This is a fic I've been wanting to write for a very long time. And I finally have. And got really carried away with it. I hope you'll like it but please be honest in your reviews and tell me what you think.
I own nothing. South Park and its characters © Trey Parker, Matt Stone and Comedy Central
Another night, another baby born. Carol lies on the filthy mattress, panting. Her body is limp and she aches everywhere. Damn kids. She watches through tired eyes as her husband clamps the cord with rubber bands and cuts it with a penknife. His hands are unsteady in the darkness, and he ends up cutting his own finger, cursing loudly enough to make the previously quiet baby begin to wail in fright. Carol cringes at the sound and longs for the clean, bright emergency room, where stupid drunks would not be allowed within a hundred yards of surgical implements, where epidurals are regularly available and where she could pretend that this is a rare, special event and not an everyday occurrence, as common and tedious as bills or arguments. But hospitals are for normal people, the hoity-toity rich folk who would never attend cult meetings for the sole purpose of getting wasted and have to continue paying the price ten years later by giving birth to their immortal son again, night after night. Not for her, who could never afford it anyway.
"Fuckin' dumbass. Give 'im here."
She takes the baby in her arms, rocking him and crooning to him until his crying subsides. She heads along the hall to the bathroom and cleans him off. The slimy, purple abomination that just left her body, after putting her through Hell for the umpteenth time, is transformed. She rubs her cheek against the soft tufts of gold-coloured fuzz on Kenny's head and strokes his own cheek with her finger. His baby fat will all be gone by the time he wakes up; his now chubby face will grow more angular, with her nose, and Stuart's smile. Her baby will be gone again. But for now, he makes a contented mewling sound and curls his tiny fist around Carol's.
His little hands are perfect. But not for long. She knows her son and his tendency to get into scrapes. She knows his habit of striking matches and letting them burn all the way down to his fingertips. She may not know exactly what he gets up to when he is nowhere to be seen late at night, but she knows it can't be safe. And so those perfect hands will be marred in no time. History has a way of repeating itself.
She remembers when her own hands were smooth and childish, dirt forming a thin layer under the nails. Her hands have always been small. They can't have grown since she was about ten or eleven-she can still fit them into Kenny's gloves if need be. Irish hands, her mother always said. Her hands were small too. Carol seemed to have inherited them. Soft, smooth hands, with the fingers all curving into one another. She remembers before having any of her kids, back when she was just a kid herself, when she'd steal her older sisters' nail polishes and paint her own bitten stubs every colour of the rainbow, smudging her left hand as she clumsily attempted to paint her right.
Her hands were never kept busy in the same way as her siblings, since there was nothing she was especially talented at or encouraged to pursue. Zachary, her oldest brother, had football, which, by the time Carol was twelve, had caused him to break his left arm twice. The twins, Tiffany and David, had drama and music respectively so their hands were also put to good use. Jessica, the sister closest to Carol in age, had hands that were permanently covered in ink from all the essays she had to write for her Advanced Placement Classes. For a while, Carol was pushed to replicate the skills of her siblings. Then, when she failed miserably, showing to lack co-ordination, aptitude, enthusiasm and capacity, her parents thought their youngest daughter may have been waiting to display her own unique talent. She liked to make things, to sew and knit, especially. For a short while, it was accepted that little Carolyn was the artistic visionary of the family.
But then Peggy-Sue, the surprise younger sister that meant Carol had had no sixth birthday party as her mother had given birth two days before, spoiled everything. By the time Peggy-Sue was four, she showed remarkable artistic talent, which, everyone agreed most be encouraged. From that point on, Peggy-Sue's fingers were permanently covered with paint, chalk, charcoal or whatever other artistic medium she chose (it didn't really matter since she was equally brilliant at all of them) and the 10 year old Carol's efforts went unnoticed. After a while, she lay down her knitting needles and did not pick them up again for the rest of the time that she lived at home.
Years passed, and Carol grew. Puberty kicked in with a vengeance and by the time she was in fifth grade, Carol had already reached a C-cup bra. Strange boys and men looked at her in the street. Sometimes they would whistle or cat-call, making Carol blush and Carol's mother glare at her daughter, as though it were somehow her fault. Other than that, no one noticed her much. At school, most people, the boys especially, had taken to referring to her as "the girl with the big titties." Her chest may have grown, but her hands were still as small as ever. Now, they began to be used to put on eye makeup and lipstick, pick-pocketed from the coats of her sisters and her mother's purse with spare change and Tiffany's driver's license. She learned to wear the same clothes as her sister was wearing on the photo and to intercept a party invitation addressed to her in the mail box one day.
