Two assholes, both alike in dignity,

In fair Park County where we lay our scene,

From ancient friendship break to new awkwardness,

Where weird shit is pretty routine.

From forth the... oh, fuck it.

Let the narrator stop ripping off Shakespeare and assure you that no one kills his or her self. Also, no one dies in a sword fight. Oh, get your mind out of the gutter! Actual swords, not pork swords. How one could die from that, the narrator hasn't a clue.

Commence serious time. That clever opening wasn't just for shits and giggles, oh no. Our scene seriously is Park County. South Park, if you're nitpicky and enjoy specifics. But still Park County. There are also two assholes who have an ancient friendship. The dignity part may or may not be a lie. Also, weird shit is, in fact, routine.

No, okay, shutting up now.


High school. The best time of your life, if you look back and allow nostalgia to romanticize and candy-coat it. If you're living it, though, you tend to have the much more realistic notion that it fucking sucks.

The privileged few who do happen to enjoy school are those who have it made. Jocks, cheerleaders, popular and amiable honor students, cliché shit like that. The rest either cope, cry daily, or drop out. Coping entails eking out a somewhat comfortable place among peers on your social tier and staying there. Dreaming big does no one any good in the real world. And high school is totally real world prep.

But that information goes right over the heads of some. Take Stanley Marsh, for example. He suffers from asthma, thus barring him from his rightful place among his school's athletic teams. It hadn't stopped him from pursuing sports as a child, oh no. But since God seems to hate everyone with any sort of disorder, it had gotten progressively worse with age. He can't run two minutes without wheezing and frantically rifling through his pockets for his inhaler. Yet he continues to try out for sports. All of them. Even girl's volleyball, on one occasion. He never accepts offers for water boy, towel boy, or anything of that nature. He won't settle for below par. Stubborn fucker.

Oh, and as if having defunct lungs and a chronic case of rejection isn't enough, he's the shortest person in his circle of friends, standing at an unimpressive five-foot-six. This may or may not play a role in his exclusion from sports teams. It's also something he chooses to ignore.

But, yes, he has friends. The wheezy, short kid has friends. They all reside on one of the middle social tiers, just above the stoners (who are surprisingly well-liked,) and just below the yearbook club. They do have some casual friends on other tiers, but they all tend to stay in their niches. As it should be.

Inevitably, though, some people are closer than others. Three boys in particular comprise our weak-lunged protagonist's core group of friends. Five, if you count the resident fatass, who is a fair-weather friend at best and maintains a spot on the band geek tier. Yes, five. It's a weight joke.

If going by alphabetical order, by last name, Kyle Broflovski would be first. He'd also be first if you were going by level of closeness. Super Best Friends and whatnot. More on him later. Eric Cartman, previously mentioned fatass, is next alphabetically and obviously last on the friend scale. He's behind everyone. Even Pip. Wait, why the fuck is Cartman even on this list? Okay, moving on. Kenny McCormick is third, but follows Kyle in terms of... friend-ness. Butters Stotch is... Goddammit, you should be able to figure this out by now.

Yes, childhood friends sticking together in the turbulent world of high school. It's touching, really. A special bond, unbroken by time or popularity or different class schedules. It could almost pass for after school special fodder. Almost. It's a little more complex than made-for-TV movies about moral issues and paradigm shifts.

Oh, right. 'More on him later' is up there somewhere, isn't it? So, Kyle. Long, pale, and diabetic. One of the tallest dudes on his tier, in a cruel twist of fate. Tall enough to play basketball, but with a vehement refusal to play. He loves the sport, so no one's really sure why he never tries out. Oh, and Stan isn't bitter about Kyle's height at all. That'd fuck everything up. Why ruin a thirteen(ish)-year friendship over a height difference? Kyle's also weirdly intelligent. Honor-roll-tier intelligent, even. It makes no sense that he's on the 'Unremarkable Kids' level. It probably has something to do with Stan. Not that he'd own up to that.

Kenny McCormick is another one of those kids who doesn't belong in the average group. He's pretty. Man-pretty. Pretty enough to be the most popular guy in his grade, even if his teeth are a little crooked and he tends to smell a bit like sour milk. He masks it well, though. No one can say for sure where he gets the cologne, but it works.

Cartman is a fat douchebag who plays the tuba. Moving on.

Butters belongs on a much lower level. He's nice enough, with a friendly smile and endearing appearance. He's just... kind of irritating. One can only take so much of the sunshine-and-rainbows disposition the boy has. And he's taller than Stan, which is sort of insulting somehow.

There are other kids, too. But they're not worthy of their own paragraphs. Except one.

