Title: Silence
Summary: Some souls find solace in simpler things. Kenny and Stan friendship fic.
AN: Any pairings can be left up to your imagination (although, honestly, none were originally intended). As for the disclaimers? They're acknowledged, Matt and Trey.
His father is an embarrassment; most dads toss out strange stories and curious welcomes, whereas his is flinging slurred accusations, drunk and screaming in the front room. He wants Kevin out of the house, and everyone knows it, even his guests.
"Screw you, Stuart!" It permeates in Stan's startled silence, "Like you did anything with your fucking life--"
"Don't you sass me, you lazy bitch!"
Kenny tenses, gathering the cards with a practiced flick of the wrist, and stands as the yells buzz from the other room. Stan, having no seasoned survival instinct, mutters a distant, "what the hell are they doing, man?" and he's reluctant to answer. His skin prickles with the threat of violence, like any other day, and part of him is amused that the sensation is this darkly proverbial.
"Being dumbasses," he sneers from the open basement door, motioning for him to follow. "Come on--" The sounds escalate, and they are surrounded by crashes and threats as Stan disappears into the shadowed staircase.
"Crap-- where's the light switch?" He flicks it on as a muffled, "Dad, get the hell off of mom!" fractures the peace completely. Kenny slams the door, voice stable as he tells him to lock it, and there is a brief argument-- "the fuck! I'm not going to! What the hell are you gonna do?!"-- before the gears slide awkwardly into place.
He fumbles for the phone and dials the police; they answer with bored proficiency, knowing the speaker and the household by name, before he hangs up and tears through the broken hallway. Their family room is a sagging hovel of limbs and shouts, Kevin prying his father from his flailing, swearing mother, while his sister sobs and pleads that they, "Stop, stop Goddamnit-- Kenny help!--" because she's too weak to assist him. He does his best, the sheer force of both him and his brother ripping them from one another, and they pin his father to the wall as the sirens come up around the bend. The entire neighborhood watches as the officers lead him away, spectators to their bloody lips and shattered home, and then gratefully return to their carefree, happy lives. Kenny has already left; he doesn't like to be their freak show.
He slumps into the folds of the couch, and, head searing with pain, has to find the strength to smirk. "Hey, Stan, sorry about them," he half-jokes, "want me to get you an icepack? The asshole's gone." Pain stings his ribcage, and he's ashamed by their utter dysfunction. "You can call Randy if you want—not like, well, you know. He probably heard." He can feel the heaviness of the air, see Stan's anxious jolts as he passes and leaves him to the company of an empty room—but he doesn't choke him with misplaced concern, and Kenny might have said he loved him for that.
Stan brings back porno mags and nervous smiles, the two barely managing the buttons of their game controllers, and, briefly, Kenny is in the only home where he feels safe, ". . . Let's get out of here," he says and pulls down his hood, because, for once, he doesn't need the protection of walls to feel secure.
They have secrets, Stan knows, as he winds his way to Stark's Pond. A family is the one belonging God fits a person with, and family can be a fickle thing. For houses like Kenny's, even the quietest things babble, and there's no order to the madness; the past was always gone before they had a chance to value it.
The wind nips him with chill and he watches the ripples spin into infinity, the murmuring of skeletal trees an ancient elegy to their innocence. No one else can see it except the both of them; the way they swell and die, reflections separating into fours and shivering beneath the thin sheet of ice. It's something alien even in South Park, where everything moves and never changes, but, if there's anything he can relate it to, that would be this place. The water is old and constant, having seen more than he ever will, and poisoned by the knowledge.
He pauses, Kenny contrasting sharply with the dying gray, and sees his friend's shadow break below the pond's surface. Stan knows there are things they can't tell anyone because there are things no one needs to hear.
AN: Done kind of quickly. (It ended on a strange note, but hey-- sadly though, I'm not positive if this will seem out of character or not, given the situation. /: ) I liked this piece in particular, and, despite that it was originally part of a (now discontinued) larger work, I wanted to use it.