Weee. I'm glad to be done with this. Overall, it's not my best work, but I hoped you enjoyed it anyway.

If you want more tortured Kenny, feel free to check out my other ongoing multichapter fic, 'Break Me, Bury Me,' which is more action-oriented but no less angsty.

Thank you very much everyone who favorited, alerted and reviewed.

The tips of my boots crunch snow. I pull my parka tighter around my body and flip the collar up to shield my neck from the wind. My eyes sting as I peer through the blaze of snow. White streaks flare out from the darkness, barraging my senses. It's cold enough to hurts to breathe.

"Couldn't get enough of us? Is that why you called us?" A voice hisses through the darkness. "You like getting beaten up or something?"

"As I recall, I killed one of you last time," I say. I feel along the freezing metal of my dad's rusted Toyota truck until I get to the truck bed. The huge ten-gallon container makes my muscles strain, but I manage to haul it out of the truck and onto the snow, anyway.

The headlights to the car are still on, but it illuminates only snow. I can sense them, though, slinking in the shadows, self-righteous and arrogant. They sicken me.

"You won't hurt any of us ever again," Darrin whispers. "You pathetic little human . . . I don't know how you keep managing to evade us . . . but it's the last time . . . "

"Keep telling yourself that." I step out of the headlights and into pitch black. The sound of the ten-gallon tank dragging in the snow is covered up by the howl of wind. I start to dribble liquid in a wide perimeter around my truck.

"What do you want, McCormick?" Wayne sounds frustrated, pissed-off. Excellent. Pissed-off people make mistakes. "What are you playing at? Why do you keep throwing yourself in our way?"

"Because you guys are assholes." I drop the empty container on the ground, wipe my hands free of gasoline, and stand back against my truck. My fingers fumble with the lighter in my pocket. Dad's going to be so pissed at me for destroying his truck.

"We'll kill you."

Darrin finally steps in sight of the headlights. The others follow him. Pale white in the cold, their faces drawn, alien, monstrous. They've destroyed their own futures for petty revenge and shallow desire. Ah, humanity.

"I'm like a fucking cockroach," I say, and smirk a little to myself.

Then I jam the lighter open so the rusted latch is stuck. The flame splutters. I toss it and it lands in a puddle of gasoline a few feet away, against the concrete and snow. Their gazes are drawn to it.

For a second, it's just a little orange flame bursting in a line around us. Then it swarms to the car engine. I see them shouting, trying to run. Too late.

The world explodes.

When I wake up again, I've twisted around in my sheets until I've fallen to the floor. My muscles are sore and my mouth tastes like ash.

Is it martyrdom if you know you'll come back to life, anyway? Nah. Probably not.

Does winning, finally winning something still feel fucking awesome? Hells yes.

A sound of a rock hitting the window makes me jerk to my feet. The latch is jammed and I have to jiggle it a couple times before I poke my head out. We only have one floor, so it's much less dramatic than it could have been when I come face to face with Kyle.

I blink and stare at him. He's shivering in his parka, his freckles prominent against his pale skin.

"What?" I ask after a few seconds.

"Uh." He hugs himself. "Stan said . . . Stan said you left the party . . . really wasted or something. And I - I was -"

"Trying to be my fucking guardian angel?" I already have a guardian demon back in hell to kick my ass back into gear whenever I start to feel mildly sorry for myself.

"Yeah. Um. About that. Not really. See. My family doesn't celebrate Christmas. And it's like three in the morning. And I realized yours does. And I realized-" He shrugs helplessly. Curls of red hair escape from under his hat. Snow frosts his fringe.

"Don't you dare feel sorry for me," I warn, the buzz of "Oh my god I just killed all those vampires I'm so awesome" starting to wear off.

"I don't! Jesus, never! I just . . . the Fred Meyers is still open this time of night . . . "

"Fuck those guys," I say.

"Yeah." He blinks. Guess he hasn't gotten the memo about me loosing my job yet. "Fuck those guys. But . . . damn it, Kenny. Stop being to fucking proud and let me take you shopping!"

All I can do is stare at him for a few seconds. He shivers violently, miserably.

"Uh. Okay."

So we go shopping.

Cans of food. Instant mashed potatoes. Presents, too: Cigarettes for my parents, new kitchenware for my mom, a soccer ball for my idiot brother who doesn't deserve it, a stack of books for Karen. We stop by the Christmas tree farm, giggling with our own stupidity, jump the fence, and hack down one of the tiny ones. He helps me set it up in our living room, both of us crashing into the furniture and making so much noise I'm surprised no one comes down to see what the hell's going on. We pretend-wrap the presents in the paper bags we carried them home in. I flop down on the couch when I'm done, almost unconscious with exhaustion. Kyle sits down next to me, shadows under his eyes, teeth flashing white in the darkness.

"Dude," I say, and survey our stupid tree and the stupid presents and the stupid hope the two of us somehow managed to bring into our house. "No words. I don't - I don't know-"

"Don't try and thank me," he says, looking a little annoyed. "It's the least I can do."

"For what?"

"For being my friend for all these years."

I just look at him for a few seconds. I don't know what I've done to deserve the people around me. A good portion of them are assholes and a larger portion of them are useless, but then there are Stan and Kyle, who have always been sort-of there for me. I hate both of them and love both of them in unique ways. I guess this whole 'friendship' thing, this whole 'depending on other people' thing, is kind of good for something.

It sounds kind of gay in my head, though, so I just say, "Thanks, dude."

We hug, too exhausted and giddy to care about how weird we must look (drenched in snow, trembling all over, smiling like idiots) and then he goes home.

I fall asleep sprawled out on the couch and wake up to my sister's happy shrieks.