Closeted

Chapter 1: Un-closeted

0o0

Stan, like most people in South Park, hated Cartman. And, like most people in South Park, he hated Cartman even more when he was right. Which was far too often for his liking.

Like that one time where he said no one, not even a Jew, could beat Japanese kids at math. Stan had put aside all stereotypes and trusted in himself... He'd done the right thing! And still those goddamn Japanese kids beat Kyle at math! By one... freaking... decimal point!

So, Cartman told him if he didn't stop being a, as he put it, "white bread, animal-loving gaywad" he was going to start playing piano.

Five months later, Stan developed an inexplicable talent and a love for the piano.

His hatred for Cartman could only grow. It would grow and grow, it would break the fucking sky. He had once made the mistake of thinking he couldn't hate Cartman any more than he did. Never again. His hate for Cartman could not be contained. It could not be measured on any conventional scale. It was unfathomable. It was bigger than this world. It was reaching the ends of the universe, and it just kept going.

He did try to hide his talent: he would send his parents fake "You won a $5 trip to the grocery store!" letters and send them out of the house, or he'd give them a gift certificate to a restaurant that would expire in five minutes... or his personal favorite, he would get the house fumigated and mysteriously disappear (it was actually not that hard to play the piano with a gas mask on)... things like that. Once the car pulled out of the drive, Stan was at the piano, playing chords and teaching himself what suspensions were. He bought loads and loads of CDs (out of his hoarded allowance money: He knew Kyle's Jew tactics would come in handy some day) and learned to play along with them. And what really bit him was that he was good.

As a result, he spent all of five months trying to make sure no one on the planet Earth found out.

Unfortunately, Cartman had an annoying habit of finding out people's deepest and darkest secrets, so when he barged into Stan's house for free beer (without knocking!) Stan just happened to be playing a Bach concerto that he'd memorized.

Maybe it would have been better if he had playing something really straight, like, whatever. Anything. Even Fall Out Boy or something. He'd just finished figuring it out, anyway. But trust Cartman to come in, screaming with laughter, while he was playing Bach.

"I knew it!" he gasped, leaning against the doorway for support. "Oh, man, I knew you'd end up like this!" Stan folded his arms.

"Okay, fine. I admit it." Stan shrugged. "You were right." Cartman continued to laugh.

"Cartman, you were right. Okay? I was wrong." Stan said, growing angrier by the second. "I admitted it! Stop laughing, or--"

And then... to Stan's eternal surprise... He did. Cartman. Stopped laughing. At him.

The Eric Cartman did what Stan asked him to and shut up.

"I'm sorry, Stan," he said sincerely, flopping onto the couch across from Stan.

Stan turned his head to look at Cartman from the corner of his eye. He played with the knobs on the piano bench.

"You're... what?"

"Sorry. I shouldn't have laughed."

Stan sat back, knowing that throwing Cartman out was not an option. Cartman loved his devious plans, but he loved telling people about them even more. Stan knew this for a fact, because Cartman's plan for getting ten million dollars by a serious of complicated events that involved him bungee jumping onto the set of Grey's Anatomy had been completely destroyed by his unfortunate disability to keep his fat mouth shut, and the fact that there was a God.

"Stan, it's okay. We all have these... weird, freakish little hamster skeletons in the closet. When... when did you realize?"

"I was just watching Shelley butcher another piece and then... I... well, I couldn't help it. It was just standing there, it was like it was... calling for me. I had to go and play it! I couldn't stay away!" He glared at his friend—er, beer-mooching acquaintance. "And I know you said it'd happen, and I admitted it did, so shut up."

"Stan," Cartman said quietly. "Are you ashamed of this?" Stan, forgetting it was Eric Cartman he was talking to, looked away self-consciously.

"Well," he said slowly, "It just... My parents..." He folded his arms closer to his stomach. "I mean, for Shelley, it's okay, but my dad, he'd destroy me. He loves me, but he would let me turn out like this." Cartman stood and took Stan's slender, piano-playing fingers (aka: girlie fingers) into his own square, manly ones.

"It's alright, Stan," he said. "I myself have been... trapped in the closet. I know what it feels like."

Cartman should not have said that. He definitely should not have said that, because that was what he'd said when he had tricked a police officer into having sex with a horse in front of a camera, and Stan remembered it. So his cloud of self-pity came crashing down and he snatched his girlie hand away from Cartman's square, boyish one.