Wendy. Wendy Testaburger. The childhood sweetheart with the weird last name. Ideally, she and Stan would be together and Stan would tower over her and would be a buff jock with healthy lungs. But, seeing as nothing is ever ideal, she has a good two inches on him and they hardly talk. She's just that; a childhood sweetheart. Nothing beyond. Well, okay, they're casual friends. Backup friends, in a sense. If a friend of Stan's is absent in the class they have together, he'll go to Wendy. She's friendly enough. She's smart, outspoken, and pretty in an average, unremarkable sort of way. She's one of those high-ranking kids. For the sake of making sense, Stan should probably be attracted to her. He hasn't been for six-ish years, though. He isn't sure why. She only deserves a paragraph to denounce this issue. And maybe 'cause she's more important than it seems. Maybe. Probably not, though.

Now that that's all squared away, this not-quite-a-prologue can be drawn to a close.

One of the biggest downsides to being barred from every school sports team is the lack of activity. He's no Eric Cartman, but Stan can never seem to get the lean figure he had from middle-school football back. It's just a little bit of fat, settled rather girlishly on his lower body; hips, thighs, and ass. If you look at him from a distance and squint, he looks like a chick, no lie. He hates his stupid hourglass figure and hates, fucking hates when he's approached from behind and hit on.

Of course, the suitor always runs when Stan turns around, but still.


The final bell of a Friday finds Stan at his (and Kyle's, but that's another story) locker, attempting to excavate an assignment rubric from between the pages of a history textbook.

"Hey, baby. Is your father a baker? 'Cause you got great buns." Stan drops the book and slowly cranes his head to glare at the douchebag behind him.

"Christ, no, Kenny, that one sucked," he grumbles, pivoting and smacking the other boy on the arm. The assaulted party feigns hurt and rubs the afflicted area.

"Well fuck you, too, Bootylicious." Stan laughs in spite of himself and Kenny offers a toothy grin. It'd be a stunning smile if he didn't need braces so badly.

"Shouldn't you be, like, hitting on the Chess Club?"

"I like glasses and insecurities, but no. Let's hang or something, I got jack shit to do."

"I carpooled, we gotta wait for Kyle. We have plans."

"Oh, my God. Locker, car - what the fuck's next, you guys gonna share a dick?"

"Lay off."

"Oh, Kyle," Kenny mocks, heightening his tone for effect, "sorry I grabbed your crotch!" He lowers his voice a bit. "It's okay, Stan, my dick is your dick!"

And since Kyle has bad timing, he rounds a corner and reaches his row of lockers right as Kenny is thrusting into his own hand. Stan is nearby, looking utterly horrified.

"Okay. You're gonna move, and I'm gonna get my French book, and we're gonna forget this happened."

"Ken's tagging along, just for the record," Stan says, maneuvering under Kyle and grabbing his dropped textbook.

"So's Butters. Craig, too."

"The fuck? Craig Tucker?" Stan asks incredulously. Kenny looks on awkwardly.

"Yeah. Says he needs to be there anyway, I dunno." Kyle stuffs a binder and a textbook into his backpack and slams the locker door shut. Stan then untangles himself from the other boy's legs and hops to his feet.

"Sounds sketchy."

"Beyond belief." It's quiet, then. No one can think of anything to say. Kenny chews on his lip a moment, then opens his mouth.

"Shotgun."

"You son of a bitch." So begins Stan and Kenny's epic race to Kyle's car. Stan winds up winning, sliding ungracefully into the passenger seat. He has to rifle through his backpack and take a few puffs of his inhaler, but it's worth it.

"You're a dick," Kenny whines from the backseat as he crams his tattered backpack between his legs.

"You can't call shotgun until the car is in sight, so I didn't do anything illegal."

"I have to sit back here with Craig. I'm mad at you."

"What's wrong with Craig?"

"Apart from the stick in his ass?" Kenny's eyes narrow. "He smells like cheap cologne."

"It could be worse."

"You're right. He could smell like you." Stan throws a box of tissues at the boy in the backseat. He tries not to find some kind of lewd reason for their presence in the car.

They argue a little more, but Kyle, Butters, and Craig all file out of the school building just in time to stop a 'fat leprechaun' joke from leaving Kenny's mouth. Butters, being the smallest, is forced to take the middle. Kenny's bony, angular frame is a pain in the ass to have in the middle, anyway. Craig, stocky and sinewy, fits uncomfortably behind the driver's seat. His knees are pushed up weirdly, due to Kyle's seat being ridiculously far back.

"Well," Kyle begins, clapping his hands together, "what say we get the fuck out of here, huh?"

