Stan immediately knew two things upon waking in the morning: He was not in his own bed, and he was ill. It was the kind of disorienting wake-up where Stan thought he was in one place, and quickly learned he was actually somewhere else entirely. He thought he was in his comfortable full-size bed back at school, which was actually only a mattress on the floor of a room in a house he shared with three other journalism students. The natural conclusion, then, was that if he wasn't there, he was probably at Loren's, and true enough, there was someone else spooning him. But the way the sun was hitting the wall was all wrong — Loren never slept with the curtains open, and for that matter, the window in his bedroom was at the head of the bed. And here the sunlight hit the closet, which was perpendicular to the foot of the bed. This was all very strange to Stan; in his hung-over sleepy fog he wondered why Loren's room had changed so drastically, and then it hit him that this was not a California king he was lying in — it was a twin, and he was fast beginning to feel some leg cramps creeping up on him. As his thighs began to sting with tension he remembered it was December 27, it was Christmas break, he was home in Colorado, and not in his bed, and someone was spooning him. So, he very gently rolled away from a man's grip, and — no, this was not a man. Was it a girl? No — no. It was a boy.

It was Ike Broflovski.

Ike began to stir, began to murmur, and as weird, sick memories came back to him, Stan felt his esophagus finally begin to clog with the Funyons he could suddenly recall eating in Butters' dining room while he talked with Wendy about Top Chef. Where had he gotten Funyons? He hadn't brought any with him. Did the Stotches just keep them in the house? That seemed … off. They weren't very Funyon-y people, were they? Well, there was no time to worry about it. Stan tried to get up, but feeling his legs turn gelatinous, he fell to the floor with a thud, which made his head feel much worse. He crawled on hands and knees to a gray trash pail, and vomited spectacularly.

When he was done, he weakly managed to get himself into a sitting position, and raised his head. It wasn't until he brushed his limp hair out of his eyes that he noticed Ike sitting up in bed, completely naked, everything bared. "Hi," he Ike said happily, albeit rather softly. "Awesome puke. You do that often?"

"Uh huh." Stan lunged forward and grabbed at what he thought were his pants.

Ike hopped off the bed, and grabbed them. "No." He sort of gently tugged the jeans away, and though Stan let go and covered his chest uneasily, he looked confused for a moment. So Ike said, "No, dude. These are my pants." It made Stan feel sick again — they wore the same (or very similar) pants. Weird. Gross. Ike tossed the jeans at his bed and they failed to make it, falling against the bed frame with a dull thud. Ike handed him something else wadded up on the floor. "These are yours," he announced. Shaking off some grogginess, Stan put them on.

As Stan fumbled into his jeans — this was no time to bother finding and putting on his underwear — the kid wriggled into a pair of gray boxers. He was grinning in a way that made Stan uncomfortable, although italthough it was useless to blame it all on Ike; the dizzy buzzing in his ears and the fact that the most therapeutic thought he could conjure was his head being split open with an axe to relieve the tension were certainly doing their part in making him feel rather less than well. Hand on his stomach, he curled up on the floor. This was something like those nights he'd spent in high school with Kyle, where they drank themselves stupid and woke up in the morning in the same bed, feeling absolutely deathly. Of course, Stan reminded himself, this was Kyle's younger brother. That made him feel worse again, and he shut his eyes against the vicious cycle that his thoughts had become.

"Hey." Ike pressed against Stan's exposed cheek, and he slowly and unsurely lifted his head again. "Don't go to sleep on the floor, man."

Feeling well enough to speak, Stan spat out, "Why shouldn't I?" The words sounded cottony and they tasted bitter to him.

"Because." Stan felt Ike trying to nudge him into a sitting position. "Not that I haven't enjoyed your company, but you have to get out of here. I mean, my parents might not be up, but Kyle will come home soon, and what then? You gotta get out of here."

Stan pushed himself up and shook his head. "Kyle didn't come home last night?"

Ike rolled his eyes. "Don't you remember anything? He split off with to go home with Kenny and Trish, and we came back here."

"Well, obviously!" Stan snapped, although he regretted it, because it made a searing pain go off behind his eyes. He hissed as it faded away all too slowly. "Wait," he said, developing a recollection of some of the previous night's conversation. "Trish. She's…"

"Kenny's baby mama, yes, I know."

"How do you—"

"We were locked inside together for an hour last night." Ike paused. "Well, her and me and Butters, anyway."

