Eric made his way through the trees, his shoulders slouched and his hands in the pockets of his jacket as he trudged on boredly, unhappy to be doing what he was doing when he was supposed to be celebrating Christmas at home. But it was around that time of year when the critters tried to give birth to the Anti-Christ, and his friend Kyle was the only kid in town who hadn't been baptised, so that made him the go-to mortal vessel for Satan's child. Having to go and fetch his ass from the depths of the woods at Christmas made Eric hate Kyle's religion all the more.

'Why couldn't he just have been baptised and raised Roman Catholic like everybody else?' he thought with a scowl, 'No, his bitch mom just had to raise him as a filthy rotten sneaky greedy Jew rat.'

It would have been helpful to have kept Kyle safe beforehand so that the woodland critters couldn't have gotten a chance to kidnap him in the first place, but there was never a set date for their ritual so the boys never knew when they were going to strike. Eric only knew Kyle was out in the woods because the mountain lion cubs had gone to his house to tell him so, since they were too little to carry him home and the mountain lion was too frightful a thing to show up in the streets of South Park. Stan was at some relatives' house for Christmas, and Kenny was busy being dead at that moment, so it was up to Eric, much to his chagrin.

After a while of walking Eric made it to the clearing he was looking for. It was recognisable from all the bloody critter corpses lying around. That was the work of the mountain lion. But the critters would be reincarnated and return to bring back the Anti-Christ next Christmas. 'Oh, joy.' Eric thought with a roll of his eyes.

He looked around the clearing, not even caring for the manger decorated with satanic scripture or the sacrificial stone covered in blood and guts, until his eyes found the reason he had walked so far for so long: Kyle, his wrists tied up and his clothes ripped off. The mountain lion killed the critters, but it always left Kyle. He was his friends' responsibility.

Eric walked up to the tree Kyle had been bound to and stopped in front of him. Kyle looked up, his eyes drooping heavily with tiredness, but they seemed to light up with hope upon seeing Eric. "Thank fuck. You took your time, fatass."

Eric frowned. "Ay! I could be at home eating pie and opening presents but instead I'm here to save your sorry Jew ass. Show a little respect."

"Yeah, yeah," Kyle sighed tiredly, "Just get me down from here, alright?" Normally Eric would have made Kyle beg for what he wanted and forced the redhead to call him all manner of complimentary names and titles before he even so much as considered doing him a favour, but right then he felt just as tired as Kyle looked and couldn't be bothered, so he reached up and untied his wrists without further delay.

Kyle breathed a sigh of relief when his wrists slipped free of the rough rope binds, and he slid down the trunk of the tree to collapse on the snowy ground. He shivered, the snow and evening air cold on his naked body, and Eric huffed at his pathetic state and unzipped his jacket, shimmying it off of his shoulders, to toss it to him. "Here."

Kyle was wide-eyed as he caught it and held it against his body gratefully. "Thanks." he said bemusedly, like he couldn't believe Eric was being so selfless, which he probably couldn't. Eric wasn't good with receiving gratitude – especially unused to it when it came from Kyle – so he just grunted and watched as Kyle pulled the jacket over himself and zipped it up. He looked up at Eric afterwards. "Won't you be cold?"

"I'm big-boned." Eric stated, gesturing to his large build under his white t-shirt, "I don't get cold." Kyle nodded understandingly, then tried to stand up. His legs failed him though, his knees knocking and his calves shaking, and he just fell back against the tree. Groaning at the extent of the effort he had to exert for that one rescue, Eric went to stand in front of Kyle with his back to the redhead, and stooped down as though they were about to start playing leap-frog. Kyle was smart luckily, so he got the hint quickly and was crawling onto Eric's back in no time.

"Come on, Jew." Eric sighed, standing upright and adjusting Kyle on his back, sliding his hands under his bare legs, "Let's go home." Kyle was too tired to speak, but Eric felt him nodding his head in agreement against his back.

Eric set off without further ado, leaving the bloody clearing with its mangled bodies behind and carrying Kyle past the treeline into the woods, back the way he had come. With the critters dead, the night was quiet except for the occasional hoot of an owl or whisper of a breeze in the trees overhead. Kyle was quietest of all against Eric's back though, and the brunet began to suspect from his soft, steady breaths that he had fallen asleep; but those suspicions were proven wrong when Kyle eventually did speak up.

"Cartman?"

Eric turned his head to look at Kyle's head resting on his back. His eyes were closed and his red curls were falling over his eyelashes. "What do you want, Jew?"

"Why did you save me?"

Eric stiffened. He didn't want to touch that subject with a one hundred foot pole. If he did then Kyle would realise things he never wanted for the redhead to know.

Eric was in love with Kyle. He was always saying and doing things that drove him crazy, but Eric loved him in a way he'd never wanted to love anyone. It was weak. He was weak. But he needed Kyle. He had come to realise that due to past events – had discovered how painful the idea of him being gone forever was. An existence without Kyle wasn't worth anything. Stan had been right: without Kyle, his life was empty and hollow. So he had promised himself to never be deprived of him. That was why he had saved him. But he couldn't just tell him that. Kyle hated him. He was disgusted by him, and would only be more repulsed and driven away if he knew how Eric truly felt. So Eric did what he always did: played it off as nothing more than a selfish act.

"Who else's homework am I gonna copy, Jew?"

Kyle sighed exasperatedly, and Eric knew he was convinced. He only ever believed that Eric did bad things though. "You don't copy my homework anyway, fatass."

Eric smirked. "No, but now you owe me, so now you have to let me copy your homework."

Kyle chuckled. "No way."

"Just as I thought." Eric turned his head back to the path ahead, marked by his prior footprints in the snow. "Jews are so stingy."

"You can't copy my homework." Kyle said, and Eric was about to berate him for rubbing his lack of generosity and gratitude in when Kyle continued, "But I can help you with yours."

Eric's heart stuttered. He imagined Kyle going to his house after school, and the two of them sitting at his kitchen table to work. Just the two of them. Together. Alone. Kyle could be all his, even if just for a little while. It sounded nice. He felt warmth rush to his cheeks and prayed that Kyle was too out of it too see the tips of his ears poking out from under his hair turning red.

"Sure, I'll get whatever I can take from a stingy Jew."

Kyle chuckled again, and his warm breath ghosted over Eric's nape and tickled the shell of his ear. "You're such an asshole."

"Fuck you, Jew." Eric said, but he did so with a fond smile playing about his flushed face.

It looked as though it might turn out to be a good Christmas after all.

Author's Notes:

Well, here we are, another short story. I thought it'd be okay to include the Woodland Critters in South Park reality, because A) even if they're imaginary, imaginary things have been decided as real in the canon, and B) they showed up in the reality of the Stick of Truth, so maybe they escaped from Imaginationland and reside in the woods. Whatever, the point is that I thought this would be cute, and maybe you'll think so too. And before you start asking "Parti, when will you stop writing Eric giving his clothes to and carrying Kyle?" the answer is: when it stops being adorable to me. Which will be never. *Puts sunglasses on* Deal with it.
Thanks for reading this, and I hope you liked doing so as much as I liked writing it.

Disclaimer: South Park does not belong to me, but to its creators, Trey Parker and Matt Stone.