In his room, on a thigh-high cabinet beneath his window, Stan has a record player. Inside the cabinet is his considerable collection of records organized alphabetically as a result of Kyle's neuroses, most of them of the crooning men and crowing women of at least thirty years ago variety, though his favorite rests halfway in its cover on top of the cabinet. The oft-played and thus slightly scratched dull black vinyl of In The Aeroplane Over the Sea shimmers in the slightest way in the mid afternoon sunlight as Stan walks over to it. He picks up the record and pulls it fully from the cover, setting the cover back down and cradling the disc in his hand. To Stan, the record is the only religion he needs, his sole object of worship, his soul in sound. He knows the lyrics and the rhythms by heart after a year of playing the album almost exclusively on repeat, first stumbling upon Holland, 1945 on Youtube one afternoon in eighth grade and falling in love. He talked about the record nonstop until his ramblings faltered out and he grew silent and pensive at the mention of it. Something in it had moved him deeply and profoundly like nothing else had ever been able to again, and though his back is to him, Kyle can see it in every muscle of Stan's body as he fingers the vinyl before sliding it, smoothly and carefully, into the record player. He drops the needle and turns up the volume as the sound scratches upon the first track.
Noise fills Kyle's ears; his brain dulls. Stan turns to Kyle, slowly, and Kyle still can't see Stan's eyes because he now has them closed. Stran sways, slightly, and forms his mouth around the lyrics of The King of Carrot Flowers, Pt 1. Kyle never liked Neutral Milk Hotel and never pretended to-it was pretentious, loud try-hard hippie music made by a guy with an unhealthy obsession with Anne Frank's Diary and proven mental illness-but he never quite voiced this opinion, fascinated by Stan's obsession. Stan's eyes pop open as Jeff Magnum's voice picks up over I love you Jesus Christ, Stan mimicking the warbly movements of Magnum's vocals with his lips,and he makes his way towards Kyle. He wraps his arms around Kyle; in response, Kyle curls his hands around Stan's shoulder blades. A recent growth spurt has left Stan four inches taller than Kyle, who hasn't grown since the seventh grade and doubts he'll ever climb taller than 5'5. This doesn't bother him as much a it should, he thinks, with his head under Stan's nose. Stan says, "Dance with me." into Kyle's hair, his voice different than usual, thick and croaky, and so they dance.
It's a familiar scene, four o'clock on a Friday, after school, just getting home for a sleepover at Stan's following hanging out with Cartman and Kenny for a little while, dancing to the same old songs. Kyle has a test on Monday in English that he has to study for and that's what he's thinking about as he steps around in small circles, recalling vocabulary words and matching them with definitions. He knows that they'll repeat this motion for the entire forty minutes of the record like they always do, and maybe he likes it a little too much to admit to anybody but himself on occasion. Sometimes he and Stan hold hands, but that's another thing he refuses to admit that he likes so well except to himself, and even then when he thinks about it his brain becomes foggy, solutions to his predicament just out of reach. Stan's hands stay on his hips for the entirety of the dancing; Kyle's hands move downwards as his fingers grow tired and end up on the small of Stan's back. Stan feels sturdy beneath his touch, not strong nor muscular but durable and long-lasting, like furniture fastened of pine and cedar, which is also what Stan smells like. Kyle eventually moves his hands to Stan's chest, feeling the soft flannel of his shirt on his palms and drawing lazy circles with his left index finger, and Stan hugs him tighter. Kyle inhales Stan's scent, surrounded by stability; Kyle has always known the true extent of Stan's sturdiness.
The album ends and they separate as groggily as always, almost unwillingly, and today Stan grabs Kyle's hand urgently before they're completely separated. He laces their fingers and doesn't let go but directs his eyes towards their shoes. Kyle does, too. Stan wears basic sneakers, Kyle wears loafers, and he feels like their shoes don't match their personalities in the slightest. The touches are not electric nor sexual but from a different source of urge, of need, and Kyle pulls his fingers around Stan's, squeezing his hand hard. It's easier to love such a gesture in the midst of experiencing it, Stan not judging him and partaking in the loving, than it is when Kyle is alone and obsessing over what it means to never want to let go.
"Do you think I'm lame?" Stan asks after a few seconds of squeezing back and forth. He looks up, through the mop of black hair that he needs to get cut, and Kyle meets his eyes. Then Kyle feels the electric shock, feels something burst in his chest and travel through his body quickly as his heartbeat picks up. Stan twitches in a way that lets Kyle knows he feels the shock too, perhaps even stronger than Kyle.