"What do I have to pay you not to tell anyone?" he asked suspiciously.

"Nothing, Stan," Cartman said, looking genuinely shocked. "If you don't want me to tell, I won't. Swear to God!"

"You've used God as an excuse to get a million dollars more than twenty times."

"Stan, just--ugh--okay?" Cartman said, holding up his hands. "I'm your god damn friend, Stan. I thought... I thought you'd have just a little more trust in me." He cast his eyes down. Stan tilted his head and blinked.

After a long silence, he said, "But you're Cartman."

"I'm your friend!"

"No, you're Cartman."

"Friend!"

"Cartman!"

"Friend!"

Stan waited for the town to learn about his mysterious talent. He spent every nervous second waiting for the other shoe to drop, every moment in front of the television waiting for the devastating newsflash.

He must have wasted a week that way, and Cartman never did drop another shoe, so to speak.

"Cartman, we need to talk."

Cartman bristled, that was what girls said when they wanted to break up. But this was Stan, and Cartman was doing whatever he could to get on Stan's good side.

"Sure, Stan," he said amiably, pasting a wide smile onto his face. "Just let me put away my history stuff." He chucked an armload of papers that had nothing to with the history of Egypt and everything to do with the history of a murder last week that had maybe been his fault. He slammed his locker and twirled the combination lock before looking at Stan.

"So..." he said. "What do you want? To talk about?" he added quickly.

"This whole playing the piano thing..." Stan said, yanking the zipper on his jacket awkwardly. "I mean... you're really not gonna tell, are you?"

"Stan," Cartman said, clapping Stan on the shoulder. "You are my friend. Would I do that to you after you told me specifically not to?"

"Is your name Cartman?"

"Yes." Cartman had a feeling he knew where this conversation was going.

"Then, you would."

"I wouldn't!" Cartman snarled. Being nice to Stan was harder than it looked. How did Kyle do it? He composed himself with a deep breath through his nose. "Stan, I'm not the nicest person in the world, but I don't want to see you miserable."

"You just want dirt on me so you blackmail me later."

"Stan, don't be--"

"Well, I don't care!"

"Listen to me--"

"I'm coming out!"

"You're what?"

"I'm going public!" Stan yelped. Cartman backed away slowly.

"Huh?"

"I mean it! I'm for real!" Stan told all the people staring at him.

"But... wait a sec..."

"I don't care any more! I can't stand hiding it any longer!" People were whispering. "All this time," Stan said, "Hiding under my cover of a normal, soulless, hip-hop loving teen... I can't do it anymore! I just can't!"

"But... what? Of all the..." Cartman stuttered. "...What the hell?"

0o0

Stan walked down the hall, shoulders back, chin lifted high. Everyone whispered behind their hands, pointing, shaking their heads...

Except for Kyle, who was, always had been, a little slow to catch on.

"W'sup, Stan?" he said, not even giving Stan's shirt a second glance. Stan shook his head.

"Nothing. Notice anything... new?

"Um..." Kyle looked hard at Stan. "You combed your hair?"

"No, dumbass, look at my shirt!" Stan snapped. Kyle lifted his hands in surrender and looked at Stan's shirt.

"Pink... Piano?" he asked. "Out and proud?" His eyes widened and he looked incredulously at Stan.

Stan crossed his arms defiantly. "You got a problem?" he asked. Kyle raised his hands (surrendering is always the best thing to do when faced with a newly converted bad boy with a pink piano ironed on the chest of his shirt).

"No, man, I'm cool. But do your... parents know about this yet?"

"You mean the parents who promised they loved me, and then turned around and all but enslaved me to "black" music? You mean the same parents who slapped all their failed dreams on me, and hated me when I couldn't fulfill them? Those people? Who needs them? Who cares? God dammit, if I want to play piano, I'll play the god damn piano! If they can't accept me just because I can't play bass guitar, well, fuck them!"

Kyle looked at him for a moment. Then, Kyle slapped his forehead into his hand. Loudly. Because he knew Stan's parents almost as well as he knew Stan, and by Stan's reaction, he would guess...

"They kicked you out of the house."

"It's not—"

"They kicked you out of the house."

