Author Note: My huge thanks to D McVetty, J.E. McCormick Gal, thaliasama, xxSay and let's point out the obvious for the lovely reviews! And I'd like to apologise for how long it's taking me at the moment to get out the next chapters recently, I'm so snowed under at the moment it's not even funny. It's shameful that the stuff I actually enjoy doing (writing) has to come second to the stuff I have to do (earning my cigarette money).
I owe extra thanks to xxSay, who wrote a spin-off story based on this one. It's called 'Can Only Hear Me' and I enjoyed it hugely – it's very much in keeping with Seize and from the one point of view you won't see in this story. Go check it out!
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You're guilty way before you've been tried and it's crazy but you're diggin' it...
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Kenny cannot tell Ike anything more. He does verify that his alibi for the night, the one that he gave to the police, was the plain truth – his father had arrived home not ten minutes after Kyle left, stumbled into the house and Kenny barely got the chance to stash the whisky in the drawer before Stuart knocked on the door and walked in to check on him. Kenny feigned sleep, not wanting to give any explanations for the injuries to his face while Stuart is barely able to walk and moments later, his father left the bedroom and went in for some serious drinking in front of the TV.
"My dad," says Kenny with an affectionate smile. "I know people in town call him a drunk and a loser and maybe he has got a problem, but you have no idea some of the ways my parents looked out for me. I had to be real careful when I was with Kyle and Stan sometimes because he worried, him and my mom both. That I'd died again. And it tore him up inside." He does not say, but Ike wonders if his parents' alcoholism is just another thing he blames himself for.
Ike finishes his second coffee; the one Kenny made him after his confession about what happened that night. Kenny still looks so much like the teenager he remembers that it is no stretch to imagine what he looked like with those marks. It makes him want to reassure Kenny that it is alright, that Kyle would not blame him and that night, Kenny gave him what little comfort there was to be had in a terrible situation. But he says nothing on the subject.
Instead, he goes back to the call. The call that confirmed to Kenny that the football team were not responsible for what happened to Kyle, that Clyde was telling the absolute truth when he said they had gone to a party and got wasted. Kyle himself had said they could only be in North Park – but Kenny had only Kyle's word for that.
"Ken," he says hesitantly. "You said that Kyle knew they were at Mitchell's house because he could hear the dog. But... might he have been lying? I mean, if he wanted to reassure you that they weren't coming after either of you he could have said that he heard it, just to reassure you. And then, when he left your house..." He does not want to say that Kyle could have been abducted by the team and been involved in some prank that went too far, he does not have to because Kenny knows just what he is getting at and is already shaking his head.
"Two problems with that. He could have lied, yeah and I've thought about it in the past for the same reasons you said. But I don't think Kyle would have said that to reassure me if they really were around and coming after us. He would have wanted me to be prepared just in case and he would have stayed with me, if I was too battered to help myself if they just burst in or lied their way past my old man, then he wouldn't have left me. He would have been right there and the jock who thought Kyle Broflovski was an easy target was in for a big fucking surprise. And that isn't all. Ike, I was looking right at him when he said that and I know it sounds like a little lie, if it really was a lie, but – no. I knew Kyle better than most and he wasn't just saying that to reassure me. It was the truth."
"Wait, you took Stan's car home. Did Kyle take it when he left?"
"No. Stan's car was right there the next morning and the keys were in my jacket pocket still."
Ike shakes his head in frustration. "Not that I don't believe you Ken, but that leaves me at a dead end. This is like, an hour before Kyle died, maybe less and it's like he left here and walked through a wormhole to get out there. It just – doesn't make sense."
"In this town, walking through a wormhole wouldn't be unusual," says Kenny gravely.
"True." Ike sighs again. "Why did he leave Ken? What do you think, really? I know what happened, but what do you think was on his mind?"