"What? No, of course not, why do you say that?" Kyle says, shaking his head. He runs his thumb over the crease of Stan's hand. His heart is rattling his ribs, trying to get out, and he swallows it down to silence it. It doesn't work. Stan runs his thumb over Kyle's hand in return. The air throbs.
Stan shrugs. "Clyde called me lame today. " he says.
"Oh, well, Stan, Clyde is lame, not you." Kyle scoffs. With his other hand he rubs Stan's side in reassurement.
"Craig agreed with him," Stan continues. He averts his eyes from Kyle's again, instead looking towards the side of his room, at his nightstand. There's a picture of the two of them, Stan and Kyle, sitting on the surface, that Kyle gave Stan for his fourteenth birthday seven months ago. It was the most recent picture of them at the time, taken by Kenny via Kyle's phone just a week prior. They were outside the movie theatre, Stan's arms around Kyle's, their mouths open in mid-laughter. It's a good picture, if not of him personally but them, together, Kyle thinks as he looks at it with Stan.
Kyle shakes himself from his thoughts and returns to the conversation. "Craig's lame too," he says, rolling his eyes. "You know that."
"Maybe they think we're lame," Stan says, softly. He squeezes Kyle's hand and looks him in the eye. Stan's eyes are earnest, like he thinks Craig and his guys thinking him lame is the greatest tragedy of his life, and Kyle dares to touch his face.
"Fuck them," Kyle says, patting Stan on the cheek and withdrawing his hand. Stan nods once, lets go of Kyle's hand, and walks over his desk. He reaches into his backpack and pulls out a binder with Français scrawled across it in his handwriting. Kyle is left with an acute ache in his chest, everything in his body telling him to touch Stan again.
"Pouvez-vous m'aider français?" Stan asks. His pronunciation is good, but Kyle knows his grammar and writing to be sloppy. Kyle takes French as well, though at a higher level than Stan. In seventh grade they'd both been in honors classes; in eighth, Kyle is taking advanced credit courses, and Stan put aside academics to focus on football in preparation for high school per his father's request. Kyle finds it totally inane, feels that Stan is doing it in some last-ditch effort to build a solid relationship with his father, but Stan's good and it makes him happy so Kyle deals with it. He hops on the corner of Stan's desk and crosses his ankles. Stan hands him the binder, open to a page full of verbs also written in Stan's choppy letters. "Quiz me."
"To buy," Kyle says, which is the first verb on the list.
"You're asking me in English? Well, fuck. That's hard. This is hard." Stan pushes off the desk with his hands, sending his rolling chair back and swirling. When it stops he grabs the edge of the desk to pull himself back, reclines and looks at Kyle, smiling sheepishly. "Um, acheter."
"That is correct," Kyle says. He picks up a stray pencil and makes a check mark by the verb. There's maybe thirty on the page, covering up every line, their English translations on the opposite side. Doodles cover the page, the intricate flowers, cars and guitars probably belonging to Stan, while the crude breasts and block letter curse words definitely belong to Kenny. Kyle imagines Stan in French class, next to Kenny, passing the notebook back and forth while their teacher reviews grammar. "To dress."
Stan squeezes his eyes shut and pinches the bridge of his nose, one hand curled around the edge of the desk. "Vêtir," he says, after a pause.
Kyle nods and makes another check. They go through the list four times with Stan still getting things wrong and a fifth time where he gets everything right. Kyle chews on the end of the pencil while he waits for Stan to respond and kicks his feet as he reads the verbs. When they're finished he sets the binder down and places the pencil neatly beside it, then slides off the desk. "You should study closer to bedtime, before you sleep. You retain more information that way," he advises Stan. He goes to his own backpack to get his math homework out. He's in Geometry and they're covering triangles at the moment; Kyle enjoys them. He sits cross-legged on Stan's bed and sets up a little work station, textbook open to the problems in front of him, notebook to the side, calculator in his lap.
Stan sits across from Kyle, also cross-legged, and does his History notes while Kyle calculates angles and sides. "I love this," he says, at one point, and Stan just laughs and reaches out to shake Kyle's knee. They touch each other a lot, and every time they do Kyle feels a little jolt somewhere inside of his midsection that doesn't feel wrong nor bad, but simply strange. He associates the touching and the jolting both with Stan, and has for as long as he's known him. They finish their homework mutually, something that feels important to Kyle, and Stan puts In The Aeroplane Over the Sea on again. He offers a hand to Kyle, and Kyle takes it.
