A/N; Whew. This is kind of a useless fluffly k2 chapter. It holds some significance for later but of course I'm not gonna tell you what out of this chapter is important. ;) Next chapter after this one, we make our way to shakeys... and maybe a bit more smut. So for now, enjoy some k2 cotton candy.

Enjoy~

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His death date had been scratched out some fifty times before finally the coroner had given up and just left it alone with no end date. I always wondered if maybe one day, there would even be an end date there some day. Where a piece of me hopes there wouldn't be, the way things are provoke me to believe that Kenny's life willbe more extensive than all of ours, whether in his control or not. He'll live to an old old age until his body is finally irreparable, until he doesn't heal and he doesn't come back from the dead due to having no physical body to come back to. So standing there with a hand full of sunflowers and daisies and a few carnations, I stare at the text on the headstone; Kenneth J McCormick: Our Everlasting Love.

"You're still here? It's been two hours, Kyle. They've already cleared the road."

I turn, and the figure beside me gazes at his gravestone with an unimpressed look on his face. I glance at him a moment before setting the flowers down over the lot and straightening up again slowly. "You would show up to your own funeral."

"Some funeral." His words are apathetic and monotonous, and I can't blame him. Not many people show up on these occasions anymore unless it's entirely serious. Today, it's just me. I feel kind of bad that he chose today of all days to come, where there was only one person to lay flowers down for him, but I guess it can't be helped. How'd I die? I don't remember this time."

I lick my teeth in quiet thought as Kenny leans his head against mine, being the taller of the two of us, and I rest mine against his right back. "A mail truck hit you dead on when you were crossing to the store this morning."

He nods, as though this is casual news, like hearing that little Sally just got accepted to college, and you're giving a polite nod because you seriously don't care. We continue standing together before we calculate that too much time for it really to be considered appropriate has passed, and we lean away from eachother, not feeling at all awkward regardless.

"So where is everybody?"

"Church." My reply is smooth, but it's honest. God forbid there be anyone aside from my family in this town who isn't Roman Catholic, but really. I'd take a Sunday morning at church over every Sunday morning alone for the rest of your life any day. Kenny nods again with the same nonchalance he had in regard to his death, before abruptly taking my hand and startling me out of my wits as he breaks into a run, yanking me across the grave yard.

We're running. I don't know where the fuck we're going or what the hell we're doing, but we're running, hand in hand, like stupid little kids despite almost being legal adults, and somewhere between vaulting over grave lots and almost killing ourselves stumbling through shrubberies and bushes, we're laughing, and it's the most relieving thing.

I realize after we've scaled a hill and are practically collapsing to the earth from loss of breath that he's leading me to his house, empty and vacant thanks to Mass, his mother being the type to put Ken's sister Karen in a blender on high before she misses a day of church. She's kind of an idiot, but I like Kenny's mom. She's really nice, and is potentially the only other person aside from me in the city that seems to give a shit when her son dies.

But I think we're past that.

Flopped together over the lump mattress in Kenny's room, he turns to me and elbows me in the side. "So, we never got to talk about it."

"About what?"

"You know, Kyle, fuck." He bites his tongue between his teeth to hump the air and I roll my eyes, raising my hand to my face to hide the fact that I'm going red. I can feel it, and he can see it. He smirks at me.

"It's good, Kenny."

"Good. That's it?"

"It's fucking amazing. There, you happy?"

He sits up and peers down at me with this crazy suspicious expression, before cupping my cheeks and searching mine. I blink up at him, slowly raising an eyebrow and glancing around the room for some clue as to what the fuck he's looking at, or maybe so he has a different angle of my expression so he can find what he needs. I don't know.

"You know, when you get all embarrassed, your freckles recede into your blush. It's like.. camoflauge."

I stare at him. "Kenny, are you stoned?"

"No, but I'd love to be. Care to join me?"