"I only—"

"They kicked you out of the house, DIDN'T THEY, Stan."

"... Yeah."

0o0

"Whoa... how'd you get Wendy's parents to let you stay over at her house?" Kenny asked.

"What?" Cartman snapped, taking sudden interest in the conversation.

Stan took a sloppy bite of turkey and gravy (or dog food). "They don't know."

"What, you sneaked in using disguises?" Cartman asked, voice rising. That had been his idea!

"No, they're in Hawaii," Stan elaborated. "I don't think they're the types to let homeless people crash on their couch anyway."

"But, dude," Kyle said, "Wendy's your girlfriend. You're supposed to be able to crash on her couch… it's like, a law. I mean-- her parents should be cool with it." Stan looked at Kyle for about ten seconds, before exploding into laughter.

"I don't think you've ever met Wendy's parents. They'd kill Wendy if they found out her boyfriend was a homeless tramp."

"Well, it's not your fault," Kyle snapped. "I mean, what the hell kind of parents throw their kid out just because he doesn't play bass?"

Cartman realized, he was supposed to be the one sucking up to Stan.

"Yeah!" he chimed in. "I mean, just because they couldn't doesn't mean they should love Stan any less! He is their child! Their flesh and blood! Stan has always been a good child! He's never scorned them, or tried... deliberately…. to ruin their lives. He loves them unconditionally, and they should shower him with unconditional love whether he is a piano player or a goat lover or a normal kid!"

Cartman raised his fist. Everyone in the cafeteria stared at him.

Maybe he'd overdone it...?

Stan stared silently at his lunch (or dog food). "I..." he said. "I didn't..." He blinked rapidly. Then he pushed away from the table.

"I'll see you," he said in a choked voice, and fled from the lunchroom, a victim…. Shying away… from a predator.

Cartman lowered his fist and shook his head.

"It's wrong," he said, voice breaking. "It's just not right." Kyle averted his eyes, because he agreed.

"I mean," Cartman said, "It's not Stan's fault he was born a freak."

Gravely, seriously, Kyle nodded.

"Stan?" Kyle called through the empty halls of the school. "Stan, come on. Your parents will realize everything Cartman said was true..." Kyle stopped and looked over both shoulders, and the ceiling for someone else.

"Did I say that?" he muttered. "Anyway, Stan... I..."

His voice faltered as he found Stan standing lifelessly (but breathing) in front of his locker.

"Oh, God..." he whispered. "S-Stan?" Stan was trembling slightly, transfixed. His voice was weak. Kyle could nearly reach out and break it.

"I...I can't believe it," Stan said quietly. "I knew South Park wasn't an... an accepting town, but this? I..." He waved his hand towards his locker. Kyle couldn't look away from the ugly red paint, the words sloppily ripping Stan's heart to pieces.

"It... it isn't my fault!" Stan said, turning to Kyle. "I was born this way... I can't help it!" Tears were welling in Stan's eyes, his gaze was desperate as he searched for some kind of answer in his best friend.

"If I could change it," Stan said, "If I could stop playing. If I could curb my desire. If I could love a different instrument, I would." He crossed his arms and looked to the ceiling, biting his lip. "But I can't. And my parents… can't accept that."

He broke.

Kyle did the only thing he could. He gathered Stan up in his arms and held him, tears in his own eyes as he read, over and over, the bitter words on Stan's locker.

go to hell fcking key dancer

Some gay people had gotten the wrong idea and had written, in permanent marker, It's okay if you're gay and LBGT meeting on Thursday in the cafetorium.

Kyle walked Stan home that day.

To be continued...

0o0

Disclaimer: YEAH, WELL, NEITHER DO YOU!

crushed by a dandelion is not responsible for your eyes bleeding, loss of limb, life, lawyers, or backyard trampolines.

a/N:

Ah… the trials and tribulations of pianists… please try to keep in mind that this is South Park, and I'm trying to keep every bit of drama it deserves. So I'm doing what I think Parker and Stone would do if South Park was a novel as opposed to a TV show (Which would be SWEET by the way because I've read some of the scripts to the movie and they're REALLY REALLY funny).

And, yes, M&T could have done it better, but in the immortal words of Eric Cartman: "What-evah. I do what I wawnt, bitch!"

Words to live by.

SCREW YOU.

C.bad