Disclaimer: I do not own South Park or its characters, and make no profit from writing this story. South Park & Characters are property of Matt Stone & Trey Parker.
Kiss x Kiss
By DragonSapphire
A kiss changes everything.
He's seen how quickly and explosively life-long friendships - superbestfriendships - can deteriorate from the soft impact of incompatible lips just brushing, destroying lives from a simple act of curiosity, experimentation. Sometimes the formerly platonic relationship self-annihilates in an instant. Other times over the length of several awkward weeks through the stages of shock, embarrassment, anger...
...consideration...
...disgust, hurt, and finally outright hatred.
He's seen the destruction from one-sided infatuations reaching their limits, provoked into action from jealousy and frustration and envy. This kiss is practically rape once the desperation finally reaches its peak. He's seen friends, a friend, try to hide the bruises on pale upper arms in the aftermath, worry a swollen, split lip with straight white teeth, maintain the shell-shocked look in glazed eyes that will never quite manage to meet anyone else's stare with the same haughty confidence again.
He's seen kisses mean nothing, except a shameless attempt to take the pain away with nearly every available (and unavailable) mouth that could be stomached (or even couldn't, if the retching sounds from the boys' bathroom were anything to go by).
He's gnawed his own lip raw, watching this domino effect of smacks and smooches happen right before him, but never including him. He's a good friend, but not good enough to find comfort with. He's not deformed, but not attractive enough to want to try that curious wet/sticky/dry/chapped contact with either.
He's really fucking easy, truth be told, but he's not even once considered as a goddamn option.
His upper and lower lips are in near-constant contact from his silence. Watching, waiting, and fantasizing how his lips would feel in near-constant contact with someone else's, but those thoughts are bordering infatuation, and he's already seen the results of that particular degree of indulgence.
So he keeps himself in check. Watches his friend self-destruct, tentatively rebuild himself from the ground up, and crash and burn all over again. He tries not to anguish when his own tentative but encouraging smiles go unnoticed, concealed through his own fault, but still.
He's seen his friend wreck his two strongest relationships. One outwardly non-gay love, the other a vicious parody of hatred, which left him where? He's seen too much to believe in third time charms...or believe in much of anything, really. But gradually he's becoming the go-to person, neutral territory.
Their impervious foursome is wrecked and in shambles, and he can imagine any of them wanting to latch onto the familiar, even a warped version. He's had anger issues at being the last resort, at only being noticed when there's nothing left. The raging offense of kiss-type number two flutters through his mind, and he squashes the feeling, desperately wanting his own category that was neither.
The kiss...his kiss...when it happens, comes without surprise.
There's a gradual build up of comfort, support, and familiarity once the anger fades. A slow simmer of attraction after he exposes his face, eases the tight seal between his lips with a sloppy, self-conscious smile, and later opens them for an unfamiliar tongue.
In the aftermath - mouths still tingling - they both stare at each other in silence, waiting for the fall-out, waiting for the end to their last remaining connection, waiting for the hurt...
Both get bored waiting and decide to go play Xbox instead.
In the end, a kiss changes nothing.
...Except maybe everything.