The Beauty and the Tragedy
Chapter One
By: Jondy Macmillan
Disclaimer: Don't own it.
A/N: Pure Kenny/Kyle. No love triangles. Multi-chaptered. Slash (if you hadn't guessed).
Rain never hits South Park. It's always snow, slush, or hail. Occasionally, it's the rare sunny day. Never rain.
I stare out my window in amazement, watching water pound the pavement. It's washing away all the grime that's accumulated on the outside of the glass pane; years and years of dirt that good old mom and dad could never be bothered to clean. It's not their fault. Cleaning supplies cost money, and we don't have any.
I trace the path of raindrops with my finger, even though they fall too quickly for me to follow. My house is dark, cold, damp. My parents walked out over a week ago, leaving for god knows where. I'm not worried they'll come back; they always come back. Even if they don't, I can take care of myself. That's what they taught me when they couldn't put food in my mouth. Fight. Breathe. Live. Do anything it takes to survive. They're good parents.
All that them being gone means is no TV and no raiding the fridge. The electric bill is past due, sitting on the counter under a pile of other mail. Eviction notices that read Get Out Now and unpaid legal fees for my older brother who got himself in the slammer again.
My room's got this stench, something about being poor. About garbage and sloth and too much sex. It reeks like a strip club, like a brothel, like home. I roll over on my threadbare mattress, avoiding the spring that always pokes me in the side. I've got the scars to prove it. Battles with my bed, thrashing in the middle of the night, caught in the grips of a nightmare and then sproing!
Right in the back, like a lover with a knife.
On a normal night, a night without rain, I'd ride out the hours drinking dad's stash of Natty Ice and staring at Kevin's porn mags. But there's rain, and the beer is hot and flat, and the lights are out so that I can't see the girls spreading their legs for me. Inviting me. Letting me pretend for a second that I'm worthy.
I listen to the rain, the rhythmic rat a tat tat that keeps getting louder and louder. Rapping like a knock, like someone's pounding on my door, but nobody would do that. No one even knows I exist. I'm drifting into space, into sleep, into nothingness. The knocking, dancing raindrops sound off, exploding in my head like stars.
There's a muffled voice, like someone's talking, screaming, yelling.
I climb off my bed, thinking that maybe mom and dad came home and forgot the keys. That's silly; we don't have a lock on our door. Maybe they're just too drunk to work the knob.
When the door swings back, I wish it hadn't. It's my fence against the world, my fence against the boy standing on my porch, soaked to the bone.
He's waiting on the hole-filled welcome mat, dripping gallons. His red curls hang in his face, obscuring those eyes I know so well from view. I watch his lips move, "Can I come in?"
It sounds so far away.
I want to slam the door in his face; scream no. Scream for him to leave.
My voice has abandoned me. There's a chunk of ill stuck deep in my throat. Instead I nod. He can come in. He can hurt me, again, and again, and again.
He sits down on my couch, wet as wet, gorgeous as gorgeous. Gorgeous as no guy should conceivably be.
I offer him a beer. He pops the top of the can with a flick of his fingers. The aluminum tab flied across the room, into the pile of overflowing garbage we've designated the trash heap. He chugs down half of it, and I watch the way his Adam's apple moves, slow and hypnotic.
You learn when you're poor that life's not fair. You want things, and you barely ever get them. People say you have options. There are no options. There's living with what life's dealt you. I can't get a job. No one who knows my dad's reputation will hire me, his son, and everyone in town knows Stuart McCormick. He's a local legend, a warning tale of How Not To Be.
The only thing that's free in life is warm bodies to sleep beside, and even them you have to work for. Girls are easy. You wink and you flirt and you say their hair looks nice. That's all girls want. Soon enough they're gasping for breath like fish out of water, and their thighs like silk are rubbing up against your thighs. Easy peasy.
Boys are easy too. The marked ones have a look in their eye. A world-wariness when they think you might persecute them for wanting to get creative in the God-made order of Who To Fuck. A Ready Set Go expression when they realize you might maybe possibly be just like them.
He isn't easy. He's the kind of guy who likes girls. He compliments their hair because he really thinks it looks nice, shiny, not greasy and wild like that skinny ass blond whore in the ghetto. That skinny ass blond whore who just happens to be me.
I'm not usually down on myself. I'm the life of the party. I'm the one who's been there, done that, and is back for more. I know how to dance, I know how to drink, and I know how to make love like I invented it. That's what they say around school. That's what they whisper when I pass. They don't talk about me being poor anymore; they don't have to. Everyone knows. There's a giant brand on my back, one I can't touch or erase.
But I'm okay with it.
It's his fault. He's the one who makes me want to break rank. He's the one who makes me want to be better than What I Am. I watch him finish off the rest of the beer in a few easy gulps, and I despise him for being golden. Rain drenched and smothered in darkness, he still looks better than anything else I've ever seen. He's got The Best Friend, he's got The Rich Parents, and he's got The Perfect Sibling. Sometimes he even has The Requisite Hot Girlfriend. He dumped the last one a few weeks ago. No one knows why. I suspect it has to do with her shrill, eardrum bursting voice.
"Kenny," he says, and he says it in a way that nobody else says my name. Like I'm a person, not a Sex God, not a Poor Boy, not a Waste of Life.
"Yeah," I choke out, because there's still sickness in my throat, a lump of coal from Santa for being a Bad, Bad Boy.
"Can I stay here for a while?" he asks, his eyes dark and the rain pitter pattering on my roof, leaking onto the bucket I should have set up so the floors don't warp but is instead lying on its side near the couch, housing a stray cat and a rat and god knows how many spiders.
My voice is a traitor, and I nod once more.
A/N: Please review, and maybe I'll update sooner rather than later.