That night, she had come across one Stuart McCormick sat at the bottom of the stairs of the house the party was being held in. One of his hands had been clasped firmly around a bottle of Jameson's and the other slapping the shoulder of the boy Carol would later come to know as Gerald Broflovski, who had rolled his eyes at his friend ,gently prised the bottle away from him and walked away, in the direction of home and sanity. After muttering curses under his breath for a good few minutes, Stuart seemed to notice Carol. He kissed her hand, she remembers. And then held it for most of the evening as the two got talking (and drinking). After a while, her memories get hazy, but she remembers crying at one point and him thumbing away her tears and holding her close. He was pretty romantic, back in the day, before he became a worthless hunk o' shit. Her little hands were put to great use as she learned several interesting new skills under Stuart McCormick that night.
Carol, still cradling the sleeping infant Kenny in her arms, walks back to the bedroom and picks up the worn, woollen baby blanket draped over the rickety chair in the corner. This blanket has held all three of her children as babies. She remembers first making it. Being pregnant at 12 years old doesn't leave you a whole lot of options. After the initial drama of finding out Carol had been impregnated by a grown man, her family had refused to have anything to do with her, Stuart or the child-to-be that was Kevin. All at once, she seemed to become the town pariah. Unable to work, due to being too young and too pregnant, she stayed inside the house Stuart and his brother shared, feeling nauseous and at a loose end. While Stuart took whatever job he could find as his brother, Luke finished up school, Carol searched in vain for something to occupy herself with, until one day, she found knitting needles and yarn stuffed down the side of the threadbare couch in the living room. She guessed Stuart's mother had abandoned them there when she took off, many years previously. It was something to do. By the time she was seven months pregnant, Carol had a wedding ring on the third finger of her left hand and a white baby shawl with the dropped stitches carefully concealed.
She'll never forget how odd the wedding ring feels. Whether she has an allergy to gold (or more likely, nickel, considering who gave it her) or just isn't one for rings, it's never felt quite like it belonged there. It was slightly too big when Stuart gave it her, being made for a grown woman, and not a twelve year old who had decided to fool around one night, and after years of poverty, having lost her baby fat, Carol has had to transfer it to a chain around her neck so as not to lose it. It feels somehow better that way. More permanent and less like she's a little kid raiding her mom's jewellery box while playing Dress Up. Besides, cheap as it may be, she's sort of attached to it. It's just pretty enough that if she wore it on her finger, it'd just make the rest of her hand look even uglier.
She wraps the blanket round Kenny, tucking the ends in neatly and rolling her eyes as the dry skin on the palm of her hand catches on the soft wool. Years of washing dishes at the Olive Garden, and other places before it, have meant that Carol now has dishpan hands. She overhears some of the girls at work saying that lotion will cure that right up, but they've obviously never been poor. Besides, it's not like the rest of the stuff on her hands can be so easily treated.
But then again, maybe the reason Carol thinks her hands are so ugly is because they've been used to do ugly things. The chemical burns from working the meth lab, for example. Even now she's given it up after nearly losing her babies forever, the burns stay. Or the liver spot she now has, directly under the knuckle of her left middle finger. She drinks to try and forget. People say she's got a problem. As far as Carol is concerned, life is the problem, with drink being the solution. Then there's the cuts and bruises she and Stuart inflict on each other. Some people are shocked that a man could ever hit his wife and even more stunned that she is willing to do the same to him, but that's just life. With her and Stuart, it's nothing personal, just means of venting their frustrations.
Better than taking it out on the kids anyway, like the Stotches do with their poor son. CPS really oughta take a look at those assholes afore they go 'ccusing us o' worse. She thinks, "Horrible emotional and physical abuse my ass." There may have been a light slap on the wrist, or upside the head if her kids really deserve it and Carol will admit there have been two or three occasions where things have gotten out of hand, thanks to one or more of her family members being stupid drunk assholes. But she loves those kids. And for all his faults, so does Stuart. And they try. And no one notices. And they usually fuck up royal. But they try.
The baby stirs and stretches out his arms inside the blanket, making a sucking movement with his mouth before his blue eyes open again. Carol wonders for a minute if breast-feeding your son, who by rights is ten years old and will be fully regrown by morning is wrong or not. He needs it...although he could just wait till morning. She's sore enough already, thanks to him. But they're low on food and have no money to go food shopping with till the end of the week. 'S not like he'll remember, anyway. She unbuttons her pajama top and lets him feed. To say how many times she's been pregnant, her body's not survived too badly. Her breasts are tender, but she's done this enough times that she can manage to ignore it. Kenny finishes his feed and she tugs her top closed once more before turning back towards her husband.