Kenny frowns lightly, leaning forward a little, giving the question honest consideration. "Honestly? I know what was on his mind. That phonecall just clinched it but it was in the back of his head from the moment he saw me. Probably from the moment Stan went down and didn't get up again." He looks candidly at Ike. "Revenge. Kyle could be a vindictive bastard in his own way. He brooded, he had a helluva temper, he hated seeing us both hurt like we were and I saw it in his eyes when he got that call. He was out for blood. I don't know what he was planning and to be straight with you, I don't think he had any real ideas in mind himself either."
He sighs, leaning back. "So, I think he really was planning to go for a walk, or get to a late-night store and get something to put on my cuts. But maybe he wanted some time alone too, to think things through. I don't know that he could do that in my room, even if I was sleeping. He'd be too clouded with rage and Angry Kyle made mistakes. When he lost his temper, that was when he did the really stupid things. He reacted, he lashed out. You know that. So I think he was trying to calm himself down some... and plotting. I know that if Kyle hadn't died that night, then something big would have gone down."
Looking at the ceiling, he chews his lip a moment before continuing. "I wonder sometimes if the observation deck wasn't a part of it. Maybe he was planning some big trap, he came up with some plan and he couldn't wait until morning to check out the place and get things fixed in his mind. And then he just – slipped and fell. But that doesn't tell me how he even got there. That's what I don't understand. I can accept it could have been an accident, but how did he get there so fast?"
To that, Ike has no answer either.
Kenny seems to know that the topic is just another circle to walk in, that he could go around and around as he has done for the last ten years and get only those same maddening questions, because he starts talking about other things. The things that Ike told himself he was back in town for, before all the mystery of Kyle's death raised its head again. He speaks of how Kyle would help out both himself and Stan while they studied, how he encouraged them. How Kyle was the one who was in hospital every day while Kenny lay dying. Small things that Kyle did that changed his life, even before they became lovers. And he reminds Ike of several things that time has taken from his memory, the way Kyle watched out for Ike in a way that elder siblings are oft reputed to do but rarely happens in reality.
Ike spends maybe two hours in Kenny's home, the same amount of time his elder brother spent with the man before he walked out of the front door to die. By the time he knows he should be bidding Kenny farewell, he feels both better and worse. He knows more of the depth which Kyle has touched this man's life and that Kyle's influence has not died, even it Kyle himself has. But he is still a hundred miles from knowing what happened to Kyle and that Kenny has no answers that he did not realise. And perhaps it is Kyle's absence that has kept Kenny standing still all these years, never going forward, trapped in some moment ten years past.
Kenny is as pleasant and helpful as he was all along, but the more he talks, the sadder his eyes become and the more tired he looks. Ike knows too well how the influx of memories can weary one and he also knows Kenny is in some form of self-imposed isolation. The man needs a break.
"Can I come by again sometime?" he asks as he takes his leave. "Before I head out of town?"
"Sure," says Kenny, although he doesn't look all that sure. "But do me a favour Ike? Not tonight. Please. "
"Are you going to the reunion?"
Kenny gives a barking laugh that is saved from being totally scornful solely by the look of only minor exasperation he sends at Ike. "Not in this lifetime, not that one anyway. I've got no reason to go toast the memories of Park County High and catch up with a bunch of people I'd much rather spit on." He checks himself. "I'm not going. But I've got other things to do and uh, this has all been – well, y'know. A lot to deal with all at once. I'd just like to be alone a while."
Ike personally thinks that Kenny has been alone too much and too long, but he lets it go and leaves the man, as Kenny clearly wants him to do. He pauses a moment outside the apartment, wondering what his next move is. There are no more leads; it is as simple as that. No one left to talk to save for the people attending the reunion that night and none of them will know as much about his brother as Kenny did, not a one of them will know how Kyle got from Kenny's house to the other side of town in that time. There is no one else to talk to.
Maybe it is time to let it go.
Take a walk, suggests Kyle in the back of his mind. It'll clear things in your mind if nothing else. And maybe you can get a picture of how long it should have taken to get to the other side of town from Kenny's house.
