't laugh at something Gregory had said.
"The joint," Token finally said. "Pass it over."
"Oh," Stan said and did as he was told.
As he watched Token blow out smoke rings he seemed to realise how ridiculous this all was. There he was, getting toked with the insufferable snobs of South Park. Stan glanced at Gregory and found him looking at him. They stared at each other in silence. Stan wondered what Gregory was like when he was high. In school he always seemed so tense and haughty.
He was really getting high with Gregory Thorne. This was ridiculous. Everything seemed so ridiculous to him, he wanted to just laugh.
Francis passed the joint to Gregory, who finally averted his gaze from him. Gregory took a hit and passed the joint to an unknown boy, who passed it on to a nameless girl. The whole circle was done before Stan even realised. And the circle.. It was like a new universe to Stan. As the fumes sunk into his skin he felt he knew each of them by soul. They all looked so happy he didn't want to even consider going back to his vodka, he could've spent a life in that daze.
And right there, in the smoke, he saw God.
"Stan?" it called to him.
"God?" Stan said, confused. "Please, join us."
But God dissolved. Token was looking at him weirdly. The people around him roared with laughter again and so Stan joined in, too. Hell, he'd never have guessed the rich kid club was this great.
"I should've hung out with you all before," he told his new friends.
"Amen," said the girl to his left. Stan asked her name.
"Henrietta."
"No shit? I knew a girl named Henrietta," Stan said. Holy fuck, he couldn't believe the coincidence. Everything in the world was truly connected.
"Marsh," Gregory said, only Stan wasn't sure if it was him, because the voice didn't make him want to strangle babies, as Gregory's usually did. "It's really not acceptable that you don't even know your friends' names."
"No shit, it isn't."
"Please, meet Francis, Bridon, Rebecca and Henrietta."
"Yes," said Stan. Somehow, all the people in the circle looked so familiar to him, even the fuckboy with the watches, and not just familiar like random people he'd seen at school, Stan really felt he knew all of them, with their arrogant eyes and expensive mouths.
Suddenly, he could hear an angel singing.
Stan looked at the ceiling, expecting some heavenly light. Somehow, he was so sure God and all Heavens were with them that night.
"Thorne, please," the wrist watch whose name he had suddenly forgotten said. "No choir tonight."
The angel quit singing. Really, it'd been just Gregory. He was staring at a wall.
"Another round," Henrietta announced and opened the tobacco box delicately with delicate, fat fingers.
At this point Stan started wondering at the dangers of marijuana. Maybe he should stop soon. His blood was supposedly still clogged with alcohol, there had to be a limit to how much poison a person could take in one night. Stan mused at repeatedly injecting himself with poison to endure the poison of being alive itself and laughed at how stupid he sometimes sounded.
"Who got the munchies?" Henrietta shouted suddenly, and half the room stood up. Well, Stan thought it was half the room, because the walls to his left stood up straighter than the walls to his right. Stan marvelled at the walls and saw them gather themselves up and leave the room. Suddenly it was all very dark and he was alone in blackness. Alone with God, who again approached him from the other side of the room. Stan opened his eyes.
"Smoke this with me," the golden-haired God said with a voice hoarse from divine smoke.
"Of course," said Stan, because you don't say no to God.
Gregory looked him up and down. "Well, maybe better not."
"What? Bullshit."
"You look pretty fucked to me," Gregory said, putting the joint on his lips. The way he sucked in the smoke was so graceful Stan wondered if he was not God after all. Everything he ever did had to be so goddamn graceful.
Okay, no, God wasn't such an asshole.
Or actually, that would make sense.
"Why'd you come here?" Gregory asked him, studying his face.
"Uh," Stan said.
"You've never smoked before, clearly," Gregory said.
"Yeah," Stan said. "That's why."
"So you just needed to try it out."
"Alcohol doesn't do it for me anymore," Stan told him.
"Why are we talking?" said Gregory, but it seemed a rhetorical question.
There they sat, on a Persian rug, in Bebe's guest room, in South Park, in Colorado, in the U.S, on planet Earth, in Milky Way, in the universe, perhaps in existence.
And Gregory inhaled and exhaled, weed and air, and Stan sat there watching him, and with every breath hated him a little less. There was something so unbelievably humanising about breathing the same air with someone.
Stan looked around the room. He couldn't see anyone, even Craig and Tweek had disappeared.
"What happened?" Stan asked.
"Huh?" Gregory seemed to wake up from a daze.
"Where is everyone?"
"They left," said Greg. "They're probably at McDonald's, fucking shit up."
"Munchies.. Right. Oh yeah! That word."
Gregory gave a laugh.
Stan looked around the empty room. It was so quiet, except for the walls. The bass thumped the walls even here, and he didn't hear so much as feel muffled music from behind the door.
