Author's Notes: Thanks to xPublicEnemyx, Chocolateoholic13, Melinda Sandy Halliwell, Rumanya, monica, tunafish, HeartbreakProductions, DudeHe'sGotHeather, Bluuuuuee, atlanatine, and somethingcool for your reviews~! Some of them really, really touched my heart this time and helped keep me inspired while I was on the road. I'm also really happy that people are enjoying the music - my playlist for this story and the sequel just keeps growing!
Speaking of being on the road, I'm really sorry about the delay in updates. Our two convention trip ended up having a surprise funeral tagged onto the end of it (which meant we got home almost a week late) and the choir I direct has its concert in 6 days. I'm a little more swamped than usual, but I will keep writing, bit by bit. Thanks for sticking with me and I hope you enjoy!
o/~ And all I really want is some patience
A way to calm the angry voice
And all I really want is deliverance…
Do I wear you out?
You must wonder why I'm so relentless and all strung out
I'm consumed by the chill of solitary ~/o
Though still in the genre of hot chicks, Kenny's music had gone a little more oldschool than usual as he sat alone in the kitchen picking at a bowl of Lucky Charms. He had only one purple earbud in, the other dangling down his jaw as he kept his other ear open for the sounds of his friends. He'd barely slept a wink the previous night, far more wound up by the events than he even wanted to admit. I'm listening to Alanis for fuck's sake!
It was one thing for all of them to be pissy at Cartman about something – that was normal - but when Stan and Kyle fought, it was as if the core of their group bottomed out, leaving Kenny feeling more isolated than ever. Worse still, he felt guilty about his role in the entire thing, and confused about the heavy feeling in his chest. Stan and Kyle were so important to him that the idea of being a wedge between them made him feel like that time he'd been accidentally shot by Mr. Garrison (who was really aiming for Kathie Lee) and then impaled on a flagpole. A fuckin' flagpole. Suffice to say, it hurt like a motherfucking bitch. Kenny wanted nothing more than to fix it, but this time, he wondered if maybe staying out of it was the best solution.
Of course, staying out of it never seemed to be an option when he had three emotional fucking blockheads for best friends, as evidenced by the fact that he was the only one of them who currently didn't have his goddamn head stuck up his goddamn ass!
His lovely train of thought was interrupted by Stan clomping his way into the kitchen, already in his boots, jacket and hat, and he avoided meeting Kenny's eyes as he grabbed a glass from the cabinet and filled it with water.
"Going somewhere?" Kenny asked casually, dropping a handful of cereal into his mouth and crunching it lazily.
Stan shrugged, turning to lean against the counter as he gulped down several mouthfuls of water. "Boarding… maybe gonna find one of those shacks."
"Sweet, I'm in," Kenny responded sharply, his implication clear. No way in hell are you going out alone.
"No, dude," Stan protested, dropping his empty glass in the sink to deal with later. I need time to think… "I… I really wanna be alone."
"Don't be a fucking pussy."
"Fuck you."
There was no actual venom in Stan's response and Kenny desperately wanted to roll his eyes at the other boy, but he somehow managed to resist the urge. It wouldn't help matters if he alienated Stan further, and the other boy was obviously still in a piss-poor mood. "Then take Kyle with you."
"Take Kyle where?" Unlike Stan, the redhead had appeared in the kitchen clad only in pajama pants and an old Terrence & Phillip t-shirt, his unruly hair sticking up in every direction as he rubbed at his eyes. The clattering and raised voices had woken him abruptly and he'd come downstairs immediately to find out what was going on.
Stan's heart thudded painfully as he glanced at Kyle's disheveled red curls and thought of the previous evening, but he quickly averted his eyes and made to leave the room, surprised and vaguely annoyed when Kenny grabbed the back of his jacket and tugged it hard.
"Stanley thinks he's going out alone today." Kenny's eyes wandered between his two friends, saddened by how much worse for the wear they looked after even one night, dark circles under both pairs of eyes. Make up, goddamnit! But he knew it wasn't that easy and running away from it was definitely not the answer.
