Well it certainly has been a while since I published anything, but I'm proud to say my fanfic writing skills aren't completely gone yet. I also want to say I'm sorry for my lack of imagination with the name, I'll change it if I think of something good but for now it'll do I guess. Max I'm glad to say I'm finally done with this! It took longer than expected but I had a ton of interuption, anyway I hope you like it!

Disclaimer: I don't own South Park or any of it's characters bla bla bla...

"Hey Craig." I said taking my usual seat next to one of my closest friends. Ever since we started fifth grade my usual friends, Cartman, Stan, and Kenny, have been shunning me every other week for no particular reason. I started talking to Craig during one of those lonely weeks and we quickly became good friends.

"Hey." He replied without even picking his head up off the lunch table.

"You ok?" I asked. Craig was notorious for flipping off anybody who talked to him, even his friends, it's just something he's always done, but neither of his hands even twitched when I sat next to him.

"I'm fine why do you ask?"

"You didn't flip me off, you always flip me off."

"I just don't feel like being an ass right now, you got a problem with that you can take it up with my lawyer." He said in the same monotone he always spoke in. Normally I would just leave him alone, why talk to someone who doesn't want to be talked to? But I just had a nagging feeling in the pit of my stomach telling me to question him further.

"Dude I know there's something wrong just tell me now 'cause you're gonna end up telling me anyway." I tried to get him to talk.

"I told you I'm fine just drop it." He sounded like he was starting to get angry now.

"You wanna skip the rest of the day? We can go to the arcade or something." I suggested, once we were out of school he might be more willing to talk to me.

"No. Just leave me alone."

"No! We are leaving school right now and you are gonna tell me what's wrong whether you like it or not!" I yelled, lunch would be over soon and if I didn't get him to leave with me I would have to wait until school was over to get him to talk.

He didn't say anything, just gave me a look that said 'go ahead and make me' so that's exactly what I did. I grabbed him by the arm and pulled him from the table and dragged him right out the main entrance. I'll be honest, he didn't put up much of a fight, which makes me think he really did want to leave. Once we were clear of the school doors I let go of his arm and he walked next to me in silence with his hands in his pockets and head down.

"Where do you want to go?" I asked, we hadn't really done anything outside of school much yet so I didn't know his usual hang-out spots. He just shrugged and didn't give me an answer. "Jesus Christ Craig you have to be so damn difficult. Just pick somewhere for us to go for the rest of the day, it doesn't matter where."

"We can just walk around I guess. I don't feel like sitting anywhere." he answered after a few minutes of consideration.

"Whatever you want is fine with me." And with that we began our long journey throughout the town. No one questioned us about skipping school and even better we didn't run into either of our parents. We walked in silence at first, I hoped he would talk on his own but when he didn't say a word I knew I would have to drag it out of him. "So what's wrong?" No response. "You can tell me what's on your mind you know I won't tell anyone if you don't want me to." Still silence from his end. "Craig, I'm just trying to help here, give me a break."

"It's not that big a deal Kyle, really."

"If it wasn't a big deal you wouldn't have such a big problem telling me." When he didn't say anything I stopped and turned him towards me. "Craig, I'm your friend. I just want to make you feel better." Craig avoided looking up at me, instead choosing to look at the ground. I kept one hand on his shoulder and made him look up at me with the other. Now that I had a clear look at him I saw just how upset he was. He looked like he was on the verge of crying but was afraid to look uncool in front of me.

He took a long breath in before finally saying, "Stripe died last night. He was my best friend and he's gone."

"Craig I'm sorry." He didn't even seem to hear me.

"What am I gonna do without him? He was the only one who would listen to me." he started crying at this point and I wasn't sure what to do. I never had a friend crying over anything in front of me like this. All I could do was pull him into an awkward hug and try to think of something to say.

"You know you can always talk to me." Was the only thing I could think to say.

"But you're not Stripe, it won't be the same."

"I know it won't, and I'm not trying to replace Stripe but he probably wouldn't want you to be so upset, he would want you to be happy."

"How can I be happy about him dying?" Craig pulled away and looked at me angrily.

"I didn't say that. Craig I know you loved him but do you really think he'd want you to be crying?"

"Well no but…I can't just forget about him."

I thought for a second and got an idea. "Do you have any pictures of him?" Craig nodded his head whipping tears from his cheeks, trying to stop crying. "Why don't we put it in a frame for you to keep next to your bed or something? That way you can still talk to him whenever you want, I'm sure he'll still be listening."

He smiled a bit and agreed. We did a bit of shopping and I bought him a frame that said 'I love my pet' at the bottom. We had to do a bit of sneaking to get into his house undetected; we were still supposed to be in school. We looked through his pictures for an hour, there was some sort of story behind every one and Craig told me about them at length. Finally we came across the perfect one. The picture had both of them in it, Craig had on a smile wider than I'd ever seen before and I'm sure if Stripe could've smiled he would have. We put it in the frame and placed the frame on the nightstand right next to his bed.

Craig smiled again looking at the picture. I was relieved when he stopped crying, if he had continued I wouldn't have had any idea what to do. Craig suddenly stood up and hugged me, resting his head on my shoulder. It felt a little strange at first but a few seconds later I smiled and hugged him back. "Thanks Kyle." Was the last thing he said to me that day, we didn't really need to say anything else. Nowadays Craig and I are inseparable. Craig liked the idea of talking to Stripe still but after a while he said he felt like he was talking to himself like a crazy person so he started telling me everything he would have told Stripe. I feel terrible saying it but I'm kind of glad Stripe died, if he hadn't Craig wouldn't be such a close friend.