The next time I'd be graced by Stan's presence again would be at school the following afternoon. I was skipping out on math and sitting cross-legged on top of this small hill, smoking a cigarette. I had a perfect view of the gym class below me being forced to run the mile. Clyde was there, huffing and puffing his lungs out as he tried to keep up with Kyle, which was pointless seeing as the redhead was literally running circles around the giant, taunting him with a smile: track and soccer were Kyle's thing.

Chuckling at Clyde's misfortune, I went to take a drag when I heard the grass crunch behind me. Seconds later, a warm body was pressed against me, using my back as a sort of wall. The first thing that went through my mind was who the fuck even dared to touch me?

I immediately thought it was Clyde, but that wouldn't have made sense since he was running the mile. Tweek was the next to pop up in my mind but he didn't like bodily contact so that was impossible. Besides, this person wasn't shaking like an abused puppy.

Through with playing the guessing game, I went to turn around and almost slammed face first into Stan, who had his neck craned to the side to look at me while breathing heavily through his mouth. Before I could even attempt to ask him what the fuck he was doing, I involuntarily jumped away from him and pulled my t-shirt up over my nose, scowling. His breath was rancid as fuck.

He smirked. "You're funny."

"You're weird," I shot back, voice muffled from the thick cotton material of my shirt. "What the hell did you eat: lawn clippings, chili cheese fries, and rubbing alcohol? Because that's what it smells like."

Stan didn't answer. Instead, he scooted back over to me and rested his head on my shoulder. I pushed him away before he made himself too comfortable and created some space between us.

He glared at me with a look of indifference, making me knit up my brows in response. His eyes were glazed, hair a mess with his hat nowhere to be found, and he had this thick streak of blush painted across his nose and cheeks. I'd eventually come to find out that he had quite the buzz going on at the time, but I wouldn't know it until he showed up at my house and told me first hand when Saturday rolled around. We'll get to that later, though. Just know that at this point in time, I assumed he'd finished crying his eyes out in the bathroom or something.

"What the fuck is your problem, dude," I asked heatedly.

Stan's glare eased up as a smile formed on his lips. "You're lonely. Like me."

"I'm not lonely."

"We're all a little lonely," he sighed and fell back onto the grass. "Some of us are lonelier than others, but you and me? We understand each other."

"Look, I don't know what the hell made you sad this time but we don't understand each other. We barely know each other. You barely know me."

"I know you're lonely," he assured me with a smug smile. I just rolled my eyes and turned back to watch Clyde get yelled at to pick up the pace, causing Kyle to shout back at the gym teacher in defense of his special needs boyfriend. While Clyde attempt to calm the furious redhead down, I felt something wrap loosely around me. I looked down to find Stan's thick letterman jacket draped over my shoulders. I lifted a brow at him, demanding an answer. "It's a bit chilly out here; don't want you to catch a cold."

I snorted and shrugged, causing the jacket to slide off and onto the grass.

Stan replaced it.

So I shrugged it off again...

...and that persistent fuck wrapped it around me once more, this time with a bit of force behind it as he were trying to tell me that he was tired of my shit.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing."

"I'm being a good friend," he answered cheerfully. "Friends don't let each other freeze."

I snorted. "Just because I gave you a ride home doesn't mean we're friends, Marsh."

I guess I must've said the magic words because that stupid grin of his faded and he gave an unsure nod, looking away from me. He didn't say anything after that. He just sort of sat there and watched the kids below us run for the amusement of our fat, sadistic gym teacher. Clyde was sitting on the bench as Kyle forcefully dumped water into his open mouth, both of them seemingly finished with putting up with the teacher.

Minutes later, Stan stood up and brushed his jeans off. "Sorry for bothering you," he mumbled dejectedly. "I'll um, I'll go away."

I watched him turn to leave and sighed at his dramatic attempt of an exit. "You can stay."

He whipped his head around. "Huh?"

"I said you don't have to go," I breathed tightly. "You can stay."

He looked at me for a second as if I were screwing with him and getting ready to play some huge joke on him. Truth was that there was no ulterior motive planned on my end; I just seriously hated it when he made that face, the one that made it seem like he'd just been told that nobody liked him and he was going to die alone.