It's not a bad idea and he has nothing else, he has several hours before he is to meet Kieran and he has no game plan regarding how to play things from here, or how to play things this evening – if he will attend the reunion and beg of stories of his brother or if that is simply a step too far. He can see the faces now, people who recall Kyle as a face in the halls and as the shocking death that hit their final year. He knows Kyle will be a hot topic of conversation that night, he does not know if it is a smart idea to ensure it becomes more so with his own presence.
As if his eyes are drawn, Ike looks over to the horizon. The day is cold, clouds threatening snow, but the sky is so far clear and in the distance, he can see the hill where Kyle met his end. The observation deck only a speck in the distance, the outcropping some twenty feet below where Kyle landed. The sight is an ominous one and he shudders involuntarily.
He cannot bring himself to go there, not now. Instead, he does the maths, something he was always excellent at. He figures that there must be a twenty-minute walk from this spot to the observation deck, but this is still some distance from the place that Kenny called home back then (and where presumably, his parents still dwell). With this in mind, Ike starts walking deliberately in that direction. He does not even have to consider his route, he lived in the town for half of his life and his feet merely take him the right way, without having to engage his brain.
South Park is roughly rectangular with straggling, unclear boundaries. The observation deck is at one end of the town, toward the mountains, the grander areas of town beneath. At the other end is a farm belonging to – Ike struggles to recall and comes up blank. Something beginning with a D, he is almost sure. He had promised Kyle that he would not go there, because the crazy farmer shoots to kill and any trespasser is game, regardless of age or reason for being there. The train tracks bisect the town about three-quarters of the way down, even further away from the observation deck than he realised; it is another twenty-five minutes before they come into view. Ike's frown deepens. There is simply no way that Kyle could have made it in time. He could not have run in the poor weather and the dark, he didn't drive. Ike already knew it, but this is confirmation.
He passes Stan Marshes old house, which has gone through some significant changes. The old tree house is gone, the brickwork has been painted a shade of yellow sometime long past and it has now faded to dingy nicotine shades. There are three children of indeterminate age and gender playing in the front yard, bent over something that Ike can't see. They do not look up as he passes, but their high laughter comes back to him as he hurries on his way. Just another landmark, but it holds nothing that he is looking for.
If Stan's old house is unsettling, then crossing the train tracks is deeply depressing. He did not often go to Kenny's house back in the day and he remembers now how it almost scared him, with its strange odours and barely-coherent parents and he would always leave feeling desperately sorry for Kenny and a little bit more grateful for his own life. The walk toward it reminds him of that. The entire neighbourhood screams poverty in an almost physical voice.
He approaches the house where Kenny grew up, the dilapidated dump that had such a bad reputation back then. It looks worse than he remembers if anything. The guttering lists, the front window is cracked and the whole building gives off an aura of human misery. He finds it hard to believe that anyone could still live there and yet, there are signs of life – a curtain tacked up over the front window, which is open, the faint sounds of some talk-show argument ringing out into the street.
There is a man on the pavement outside.
Ike watches him as he approaches. The man is taller than him, although it is not automatically apparent due to the way he stands. He wears a black beanie and a black padded jacket, black jeans. One hand is stuffed in his pocket, the other rests on something that Ike recognises; a cane. One of the Goths he and Kieran would hang out with carried one as a flashy gesture – but Ike suspects that this is not him, in spite of the black gear. The man leans on the stick for support, not carrying it to show off.
And he is staring at the McCormick house as if hypnotised, once or twice looking as if he might move down the ill-kept path and then remaining where he is.
Ike feels no surprise at all as he connects the dots, this man isn't someone he expected to see but South Park has always been a place of oddities, of coincidence and chance. The small town has affected their lives, their views on normality, everything they have ever seen as possibility. He feels no surprise, but he does feel a vague, free-floating fear. As if they are all being called back home by this place not by coincidence, or some frivolous reunion, but for a reason. He feels as if he is being led by something he does not understand.
Ike stops as he passes, calls over in a low voice. "He doesn't live there anymore."
The man turns slightly awkwardly, staring at Ike and recognition coming over his face. Ike is not surprised; he knew who it was from the distance. It would have been almost odd if he hadn't. He saw those sapphire eyes, the ones currently staring at him in disbelief, every day of his life until he was eleven years old.