"C'mon, y'dumb prick, make y'self useful!"
Stuart looks up from nursing his cut finger and scowls at his wife before holding out his arms for the baby. She notices him sneaking a look as she re-buttons her shirt and shoots him a wry smirk. He feigns innocence and kisses the top of the baby's head before getting to his feet again.
They enter Kenny's room. Carol grabs her middle child's parka from the dresser, unzips it and lays it out on the bed while Stuart unwraps the shawl and places Kenny inside the coat, zipping it up around him. In the beginning, when this all started, Carol used to be afraid he'd either fall off the bed in the night or suffocate under the thick parka, but if he were to, she'd just have to birth him again anyway. As it is, he seems to have done okay thus far. Her baby's a fighter.
They leave the room, switching off the light on the way out. Carol looks at Stuart and he nods. They have this routine down. Stuart goes into Kevin's room and Carol goes in to check on her daughter. Karen is sleeping, curled up on her side, her doll in the crook of her arm. The toys that were once her brothers', Kevin's giraffe with the bent neck and Kenny's teddy bear, stand watch in the corner. Karen rescued them from their original fate of the trashcan and granted them sanctuary in her room. Karen likes to do little things for people who can't help themselves. Like providing a home for the rats in her jacket pocket or fetching band-aids and blankets for whichever member of her stupid family is passed out on the couch with cuts and bruises after the latest fight.
The girl sleeping in the bed is often overlooked with everything her brothers manage to bring on themselves or have happen to them. At times in her life, especially towards the beginning, she seemed frighteningly impermanent. Carol has heard some of the parents in the playground look at her little girl and mutter amongst themselves, "nice girl…deserves better." She sometimes thinks it herself. But when Karen was born, she almost reached that someplace better. She almost died. She scared the shit out of them all and made them love her in a defiant, even aggressive way after being told that there was a good chance she might not live to the age of five. And as a McCormick, she fought. And won. Only to be looked down on by the rest of the world. But for now she can sleep and rest from all the bullshit she's in the middle of. Carol smoothes the bed clothes and kisses Karen's forehead.
She leaves the room and sees Stuart still standing pensively in the doorway of Kevin's room. Their eldest son is sprawled out on the mattress, covers kicked away. Kevin flexes his fingers in his sleep and Carol notices they're now black with engine oil, with splotches of it continuing all the way up to his elbows. Must've been doin' some work fer Luke again. Not that Stuart's brother particularly makes it worth Kevin's while-if anything he's ripping him off considering he pays him in spray paint-but it keeps her son busy and he seems to enjoy it. Could be worse.
He's drooling slightly and his limbs are all akimbo. Like father, like son. It's a shame really. Up until Kevin was about 8 or 9, he and Stuart were inseparable. They understood each other better than anyone else could. They still do, Carol knows, underneath. But now Kevin's older and drunker and more of a smart-ass. Most of all, he's just angry. He's at the stage where he's learning that life isn't going to be kind to him. Kids are little shits at that age, and Kevin probably gets the worst of it. So, like Stuart, he tries to forget about it. It reminds her of her own relationship with Stuart almost. The two have the same temper, especially when they're angry or hurt, which doesn't really help either. But there's still a good kid deep down. There's still time. Maybe.
Maybe not. But for all Kevin might have inherited Stuart's temper and his alcoholic tendencies as well as a lack of academia and an unfailing ability to find trouble and be in the wrong place at exactly the wrong time, he also has Stuart's resilience and loyalty and a heart that can be misguided and make stupid, dangerous decisions but is always in the right place. Y' can't rightly ask for more'n that, she thinks. Not as a McCormick anyway.
Stuart's gaze is still fixed on his oldest son and his expression is one Carol can't read. Guilt? Pride? Regret? All of them? Before she can decide, her husband notices her watching him, clears his throat loudly and looks away as though he's ashamed. She puts a hand on his bicep,
"C'mon. S'late. Or early. I got work later anyway. Let's go t'bed."
He nods wordlessly. Once back in the room, the two get back into bed, ignoring the small patch of blood-stained fluid, which has now dried. Sleep is more important than tidiness right now anyway. Under the covers, Carol feels for Stuart's hand and clasps it. He lightly squeezes her fingers as they begin to drift off to sleep again. So much is beyond their reach. But for now they'll scrape by and maybe one day God will deal them a better hand.