"You think Kyle's okay?" Stan wanted to know. He was now scanning the floor for more of his clothing; the way his nipples were becoming erect in the under-heated room was making him feel uncomfortable, and he wanted a shirt.

"I wouldn't worry about him right now." Stan nodded along with this, because truthfully, he was feeling pretty drowsy. "Except, oh yeah! If he comes home and sees you and figures out you just fucking popped my cherry, we're both fucking dead! So yeah, I'd say you'd better get the fuck out of here!"

Stan felt plenty awake now.

"I what?"

"You took my v-card."

"Oh, no."

"Oh, what? You just gave me the most deliciously thorough ass-ramming I have ever had the pleasure of experiencing," Ike said giddily. "Well, it was the only ass-ramming I ever experienced. But it was good."

"Oh, my god," Stan moaned again. "Oh, this is really bad."

"What's so bad about it?" Ike leaned forward. It was awkward, especially since he was attempting to use Stan's crotch for support. At least, that's how it seemed to Stan, until it occurred to him that he was being kissed.

Stan drew away very, very clumsily. "Excuse me." He cleared his throat, peering at Ike through disturbed eyes. "What are you doing?"

Ike wiped his lips. He was still beaming about this whole thing. "Kissing you," he said quite innocently.

"Okay." Stan got up and began to grab at clothes haphazardly, pulling them on without paying attention to whether they were inside-out or even belonged to him at all.

"Yeah," Ike drawled while Stan was hurrying to get himself together. "You really should get out of here before Kyle comes home."

"I, um." Stan paused with his hand on the doorknob. "I think I'd like to go out through the window."

"The window?" Ike glanced over at the window. "We're on the second story."

"Yeah." Stan felt pretty stupid, standing there with his blazer scrunched up in his arms. He realized while Ike was staring at him peculiarly that he didn't know where his scarf was. He didn't want to know. He swallowed. "Can you open the window?"

Ike crossed his arms and made an indignant little face. In spite of himself, Stan thought it was cute — before this morning he thought have found it precocious, but now he found it coquettish, which really disturbed him. "You're not going out the fucking window, Tarzan. Use the door like a human."

"What the fuck?" Stan asked aloud as he was pushed down the stairs.

"I'll call you," Ike said before slamming the door in his face. Unluckily for Stan, he stood there long enough for Ike to open the door again and ask, "What the fuck are you still doing here?" Then he blew him a kiss. Then he slammed the door again.

Stan could not recall his last post-coital walk home in South Park. It must have been years ago. Perhaps he was too cold to remember. But it might have been colder, and the walk was short. He was grateful that his keys were still crammed into his front left pocket. Of course his parents weren't up waiting for him. They'd never been the type.

Still feeling physically sick for various reasons, Stan fell in front of the toilet as soon as he made it upstairs. He worried for a brief moment as he was wiping his mouth afterward that perhaps his parents would be woken up to the sound of his puking, but if they said something, they could go to hell — Stan was 22, and he had every right to stay out all night and come home the next day sick to his stomach.

He was mostly just retching at this point, but Stan still felt pretty bad. He tried to brush his teeth, but sticking the toothbrush in his mouth just made him feel worse, so he quit that, and just gargled some water, and then got in bed to sleep for a couple of hours. It was difficult, because the blinds were open — obviously he hadn't been home the night before to close them, but he doubted he would have been sober enough last night to remember to shut the blinds anyway.

He was woken up when his phone started mooing at him. Stan briefly regretted his ring tone, which when he was drunk he found absolutely hilarious, but now he was finding it pretty annoying. He ignored the mooing until it went away.

Then he got a text message.

It was from an unidentified number, but it had a local area code. Sighing, Stan opened the message. Im horny. meet me home 6 pm? ike

Stan licked his lips and sighed. He rolled over, and hit 'reply.' 6 at starks. no sex.

It took him 15 seconds to get a reply. but i need u to fill me again.

Gritting his teeth, Stan tapped out, how did you get my #?

He waited about three minutes to get the answer: stole it from ky.

Feeling like that was a good enough answer, or maybe he was just too exhausted to look into it any further, Stan conceded, and sent a final message: 6 at starks. After confirmation that his text had sent, Stan turned off his phone, and left it off all afternoon.