This time they are animated while they dance, swaying and stumbling over each other, laughing. They knock their hips and thighs into the corners of furniture and bruise, Stan's back slams against the wall, Kyle almost falls backward but Stan swings him up. Their steps do not match the songs but they do not care. Kyle throws his arms around Stan's neck at some point and Stan pulls him towards him, slow and unsure, but they press their bodies to each other readily regardless. It feels like coming down from a high, Stan stroking Kyle's back as a song slows down, and in between the music Kyle pulls back just the slightest to look at Stan and finds himself being kissed.
This is not Kyle's first kiss-Kyle's first kiss was seventh grade, justs after his thirteenth birthday, with Bebe during a group ice-skating excursion at Stark's Pond-but it feels like his first, for all the fireworks that ignite in his chest and shoot through his lips don't even move, just stay pressed to each other so hard it becomes painful, but Kyle's toes curl and he reaches up further into the kiss as Stan presses down. Kyle's hands are still around Stan's neck and he grabs hold of his shirt, flannel between his fingers, while Stan's hands are flat on his hips, and this is the best kiss that Kyle has had out of the two that he has had. He had been worried after kissing Bebe, after not liking it at all, and all of that worry had fallen away the second Stan's lips hit Kyle's. They break apart when they can no longer breathe-they'd made it through almost the entirety of a song.
Kyle lets his forehead rest against Stan's lower face, just under his nose. Stan's lips move against his hair. "I've wanted to do that my entire life, I think. Even since before I've known you. I wanted to do that."
"You met me when I was a toddler," Kyle says, but he's smiling.
"Why are we talking? Why aren't we kissing?" Stan leans back to look at Kyle, and he's construed his face into sincere concern. Kyle is concerned, too. Stan's lips are relatively average, a little on the plush side, but they're a lovely pink color and even pinker because of recent actions and Kyle feels his body split in two, open itself up to the feelings that come with being properly kissed, that come with being allowed to feel electric and jolts and touch Stan a lot. He can best describe it as a buzzing.
Kyle laughs and stands on tippy-toes, close to Stan's face. "You started it," he says, and Stan starts something else, too, putting his lips against Kyle's again. They actually move this time, and they do not separate until the sun is gone and snow has started to fall and somehow they're leaning against the headboard on Stan's bed and they're not wearing shoes anymore and they've missed dinner and Stan's mom calls to him that the pizza she's ordered is here. They run downstairs to get the entire box and bring it back upstairs, giddy and giggling and tripping over one another. They both like their pizza with pineapple, though Kyle's half is courteously without ham, and they both taste tangy and sweet as they kiss over the pizza box. They each eat half of the pizza, feeding a slice to each other (which is something they've been doing for as long as they've been eating pizza together) and sharing sloppy marinara sauce kisses. Stan shoves the pizza box off the bed and licks up the crumbs around Kyle's mouth-Kyle doesn't return the favor, finding that to be gross-and holds Kyle's wrists between his fingers as he kisses Kyle dizzy. Food and exertion is making Kyle tired though it's only eight o'clock but he wants to curl into this moment and fall asleep.
"I can't go on," Kyle says with a bit of dramatic flair as he draws his head back from the kiss, wrists still in Stan's hands. "Too tired." He nuzzles his forehead against Stan's face.
Stan moves Kyle's head up with own and nibbles at his jawline. "That's unfortunate," he says, and the vibration of his voice tickles Kyle's face. "'Cause I was the under the assumption we'd do this all night."
"This isn't a one-time thing, so I'm assuming that there will be more time for such activities later," Kyle says, and he breaks free of Stan's hold. He cups Stan's face, lifts his head up to meet his eyes and avoids looking at Stan's lips though he wants to. Something trickles inside him, a dreading feeling pooling in the pit of his stomach. "Right?"
"Right," Stan says, cocking his head. "I love you, dude. I love you so much. You can change your Facebook relationship status if you want." Stan says it like he knows that this is important to Kyle, and it is.
The dread dissipates and Kyle presses quite the chaste kiss upon Stan's lips while holding his face. "Get your laptop," he says as he lets go. "And your pajamas."
