Author's note and disclaimer: I don't, of course, have any rights whatsoever to the characters from South Park, or to Stephen Sondheim's musical Assassins. It was fun playing with them, though.

There's practically no sex in this story and it isn't a slash fic, but I've left in a little slashy Easter Egg for those who enjoy it. We aim to please.

South Park Elementary Presents

ASSASSINS

A Musical by Stephen Sondheim

Directed by Kyle Broflovski

Kyle proudly watched as his mother read the program. The whole family was on its way to the opening night of the show, Gerald driving, Sheila in the front seat, and Ike with Kyle in back.

"Assassins? What kind of a name for a show is that, Kyle?" his mother asked.

"It's a show about assassins," he explained. "It's a Broadway musical."

"I can tell that from the program, bubbe, I'm just asking you what kind of a show is that?"

"It's American history, Mom," Kyle said, a little annoyed. He'd had the feeling that his mother might raise an objection if she knew what the show was about, which is why he had not gotten around to telling her for the last couple of months. He told her he was directing the school musical and she simply assumed that it must be something like Oklahoma—probably it was too much to expect Fiddler On the Roof. The last thing he wanted was some kind of protest spearheaded by his mother, and she wasn't the only one who might have had some problems with the subject matter. He decided to explain.

"Assassins is a show about American presidents," he said. "From the assassin's point of view. It's got all the people who killed American presidents or who tried to in it . . .."

"I don't know," Sheila Broflovski said ominously. "It sounds too violent for schoolchildren to me."

"Oh, I don't know, Sheila," Gerald said in a conciliating tone. "It's an important part of American history."

"That's right, Mom," Kyle cut in. "That's what I explained to Principal Victoria. It's a good show to do when there's all this trouble in the world. Even Stan's Uncle Jimbo agreed when he saw the rehearsals that it wasn't unpatriotic or anything."

"Jimbo? What was Jimbo doing at rehearsals?" Gerald asked.

"Well," Kyle explained a little reluctantly, "we had to ask for Jimbo's help with the show. Because of all the guns."

"Guns! There's going to be guns? In an elementary school show?"

"Don't worry, Ma. They're not loaded, and that's why we got Jimbo—to make it look realistic but to make sure it would be safe. It's going to be fine."

Sheila looked about ready to say a lot more on the subject of schools, guns, and guns in schools, and Gerald decided it would be a good idea to change the subject.

"Sounds like a very complicated show, Kyle. Tell us who's going to be in it."

"Almost everybody," Kyle said. "Stan, Clyde, Craig, Wendy Testaburger, Bebe, Butters, and fatass—I mean Cartman."

"Does he have a very big role, Kyle?"

Without knowing it, Kyle's mother had hit a sore spot. "Yeah, kinda. I guess some people would say it's the biggest part in the show. He's playing John Wilkes Booth, the guy who shot Lincoln."

"Do you think he's good?"

"Brody," Ike said enigmatically.

"I can't tell," Kyle confessed. "I wasn't going to cast him as Booth. I was going to make him be Sam Byck." Seeing his parents' puzzled expression, he explained, "Byck was this dude who dressed up as Santa Claus and tried to fly an airplane into the White House when Nixon was president. He's got a couple of monologues where he's driving and eating hamburgers on his way down to the airport and cursing and I thought it was a pretty good role for Cartman."

"So what happened?"

"Geez. First, he auditioned with one of his old Faith +1 songs about getting down on his knees and pleasing Jesus. Then he followed up with the Cheesy Poofs song, even though we didn't ask him to. Then I said something about Sam Byck and we'd let him know, and he said I was a lameass fucking Jew and he was going to play John Wilkes Booth or else he was going home. I didn't want to, but he's been doing ok in rehearsals," Kyle admitted, "and you can't get away from it: Cartman's got a pretty good voice and a lot of stage presence. I mean, even if you hate him, it's ok, because this is John Wilkes Booth we're talking about here—that's the entire point."

In fact, Kyle thought, Cartman had been doing better than ok at rehearsals. He liked playing a famous actor who was also a Confederate assassin and put a lot of energy into the role. He'd radiated charisma and impressed people, with some unforeseen and unfortunate results.

"What role is Stan playing?" Sheila asked.

"He's playing John Hinckley," Kyle said. "He gets to sing and play the guitar." He didn't say any more. What had happened with Stan and Wendy was too bad and he felt vaguely guilty about it. He just hoped Stan wasn't too depressed to perform well. He changed the subject.

"The only outside talent is Big Gay Al. We needed someone who could sing the songs as the Balladeer. The character is supposed to be kind of a folksinger, but Cartman started his whole thing about hippies and we really didn't want a repeat of that music festival. Big Gay Al was happy to do it."

"I see that Tweek is the stage manager. Isn't that—"?

"A lot of pressure? Yeah, it is," Kyle said, "but he's too nervous to put on stage. I'm carrying a cell phone so he can call me if there's a problem backstage. I've got it set on vibrate so I can sit with you during the show."

Unless something goes wrong, he thought.

They were in front of the school now. "Look, why don't you drop me off here," Kyle said. "I have to go backstage and make sure everything is ok. I'll meet you in the auditorium."

"Ok, son," Gerald replied. "Good –"

"NO, DAD!" Kyle shouted.

"Luck!" Gerald ended cheerfully. Kyle watched the car driving away, suddenly filled with a sense of foreboding . . ..

It's bad luck to say "good luck" upon the stage.