Ike loved pot. Pot made life make sense. Pot helped Ike keep his cool, so to speak.
Most days Ike felt like he was a magnet surrounded by iron filings: knowledge just gravitated towards him, attached itself to him, kept coming and coming. For the most part Ike absorbed information passively—he wasn't like Kyle, who devoured information like he was searching for something crucial he couldn't even put a name to—but pot… pot helped all of that knowledge settle in for the long haul. It helped Ike make connections, both intellectually and spiritually. People called him a genius, but without this process Ike didn't think he was any better than any other kid in his class. Filmore and Flora, who he hung out with in school, just didn't understand that. But what wasn't to understand? It all seemed pretty damn simple from this side of the fence.
That was why he liked smoking with Craig Tucker, who somehow always had the best weed. He and Craig (and Tweak, who actually used marijuana medicinally but was paranoid that Craig was lacing his purchases with opium—or was that tree bark?) would share a joint together, and they would soundlessly watch the frankly fascinating process of Tweak Tweek mellowing the fuck out for once in his twitchy, paranoid life.
Craig had been dealing to Ike for years, at this point. He didn't talk much, didn't care about much, which was what Ike liked about him. He kept secrets like it was his job.
.:;;:.
"You told me you wanted to be a doctor, Bebe," Wendy says as she watches Bebe pick out her blonde curls in front of the vanity on the other side of her room. Wendy was sitting on Bebe's bed with a textbook open on her lap and two different notebooks flanking her, along with her laptop open to a website that would or wouldn't validate the research paper she is writing. She looks haggard, in need of a vacation or at least a really good laugh that will leave her abs sore and tears in her eyes.
"I do," Bebe says simply. She has two different perfumes, and she can't decide which to wear tonight. "And I am going to be one."
"Then what the hell are you doing right now?"
"Getting ready to have some fun," Bebe tells her with a smile and somewhat raised eyebrows. 'Remember what that's like, Wendy? Do you remember at all?'
"You're never going to get into a good college by acting like this."
"Sure I am."
"Oh—okay, wise guy, how?" Wendy tosses her textbook to the ground in her indignation, her jealousy of Bebe's relaxed demeanor and the fact that Bebe could give herself one measly day a week to go out on a girls' night and have a good time. Wendy isn't usually like this—usually she's live and let live, unless you're Cartman—but she and Bebe are close. Being close means being able to expose your frustrations without breaking your friendship. Wendy has heard all of Bebe's woes more than once, and now it is Bebe's turn.
"Because I'm not going to burn out in high school," says Bebe serenely. She decides to go for the frutier perfume and rubs some into the inside of her wrists. "What do high school transcripts mean after an acceptance letter, Wends? Nothing. The rest of the world could give a shit about what you did in high school. It's what you do in college that actually matters."
"But you need to get into college, Bebe—that's the point of high school!"
Bebe isn't sure if Wendy wants to get out of South Park or stay. Wendy works like she wants to get as far away from Colorado as possible, but Bebe knows that Wendy also plans on getting an education so that she can use their town's staggering influence better. South Park is a powerful anomaly, a swing state in itself. If South Park wants something changed, something always happens so that those changes are possible. Bebe knows that, one day, Wendy intends to come back and harness this so she can redirect it… somewhere. Bebe isn't sure that Wendy even knows where yet; she just doesn't want Cartman to have it. ("If Eric fucking Cartman wins South Park, then it's over. We're done. Write your will and say your prayers, Bebe, because America will be going to hell in a handbasket within a week.")
There is a lot that Bebe can say about Wendy's preoccupation with this particular subject. The least as well as the most of it is that Bebe thinks her friend is right. Assuming that Eric Cartman has his sights on total domination of South Park's influence (and, if you listen to what Wendy has to say, it sounds like he does), life could get pretty shitty pretty quickly. In Bebe's opinion, there is a valid reason for Wendy's seemingly insane drive to be the best, and therefore ultimate controller of South Park's fate.
That isn't the point, though.
"And going out for once night—even having fun an entire weekend—isn't going to destroy my chances of that." Bebe raises her eyebrows again, pointedly this time. "Is it, Wendy?"
Wendy, co-valedictorian with Kyle Brofloski, student council president, advocator of egalitarian political agendas, volunteer of soup kitchens and part-time intern at Gerald Brofloski's attorney's office, deflates. She straightens her signature purple baret over her long sheet of black hair, and she glances with new eyes at her notebooks and laptop. Then she looks at Bebe and smiles, and for once she doesn't look harried or tense. Wendy knows how to have fun, it's just a matter of reminding her, jumpstarting her into it. Bebe is good at that.
"You're right, Bebe," Wendy says, smiling a little more. She reaches out and snaps the notebooks shut, the sound echoing throughout Bebe's room like a gavel in an empty court. "It's not going to ruin anything."
.:;;:.
Mysterion had been real since day one. He had never been part of a child's game, and he wasn't part of a teenager's escapist fantasy now.
Crouched on the roof of the local Walgreens, above the street lamps, swathed in darkness, Mysterion scanned the silhouettes of civilians as they went about their lives at ten-thirty in the evening. There was Heidi closing up the local Tubs and Torsos bath shop, and Tweak twitching and shrieking to himself as he checked the area three times before locking the doors to Harbucks. What few cars there were on the road all basically drove the speed limit, and the men getting drunk at the local bar were all more or less behaving themselves. All status quo.
