Heeeeeey. Long time, no fic. Yeah, sorry about that. If you want an explanation, there's a half-assed one on my profile.
Anyways, this story is a prequel to When You Have Everything to Lose, but don't sweat it if you haven't read that one, because this story works as a stand-alone, and the two stories can be read in either order. I may bump up the rating on this story later on. I'd say, expect this story to be a little racier than WYHETL.
Practical Applications of the Scientific Method
Chapter 1: Observation
"Bebe, Red, and…Wendy."
"No fair, Kenny. You can't say my girlfriend. Obviously I have to choose her or Cartman will tell her I didn't and she'll get pissed at me. Again."
Kenny leaned back on the sofa, propping his feet up on the coffee table. "There are no rules in Marry-Dump-Fuck. Except that you have to answer."
"I'd fuck Wendy," Cartman offered helpfully.
Stan glared at him. "Shut up."
"I'd fuck Wendy," Cartman repeated. "Marry Red, dump Bebe."
Kenny shook his head. "Fuck Bebe, marry Red, dump Wendy. No offense, Stan."
"None…taken?"
Kyle emerged from the kitchen, a six pack in one hand and a bag of Doritos in the other. "Butters just texted me," he announced, dropping the beer and chips on the coffee table and gently nudging Kenny's shoes away. "School's back in tomorrow."
Kenny groaned, pulling his feet onto the couch. "There's still like two feet of snow out there! They can't give us one more day?"
"You just don't want to start that fruit fly experiment in biology," Cartman replied, plucking a can from the six pack.
"Use a coaster, Cartman. And shoes off the couch, Kenny."
Kenny rolled his eyes, kicking off his dirty sneakers. "It's too much work," he whined. "And I'm partnered with Craig. As if spending forty-five minutes a day counting fruit flies wasn't gonna make my life boring enough, I have to do it sitting across from Craig. Looking at his dumb boring face."
"I thought you got to choose your partner for this project," Stan said.
"We did," Kenny replied. "And Craig chose me."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, I was fully prepared to turn to Cartman and ask him if he wanted to be partners, when Craig appeared in front of me and said, 'Kenny, you're my partner.'"
"But why would he want to work with you?"
"Thanks, Stan. I'm not a complete moron, you know."
"But you're lazy," Kyle pointed out. "I've never seen you do schoolwork. You copy Stan's English homework, like, every day."
"Not to mention, Craig's worked with Stoley on every biology project this year and they've gotten the tops grades on all of them," Cartman added. "You don't mess with a good thing. If you can get an Asian to do all your work for you, why the hell wouldn't you? As luck would have it, Kevin is now free to work with me, so…"
"That's racist, Cartman."
"What? I'm saying they're smart."
"I'm pretty sure it's still racist even if you spin it as positive, Cartman."
Stan rolled his eyes, turning to Kenny. "I'm gonna need my English assignment back before class tomorrow."
"Oh, right. I'm not done with it."
"We just had two snow days."
"I've been busy."
Cartman snorted. "Jesus Christ, Kenny, you're even too lazy to copy Stan's homework? Why the fuck would anyone want to do a project with you?"
Kyle smirked, cracking open a beer. "Hey, Ken. Cartman, Craig, and Kevin."
Kenny raised an eyebrow. "What?"
"Marry, dump, fuck."
"I…You can't list guys!"
"You're the one who said there are no rules," Stan pointed out. "Except that you have to answer."
"But I don't fuck guys."
"But if you had to."
"Why would I have to fuck a dude?"
Kyle raised an eyebrow. "Why would you have to fuck anybody?"
"He's gotta pay for cigarettes somehow, Kahl."
"Fuck you, Cartman."
"So you'd fuck Cartman," Kyle said. "Now who would you marry?"
Kenny narrowed his eyes at the redhead. "Well what would you do?"
Kyle rolled his eyes. "Marry Kevin, fuck Craig, dump Cartman."
"Answered that one pretty quickly, Kahl. How long have you been thinking about this?"
"It's the obvious choice. Stoley's gonna be the most successful in the long run…"
"Why's that?"
"Because he's…" Kyle trailed off, his cheeks turning pink.
Cartman smirked. "Who's racist now?"
As an intensely hormonal and deeply closeted gay teenager, Craig simply could not afford for his gaydar to fail him. He could not afford to let the true nature of his sexuality slip, he could not afford to start crushing on a straight guy, and he could not afford to start popping boners in the middle of biology class, which was why choosing Kenny McCormick as a lab partner was his stupidest idea to date.