"Ike?"
Ike nods in confirmation, trying not to be affected by the Kyle-voice in his head – since he has arrived here, that voice has almost taken on a personality of its own and now is saying the man's name in overtones of sheer joy. He can almost envision Kyle, the wide smile that would have been on his face had the image and the voice not been solely the product of his own imagination.
"Hi Stan."
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Stan does not seem comfortable about being seen around town and in the end, Ike persuades him that they will be just fine in his room back at the motel. Stan seems only marginally happier about this, but agrees. Ike suspects it is not because he wants to, but because of Kyle.
Ike makes coffee as Stan sits on the edge of the bed, cane in easy reach. Busying himself with the drinks, Ike wonders if it is obvious that he did not spend the previous night alone and decides it hardly matters; he has not seen Stan for ten years and it was not he who was Stan's friend. It doesn't matter if he had the entire Denver Broncos first team in the room with him. That thought leads him back to football and how the brightest star of the game that South Park ever produced is sitting on his temporary bed, having never made it to the big leagues.
He hands Stan the coffee and watches as the man cups it with both hands. "How've you been doing Stan?" he asks softly.
Stan looks over at his cane, eyes wistful. "I'm a vet," he says with a slight smile. "I was planning to go into marine biology, might as well study since I didn't have anything else to do with my time anymore..." He snorts quietly, eyes still on the walking stick. "But I found out I wasn't really able to do a lot of things anymore. Can't go chasing after animals that aren't already on a leash these days."
He looks back at Ike. "No need to ask if you've been doing well, I guess," he says with a small smile. "Kinda makes me wonder what you're doing back here."
Ike shrugs. "I've been trying to find out more about my brother – what he was like, what people thought about him, y'know? Stupid stuff I guess, but..."
"But you want to keep on remembering him?" Stan's voice is understanding and although it's not entirely what Ike meant, he nods. It's close enough to the truth.
"More than that though, I wanted to learn about him. I know what I remember, but that's all just big brother stuff and he wasn't just my brother. I guess I wanted to know about how he affected other peoples' lives, as well as mine."
Stan gives a short laugh. "He sure did that." He looks away, to the floor. "What did you learn?"
"I learned about you three," replies Ike, looking straight at Stan. He hopes that there will be some reaction but aside from a slight stiffening of his muscles, there is nothing. Ike sighs. "Look, Stan, I – I don't really understand, but I'm starting to. I'm not mad, I'm not trying to judge or anything, I just – well, it's all so weird."
Stan gives him a hurt look and Ike shakes his head. "No, not you three. What happened that night, that was weird. How Kyle ended up there, why... I didn't come here trying to find out what happened to him that night, I thought I knew, but I didn't know anything. And now, I'm trying to put it all together."
He reaches out to touch the back of Stan's hand. "The only thing I am sure of is that Kyle was happy," he says honestly. "Everything people have said, and what I remember from back then, he was really happy being with the two of you. And I'm glad he had that. But I don't understand how everything went so bad so fast, and why it stayed that way."
Stan looks over at Ike. "It couldn't have lasted, I guess, but back then I thought..." He sighs. "Two weeks before Kyle died, I was playing in a game – oh, don't look like that. I was obsessed with three things back then, Kyle, Kenny and football, so if you want to hear about the first two, you've gotta deal with the third. It was a playoff for a place in the state championships and the team we were playing were real tough. They shit all over us the year before. But that day..." He shakes his head, a slight smile on his face. "It all came together. Every pass, every tackle – we destroyed them. And I scored more than half the goals in that game. It was really exciting, you can't imagine. I hit a field goal and the whole school was screaming my name and I looked up – Kyle and Kenny were standing next to each other, right at the front and screaming right along with everyone. Kenny was wearing that fucking Cows shirt that he wore to every game and to hell with the weather, Kyle had stolen one of my shirts and they were grinning like crazy and I just thought – this, right here, this moment. I was so fucking happy. I just knew that things would keep going that well, we'd win the championship and I'd get my sports scholarship and go pro. But better than that, I knew that after the game, they'd be there with me. And that seemed more important."