Kyle stared at the bright blue of his best friend's jacket, barely awake enough to be having this conversation. Any plan he might have tried to develop to fix last night's mess had already evaporated. He wanted so badly just to reach out and touch Stan – to just fucking pull the other boy backwards into his arms and… "What? No! Stan, even if we're…" Kyle trailed off, biting his lip. Fighting? Is this fighting? It feels worse than any of our fights ever have before… "It's dangerous to go out on the mountain alone."
"Don't care," Stan muttered darkly, even though he made no move to leave the room, shoving his hands into his coat pockets and staring fixedly at the floor. He knew that if he even looked at Kyle, all of these feelings would just flood him all over again. I barely slept last night, and when I did, all I dreamt about was kissing Kyle. Stan absolutely hated feeling vulnerable, but without hearing anything straight from Kyle, he couldn't help but still feel a little betrayed. A tiny little voice that sounded kinda like Kenny whispered to him that he hadn't given Kyle much of a chance to explain, but… he didn't want to listen to that voice.
This time, Kenny did roll his eyes at the War of Stubborn between his two best blockheads. They were so fucking alike sometimes that he just wanted to bang his head into a wall or bang both of their heads into a wall or maybe just bang their heads together. They were so attuned to, so protective of, so obsessed with each other, and had been since… as long as he could remember, literally! Why can't they make this jump?
"Dude, I am not letting you go alone!" Kyle's voice raised another notch, but there was an odd note of unusual panic to it. Stan was supposed to be his ally, the one person that always had his back, and vice-versa, and he ached with the thought that he was being pushed away. It was too much like the Raven-thing and Kyle hated it when Stan shut him out like this. Part of him simply wanted to pour his heart out right here in the kitchen if it meant Stan wouldn't give off that horrible aura of desolation, if it meant he would smile again.
"You can't stop me."
"Watch me try!"
Kyle's voice cracked on the last word and with it, Stan seemed to finally relent a little, shrugging again. He could hear the hurt in Kyle's voice, and it didn't make him feel better at all. It actually made him feel worse. "Fine, whatever… if you wanna come with me, you've got ten minutes to be at the car and if the Fat Ass isn't there, I'm driving it over to the main lodge myself. I board faster than any of you and will leave you in the dust if you piss me off."
This time he did leave the kitchen, clattering down the stairs and picking up his gear to lug it to the car. Kenny was right behind him, as if to make sure Stan wasn't really going to ditch all of them. Kyle appeared about 8 minutes later, his jacket unzipped, none of his protective gear with him, looking generally rushed and disheveled. The last one out the door, just as Stan was about to jump into the driver's seat, was Cartman – but that didn't surprise any of them. If there was one predictable thing about their friend, it was that he loathed to be left behind or not included. And though not a single one of the three wanted him around, they were as helpless to uninvite him now as they'd been for years and years previous.
Not that Stan didn't try.
"You're not invited."
"Like hell, hippie, it's mah cah!" The two boys glared at each other menacingly, though the true fight had little to do with who was driving or who was invited.
"Everyone is invited!" Kyle snapped, sharper than he meant to – Stan flinched and climbed into the backseat, gesturing for Kenny to join him – and Kyle sighed, climbing into the front with Cartman. Being rushed made him feel edgy and the constant bickering between everyone was not their usual banter.
"Whatever, dude," Stan finally muttered under his breath.
After five minutes of riding in an uncomfortable and unusual silence, Kyle finally gave in to the urge to try and start a dialogue. If he couldn't talk to Stan alone, then at least he'd try and get everyone to make peace, truce. "So, you guys… where exactly are we going?" He was riding shotgun, and in the backseat, Kenny quickly pulled out the map the girls had marked for him to consult with Stan, as if glad he'd finally been given something to do.