At 5:50, Stan got out of bed and got ready to go. He didn't care if he was late. He didn't care if he looked good. He slipped on the same pants he'd been wearing the night before, because they were on the floor near his bed, looking comfortable crumpled up there. But as he felt the smooth fabric caress his shins, he suddenly became quite ill with the thought that he'd done gross things in these pants. Actually, now that he had them off and was holding them up in front of his face, they had ashy handprints all over them. What was up with that? He balled them up and threw them in the garbage. He wore his dark jeans with the hole in the right knee, and finished his outfit off with a black T-shirt. If he squinted, he could still make out the traces of Park County High Junior VaristyV Football XXL. He knew the back used to say Marsh but now it didn't. It was the cheapest T-shirt in the world, and pretty much his favorite. No one would see it anyway. He zipped a puffy jacket up over it.

He stopped by the front door to tie his shoes, hoping to get out as quickly as possible. No such luck.

"Stanley," his mother called from the kitchen. "It's almost dinnertime. Where are you going?"

"Out," was Stan's curt reply as he tied his sneakers.

She emerged from behind the living room wall without taking a hint. "Your father and I were thinking that maybe—"

"Gotta go," he said loudly, cutting her off.

"Oh, well, when do you think you'll be—"

"Not sure!" Stan shouted as he slammed the door behind himself. Checking his cell phone, he realized it wasn't on, and fixed that. "Shit," he gasped, seeing that he really was 15 minutes late. "Shit," he repeated over and over again as he ran down the snowy roads. It was a little warmer today, like maybe around 35 degrees, and all the way through town (which was only about a five-minute jog), he felt his palms and the spaces between his fingers sweat inside of his cheap knit gloves.

~XXX

Panting as he made it to the pond, he slowed down, and immediately spotted Ike, wearing what he'd been wearing the night before, hands clasped in his lap. "Oh, shit," he said yet again, and he let his slow jog degenerate into a fast, shuffling walk. He saw how pink Ike's gaunt cheeks were, probably from sitting out in the cold, when the boy turned his head to nod solidly at Stan.

"Hey," he said warmly. "I cleaned the bench off for you." And sure enough, all the light, puffy snow had been cleared away. Ike wasn't wearing gloves, and Stan figured his red, raw, moist little hands must be freezing. His own hands began to feel cold inside of his gloves. Briefly, he considered lending them to Ike, but then he thought better of it — offering your winter accessories to someone was a clear demarcation of romantic interest, and, yeah, that was no good. Ike would just have to be frozen.

"We should talk," Stan said, sitting down.

"I'm not much of a talker," Ike confessed. Stan noticed him wiping his nose, which was dripping a little. Generally this sort of thing didn't bother him, but he wanted nothing more that to just wipe the snot away. No, he reminded himself. Too intimate. "Why don't we go back to my place?" Ike said unsteadily.

"Ike," Stan began. "We're not having sex ever again."

"Oh, no," Ike moaned, although the sharp tone in his whine made Stan think maybe he'd been expecting this. "But I so enjoyed it."

"I'm really, really sorry." Stan coughed. "I think you're a neat kid, but … oh, fuck, this is going to come out horribly no matter how I saw it."

"Yeah, basically," Ike confirmed.

"I don't want to hurt your feelings."

"I know."

"But yeah, listen: I don't love you. I don't like you romantically. We're not in love. I'm in love with someone else. Last night was really a mistake. So let me repeat myself: I do not love you."

"No shit, Stanley." Ike smiled, and he sighed. "I don't love you either."

"You don't?" Stan asked.

"It's like you said last night: Some people you love, and some people you just love fucking. Well, we're not in love. So if that's your only issue … let's go back to my house and fuck again."

"What?" Stan cried. "No!"

"What's the big deal?" Ike asked. "Didn't you like my virgin ass?"

"Yeah, it was fine, but that's not the issue."

"Only fine?" Ike pouted a little. "I gave you my virginity! Oh, cruel Stan." He sighed dramatically. "You're breaking my heart."

"Dude." Stan held up a hand, and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Are you serious? Because I'm just kind of—"

"No," Ike said pronouncing it clearly. "I'm not serious." He rolled his eyes. "I mean, about everything but the sex. It was really hot. I think we should do it some more."

"No," Stan said firmly. "No no no no no."

"Aw, come on!"

"No."

"You can do anything you want to me." Ike waggled his eyebrows. "You'll like it."

"No, I won't," Stan groaned. "I won't, because of the following reasons. One, you are a minor. Two, you are my … Kyle's brother. And three, I am not into you. I think you're very nice, but I'm not into you. I appreciated our time together, but I am not into you." Stan sat still for a moment, wondering what reaction he might get, while Ike just stared at him. "Wow," he breathed in relief. "That was actually pretty easy."

