A/N: This is the fourth in a story arc, beginning with 'Dude, Who ARE These People?', followed by 'When I Make A Promise' and 'Poseidon'. Events in this story begin ten months after the epilogue of 'Poseidon'.
There's fan "art" for this story (doctored photos actually) on my LiveJournal page at fallingwthstyle DOT livejournal DOT com SLASH 4800 DOT html (there's a clickable link on my profile page) Of course I own none of this.
Chapter 1 – Prologue: Some Future History
On Tuesday October 19, 2021, Stan quietly celebrated his 31st birthday by drinking himself into unconsciousness with Kyle and their two best friends after making them promise not to try to give him any sort of surprise party. Kenny and Butters carried him up to his bed while Kyle cleaned up Stan's puke in the living room and changed Stan's shirt before they laid him down to sleep it off.
Two days later, after a very long conversation with his uncle Jimbo, Stan secretly sold off all his investments, totaling nearly six million dollars earned from his position at McCormick-Stotch Enterprises as well as an insurance settlement for having survived the Poseidon disaster.
Kyle knew that something was wrong during the days that followed. What he didn't know was that Stan was hiding a depression far deeper than the one he had gone through when he was ten. Middle age was terrifying to him; he could only wish that one of his biggest problems was that Adam Sandler wasn't funny anymore.
Stan leased 100 acres in Wyoming where an abandoned farm sat empty and unused, 250 miles to the north from an old army buddy of Jimbo's, and a week later told a furious Kenny, an incredulous Butters, and a sobbing Kyle that he was leaving. He tried to get through his own pain enough to try to make Kyle understand that he wasn't leaving him for good, and that they would be together again someday; he "just couldn't do this anymore." He got into his car, drove off, and just like that he was gone
On November 8, 2021, as Mayor McDaniels stepped to the podium to deliver her acceptance speech after narrowly being reelected mayor of South Park for an unprecedented sixth term, an assassin's bullet plowed through her forehead and blasted fragments of her skull against the backdrop behind her; she was dead before her body hit the stage. Eric Cartman (who had lost by a very small margin to her in the run for Mayor) was the first person to reach her, even before any of her security guards, trying to protect her with his own massive bulk even though it was obviously too late. That act, plus the impassioned speech he gave afterward, was more than enough to get him appointed Mayor of South Park, as well as distract any sort of suspicion of involvement in the assassination from himself.
On January 24, 2022, the world's economy began a rapid fall into a great depression. The rest of the world had finally realized that the USA was insolvent; within weeks, trillions of dollars of wealth around the world had vanished. As both the national and local governments collapsed and social services were scaled back or eliminated, starvation and rioting in big cities ran rampant. Kenny had seen this coming for months and had been quietly accumulating supplies they would need when the shit hit the fan.
Foreclosures on homes reached a never before seen level, forcing tens of thousands of people out onto the streets. On March 1st, the remnants of the federal government issued an executive order leading to what was eventually dubbed the 'Take in a homeless family whether you want to or not program'. Mayor Cartman was more than happy to personally oversee this in his town, and Kenny and Butters were forced to take in a completely disagreeable family of four; the mother (father had long since departed) made Kenny's mom look like a saint. Kyle was similarly forced to take in five people; after two weeks, at Kenny and Butters' urging, he sold his and Stan's house at a rock bottom price and moved in with his two best friends, because as Kenny put it, "at least we all like each other, dude."
In Wyoming, Stan bought a used two-bedroom single wide mobile home, and with some help added an enormous room addition to it. He spent that summer learning through trial and error (and lots of help) how to be a farmer.
On October 5th, 2022 Kyle received a cryptic email from Stan. It was titled 'In case you're sick of living in South Park', and contained only one sentence: "See you in two weeks for my birthday?" There was a photograph attached of a hand-drawn map showing the way to Stan's house, beginning with an exit off Interstate 80, along back roads he described on the map as 'unpaved', ending with a large letter X. Kyle immediately replied: "I'll try."
At 12:05 a.m. October 20, 2022, Stan raised a cheap plastic Denver Broncos cup of whiskey and water toward the picture of himself and Kyle hanging on the wall behind his woodstove, said "To you, Kyle," and drained half the cup in three large gulps. His 32nd birthday had come and gone without Kyle to help him celebrate. He refilled his cup and settled in for a session of drinking himself into oblivion.