You'd think that, with a town as small as this, there wouldn't be much need for a town hero. For the most part, there wasn't, but when there was—oh, there was. That was where Mysterion came in. That was why Mysterion was always prepared, armed with fists and shuriken and even the .45 he had bought off of Jimbo almost two years ago. Kenny worked at the gas station and performed odd handyman jobs to finance Mysterion with a decent laptop for research, and a cell phone for easy communication with allies, and decent food in his belly so he could keep up with himself. Kenny was the first of all of his peers to buy his very own car, and while it was a piece of shit it still ran, and it was all his. He did that for Mysterion, too.
These days, that was the person Kenny did everything for.
People tended to think that Kenny was naturally athletic, like Stan Marsh, but he wasn't. Kenny worked his ass off. He ran at least five miles a day, did push ups and pull ups and sit ups until his muscles trembled. He did parkour for fun, and water polo for Park High School. To anyone who asked, he found ways to eat well so he could train, and he trained for his sports, and he kept up in school so he could keep playing sports. If anyone asked, he was dedicated to all of this because he didn't want to end up like his parents, drunken white trash screaming and slapping each other around for the hell of it in their piece of shit house.
Really, though, he did all of that because Mysterion had to be strong and healthy and smart—if Mysterion didn't have those things, it was like taking the leg off of a three-legged stool. Mysterion wouldn't be able to do his job of protecting people who deserved it, and Kenny would have failed at the only thing he was ever good for, besides never truly dying.
Mysterion finished his survey street and gave a curt nod of dismissal to himself. Time to move to his next post.
.:;;:.
Stan has the enviable ability of being good at everything he does. He never loses at Yahtzee, he's been the much-loved quarterback on the South Park Cows football team since grade school, he can always get scared animals to calm down, and whenever crazy shit happens in South Park he never gets hurt or sick or abducted by aliens to have his ass probed. He doesn't even have to try, really, he just… does things well. It just happens.
"You've never almost died from hemorrhoids, or had AIDS, or had Mr.-fucking-Garrison's motherfucking testicles explode where your kneecaps are supposed to be," Kyle raves sometimes. He can keep listing examples, too. Easily. Sometimes Stan thinks that Kyle keeps a list of all of the horrible shit they've gone through since the age of eight. That would be like him. "You lucky goddamn bastard, Stan, what did you do and where can I replicate it?"
To this Stan can only shrug helplessly. "I don't know, dude."
Kyle can only growl out his frustration and angrily take his glucose reading (because this conversation usually happens when Kyle is taking his insulin, oddly enough). For all that they rip on Scott Malkinson for having diabetes, Scott isn't the only one. Except Kyle is, like, one-hundred-and-fifty billion times cooler than Scott Malkinson. Seriously. Scott Malkinson is such a fucking melvin it's not even funny. Scott Malkinson makes fucking Butters look cool.
And, just so we're all clear, that is very fucking hard to do.
Stan usually changes the subject after that, and sometimes if he's feeling particularly clever he will get Kyle talking about basketball, which he is still talented at despite—or perhaps in spite of—his Jewishness. He even has a chance at making a college team, he's so good (not that college teams are that prestigious, but because of the Jew-stigma Kyle will never get on a team outside of high school, so the concept of having a chance is huge). That usually does the trick, and things go back to normal after that. And just in time, too, because something really fucked up is usually starting to happen and will soon be in need of their assistance.
Stan has done it before, when he wrote the song that brought Kyle's family back from San Francisco, but as good as he is at doing things by himself he thinks that the Stan-and-Kyle team is so much better. Maybe it's simply having the company of your best friend, but Stan doesn't think so. Without Kyle's ingenuity, ethics and determination, Stan's luck would have no direction—together, they are greater than the sum of their parts.
Kenny might have his Mysterion gig, but this is a kind of superpower that is applicable to more than just fantasy, and more than the night. Stan thinks he and Kyle have the power to change the world twice over, and that is so much fucking cooler than a stupid ass superhero costume.
.:;;:.
You become an actor when you refuse to give up all of those childhood games of pretending to be someone else, still playing an evil villain or a Meheecan long after everyone else stops. Maybe it's the thrill of being able to transform yourself into a completely different person on a mere whim that you like, or maybe it is the relief of leaving who you really are behind for a while. Butters has never been able to pinpoint exactly what he loves best about acting, really. All he knows is that he does.
The fellas like to call him a queermo and a melvin for being part of the drama club, for cheerfully auditioning for every production, but in Butters' opinion there is no better way to get closer to the girls. He, being one of the only boys who does theatre, has had a legitimate excuse to kiss every single one of them at least once, and it's only too easy to get felt up and vice versa in the dance scenes.
Well, Butters will dance as long as it isn't tap, but that is beside the point. The girls are a perk, and he's not impervious to it.
Mostly, though, Butters does theatre for the simple fact that he can be anyone, man or woman, from any time period, for any reason that he wants. He is the man of a thousand faces, the chameleon, and it's that very variability that he wants to define him. He needs that lack of definition, he thinks, even if it makes Mysterion accuse Professor Chaos of not being fully committed to his own self, and scoff derisively at his plans for mayhem. Butters is as committed as he needs to be to Professor Chaos, just like every other persona he shrugs on an off like a jacket.
He thinks his decision not to settle on who to be is what's made Kenny start hating him, though.
A/N: I must just love irony, subconsciously. The day after I update my profile to say officially that I am not going to ever write fanfiction ever again is obviously the best day to be bitten by the fanfiction writing bug. I couldn't sleep last night because I was thinking about writing this. -.-"
Anyhow, I don't intend to write any more. I don't see too much of a future in it, even if I had a plan—although The Ultimate Battle For The Control Of South Park does have a somewhat comedic ring to it… XD