Diclaimer: South Park belongs to Trey Parker and Matt Stone.
Pairing: just a bit of Kenny/Craig. Inspired by ChessleChat's comic, the Sound of Silence! Please check it out, it's amazing :)
When Kenny dies, it takes damn long for hell to take him. The wait's alright for the first hour or so – he can see fucking forever when he's dead; past the stars, the planets, into the galaxy and around the Milky Way. Every little point of existence. All the people that had been, or ever was. He traces the path of a new soul as it streaks across the sky and falls into the horizon, where it's greeted by a cluster of other stars, probably family from life. He sees them jump in recognition. Sees them dance in their absolutely ethereal way.
So it's not like he's bored or anything.
Those stars – he knows what they really are. They're all the good people who had ever been. After a lifetime of generally being non-assholes – a solid fifty or sixty years of that took some crazy tolerance;Kenny couldn't even do it for a month – the lucky winners are transformed into a hot ball of gas and launched somewhere into deep space, ready to impart their light onto the universe for countless years.
Secretly, Kenny thinks God makes people into stars because outer space is really fucking free and He had to put something there. He did a good job, too; the stars are really something to see tonight. Much better than the blank sheet of black it would have been without the burning souls.
So while Kenny waits for the hands to drag him down to where he belongs – heat heat heat pain sharp cut tendons bones crack – he watches the happy (good) people from where they shine, way up out of reach. Then he laughs.
It starts out small. Little, pitiful, oh woe-is-me giggles that escalate into something much bigger until he can't even call it laughter. It's deep, racking chokes that come from his non-existent diaphragm. Or the part of him he's slammed shut and sealed off long ago, the part that holds everything that isn't clearly Kenny. Silly things like hope and envy and quick wishes for something better –
It's the school playground, fourth grade, and Kenny watches from Kyle's shoulder as the others tap on iPad screens. There is no iPad for him, no new Apple games. Hell, he doesn't even have a sandwich for lunch today, but he'd rather impale himself on the school flagpole again then admit that to the other guys.
So he sits and watches while chewing on his lip, trying hard – oh, so fucking hard – to keep himself from asking them for a turn. He's not a fucking charity case.
Kyle looks around; spots him sitting awkwardly to the side. Offers his own iPad.
Kenny eyes it, wanting and wanting but knowing that taking it makes him a Bad Person. Someone like his dad, who eyes the booze in a store and takes stamps from a lady with smiles just like Kyle to buy it. Except it's not buying.
Kenny might not be a genius like Ike, but he knows no one else uses stamps. They use money. It makes anyone who takes stamps a gut-wrenching kind of different. And the McCormicks are so very fucking different.
Kenny's shaken out of his thoughts by a very impatient Kyle, who literally shoves the iPad into his chest while grumbling something that sounds suspiciously like 'undecisive asshole'. Kenny's arms wind around the tablet on impulse, anchoring it to himself. His body knows what he wants – hands and chest and everything but his head knowing that it's too late to want to be the same.
When he looks up, everyone else has started to shine.
-he laughs so hard, clamping on his imaginary diaphragm for something like eternity that he ends up breaking his spine. Or what he thinks is his spine, until he realizes he's dead and doesn't have stupid human things like bones anymore. But if it's not his spine, what the fuck is brushing against his arm?
He reaches behind his back, fully intending to yank whatever it was out so he could go back to being dramatic in peace when something soft hits his fingers.
Not so much soft but what a tropical breeze might feel like, if a breeze could be condensed into a flat surface and cut into individual points…and ribbed…
Feathers. The realization hits him fast and hard and way too slow at the same time. He has feathers.
Only angels had feathers, because only angels had wings. Angels…and those ready to become stars.
Kenny McCormick never became a star. Ever. He'd gone to hell four thousand, one hundred and sixty-six times, and he'd died four thousand, one hundred and sixty-six times. That was not a small number.
