(It's bright and--glowy, or something, and Kenny's laughing. Kyle thinks it's a really pretty sound. Pretty like the dress he's wearing, wherever it's from. Cartman didn't say. But Kyle's a man of honor for some reason and he lost the bet and now he's had like a million beers to try and forget that he's wearing fucking pantyhose, shit, somebody pass him another Corona. Not that anyone's letting him forget, especially not Kenny and his stupid leer and stupid comments. Stan's eyes keep sliding away whenever Stan tries to look at him, and Kyle figures Wendy will chew him out later for being weird about gender-normative fuck-all. God. Whatever.)
"Did you mean it?"
Kyle wasn't looking at him, was staring slightly to his right, unfocused and shivering in the cold. He was wearing that fucking stupid dress, the ribbon at his throat bedraggled and lopsided, his hands crumpling the edge of that stupid fluffy skirt as they opened and closed compulsively. Anyone passing by would see a girl all dressed up, red curls shining in the light from the doorway, waist cinched tight, swaying a little in her pumps, but all Kenny saw was the weird desperate look in his eyes, the vicious slant to his mouth, the defensive stance he'd adopted.
Kenny shook himself out of shock and into some semblance of functionality. "What?"
"That--those things you said. When you said you'd...did you mean it?"
"You're drunk." Kenny tried to make his voice soothing, tried to calm Kyle down back into normalcy.
"Didn't answer my question."
"Come on, sleep it off. Your folks will kill you if you go home like this." He took Kyle's arm, tried to guide him out of the cold, but Kyle was suddenly way too close, fingertips catching in the pockets of his jeans, leaning in until Kenny could make out the low lights in his eyes.
"Yeah, I'm drunk. That's my excuse. But you gotta answer my question."
"No, I don't. Come on, there's a couch over there..."
"You gotta. It's the rules."
"There are no rules, Kyle. Trust me, you'll agree when you get tomorrow's hangover."
Kyle laughed, and the sound was strange and dark in the yellow light. "Yeah...no rules."
Somehow he'd backed Kenny up against the wall, and Kenny could hear his own too-loud breathing in the small space between them. He caught a brief glimpse of a curling smile before Kyle caught his mouth in a kiss, tongue darting out shamelessly and a little sloppily, tasting mostly of secondhand beer and a hint of that fruity pink margarita Cartman had forced on him.
Kenny was confused and kind of really turned on and stood blinking helplessly when Kyle pulled away, not too far. "It'll be easy," Kyle said, looking away. "Just pretend I'm a girl."
I don't need to, I couldn't even if I tried, you're so drunk, Kenny wanted to say. Because Kyle was always and would always be only and entirely Kyle; there was no room for anything else to fit in the Kyle-shaped space in Kenny's consciousness.
"We...shouldn't," Kenny managed, although it was getting more difficult to think of reasons why not with every passing moment.
"You said. No rules." Somehow Kenny got the feeling that there were two different thoughts there, but he couldn't follow them. Kyle was just standing there as if it were normal to be a few inches away from your best friend, looking determined and a little scared in skirts and makeup.
"You know what I meant."
"I dont. 'S why I'm asking."
Kyle was too close, way too close, and Kenny was breathless with all this too-closeness.
"Come on," breathed Kyle, mouth brushing Kenny's ear; "I want this."
Kenny closed his eyes, hating himself. "I don't. Not like this."
It was suddenly much colder; Kyle was five feet away, staring at him with an unreadable expression.
"Shit. Kyle, look, just--come on, you can use my bed. I'll take the couch."
Kyle turned and flounced off without a word or glance.
"Promise you'll drink some water," Kenny called after him.
//
Morning crawled through the windows with a grim inevitability.
Kenny enjoyed a brief moment of sleep-addled peace before recollection took hold. Fuck. He threw an arm over his eyes in a futile attempt to block out any kind of responsibility. Because that was the thing; he was, sort of, in the weirdest kind of way, responsible for Kyle. It was...hard to explain, even to himself. But Kyle had always fought for him in so many little ways, gave him food and shelter when he needed to escape, and Kyle still needed a companionship that Stan and definitely Cartman weren't providing. Kenny was a sorry second best, but he had a responsibility.
He lay still, listening; there was no sound from the bedroom. Probably just as well. Somehow, Kenny managed to get his feet on the floor and into the kitchen. His hands sought out the coffeemaker automatically, going through the familiar routine without the intervention of his brain.
(Water.)