He meets Ike's eyes, that smile still there. "After the game there was this huge celebration, we ended up back at this one guy Mitchell's house along with about three quarters of the school and I just bet he wasn't too happy that Kenny and Kyle were there, but if they weren't then I wasn't. The three of us had a few beers and the atmosphere was just ecstatic. It was – insane, like we'd just won a war and saved the world at the same time. It was fun, but I didn't want to be there with the crowd then. I wanted to be with them. We managed to sneak out unseen and we took a cab back to Kenny's place – my parents and yours were home, or they would be. The McCormick's were gone though, I don't remember where. And we took the mood home with us. No one realised why we'd gone. I guess I thought we were completely invincible. That no one would find out until we wanted them to know. I felt indestructible, like the world was gonna be for the three of us."
The smile leaves his face. "Exactly two weeks later, everything was in ruins. I never believed any of us could crash that hard."
He blinks a couple of times, mouth tightening. "But I don't know anything about what happened that night. The last thing I remember is being in the ambulance, I think – it's all kinda blurry. And the next thing I remember for sure is waking up to find my parents with me, no sign of Kenny... or Kyle. They wouldn't let Kenny tell me what happened to Kyle. They did it for me and right then, I didn't give a shit if they took my leg off from the balls down. It didn't matter anymore. I just wanted Kenny to come over and I thought we could – I dunno. Support each other through it. Some sappy shit like that. Only Kenny blamed himself for it all. He never stopped thinking it was his fault that Kyle was dead, that he should have done something, been there. And that he couldn't be with me because of it."
"He still blames himself," says Ike quietly.
Stan nods, as if he expected nothing else. "I know what people were saying around town," he adds, voice stern. "And I'll tell you this because I bet it crossed your mind. Kenny did not hurt Kyle. Kenny loved him, and me. And that's why he said when my parents took me out of town that we should call it a clean break. Because he thought he'd brought what happened to all of us on our heads and he couldn't stand to be the reason for it happening again. But he wasn't."
Stan Marsh is having a good night. He has smoked pot on occasion at the post-game parties that Mitchell usually throws and he likes the minor hysteria that it brings, the spacey feelings. He is not so fond of how he feels sick and dizzy and how he ends up practically melted onto a chair and cursing himself for being unable to get to the fridge and take care of his hunger. He mentioned this to Kenny shortly after one of the parties and Kenny shook his head with some amusement, claiming it was because he'd mixed it with the booze. Stan hadn't believed him and hence, the little experiment. Stan's parents are visiting his sister at college and the house is free all weekend, there is no game Saturday for once and it seems a good time for some mild recreational illegality. Kenny has the connections through his brother, Stan and Kyle ponied up the cash.
Now, they are all pleasantly toasted. Kyle and Kenny have relocated to the floor, going through Stan's DVD collection and trying to find something they can all watch. But each option appears to cause a five minute discussion on the whys and why-nots, so it is taking them a long time to agree. Stan has remained where he is, sitting on the chair, eyes closed. Not that he is passing out or anything so lame, just so there is no misunderstanding. No, he is just chilling out, trying to find the energy to move and get himself some snacks. What he really wants is mint chocolate. A good, creamy milk chocolate with pieces of crisp mint, the strong kind. He could eat roughly a ton of it. Stan has a large appetite anyway, he takes his future football ambitions seriously and trains damn hard, he burns off enough calories a day to make him eat like crazy. Even more than Cartman, since the fatass started trying to watch his weight, with limited success.
"Dude, that film is soooo lame."
A pause. "Dude."
"Dude?"
"Dude. I think Stan's crashed."
"Fucking lightweight." This followed by an attempt at suppressing their laughter. Stan flips them off without opening his eyes and the sniggers get louder yet more muffled. Stan imagines they are both stuffing their hands over their mouths and chuckles himself, but he is soon overtaken by thoughts of mint chocolate. He could get horny for mint chocolate.