"The girls told me that the easiest one to find is in Moran Woods…" Kenny pointed, catching Kyle's eyes for a moment in the rearview mirror as he watched them. He had no idea what the redhead was thinking, but he hoped things were still cool between them. "But the best way to get there is via Casper…"
"No way Fat Ass can ski Casper Traverse," Stan said with a sharp shake of his head.
"EY!" Cartman protested, but that was all he said. It was the first thing he'd said to any of them so far besides his initial retort.
Stan pointed at the map, tracing a path with one gloved finger. "The next best way is just to get to the base of Casper lift, so we take Nez Perce Traverse to Sundance to South Pass Traverse…"
Kyle tuned out their discussion of the trails and turned his gaze out the window with a frown. It was snowing lightly – not enough to be a big deal in a mountain town like Jackson Hole, but enough to add another layer of worry across his shoulders. He'd managed to remember to grab his phone, but hadn't even had time to eat breakfast and he hoped he was dressed warmly enough…
"Kyle!"
"Er, what?"
"We're here, you spaced, dude," Stan was saying to him, shaking his shoulder before turning to climb out of the backseat.
"We're getting on that thing?" Cartman squawked upon realizing that Stan was marching them towards the gondola, and then his voice turned into a pure whine. "But-but-but… how high does it go? You guys~!"
"You've ridden on the back of Cthulhu and you're scared to go up the mountain?" Kenny needled him with a snicker, somewhat comforted by his friends falling back into their usual patterns of behavior. Even if it was mostly a cover for a lot of unresolved shit, the fact that they were all still sorta-mostly speaking to each other meant there was some hope.
"It's, uh… more the going down the mountain part," Cartman muttered as he followed his friends. "Without us, you know, killin' ourselves…" He added a little "heh" after it that caused Kenny to look back over his shoulder at him curiously.
Is he making a joke about…? Nah… Still, it seemed that the blossoming black eye the bigger boy was sporting was a sign of something more wounded than just pride. That expression on Cartman's face… well, it was rare, and Kenny found that it always bothered him. "We'll get you there in one piece," Kenny reassured him evenly, choosing for once, to acknowledge...something. "Your probability of dying is probably lower the closer I am." He grinned sharply, and then took off to catch up with Stan, attempting to delay him long enough to miss the incoming gondola.
Cartman blinked after Kenny stupidly until Kyle whacked him hard in the leg with a ski pole. "Give me your poles, carry your skis, come on or we'll get left behind!"
He'd thought that Kenny was truly and irrevocably angry with him after last night, but perhaps he'd been wrong. Maybe a little humility was worth something in the eyes of his friend? "Yeah, yeah, Jew," Cartman huffed, dragging his skis as he followed along behind his friends.
Stan let Kenny stall him long enough for the other two to reach them, but the moment he saw Kyle carrying Cartman's poles, he felt irked all over again. Deep down he knew that Kyle was only being Kyle – helping whoever needed it, doing the right thing – but right now, he just couldn't help but read into everything. Climbing into their gondola, he slid across the seats and ignored his friends as they climbed in beside him.
It was an off-peak time, Kyle noted as the gondola began to ascend, and he pulled out his phone to check the time and the weather report, surprised when he realized it was already past noon. He knew how long it had taken him to fall asleep last night, but he didn't realize how far off his internal clock really was as a result. "The weather outlook isn't pretty, dudes…" he mumbled, holding the satellite screen out to show them. No one looked or answered him and Kyle sighed, jamming the phone back in his pocket and staring moodily out at the gray haze. This is going to be a long fucking day…
o/~ Why are you so petrified of silence
Here can you handle this? ~/o
There was no visibility at all by the time they reached the peak, and Cartman looked at the whirling, swirling blur of snow in abject horror. "Seriouslay?" he finally asked after they'd all stood there gaping for a few minutes.
"It was like this the other day, sorta," Kyle started optimistically, glancing at Stan to back him up. "It got a little better as we descended…"
"You can all ride the gondola back down now," Stan offered, the first smile of the day creeping slowly onto his face. "But once we leave this safety…" It was a challenge and a dare all at the same time, and the odd look that passed between him and Cartman for a moment was reminiscent of one fine day of motor boating out by the town of Beaverton.