It had been frankly shocking how badly Kenny had wanted to take advantage of Kyle the other night. He'd never thought of himself as that guy, not since the beginning of high school and girl after girl with painted mouths and short skirts. Back then, it had been pretty much everything he thought about--how to coax the next girl out of her tight halter top, chasing that something, that high he could almost get through sex, that connection with another living being.
(Filter.)
Kenny wasn't sure when he'd gotten sick of chasing that elusive satisfaction. It had happened slowly, inexorably; by the end of eleventh grade, he was done. Realized that there was never going to be a girl who wasn't all sharp edges and cruelty, sideways looks under kohl-heavy eyelids and using him as much as he was using her. Accepted that here, like in all other areas, life had fucked him over again and again. No, that wasn't fair; he'd been lucky in a lot of ways, and the best and brightest of those ways was Kyle Broflovski.
(Coffee grounds.)
That was probably why he'd reacted that way when Kyle had come on to him. What with the confusion, and the dress, and--no.
Kyle flicked the coffeemaker on and rested his forehead against a cupboard door. He wasn't being honest with himself. The dizzying heat and press of Kyle's mouth and fingers and hips had nothing to do with what he was wearing. Well, okay, maybe the dark blue satin stretched over Kyle's skin made Kenny's pulse stutter a little, but that was nothing compared to the fact that it was Kyle. Even now, a miserable desire twisted quietly in his ribcage, far too familiar to be new.
It was just that--well, Kyle. He worried too much, he tried too hard, his mind spiraled off into galaxies unknown and forgot to take his body along, and the smiles he occasionally turned on Kenny were blindingly and desperately dear. Kenny gathered every fond look to himself, knowing all too well that Kyle wasn't his to keep. Nonetheless, he did his best to take care of Kyle and protect him from the rough edges of the world. Kyle careened too wildly through life, driven by hate and love and hope and despair; there was no room for moderation when he threw himself fully into every emotion. It wasn't that he was self-centered so much as he was consumed by the need to follow his overeager heart. Kenny knew what caring too much could do, and was determined to see that Kyle came out of it all right.
An embarrassed cough broke into his reverie. Kyle was standing uneasily at the kitchen doorway, shifting a little from one foot to the other.
"I, uh. Borrowed your parka. Is that okay?"
"Yeah, of course." Kenny smiled, trying desperately to be casual, not to send Kyle fleeing out the door.
The threadbare orange parka wasn't quite long enough to cover the hem of Kyle's skirt, and though he'd taken off his shoes and hairband, he'd forgotten about the ribbon around his neck. He looked pieced-together, battered and fragile and beautiful.
"About...last night. I just wanted to say thanks. You know. For not--" he started to lift his hand in some vague gesture, then let it drop. "Yeah. For everything."
It was an incredibly awkward moment, and Kenny was almost glad when a cast-iron pot he didn't remember putting on a high shelf toppled onto his head.
(Kyle stared at the fading light in Kenny's eyes, hating the world. Kenny's body was still on the floor in a shallow spreading puddle of blood, and Kyle held back the familiar urge to vomit.
He'd never touched Kenny's body. Well, obviously he'd come into contact with Kenny plenty of times in the normal course of growing up in each other's pockets, but never...afterwards. Sometimes he thought that if he pretended everything was okay, if he shut his eyes and ears and hands, it would stop happening. It hadn't stopped happening, but he wasn't about to jinx it now. He turned around and walked out the door of Kenny's empty house, each step a faithless prayer.
He really, really didn't want to go home. Didn't want to fend off unanswerable questions, didn't want to be reminded that life went on outside this illusory stasis. Walking along the road like this, he could pretend he didn't have a destination. He could pretend like maybe he was going to walk forever, bare toes splaying against the dirt, skirt sliding faintly against his skin, on and on and on through a world without Kenny. The thought made him viciously satisfied until he realized he was crying.)
.
.
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A/N: Much less foggy and navelgazey this time. Well, a bit less, at least. I quite like this 'bookends' format; whenever I'm writing a scene from one POV, I have to fight the urge to go "Yes, but what did the other person think? What was going through hir head at the time?" This format lets me indulge that urge without sacrificing too much coherency.
Also, writing dialogue for drunk people is super awkward. See, I know how it generally sounds, but it looks so odd when it's on the screen. So I compensate in various little ways while I'm writing it down, and then when I sound it out in my head it doesn't sound right. And round and round I go...
Again, these chapters are going to get shorter and shorter. There are technically three more that I have planned out, but I'll probably post the last two at the same time.