Perhaps the only thing he can get horny for, he thinks with a slight frown. It would be nice to have a warm body to get giggly with, but there is no one that he actually likes. He has been on several dates since he went to high school, the cheerleaders especially all want to be dating one of the football team, although the other girls aren't adverse either, but Stan just can't rouse the interest. His last date was three months ago, Brandi from North Park. They went to a movie, she suggested they parked the car somewhere private afterwards and pretty soon, they were making out. Stan followed the correct procedure, tongue, random grope, go for the tits over the top of the shirt. There had been no objection, so he moved to the next step, go for the tits under the shirt. Brandi had stopped him and informed him she was not that kind of girl, so Stan had quit his explorations without rancour toward her. She had been funny with him all the way home and it wasn't until several hours later that Stan realised it was not because he had tried in the first place, but because he hadn't played the game right. She was supposed to object, he was supposed to talk her into it. Instead, he had offended her.
Girls are baffling. Give him mint chocolate any day.
There is that nagging feeling that he only goes on dates at all because if he doesn't, then people will talk and there are some topics that never go down well in high school. Like wondering why the star quarterback is celibate. He is not as focused on appearance and popularity as some others are, but he is aware that certain behaviours mark others out. He only has to think back to poor Tweek and the torment he went through before quitting school forever to realise that.
"Stan. Dude." Kyle's voice, maybe a little more careful than usual but still full of concern. "You okay?"
"Yeah." Stan opens his eyes to see both of his best friends looking at him keenly, in spite of their own indulgences. And in honesty, Stan does not feel wasted either. Merely a little more – lax than normal. "Just bumming myself out a bit."
"Dude." Kenny shakes his head, smiling a little and grabbing the half a joint they have left in the cheap foil ashtray. He crawls over to Stan, apparently too lazy to get to his feet and leans against his leg, fishing for his lighter and finding it, reigniting the joint and taking a healthy puff before handing it over.
Stan's fingers brush Kenny's as he takes it, Kenny's head roughly level with his knees. His eyes meeting Stan's with some amusement and Stan thinks, not for the first time, that Kenny McCormick has quite the most expressive set of eyes he has ever seen – yet there are mysteries behind them too. He thinks that Kenny might have already seen everything of life. He can see Kenny more clearly than he ever has before, right down to the faint blonde stubble growing on his chin. He wonders if it is some effect of the pot.
He takes several drags on the joint. The tip is still slightly damp from Kenny's lips and Stan takes care not to drool over it, he is not even a social smoker and is always worried he will do so. Kenny holds out a hand after a minute or so and Stan returns the joint back to him.
"We'll get you out of the downward spiral," says Kenny comfortingly, patting Stan's leg and taking another drag. "If we can find Kyle's sense of humour sometime this year."
"Fuck you," snaps Kyle, but there is a smile on his face and he looks over at Stan, giving him a solemn, secretive wink. "And quit hogging that."
Kenny crawls back over to Kyle and tries to play keep-away with the joint, Kyle snags it with slender fingers on his second attempt. He smirks, inhales and blows the smoke directly into Kenny's face. Kenny immediately tries to inhale the cloud and all three of them break into laughter, Kyle trying not to cough on the lungful he still has.
Kyle and Kenny fall back into bickering and Stan closes his eyes again, thinking affectionately that his two best friends are the people he loves more than anyone in the world. And he has had a few inappropriate thoughts about them too, more so than any of the girls in school... most recently less than five minutes ago, when Kenny was sitting at his feet and looking up at him, when Kyle winked at him like that. Which is stupid, because neither of them would be interested in him in that way.
Kyle is quietly popular with some of the girls, occasionally elevated on the couple of occasions that he has taken out Bebe – he has confided that he is not especially interested in her but likes her well enough and had no alternative plans when she asked. Whereas Kenny has a reputation for being a man-whore, created largely from the time that he died of syphilis and his naturally friendly, flirtatious nature. In spite of that, he doesn't date much, he claims because girls are scared of catching something and who wants to arrange a date when there's a good chance he could die before it happens?