Stan opens the curtains on his bedroom window before doing anything else. He normally sleeps with the window open, but not when it snows, and snow is currently falling. He then makes his way to his dresser and takes his shirt off, his skin glowing in the moonlight. Stan and Kyle tend to share pajamas, and tonight is no exception. Stan pulls a pair of black-and-red flannel from his drawer and rolls his jeans down his legs, stepping out of them and replacing them with the bottom to the pajamas. He tosses the top to Kyle, who replaces his current shirt with it. Kyle removes his jeans as well, stripped to a mismatching pair of boxers, though he leaves his socks on. Stan takes his laptop from his desk where it had been charging and settles into the bed beside Kyle, wrapping an arm around him and pulling their shared blanket over their laps, which is something he normally does. Kyle immediately logs onto Facebook and changes his relationship status. He would add that it was with Stan but Stan doesn't have a Facebook, his reasoning being that social media breeds conformity and strongly discourages (almost to the point of disallowing) individualism. It's unnecessary anyway, because within five minutes of scrolling through his newsfeed and laughing at everybody with Stan (Red takes a lot of selfies, Cartman and Wendy regularly get into arguments on the other's shared political links and pictures, Butters is constantly asking for help in those lame Facebook games) Kenny has commented with stan marsh obvs and every single one of Kyle's online friends have liked it. Even his mother. It's cold outside but Kyle feels warm, flushed and light-headed, dizzy from the emotional ups and downs of the night.
They watch a movie and it's Stan's turn to pick but he gives it to Kyle. Kyle selects the third Paranormal Activity because it's the scariest in Kyle's opinion but also because they watched the second the week before that and the first the week before that. Kyle has a masochistic addiction to horror films and jump-scares; Stan is largely unaffected, though his fingers tighten on Kyle's arm and pull him closer and the suspenseful parts. The movie carries them until after midnight. Kyle normally feels unsettled in the quiet of a snowy night after watching a horror film but tonight as Stan shuts the lid of his laptop and puts it on his bedside table before wrapping both arms around Kyle and bringing him down under the blankets, into the empyrean wonderland of Stan's bed, Kyle feels settled and safe.
"I feel really good right now, dude," Stan says. Their noses are touching and Kyle has his eyes closed. Stan's voice cradles him, surrounds his body, and Kyle maneuvers his lips to Stan's, touching them though not quite kissing. It is his way of saying me too and Stan understands it as he envelops Kyle's mouth with his own and they kiss, not too extremely, but enough that Kyle feels satisfied for the night. He rolls over and presses against Stan's back so that he's being spooned and falls asleep.
His sleep is deep and dreamless, as it so often is, until the sound of Stan's parent's fighting jostles them awake a little after two in the morning. Randy and Sharon's raised voices, seemingly of a downstairs origin, and the sound of things being thrown about wake Kyle up, and Stan feels tense around him. Kyle lies there for a moment unsure of what to do and internally cringing. Randy is shouting something about coworkers; Sharon slams her feet as she walks upstairs; something else goes tumbling down, glass smashes, Randy lets out a long growl. Kyle eventually lits Stan's arms off of him and rolls around so that he is facing Stan. Kyle watches Stan's face cycle through a series of emotions—embarrassment, exhaustion, anger—and reaches out to brush Stan's cheekbone with his thumb. Unlike boys like Craig and even Kyle himself, Stan does not have high nor prominent cheekbones, the features of his face laid out on a wholly average map, but Kyle rubs it anyway. Stan seems close to crying and his face is unfolding, desperate.
Stan takes Kyle's hand on his face in his own, not lacing their fingers together but gripping Kyle's with his whole hand. Kyle wiggles closer to Stan and Stan clutches at him with both arms now, Kyle's trapped between their bodies. Stan grabs fistfuls of Kyle's shirt and balls them in his hand, Kyle's back slowly becoming exposed, and Kyle wonders why Stan's holding Kyle so tight when Stan is clearly the one in need of protection. Randy yells something about coworkers over the ruckus of Sharon continuing to throw things down the stairs, apparently increasing in size and weight as the noise grows louder and Stan's grip of Kyle tighter. Stan cringes every time something crashes, lurches at the sound of Sharon's voice, shakes at Randy's. Randy tosses insulting names about and at one point the noise grows physical, the slapping sound of skin on skin, both of them screaming disbelief at the other's willingness to fight. Ten minutes of this pass before Kyle finds a way to Stan's face and presses his lips as hard as he can against Stan's, scrunching his eyes closed, begging Stan to please, please be okay. Stan's arms relax around Kyle as he opens his mouth into the kiss, the passive partner for the first time that night,, and Kyle does his best to bring Stan back. Eventually Stan starts moving his mouth against Kyle's and Kyle himself can relax, moving his arms to a more comfortable position around Stan's neck; Stan lifts his head half heartedly off the pillow so that Kyle can slide his arm between it and his neck, and then rests it on Kyle's forearm.. Kyle tries to block out the sounds of Stan's parents fighting and twitches in response to Stan's every spasm until it starts to make him so sick to his stomach that he presses his hands tight over Stan's ears. The small laughter that Kyle can feel bubble inside of Stan at this gesture makes him feel better.