"Mmhmmm. I see. What was that about Kyle, again?"

"What? Oh." Stan wiped his nose. "You're his brother. That'd be weird."

"You want to know what I think?" Ike asked.

"No," Stan said honestly.

"You're in love with him."

"What?" Stan asked. "No way!"

"No, yes way. You're in love with Kyle."

"No, I'm not, I'm…" Stan trailed off, and he heaved his shoulders, and moaned. "Aw, I can't lie about this to you. I guess I owe you that much."

"I'm not sure you owe me anything," Ike replied. "I mean, you boned me, and it was awesome. I should be thanking you."

"Aw, really?" Ike nodded to this. "You really appreciate me doing you that much?" Ike nodded okay. "Okay, well, let me tell you this, Ike — what we did is so illegal."

"I know," Ike said. "Whatever. Like I care. I mean, is that your issue? Is that why you won't do me again?"

"Well, kind of," Stan admitted.

"What kind of tremendous bitch do you think I am? You think I'm going to turn an old family friend into the police?" Ike actually grabbed Stan's hands, and even through his meager knit gloves he felt how cold the boy was, despite the fact that he wasn't trembling. "Look, I'll admit, between Sheila the cunt and Gerald Broflovski, Esquire, you'd probably get like five to ten."

"Oh, god."

"Oh, right."

"So, now you're blackmailing me into having more sex with you?"

"What? No! You have a really low opinion of me, don't you think? I'm just saying. I just don't understand how any red-blooded man could turn down sex from an underage boy with a tight little butt," Ike mused. "I mean, I really just don't get it."

"Ugh, please." This conversation was beginning to catch up with Stan, who was now feeling even more ill than he had that morning. Maybe he was still a little bit hungover. Luckily for Stan, he was getting used to the feeling. "This conversation is going nowhere," he said uneasily.

"I know," Ike agreed. "And I told the guys in my band I was missing practice to get laid, too."

"What?" Stan shouted — a knee-jerk reaction. "Who else have you told about this?"

"No one. I haven't even told them any details. And even if I had told them, 'Hey, guys, I'm getting rammed by Stan Marsh,' they would have just been all like, 'Who is Stan Marsh?' "

"They don't know who I am?" Stan asked, now a little insulted.

"Well, no, why would they? It's not like you're a legend in this town. People come and go all the time."

"I just thought…" Stan slumped, and let go of Ike's hands.

"You were someone?" Ike filled in. Stan nodded. Ike stood up, and brushed pointlessly at the wetness of his pants. "Look, dude. You're no one here. You're no one anywhere in this world, unless you stop to make a difference to someone."

"Dude. I'm still not going to do you ever again."

"Oh, fuck. It was a worth a try, though." Ike made finger-guns at Stan. "Stay warm. See you around." He began to walk again.

"Wait!" Stan called.

Ike stopped and turned. "Yes?" he asked.

"I have a request."

"Oh." Ike pulled a pack of anemically thin cigarettes out of his jacket pocket. "Want one?"

"No, it's okay. I quit."

"Shame," Ike said. He stuck one in his mouth and lit it. "What can I do for you?"

"I need you to not tell Kyle," Stan said, standing up. "That would really mean a lot to me."

"Okay," Ike agreed, exhaling some smoke. "I wasn't planning on it anyway."

This caught Stan's attention. "Wait a moment. I thought you guys were close."

"We are," Ike confirmed, exhaling very gracefully; Stan had to admit that Ike did have a rather appealing set of lips, thin though they were. He found himself trying not to stare at them as Ike continued: "Look. The thing with Kyle is ... you don't want to test him."

"I don't get it," Stan admitted.

Ike took another drag. "There's not a lot to 'get.' " Smoke wafted out of Ike's mouth and nostrils as he spoke. "You know how he gets, and I'm not saying he'd necessarily be pissed that we, like … did what we did. But it's just better to sidestep the whole issue. You get me?"

"I think I get you."

"All right!" Ike said a little too enthusiastically for Stan's taste. "I'm not going to tell him."

"Thanks. That would be great."

Ike gave an exaggerated wink, and then he walked away. The smoke lingered in his absence.


I have to be honest with you -- I've been avoiding logging into this site for two awesome reasons. The most important one is that I keep seeing ads on here with fucking spiders in them. Has anyone else been having this problem? Spiders terrify me! Every time a new page loads I have to cover my eyes. I'm, like, 3 years old. When it comes to spiders.