We continued to stare at eachother for a little while longer until he cracked a toothy grin and took his place back next to me on the ground. I tried not to tell him that he was too close and to stop breathing my air.

I immediately regretted feeling bad for him when he started running his mouth a mile a minute.

"So what kind of movies are you into?" he questioned me merrily, as if we were best friends who'd known each other our whole lives. Well, I guess we sort of did know each other our whole lives in a way. "Comedy, drama, horror? You seem like you'd be into old school gore flicks."

"Gore is fine," I nodded carelessly.

"What about zombies?"

"Love 'em."

"Me too. I know I'm sort of late on the gaming front, but I just picked up Left 4 Dead 2 and oh man, it's insane!" He spoke animatedly, throwing his hands in the air. "Have you played Dead Rising?"

"Nope."

"Oh. Want to?"

"Nope."

He frowned and pursed his lips, tapping his chin with a finger for a second. "You look like someone who's into music like the Beatles."

I'm actually amused at this. "Yeah, I am. A lot, actually."

"Called it," he grinned again. "Just music like that, or what?"

I shrugged. I was into a lot of different music genres but I wanted to keep this conversation to a minimum. "You talk a lot."

He laughed. "I guess. It feels weird, talking this much. Sorry. It's just, I don't have a lot of people to talk to. Clyde and Kyle are cool but they've got each other, and like I said... I'm lonely."

I was actually listening to him at that point. For some reason, he was making sense to me. I wasn't looking at him like the weird freak who'd just invaded my space ten minutes prior to tell me about how I was feeling or how we understood each other. It got me thinking that maybe we did understand each other, at least a little bit. We were both feeling left out, and that counted for something, right?

Nice things don't last though, and our moment of awkward bonding was cut short when he started to dry heave in my general direction. Being quick on my feet, I stood up and stepped away from him to avoid any possible undigested cafeteria food being spewed all over me.

"Dude, what the actual fuck—are you puking?"

He kept gagging but nothing was coming up. I waited until he was finished with his little puke charades and could form a coherent sentence without being interrupted by a hiccup.

"Ugh, I don't... I don't feel so good."

Figuring I'd be even more of a huge asshole than I already was if I'd of left him to die in a puddle of his own vomit, I pulled him up by the collar of his shirt and tugged him to the nurse's office with a vice grip on his sleeve. He attempted to put up some sort of half-assed fight along the way, bitching and moaning that he was actually fine and didn't want to go, but he wasn't much of a threat.

The nurse wasn't there when I shoved him into the room. He looked around for a second in confusion before his eyes settled on one of those uncomfortable school nurse's office bench/bed things and decided that he should curl up and watch me stand awkwardly in the middle of the floor; I wanted to make sure that he'd be in the nurse's hands and that he wouldn't get up and leave the second I walked out that door, but my patience had been wearing thin ever since he showed up and interrupted my perfectly wonderful time alone.

"Can you get me some crackers?" he asked.

"Where do you think you are, Denny's? Shut up and wait until the nurse comes."

"I didn't eat lunch," he whined. "Please?"

I waited a few more seconds and peeked out into the hall. The nurse was nowhere in sight and upon turning to look back at Stan, he had this starving-kitten look about him, like he'd cry if he wasn't fed right that instant. To make sure that wouldn't happen, I groaned and shuffled through the cupboards until I came across a few packs of saltines and tossed them over to him. He tore through the packaging with his teeth mercilessly.

Ten minutes or so passed until the nurse finally came in, surprised to see us and worriedly asking if we were waiting long. I ignored her question, told her that Stan was sick or something, and began to take my leave.

I was about a foot out the door when Stan asked if I could stick around.

I flipped him off and continued down the hall to my last class as the bell rang.

After school, I went to work. I had a part-time job at the pet store across the street from Tweak Bros. so I'd usually find myself at the shop before or after my shift to pick up a cup of coffee. The fact that Tweek was usually—if not always—there was an awesome bonus. It was nice getting to spend some time with him.

Unfortunately, Bebe worked there too, and was there when I decided to walk in.

"Hi, Craig!"

"Where's Tweek?" I asked.