Stan looks back and notices the subtle twitch of Craig's hands. Poor kid. Fighting off the urge to use that gesture must be terrible. He turns his head back to Kyle and watches as the key turns and the car shakes and wheezes to life.

"Piece of shit," Kyle murmurs, switching gears and pulling out of the mostly-empty lot.

The ride is pretty quiet and awkward, with only hushed conversations about school breaking it occasionally. Butters grinds his knuckles the entire time and Kenny chews on his hoodie strings. Stan is more bothered by these tics than he'd care to admit.

When they arrive at their destination, the parking lot is unusually crowded. Granted, the small building shares a lot with a department store, but it's still irritating.

"Oh, we're here," Kyle deadpans, "now get the hell out of my car." The four passengers scramble out and Kyle disappears in search of a parking space.

"Dude," Kenny whispers to Stan, stopping a good distance from the storefront and resting his chin on the shorter boy's shoulder. He gestures to an exceedingly curvy figure by the entrance and the boy eyeing her.

"Are you saying what I think you're saying?"

"Yes."

"No fucking way, man."

"He's looking at her." Butters casts a confused glance at the two and hustles over, keen on getting in on something.

"Craig's here for Bebe," Kenny says, smiling as Craig shuffles towards the girl. Ah, yes. Bebe Stevens. Buxom, blonde, and beautiful. Also kind of smart. Not the kind of combination one would expect, but what the fuck ever. She has ambitions to become a marine biologist. Rumor has it she keeps a shark in her pool. Best friends with Wendy Testaburger. Her second best friend is Clyde Donovan - spacy, kind of chubby, but adorable and remarkably popular among his average-kid peers.

"Is not."

"Whatever." The trio disperse and wait patiently as their fourth friend makes his way through the sea of cars.

"I'm fucking cold," Kyle announces, ignoring the way Craig and Bebe exchange hushed whispers and odd gestures, "let's get inside."

As soon as they head for the door, Craig smiles uneasily at Bebe and creeps inside. The girl frowns, but quickly perks up and offers a little wave to the group of familiar faces.

"That, ah, that was a little weird, huh, guys?" Butters twiddles his thumbs as a wave of affirmatives hits him.

Stan and Kyle head for the House of the Dead station. Kenny wanders off to schmooze someone into giving him quarters. Butters follows uselessly. Craig is nowhere to be found.

"I think I like this more than those Xbox games, man," Stan says, offing a zombie with his blue plastic light-gun.

"Why don't we do this more often? It kind of kicks ass."

"Totally."

They take out a few more zombies in silence, but Bebe's voice over the hum of the crowd of patrons causes Stan to freeze up.

"This Craig and Bebe shit is weird."

"Huh?"

"You saw her outside, right? I think Craig might be here to see her." Stan sets his gun back in its holster as the GAME OVER text flashes across the screen. Kyle follows suit and they shuffle into the corner to talk.

"They'd make a really odd couple," Kyle remarks, leaning into the wall behind him.

"I know, right?" Stan mimicks the other's body language, pressing his back against the locked door on the opposite wall. He absently fiddles with the handle.

"It's weird, though. Why can't he just see her on his own?"

"Maybe they're keeping it on the DL."

"Makes sense, I guess."

"Aw, fuck, dude, here he co-" Stan is cut short by the blunt force of the door hitting him from behind, pushing him forward and into Kyle. In the midst of the flurry of movement, the employee emerging from the threshold shoves them and they fall. The two fight for purchase on each other as they topple. When they hit the ground, Stan is too winded to really notice anything but the buzzing in his head and the lingering sensation of pressure at the point of impact.

"I'm telling." Wait, what? That's Craig's voice. Stan strains his eyes, not intent on moving for a while, and notices the boy's disdainful look. To top it off, he has Clyde Donovan beside him with a hand clapped over his mouth.

Oh. Oh fuck. The feeling in Stan's body comes rushing back and he looks down and finds, to his horror, that Kyle is rightthereinhisface with a shocked expression. Their noses are touching. Stan's lips tingle.

They didn't. They couldn't have.

"I knew it." Aw, shit. They did. Stan only half-registers being shoved aside.

"It was an accident, Tucker."

"Sure it was."

Stan pulls himself up into a sitting position and glares up at the two boys holding hands in front of him. Bastards. What fucking timing. And what are the odds- wait. Holding... oh, Jesus.

"Gay," Stan says simply, pointing at the linked hands. They part immediately. Craig looks pissed, while Clyde looks awfully perplexed.

"Gentlemen," Craig says after clearing his throat, "I believe we've reached stalemate."