"As if." Cartman finally sniffed as he snapped his boots into his skis, tightened his scarf and clacked his poles together twice. "Hippie."
"Fat Ass." Stan's lips quirked and he turned to point dramatically into the gray abyss. It wasn't as if they hadn't been on far more absurd adventures than this, right? "We go in search of… the shack."
"The shack," Kenny murmured in agreement, never the one to back down.
Kyle was checking the compass on his iPhone and he wordlessly reached out with one hand to adjust the direction that Stan was pointing. Their eyes met for a moment and then they both smiled before looking away sheepishly as Kenny snickered.
They descended from the peak in a very slow zigzag, with Kyle bellowing their old ski teacher's mantra of "PIZZA! FRENCH FRIES!" every couple of yards just to keep Cartman moving. It was brutally cold in the wind, and unable to see much of anything, time seemed to not exist either.
By the time they made it to the Casper Lift, Kyle was sorely tempted to suggest they head for the base lodge and try to find the shack tomorrow instead. He was also hungry and a little dizzy, having technically skipped both breakfast and lunch… but Kyle didn't want to risk damaging the fragile mood between them, and so he let it go, figuring they'd be up and down Casper multiple times trying to find this place. Besides, Stan and Kenny, at least, seem happy with our progress. I'll ask them to stop for lunch or something next time and maybe, for now, I can find a chance to talk to Stan alone. Kyle tried to approach him again as they waited in the short liftline.
"Hey… Stan…" Kyle reached out to grab his sleeve as Kenny led the way into the line. "Do you think… maybe we could ride alone? I… really wanna talk to you."
"Aww, shit," Stan muttered, actually looking like he felt a little guilty. "I just asked Kenny if we could…" he leaned in and held up two fingers in the universal sign for smoke. "I mean, you could ride with us too, but it's a triple and…" Stan and Kyle both turned to look back at Cartman as he fought to untangle one of his poles form the ropes dividing the lift line.
"No, it's okay…" Kyle said with a light shrug, though really, he wasn't okay. He was fucking frustrated as hell. In fact, he was starting to wonder if Stan just wanted to act like nothing had happened at all. Would I be okay with that? Just staying Super Best Friends? Could I forget all of it?
They stared at each other awkwardly for a moment, and then Stan turned to slide up beside Kenny, and the lift whisked them away a moment later. Kyle was a little bit sad, but not entirely disappointed – he needed to have words with Cartman too, alone.
Eric Cartman had known Kyle Broflovski for too many years to expect anything less than another full interrogation, but he steeled his will as the lift came to scoop them up. To his surprise, it took until they were a third of way up the mountain before Kyle finally found the nerve to begin.
"Eric…" Kyle started carefully, turning as much as he could to try and catch the other boy's eyes. "Can I ask you a question?"
Cartman huffed loudly and shrugged, trying to tune the sound of Kyle's voice out of his universe. No such success... "Doesn't matter if I say yes or no, you're gonna ask anyway."
"True."
Goddamn Jew. Another huff. "Well, what is it?"
"Why did you kiss me?"
Silence.
"What did you mean when you said 'it's not you'?"
Silence.
"Do you actually… have feelings for me?"
"ARGH GODDAMN YOU NO!" Cartman finally snapped, scrunching his entire face up in frustration. "Feelings are for fucking FAGS like you and Stan! I'm not an idiot! You and Stan are so obviously GAY for each other, as you reminded me last night!" Although it was a little bit entertaining to see how very very pissed off Stan was, kissing Kyle certainly wasn't worth a black eye, Kyle's badgering and… and the look on Kenny's face last night. But he'd needed to test something, and Kyle had been there, so convenient in the moment… Now I want to go back in time and kick myself in the goddamn nuts! "Don't you think the whole world knows it, you dumb fucking Jew?"