She flicked at the coffee straws on the counter. "He and his dad had to run home for a second. I guess these new coffee beans came in but they were sent to their house instead of the shop, but whatever," She shrugged. "You just missed them. They'll be back in about twenty minutes, though."

I nodded, upset that I'd missed Tweek. "Can I have the usual?"

Bebe grinned and leaned towards me over the counter. "The usual?"

"Um. Yeah."

"You'll need to be a little more specific," she said softly while subtly sticking out her chest. "There are two different 'usuals' that you have here, Craig."

It took every fiber of my being to choke out, "Coffee. Black." She nodded with a small laugh and went to fulfill my simple order. Once I'd paid she was finished, she slid the small steaming cup over to me and sat up on the counter, watching me as I dipped a finger into the coffee to test how hot it was. "Thanks."

"It's been awhile," Bebe mused with a faint grin on her lips. "I think there's still fifteen good minutes left until they get back; why let such precious time go to waste?"

"So what's up with you and Kenny? You two seeing each other, or...?."

She frowned at the forced change of subject. "We're just friends," she sighed tiredly. "You and Stan?"

"We're not friends," I scoffed. "He was just there at the time."

"Mhmm."

"Kenny's a good guy," I continued. "You ever think about giving him a go?"

"I'd rather give someone else a 'go'."

"Well I think he likes you, so you should definitely jump on that before it's too late," I was officially rambling at this point, using Kenny as a sort of scapegoat. Not like he'd care since he was obsessed with the girl apparently; it was so obvious at Whistlin' Willy's.

"I've got to get to work, so uh... I'll see you later," I said while beginning to head for the shop doors.

"Fuck me."

I turned around so fast that the room was spinning. "What?"

"I said fuck me," she repeated while climbing over the counter. She eased her way on over to me and threaded her fingers in the collar of my shirt, much like the way I'd done with Stan hours earlier when I was getting him to go to the nurse's office. I took a second to look around the shop and see if I had any witnesses but the place was desolate. "Right now, in the storage room."

I'm quite confident that I looked like a deer caught in headlights at the time as I sputtered off incoherent lines. She was the only person who could make me do that.

Keyword: was.

"I—I can't right now because uh, because my—my hands hurt," I managed to spit out. I really didn't have the time or mental energy to be fooling around with one Bebe Stevens. Damn her and those awesome tits. "And I bit my tongue."

She laughed and kissed me on the cheek. "I don't want your fingers or your mouth today," She let one of her hands break free from my shirt to palm the front of my jeans. "I want this."

I gulped and nodded, not another word slipping past my lips as she locked the front door and dragged me to the storage room. You see, for the most part I've got a pretty high resolve with fending Bebe off. If it were any other day, I'd of most likely been able to tell her no and walk right out of that shop, but getting to have actual sex with her? There's no passing that up.

Bebe might play dumb, but beneath that blonde exterior is a total goddess and she knows it. I blame all the years of hanging out with Wendy, but whatever. The point is that guys didn't just get to sleep with her; they could please her, sure—fingering and oral sex until their fingers were stiff and their mouth was numb—but the chances of them sticking their dick in her were less than 1%. Hell, she had been chasing after me for two straight years and I'd only gotten to fuck her once before.

Let me just say that one single time was pure heaven, so I just about had a heart attack when she told me what she wanted. How could I tell her no?

I couldn't, which is exactly why I proceeded to screw her brains out until we heard the shop doors open and Mr. Tweak call out and ask where Bebe was and why on Earth the door was locked. Bebe managed to fool him with a lie about how she was restocking some stuff and wanted to make sure nobody would try to steal coffee while she was in the back, and I was completely overlooked since I spent so much time at the shop anyways.

Bebe was about to open her mouth and ask me something—most likely about how I should stop giving her the run-around and just date her already—but thankfully she was interrupted by Tweek dragging a huge bag of coffee beans through the shop door. I gave the spazztic blonde a wave and helped him carry the bag to the counter before getting the fuck out of there as fast I could.

I felt sort of bad for messing around with Bebe when I knew good and well that Kenny was so into her, but he'd of done the same thing if he were in my situation. I also vaguely wondered if Stan was alright and if he managed to get some proper food into his system besides those shitty saltine crackers.

I shook my head of those thoughts when I realized that I was beginning to care.