He watched the snow fall in gentle tendrils outside, the epitome of peace with him a barely controlled storm, a cell phone hanging loosely in his grasp. The ever flowing of New York City's vitality made an impressive display from the window of his sixth-floor apartment, its bright lights so different from the quiet darkness of the small Colorado town where he grew up, where he had spent his childhood steeped in malicious stupidity and denial of things he hadn't understood then-hell, he didn't understand them now. But maybe…maybe there was someone who did.
Swallowing nausea and pride and fear, he pressed the call button. It was only ten back there so even a goody two shoes like him wouldn't be asleep just yet. Assuming, of course, that he knew anything about him anymore.
The call connected, and his breath stopped short of filling his lungs.
From the other side of the phone a cautiously curious voice asked, "Yes?" Had he always sounded so beautiful or was it the fondness in his heart, tended by distance, which made it seem that way? Another thing he didn't know.
"Kyle." Silence met his two-syllable whisper.
"What do you want Cartman?" He flinched and he could feel green eyes narrowing.
"You didn't hang up." He uttered in amazement.
"Should I have?"
"No!" He reeled in his desperation-still trying to save face though he had lost that and more to Kyle a long time ago. "I just- I just wanted to hear your voice…I guess?"
"You've heard it."
"And I want to see you."
Kyle scoffed. "Then maybe you shouldn't have run all the way to the East coast."
He couldn't deny that. "I went further than I thought I would. But," he sighed heavily, "I miss you so much. Way more than I thought I could."
Another beat of silence. "What do you want me to do, Eric?"
Eric! He called him Eric! Tentative hope rose in his chest.
"What you always do. Talk sense to me."
"So I can lose my mind?" A less caustic scoff. "No thanks, fatass."
A smile made its way onto his face as he faked anger. "Hey! I'm not fat, ya dirty Jew!"
"Maybe not anymore. But you'll always be a fatass to me."
"Your fatass?" Eric offered gently.
There was a silence that seemed to stretch on for eternity and Eric cursed himself for saying too much too soon.
Before he could rush out an apology, Kyle chuckled softly and whispered, "Good night Eric." The line went dead.
Eric blinked at the 'call ended' notification on his screen. After a moment, he locked his phone and laid flat on his back, but he wasn't sulking, and he wasn't unhappy.
Because Kyle had said "good night" not "good bye".
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Very short. Very sweet, ne. I'll admit, I never had to stare at a screen and debate the grammatically correct formatting of slurs before Cartman. He's the embodiment of both something you love to hate and a train wreck so fascinating that you can't look away from it. Something tells me Kahl would agree.
Thank you for reading.