"Maybe, maybe not…" Kyle chuckled softly and shrugged, less afraid of the statements than he had been a few days ago. People had been calling him gay for his entire life for being emotional, empathic, a writer, a listener… he was so used to the word that it didn't mean anything to him. All that matters is who I care about and who cares about me. Kyle was still working out his truth, and so he also felt oddly comforted by Cartman's insults, as if something was clicked back into place in his universe. "I figured you weren't that oblivious… I know how you study people, Eric. But… I've been mulling it over, and last night just doesn't add up. Hell, even if you only kissed me to try and figure out if you're gay or not-"
"None of your beeswax, Jew!"
"Your actions, your words… they really don't make sense. They don't make sense unless…" Kyle wished there was a way to reconcile the 'vulnerable friend' side he'd seen last night with the irritating nemesis Cartman could make himself out to be, but he simply didn't know how. God, I know I can be dense, but sometimes I think Cartman is missing a self-awareness chip.
"Shut. Up. Kyle."
A smile spread across Kyle's face and he drummed his fingertips on the metal safety bar in amusement and relief. He'd begun to develop a theory of his own about what had happened, but after all the interference he'd put up with in his own relationship, he wasn't ready to get involved in someone else's mess. But I can… poke the sleeping dragon just a little. "You couldn't possibly be that concerned over Stan's feelings getting hurt, though… you know we're going to end up together - which makes me wonder why you felt the need to rat out me… and Kenny. Why did that matter so much to you? Why doesn't any of this add up?"
Cartman flinched as Kyle brought their other friend into the discussion, hitting way too close to a battleship that had long been hiding in the depths of his heart. Too many near misses, and this one was worse, because it wasn't just him and Kenny dancing around their own odd friendship. "SHUT UP, KAHL!"
Kyle knew he was winning, and he was just pissed enough about the previous night to needle the other boy one last time. And even if he was being a little bit of a jerk, there was a layer of sincerity in his words. Maybe if I just disguise in some Cartman-flavored sarcasm… "Well, if you ever decide you want to actually talk to someone about your feelings…"
"SHUT THE HELL UP YOU GODDAMN GINGER JEW! I FUCKIN' HATE YOU!"
The loud exclamation carried to the lift ahead of them where Stan and Kenny were passing the one-hitter back and forth and they both spluttered with laughter.
"You can't tell me that you were ever seriously worried," Kenny muttered as they leaned close together, trying to block the wind with their bodies enough to get the flame to catch the end before blowing out. "I can feel the psychic death waves emanating even from this far away."
Stan smiled a little as he exhaled another hit, then shivered as a particularly cold wind blasted them, actually swaying the chair. On this lift alone with a silent Kenny, smoking, he'd finally had a chance to unravel his heart a little and he knew that not working this out with Kyle… it just wasn't an option. Life simply sucked without his best friend – he knew that with painful previous experience - and that just… made everything else gravy. No matter how mad or hurt they might be at each other, Kyle was still and would always be his favorite person in the whole universe. We'll work it out, we work everything out with enough time… "No, not once I finally calmed down enough to think about it…"
"Then will you please put us all out of our misery, for fuck's sake?" Kenny punched his friend hard in the shoulder.
"I will, I just…" Stan turned to glance back at the other lift, but his friends were merely a blur of color in the swirl of snow. Need to find the right moment…
Kyle could hear the laughter echoing back at them, but it only made him feel twitchier. It was supposed to be him and Stan laughing like that together, and even though it had only been hours since the big fight, it felt like an eternity to Kyle. He had to fix things with Stan now before he drove himself crazy. There was one tiny part of him that had wondered if Cartman was telling the truth about his actions, but he supposed that it didn't really matter. Kyle knew he loved Stan, Kenny knew he loved Stan, and even Cartman probably knew that he loved Stan. It suddenly seemed so very idiotic that he couldn't talk to Stan about Stan, that Stan wasn't the only one who didn't know Kyle loved him.