Stan's parents are on their fourth marriage to each other and Kyle finds himself wondering about Shelly, how she's coping with it without somebody to kiss them through it. Then he thinks about her boyfriend-Larry?-that died, and what he'd do if Stan died. Perhaps it's not the thing one should think of while kissing but then again Kyle is not finding a lot sexual in this kissing, no matter how intense it is, because this is a thing of comfort, he thinks. He gets back into it as he's reminded that Stan is very much here and alive and needing and wanting and Kyle is very much here and alive and needing and wanting also. The fighting does not relent even as they run out of things to throw and break and energy to physically fight and are just screeching empty accusations at each other: sleeping with coworkers, bottles of rum under the bed, not taking good enough care of the kids, look at the example you're setting, you're a bastard, you're a cunt, why did i marry you again, i don't even love you. Time has become a completely abstract concept that they are suspended in, cruel and unkind and without morals as it drags this hellacious event on and on and on. When Stan and Kyle separate from one another the sun is rising, the light beginning to creep into the sky, casting a glow into Stan's room that Kyle can only barely see as Stan's parents falter out. The house settles into the most eerie silence Kyle has ever experienced. There are dried tears on both their faces from Stan's crying and Kyle licks the salt off of Stan's.
"I can't believe that just happened," Stan croaks, barely moving his lips. Kyle's own hurt quite badly. He didn't even know lips could hurt, but they do, vibrating and swollen from overuse.
"Does it happen regularly?" Kyle asks, quiet. He raises his arm above the blanket and puts it on Stan's hip; Stan mirrors the action. They're both on their sides, far apart from each other to see the other boy's face.
Stan sighs, eyelashes fluttering against his skin in a way that lets Kyle know that, yes, it does, perhaps every night, though probably not to this extreme. The provoking incident involved the rum bottles under the bed this time, Kyle learned from this fight. "They think it does us best to stay together," Stan says, moving through the sentence methodically, "but I really think it'd be best if they didn't." His eyes are closed, skin raw, breaking Kyle's heart a little more with every breath.
Kyle doesn't have words for the situation and he's used up all his touching, emotionally exhausted, physically tired and even a little sore. He rolls on his back and puts his arms behind his head, plays with his own hair. Stan's hand moves up underneath Kyle's shirt and to his chest, right over his heartbeat, and he makes little noises of indistinguishable emotion as he slips back into sleep. Kyle's eyes swim and his vision dances in the way that he knows he's close, also, but he fights it for some reason, feels the force of his bed against his back and Stan's hand on his chest, feels his fingers in his hair, feels the functioning of his organs. He's lost himself in the blankets, a mess of limbs and detached body parts and affectionate gestures, but found himself, comfortable and lovely in the tanglement. Early morning light makes Stan's room the oddest color, gives Kyle such a nostalgic feeling that he cannot contain it within himself and it spills around him. He's reminded of their shared childhood, of walks against both sunrise and sunset, of idealized memories he so often brings to the surface. Tonight is a memory now, and he doesn't want it to be, though he appreciates its existence. Tonight he learned what their bodies were for: for each other. He turns to observe Stan, asleep and perfect, and his heart finally bursts under Stan's hand. He had known he wanted this, probably as long as Stan, somewhere inside him, but now it's all coming to him in a rush that he can't handle. His eyelids drop and he knows he's being pulled under. In the limbo between awake and sleep, he hears-of all possible things to come to him in this moment-In the Aeroplane Over the Sea. He's dancing to it with Stan, they're laughing and stumbling and giggling like earlier, and Stan is beautiful, a flower crown resting on his head. Stan is the king of carrot flowers, Kyle decides, as he slides his own hand under his shirt to overlap it with Stan's,, as his body gives into the pull of sleep, as all conscious thought and concern leaves him in his most vulnerable state. Stan is the king of carrot flowers. Kyle is full.