"Why are we here?" asked Stan.
"No one really knows," Greg said. "Personally, I think the Universe is vain. That it needs someone to recognise its existence."
Stan stared at him. "Whoa, deep. Didn't think.. No, yes I did. Of course you think of shit like that. I mean I guess I agree.. I meant, why are we alone here in this dead ass room? Is it over? Not everyone's gone, right?"
Stan imagined the whole house empty, walls dancing to the beat, lonely at midnight. He didn't dislike the idea.
"Oh, most of the drinking people are still here, I suppose," Greg said.
"Well, shit," Stan said, standing up. "What are we doing here? Let's go!"
"No, no, no," Gregory protested, dragging Stan back down. "Why the hell would you want to go watch drunk people do.. drunk people things, possibly have them throw up on you?"
Stan imagined everyone he knew laughing and dancing behind the door, having the time of their lives and creating inside jokes for years to come.
"Fuck no, dude, I'm not gonna miss out."
"Stan, it's… uh," - Greg looked at his watch -, "2 A.M, they've all passed out. That's how drunk people work."
"I'll have a look," Stan said and stood up again. He knew his friends, they were weak when it came to drinking, but not that weak. "Just come with me."
"No," Greg said and grasped him by his leg. "It may be continuous. If you're so worried of being alone with me, Token and the others are coming back soon. Trust me, I await them with joy."
"Like hell they are," Stan said. He was sure they would spend the night having exclusive fun in the backyard of McDonald's, they'd probably forgotten all about him and Greg already.
Stan sighed and looked down at Gregory, who was still holding him by his leg. Gregory looked genuinely scared that he should leave. Stan decided he didn't really care about the party after all and sat back down.
"There," Gregory smiled, somewhat relieved. He put the joint in his hand between Stan's lips. "Now chill."
Stan stared at Greg's light blue eyes and thought to himself how he'd never seen ice that looked half as cold. Meanwhile, he wasn't really sure what he was doing with the joint.
"You're not smoking properly," Greg said and took the joint from him. "Watch."
"I think I know how to smoke, thank you," Stan said, but watched anyway. He looked at how Gregory sucked the fumes in, held it, how the smoke poured from the corners of his mouth. Gregory looked at him as if expecting a reaction.
"As I thought, I know how to smoke," Stan told him. "Give it to me."
Gregory looked him straight in the eye. "I think not. Open your mouth."
Stan laughed. "What?"
"I'll show you."
"Alright..." He opened his mouth wide, struggling to stifle a laugh.
"Now breathe out and hold your breath."
Gregory sucked in smoke and leaned in, leaned in so close and his mouth was just barely open, Stan had no difficulty not breathing. He felt his face grow hot.
"Breathe," Gregory said, and the smoke poured from his mouth into Stan's, it felt like velvet in his mouth, and Stan thought it was the greatest smoke he'd had in his life. That smoke has been in Gregory Thorne's mouth, it must be divine, he thought to himself, only half-jokingly.
Gregory turned his head, took another drag, and breathed it into Stan's mouth again. Stan only barely felt the smoke this time, though.
He felt their lips touch.
A quiver went through his whole being.
Gregory pulled back and stared at him. Stan stared back at him, feeling his pulse thicken with every passing second. He burnt to reach forward and touch him.
But he didn't have to – Gregory leant in and closed his lips over his, and Jesus Christ, his lips were so impossibly soft. Stan gave into the kiss easily, and every taste made him want more. He put his hand behind Gregory's neck, pulled him closer still. He wanted to taste everything there was, he opened his mouth softly, felt Gregory's tongue, met it with his. He tasted like smoke and wine.
Suddenly, Gregory pulled away. He stubbed the abandoned joint in the ash tray lying on the floor.
"Shit, what the fuck are we doing?"
For a moment they just looked at each other, endless South Parks passed between them. Every hateful passing in the hallway, every sideways glance.
"Fuck it," Stan said, daring him with his gaze.
"Fuck it," Gregory said.
He pulled Stan back against him and smashed his mouth against his. Stan kissed him back with equal fervour and grabbed him by his shirt, tore into the fabric, pressed himself against it. He kissed Gregory's cheek, his jaw, his neck. He ran his hand through the golden hair, he wanted to mess the perfectness away.
Every moment was fire, everywhere Greg's hand touched him caught aflame. The walls still thumped in waves and Stan shook with them, with every beat, and he felt everything, felt Gregory's hand on the back of his neck, on his waist. He felt Gregory's skin under his lips when he tugged at it with his teeth, he felt his silky hair under his hand, his harsh breath on his neck. Stan kissed him on the mouth again, softer.
Gregory laughed into his mouth.
"You taste so fucking disgusting."
"You must hate it," Stan said. He pulled the blond closer again to shut him up for once.