As the lift reached the top of the hill, he glanced at Cartman beside him, who had been dutifully and purposefully ignoring him since his final outburst. Kyle was not going to feel the slightest bit guilty about this one. Waiting until just the exact moment, all it took was one pole angled the wrong way and Cartman went tumbling down the dismount, popping both skies off and send them skidding in opposite directions. Perfect.
Kenny watched this entire exchange in amusement and immediately slid back over to the lift, fist-bumping Kyle, who skied by him with a devilish smirk on his face.
"Stan!"
"Kyle?" Stan raised an eyebrow as his best friend came to a stop in front of him, reaching out quite suddenly to grab his hand. There was such intensity in his expression that it felt like he'd grabbed something else.
"I'm tired of waiting for later," he said, pushing his scarf out of the way to make sure Stan could hear him clearly. "I'm tired of trying to find the right moment because every one is just as right or wrong as the next."
"Look, about last night…" Stan started, squeezing Kyle's hand tightly, feeling like he had his own apologies to make.
"No," Kyle cut him off, fishing nervously in his pocket with his free hand and finally pulling out his wallet, searching frantically for something. "No-no-no, please, let me finish – I…" He laughed a little, his heart pounding, because he knew he probably sounded crazy, trying to have this conversation in the middle of a blizzard on top of a mountain. "I've been trying to find a way to tell you, for a long time now…"
"T-tell me what?" Stan stammered, his heartbeat picking up a little bit at the words.
"A-about how I feel," Kyle stuttered back, equally awkwardly, not looking up until he'd found what he was searching for and replaced his wallet. Tell him, Kyle! "A-about how… important you are to me. The most important."
"You're important to me too, Ky-"
"No-no-no," Kyle cut him off again, his teeth chattering as he reached to rip one of his gloves off and tuck it under his arm. He pulled Stan's hand closer, pushing the blue of his jacket away from the red of his gloves. "I… I never even gave you your birthday present that night… I had it all planned and everything, but… goddamnit, I was too chicken-shit…" And he was still being a chicken-shit now, unable to bring himself to just say the words in his heart, to say it, seal it, make it final. It was… fucking terrifying.
Stan had no idea what to say and he could hardly tell what Kyle was doing as the wind picked up again, nearly blinding them both with a gust of ice. "Birthday present?" Stan was yelling now to be heard over the wind, and over Kyle's shoulder he could see Kenny slowly towing Cartman towards them. "Kyle, what are you talking about?"
"Just… just think about it for awhile, okay?" Kyle dropped Stan's hand and looked away sheepishly, swaying a little in the wind. "A-about how it could be… with us. And I swear, Stan, no matter what you decide, I will always, always be your Super Best Friend. Okay?"
Stan wished that Kyle was looking at him right now and could just read his eyes or his mind. He wished he had more of a way with words or knew what the fuck Kyle was getting at, but the truth was, he didn't. He had no idea what to say, but Kenny had almost reached them, and this moment was passing just like all the others he'd wasted. "Me too," he finally blurted out. "Super Best Friends." Ouch, lame, Marsh, really lame.
Kyle looked back at him and smiled brightly anyway, but whatever he was about to say was drowned out by a loud rumble of thunder.
"Whoa, fuck!" Kenny yelled at them. "Thunder snow!"
"Whoa fuck thunder-snow" summed up the next part of their journey quite well. The visibility was so poor that it was hard to keep track of each other and exhausting to be shouting back and forth constantly to be certain no one got left behind. Adding to this, the excruciatingly slow pace was wearing them all down and by the time they reached the tiny, iced-over trail marker for Moran Woods, none of the four boys was very happy. In fact, they were downright bitchy.
"It's an X on a piece of paper!" Kyle argued in frustration. He could no longer feel his fingers or his toes and the whole world seemed to swim whenever the wind blew too hard. He couldn't remember the last time he'd been so cold and felt so awful. "We can't even see ten feet in front of us!"