The thing was, Craig had somewhat of a gift when it came to picking out the homos; a gift that had always steered him straight—in a manner of speaking—in the past. Which only made Kenny's case all the more frustrating. Kenny had him stumped.
Kenny slept with girls. All of South Park knew that Kenny slept with girls, because if the rumors were true, Kenny slept with all of the girls in South Park. Older girls, younger girls, fat girls, skinny girls, he didn't discriminate. The only common denominator was that they were all female. He had a reputation and it was a decidedly straight one.
And yet.
When Kenny stroked his thumb along the vial of fruit flies, head down, glancing briefly at Craig across the table through a curtain of blond eyelashes, was he being suggestive or just absent-minded? When he moved behind Craig to watch him draw the diagram of the curly-winged male fruit fly, was he trying to get closer to Craig or just trying to get a better look at the drawing? When he plugged the end of a test tube of flies with a cotton ball and said, "Let's get to breeding," was he begging Craig to fuck him twelve different ways or was Craig simply projecting because Kenny was very, very, incredibly, painfully hot?
Admittedly, Craig had only chosen Kenny as his partner because he wanted an excuse to get the blond into his house. Into his bed, specifically, but only if Kenny was into it. Craig was more than willing to start small and work his way up if that was the endgame.
Not that he thought in a million years Kenny would be into it. Because Kenny was straight. And even if he wasn't 100% heterosexual, he was still way out of Craig's league. Kenny was just a fantasy. A blue-eyed, blond-haired fantasy with cheekbones sculpted by God himself, sitting across a lab table from Craig, nibbling on the eraser of his pencil in a way that just had to be an attempt to draw Craig's attention to that perfect pink mouth.
So, yeah, Kenny was definitely straight and Craig was just kidding himself. He just liked to think of this as his own little experiment. Objective: Find out if Kenny McCormick is seducible. Prediction: Craig makes an ass of himself.
But honestly, even if this went absolutely nowhere, as Craig fully suspected it would, at least he could just look at Kenny for an extra hour every day, because Kenny was damn nice to look at.
"I don't know why you picked me to be your partner."
"Huh?"
Kenny closed his notebook and slid it into his ratty backpack. "I'm not very smart. I don't know why you chose me."
Craig shrugged. "I mean, you're not stupid."
"But I'm not smart. I mean, I don't really even get this genetics stuff. You would have been better off with Stoley…"
"I don't know where you got the idea that Kevin is smart."
Kenny zipped his backpack shut. "Well you guys always get A's on your projects."
"And that couldn't be down to me?" Craig asked, gathering up their papers and stuffing them between the pages of his text book.
"Oh. Um. Well Stoley's, you know…"
"Asian?"
The bell rang, and Kenny looked relieved.
Craig sighed. "You have plans after school?" he asked, shoving his book into his backpack.
"Um. No." Kenny slung his bag over his shoulder. "Why?"
Craig glanced at the door, where Kevin was lingering, watching him curiously.
"Come over. I'll go over Punnett squares with you. You're gonna have to know how to do them for this project and I'm pretty sure you were asleep for most of that lecture."
Kenny frowned. "Mr. Sharman's shaky old man voice is very soothing to me. It reminds me of nursing homes. It just lulls me right to sleep."
"I'll meet you at your locker after school and we can walk together," Craig went on, ignoring Kenny's comment. "I don't have a car, but I live nearby."
"I know where you live."
If Craig's heart gave a little flutter at that statement, he'd just keep that to himself, because gay. "See you at three," he said, darting toward the door before Kenny had the chance to object.
Kevin shifted his backpack on his shoulders as Craig joined him in the hallway.
"I can't believe you ditched me for Kenny," Kevin said, as they pushed past the crowd to their lockers. "There goes my easy A. What kind of friend are you?"
"A shitty one," Craig replied with a shrug.
"Damn right, a shitty one. I'm stuck working with Cartman. And guess which fruit fly mutation we were assigned to study. The eyeless trait. Do you know how many racist ways there are to compare Asian people to eyeless fruit flies? Because I do now. And it's only the first day."
"So it turns out," Cartman greeted, breezing past Kyle into the Brovlofski's living room, "the only science Kevin Stoley knows shit about is science fiction. He must be such a disappointment to his parents."
"Come in, Cartman."
Cartman made himself comfortable on the sofa. "Where's Kenny?"
"Craig's," Kyle replied, flipping open his Spanish book.
Cartman frowned. "Why?"
"They're working on that fruit fly thing," Kyle said, waving his pen dismissively.
"Working on what? We just started the project. There's not even any take-home work yet."
"Well, apparently Kenny needs extra help because he doesn't know his way around a Punnett square."