Worse, he'd earned every single one of those fates. He'd deserved getting ripped apart and drowned and buried alive and burned because he'd never, ever lived like a righteous man ought. If there was one thing Kenny McCormick did not do, it was pretend to be better than he was.
So why the fuck does he have two huge wings growing out of his back?
He tries to flex them, even though he doesn't know what muscle he could possibly tug on to move a bundle of feathers. As expected, they don't move an inch, and he screws up his face in concentration as he moves first his arms, then his legs. His spine and knees. He even tries to see if twisting his neck would do anything out of sheer frustration (it doesn't).
Kenny probably tries every dead muscle, every nonexistent nerve before he gives up, flopping back down on the ground with all the exasperation he can muster. It's not a lot, considering he's still giddy about finally getting into the exclusive God-loves-me club.
He watches the stars again – his brethren now – and this time they make him happy. So very happy. As his eyes float from star to star, he realizes the black-blue-gray that paints the sky is the exact same shade as the one under his eyelids right before the world slips away.
It's peace. Eternal rest. And finally he's allowed it. He isn't Different any longer, he's the same, and as the utter flush of relief floods into veins and brings a spark of life to his wings, he finds that he no longer has two dead anchors dragging him down. The wings are alive.
He nudges them open until they spread and spread and spread, and well – the shadows they cast as they wrap around his body are what forgiveness must look like.
The longing he feels for the sky – to fly to eternal peace – is unbearable as he rises from the ground. It's all he can do to keep from rising straight for the moon. Instead, he heads for a cracked window and manila building, perching expertly on the window sill and sliding into a room plastered with Red Racer posters. Ghosts can't make sounds, but he still tiptoes to Craig's side out of habit, breath stolen from his throat as he gazes down on what might possibly the most important person he has ever met.
Or Craig's just his most important person. It's hard to tell, when you're in love.
He knows – with a realization sharp as a knife, a shattering pierce to his invisible heart – that this is the last time he'll ever see Craig's face as he is right now. Soft. Impressionable. Young and human and alive. So he orders his wings to cover the bed while he lowers his head close to Craig's ear, mouthing words that fell somewhere between life and death.
"I remember now – you were there, that day. You came up to me." He passes his hand through Craig's twice (and he wishes now that he wasn't becoming star, wasn't finally getting what he wanted since he was five because it means he can't even touch the love of his life) before finally settling it on top.
There are a million things to say, he's sure. But there's only one he can think of now, and it will have to do until its Craig's turn to streak across the sky and drop to the horizon, where Kenny will wait for him.
So for now Kenny grins quietly, bends over Craig and lets a whisper-kiss land on his exposed forehead, wings rustling as a single feather reaches out to stroke Craig's cheek.
"Y'know, you gave me heaven."
1 Corinthians 13:13 – And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
There is only one other boy without an iPad.
His name is Craig Tucker, and even at the age of nine he really can't give a fuck about whether or not he's going to heaven or hell. He doesn't think about it, not really.
His life is relatively simple: he likes his hamster. He likes his grandma. Red Racer is his jam. Everything else can go to hell.
But for all his quiet stoicism and apathy, Craig Tucker is only human. Only a nine year old boy who would rather fit in than stand out. So the one day everyone decides to buy iPads and bring them to school – he doesn't even question the South Park hive mind thing anymore; he deals with it by being a super asshole and lets it go – he scowls, hits Clyde, then promptly ditches his traitor friends to stomp around the rest of the playground. Alone. He doesn't want to have anything to do with stupid rich bastards who think it's fun to wave around expensive crap when they know he can't afford it.
It's when he's taking his anger out on a taco-shaped bush that he sees another person who doesn't have their nose buried in shitty technology. He walks over before he really knows what he's doing, hands in his pockets and eyes glued on that ratty orange parka.
It's not a normal thing for Craig to talk to someone he doesn't know well. Especially if it's him starting the conversation. Which is why when he clears his throat awkwardly, Kenny looks at him with something a little less than suspicion, a little more than friendliness written over his smile.
"Hey."