"We have to get down the mountain some way," Kenny argued back with a shrug. "When we find the place, maybe we can even ride out the worst of this."
"If! If we find it!"
"I'm cooooold!" Cartman whined to interrupt the both of them.
"It's the direction we're already going!" Stan added, his own teeth chattering now too. He was sincerely starting to get worried about how long they'd all been out in this weather. They had a lot of cold tolerance between them, but this was beyond bad and they all knew it. "Whether we find it or we don't, it's better if we keep moving!"
The terrain was rougher than anything they'd been on yet that day, uneven and filled with trees and snow drifts, and Kyle couldn't be certain if the sun was starting to set or the storm was simply that thick. His hands felt frozen into the shape of his ski poles and he nearly collided into Stan and Kenny when they both stopped along a ledge, peering into the distance.
"Dude! Dude, do you see, between those three trees?" Stan pointed down the mountain, squinting into the deepening shadows. Pleasepleaseplease…
"Fuck, Stan!" Kenny swore, tightening the strings of his orange hood so that only his eyes peeped through. "I think I see it too! But how to get from here to there…"
"What?" Kyle asked shakily, leaning into Stan and trying to see where they were pointing as Cartman shuffled the last few paces to catch up to them. The snow was getting deeper every minute and it was harder and harder to keep moving, especially for the larger boy. "Did you really find it?"
Kenny crouched down for a moment, waiting until the wind dyed down and he could make out the terrain a little more clearly. "This is quite a ledge and I don't know how far horizontally it goes - I say we jump down."
"What?" Cartman bellowed, not even sure he believed that they'd found it. He'd begun to think that this day was some sort of karmic punishment. Please, God, I can't feel my nuts anymore. This is worse than kicking them! "I'm not jumping anywhere! You guys are fuckin' batshit crazy!"
"I'm worried that if we go anything besides directly towards it, we'll lose it in this storm!" Stan yelled back at him fiercely, despite how horribly hoarse his voice had gone over the course of the afternoon.
"Ahoy, I call for a vote – on the subject of jump - aye… or nay?" Kyle yelled, knowing the quickest way to end the argument.
"Aye!"
"Aye!"
"Sorry, Cartman – aye!"
"Nay you motherfuckers! GODDAMN MOTHERFUCKING NAY!"
"Outvoted!" Kenny yelled, offering his two fists to Stan and Kyle for an explosion.
"Kenny, no!" Cartman tried to make a grab for his friend's arm but the other boy was, as usual, too fast. "You're gonna end up wrapped around a goddamn tree! KIIIINNNEEEEHHHH!"
Kenny tucked his board up under him as he cut sharply across the ledge and then jumped the second half of it into the largest clearing he could find.
Cartman watched him hang in mid-air for a moment and swore that his heart stopped, but then the moment passed and Kenny was below them, waving wildly. "You guys can totally do this!"
"I'll go next," Stan leaned in close to speak into Kyle's ear. "I'll be waiting to catch you."
Kyle's heart somersaulted as he watched Stan follow Kenny's exact path over the ledge, landing beside him a heartbeat later, safe and sound. "We're not on snowboards!" Kyle yelled down, puzzling out what to do.
"Doesn't matter!" Kenny yelled back. "Just tuck! Come on, Kyle! It's easy!"
Down below and looking back up at their friends, Stan watched Kyle waver and called out to him. "Come on, Kyle! I believe in you! We've gotta stick together!" He crossed his fingers and waited with bated breath as the redhead took the jump.
It was not the most graceful maneuver ever, but it suited the purpose well enough. Kyle slid in beside Stan with a whoop, but before he could say anything else, he suddenly wavered again, dropping one pole.
"Kyle? Are you okay?" Stan reached out one hand to touch Kyle's shoulder as the other boy attempted to straighten up from his tuck, but then he sagged against Stan, dropping his other pole as well. "Kyle? Kyle!"