"So I guess I'm the third wheel today. Where's your heterosexual life partner?"
Kyle rolled his eyes. "Stan's in the kitchen, fighting with Wendy about something."
Cartman sat up a bit straighter. "Wendy's here too?"
"No. He's on the phone with her."
"Shitty. Would have enjoyed hearing both ends of the argument. Wendy's side is always more fun to listen to than Stan's anyway. That girl has a way of finding the words that will cut the deepest, you know?"
Kyle raised an eyebrow. "Yes. I, too, get off on my friend's pain."
"Is it just me, or are those two fighting a lot lately."
"It's not just you," Kyle replied, tearing open a bag of Funyuns.
"I give them until New Year's."
"Fair enough. But they break up all the time. They'll be back together by Valentine's Day."
Cartman shook his head. "Not this time. Have you seen them around each other lately? It's like they don't even like each other anymore."
"It's a rut. They'll get past it. They always do."
Cartman bit into a Funyun. "Care to wager on that?"
"The usual?"
"The usual."
Cartman stuck out his chubby hand, and Kyle shook it firmly. "You have yourself a bet."
"This is the ugliest rat I've ever seen."
"He's a guinea pig and he's adorable," Craig replied, emerging from the kitchen with two Cokes and a bag of baby carrots.
Kenny was spread out on the living room floor, chin resting on his hands as he watched rodent scuffle across the carpet, squeaking curiously.
"I don't eat carrots," Kenny said, accepting the Coke Craig offered him.
"They're for Stripe," Craig replied, kneeling down next to the guinea pig and tearing open the bag.
Stripe scuffled over to Craig's knee and began chirping excitedly, which, okay, was slightly adorable, not that Kenny would ever admit it. And he would definitely never admit that Craig was even a little adorable making kissy faces at the ugly little rat as he fed it a carrot.
No, it wasn't that Craig was cute, Kenny decided. He was just…endearing. Because this was Craig, and he was usually so stoic that any display of emotion, even when it was being directed at a hairy little rodent, was a surprise. And endearing surprise. If it wasn't so out of the ordinary, Kenny wouldn't have even noticed how affectionate Craig was being toward the little bastard.
"Sorry," Craig apologized, stroking the guinea pig's head. "He needs a lot of attention. Guinea pigs are social animals. I had two, but Spot died, and Stripe has been pretty lonely ever since. He hasn't been doing so well. They do better in pairs, and he's old. They don't usually live this long, and I just realized I'm talking about my guinea pig a lot and you probably think I'm weird."
"Nah, it's cool," Kenny said, pushing himself up off the floor. "Who hasn't gotten a guinea pig lesson from a crazy rodent guy?"
Craig smiled sheepishly. "He, uh… I usually leave him out of his pen while I'm home, so just don't step on him, okay?"
"Sure. Whatever. We should probably get to work on these, um, pennett squares or whatever you call them."
"Jesus Christ." Craig nudged Stripe off of his knee. "You run along now. Kenny needs more help than I thought."
"He said to his rat," Kenny replied, although, secretly, Craig was getting more endearing by the minute.
Kenny cracked open his Coke and took a long draw. He needed to stop overthinking, stop noticing Craig and start focusing on biology. That was the only reason he was here. He wasn't friends with Craig. He didn't like Craig. Hell, he didn't even dislike Craig. He was completely indifferent towards Craig, and that was how it would stay for the next two weeks, while he suffered through this painfully boring biology project with his painfully boring lab partner. He swallowed, the carbonation stinging his throat as it slid down. He blinked back tears, and he admitted to himself that chugging half a can of Coke was probably a stupid distraction.
When he looked back at Craig, he saw that his lab partner was no longer focused on his guinea pig, but on Kenny. More specifically, Kenny's mouth.
Kenny coughed, embarrassed for some reason. "Not used to the bubbles. Soda's always flat at my house," he explained, not entirely sure why he felt he owed Craig an explanation as to why he couldn't handle a soft drink.
Craig's eyes shot up to meet Kenny's and his cheeks turned pink. Which, yeah, was weird. He cracked open his own Coke and took a swig, and Kenny couldn't help but notice the way Craig's Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed. Craig had a long neck. The kind with prominent veins and a deep hollow spot just above his collar bone. Now it was Kenny's turn to blush, because fuck if he didn't have a weakness for long necks. A fetish, even.
Craig set his Coke can on the floor, looking up to meet Kenny's eyes once more. "So," he said, licking his lips. "Shall we?"
And that was the moment Kenny knew, without a doubt, that he was undeniably fucked.