I don't have the time to interject as he's off of me in a second and digging through his mess of a room with his hands, and my eyes sink over him with a cooled expression. Sometimes I wonder what he does when he'd down under - if he's lonely. If he's tortured. If it feels like a million years even though it's only a couple of hours, or maybe if he just plays chess or some shit with whoever's around. There are certain things with Kenny that just make sense not to inquire about. Today, however, I'm feeling like breaching some boundaries as he stuffs some weed down in the little baby blue pipe that Cartman got him for his fifteenth birthday.

"Hey. When you die..." I trail off as he glances up at me, and my words die in my mouth. He's not looking upset or anything, but I can tell that I've already struck a nerve, and lose all courage to pursue my question. He stares at me a while longer, before seeming to understand that I'm unwilling to continue, before taking a hit off his pipe and handing it to me after he's finished, piping up.

"Hey. When I die..." It's my turn to look at him now, but he's looking genuinely curious, so I hold back any pissy insult as he leans back on his palms to think. "Why do you always look so sad when I'm gone? And why're you always so happy to see me after? You know I always come back, right?"

I stare at him a while longer before letting the bowl in my hands lower to my crossed legs, eyes tracing the shapes of the mattress in thought. "I always thought that would be obvious, dude."

"It's not, I'm curious." He takes the pipe from me to leave me to my thoughts as I try to find the words without sounding like a complete faggot. "I mean, you always visit my grave. You always freak out when I die around you and am alive long enough to see you panic. You risk your life pulling me in through your window when I'm about to take a fall..."

He trails off and we meet eyes in that moment as he blows a cloud of smoke to the side, and continues. "... Even though you know I'll reanimate within an hour."

My silence holds me, I can't figure out how the fuck I'm supposed to respond. How do you answer to something like that? Everyone else cares, too, right?

No, not right. If it had been Stan he would have watched Kenny plow into the ice below my window with little resolve, saying 'shit, Kenny killed himself', and expecting my follow up. Cartman woul dprobably be the one to push him out of the window in the first place. I struggled with my thoughts, running my hands over my heating cheeks. This weed is hitting me already, I don't know if it's just really good or if it's just because I'm a light weight or something like that. I don't get high a lot; it makes me feel stupid.

"Well... I dunno, Ken. It's just... the thing to do." I trail off, taking the bowl for the last time and taking a hit as I watch a fruit fly loom around the light in the ceiling. "I guess... I guess I just panic, Kenny. You're like, my fucking best friend, dude. If you died... man, I'd be lost without you."

"I die every day."

"You know what I mean." I give him a long look and then he takes the pipe, tapping it out in the ash tray and tossing it into his bedroom's mess again. We flop back against the covers together. "Like... what if one day you don't come back, dude? Sometimes you take a really long time."

"That's from bigger accidents, Kyle. It takes longer to respawn when there's nothing left of me. Like that time Eric used my ashes for chocolate milk."

I pull a face and he laughs, getting cuddly and gay like he usually does, wrapping an arm around my waist. I'm only hesitant to respond more now because of Stan's attitude from our last little sleep over. I'm wondering when the next time that'll be. Or, when the next time I'll see Stan will be - maybe that afternoon? Shit, I'm so stoned I barely know what's going on. I glance up finally and Kenny's got his eyes closed, looking genuinely peaceful in the first time ever since the few nights ago when he crawled in through my window. He lifts a hand to play with one of my curls blindly, and I sigh through my nose, opening my mouth to say something, but he interrupts.

"Tell me what you wanted to ask me."

"What?"

"Earlier. You said, when I die..." His blue eyes open and it's almost a jolt to see them so close and so suddenly. Shit, they're even more vibrant when high. I stop to laugh a little but he pokes me and I remember that he'd asked me something. I struggle - then it flies back into me and I go straight-faced, letting my eyes fall to a half-close.

"I wanted to know... what you do between the time you die and when you come back."

He stares up at me for a moment, eyes dull with a stoned haze to them before he cracks a half-smile and leans his forhead against mine, sliding his eyes shut again.

I stare at him for a while before I realize that he's not going to answer, and not another word passes between us before I leave an hour later to get home and study at my mother's demands.