"S-sorry…" Kyle stammered, blinking rapidly and leaning heavily on Stan as the world spun around him. Fuck! Worst timing ever! "Just d-dizzy…"
Stan kept one arm firmly under Kyle's shoulders and looked around, pointing with his free hand. "It's not far at all! Hang in there! Kenny!"
Kenny glanced back at his two friends worriedly when he heard the note of panic in Stan's voice, then up above to where Cartman still stood, alone and terrified. He hadn't said as much, but Kenny could see it written all over the other boy's round face. "Dude, forget the poles, I'll grab them. Get Kyle to the shack now, I'll get Fat Ass down!"
"You don't need to tell me twice!" Stan said as he shook Kyle a little, trying to get him to move towards the little wooden building they could now see clearly between some trees, wedged up against the side of the same ledge they'd just jumped down. "You've gotta get him to make that jump!"
"I've got this!" Kenny gave Stan the thumbs up and then yelled up to Cartman hopefully. "Jump!"
"No fuckin' way!" Cartman bellowed back, punctuated with one giant hiccup of a sob. There was no way in hell that he could make that jump - he was too fat, too inept. It was too high, too steep, too scary… He was cold and tired and pissed off and his friends were, as he'd expected, going to leave him behind. Not like I don't fuckin' deserve it. He sniffled, a wave of pent-up everything overwhelming him all at once.
"JUMP, ERIC!"
"NOOOO!"
"I AM NOT LEAVING YOU BEHIND!"
"I CAN'T DO IT!"
Kenny growled loudly in frustration, knowing that the other boy was long past hysterical by now. It's reached critical meltdown point. This situation just kept getting worse and worse and somehow, he was sure it was all his own fault.
"FUCKING JUMP!"
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
"ERIC THEODORE CARTMAN! GET YOUR FUCKING ASS DOWN HERE RIGHT FUCKING NOW! I WILL NOT LEAVE YOU BEHIND!"
Mysterion's words ripped through the howl of noise that was Cartman's wailing and he heaved in a huge breath, finally looking down at Kenny… and then he jumped.
The jump was decidedly spectacular in its awful, and really was half a tumble down the side of the slope, but at the end of it, Kenny was hauling him to his feet and dragging him towards the shack. "You did good," he said gruffly, stopping to scoop Kyle's poles up with one arm. "Really, really good." Cartman said nothing, but he kept a tight hold of Kenny's hand, sniffling once more as they shuffled towards the shack.
"Fuck, you guys!" Stan yelled as he saw them coming through the haze of white. "Help me!" He'd managed to pop both of Kyle's skis off, but he was still attached to his board and couldn't reach the door.
Kenny squeezed Cartman's hand once tightly before drooping it, unhooking himself from his board and stepping over his two friends. Leaning to the side, he gave the door one swift kick and it shot inwards.
Kyle was still conscious and he pushed himself upright against the wall once Stan had them through the door, just trying to stay out of the way as his friends got themselves and all of their equipment out of the storm. It was dark inside the shack and he fumbled in his pocket for his phone, managing to shakily flip through it looking for the flashlight function.
Stan turned back to Kyle as Cartman and Kenny worked on wedging the door closed against the power of the wind, Cartman finally holding it in place while Kenny slid the heavy wooden bolt across it. Stan was glad they were finally out of the storm, but worried about the condition of his Super Best Friend. He pulled off his gloves, dropping them beside his board. "Kyle?"
The light of the phone clicked on just in time to illuminate Kyle's pale face - and his green eyes rolling backwards into his head.
"FUCK!" Stan dove to catch Kyle as he collapsed and Kenny dove to save the phone falling from his hand, the light bouncing around the room. Stan sank to the wooden floor of the shack with Kyle cradled in his arms, shaking his friend lightly, his voice laced with panic. "KYLE! KYLE!"
The edges of Kyle's vision darkened as his three friends hovered over him and the little blue beads in the woven bracelet around Stan's wrist caught sharply in the glow from the iPhone just before he blacked out.
o/~ Here we are and we won't stop breathing
Yell it out 'til your heart stops beating ~/o