For his part, Stan is not interested in any other guys and he is intrigued by the female form. But he feels that were he really into girls, then he would have more curiosity than he actually does.
He should not be thinking along these lines, he realises dimly. Pot tends to heighten libido and the last thing he needs is to get hot and bothered with his friends around for the whole night. They might not realise what was getting him that way – probably wouldn't realise – but they would still tease the hell out of him for it. Far better to return to the subject of mint chocolate.
He can hear Kyle and Kenny's muted arguments give way to sudden silence and he assumes that they have found a movie and he'd better look alive, if he doesn't want to look like he can't handle the pot like they can. But he is comfortable and his eyelids are heavy, it is with real reluctance that he forces himself to open his eyes and see what's going on.
And then he forgets about comfort and tiredness and for a moment wonders if the pot has caused him to hallucinate, because his thoughts seem to have leapt from his head and into the living room. He blinks hard, not quite daring to raise his hands to rub at his eyes, deciding that this is no imagination running wild. This is real.
Kyle had been sitting on the floor, leaning slightly backward with his hands planted to his sides. Kenny had been near him, longer legs curled beneath him while he went through the DVDs. Only now, Kenny is leaning slightly forward and Kyle has shifted the weight on his hands to lean into him too and from where he sits, Stan can clearly see them kissing. It is tentative, almost chaste, both of them with their eyes sliding slowly closed. He can see the way Kyle is the first to part his lips and increase the pressure, the way Kenny draws back fractionally and moves his tongue against Kyle's before their lips seal tight together again and block the view.
Stan is aware of two things; that he is desperately horny just watching them and that he feels some weird mix of sadness and happiness. He would be delighted of course if this was the first kiss of many, he would want only the best for the both of them and they could not get better than each other; that this is a meaningless mistake does not even occur to him, nor will it later on. But he is sad also that this is their moment, their relationship – and that he is for once, not a part of it.
Kyle's hand rises up to brush through Kenny's hair and the gesture is so intimate and caring that Stan is ashamed of his jealousy. It occurs to him that maybe he should pretend he is asleep, but he cannot take his eyes from them. Not even when they break apart and look at each other, sharing smiles. And not when Kyle turns to look directly at him and catches him watching them.
Kyle meets Stan's eyes, looking almost stricken. Guilty. Kenny turns his head and sees where Kyle is looking, his expression mirroring the redheads. Stan looks back, not sure what to say. Congratulations? It's fine guys, as you were? Don't stop on my account, actually I'm kinda enjoying it?
There is nothing to say and the silence spins out. And then Kenny grins, Kenny who has always been able to cut directly to the heart of the matter with a throwaway statement, while Stan and Kyle are far more likely to stammer and skip around what needs to be said.
"Hey, Stan," he says, that easy grin never leaving his face, leaning back from Kyle slightly. "Are you gonna sit there watching us all night or are you gonna get your ass down here and join in?"
Stan and Kyle both whip their heads around to gape at him, unable to believe he has just said what it sounds like he did. Kenny shrugs almost apologetically, the smile never leaving his face, but both of his friends can tell he's serious and that look is simply a way to laugh it off should they decline his suggestion.
Kyle seems to have come to the same conclusion, because he glances over at Stan and both of them break out laughing. Typical Kenny... but the look in Kyle's eyes tells Stan that he too is game. And that they are waiting on the say-so of one person.
Stan quits laughing, shakes his head, thinking how weird it is that this doesn't feel weird. It feels like a natural progression of events. It feels right.
He moves, leaving his seat and joining the others on the carpet. And then Kyle's lips are on his, Kenny's hands around his waist and Stan loses himself in the moment, unable to imagine a more perfect one.
Ike looks slightly disappointed. "You guys were high? That's why you got together?"
"Yeah, but..." Stan shakes his head. "Look, we weren't wasted. I was kinda happy, but we knew just what we were doing and we could have stopped any time we wanted. And there's the rest of it too – that was one night. But it was the three of us together for months after that and I don't think I smoked anything else that whole time. We got together high and – well, if we hadn't have been, would we have done anything about it? I like to think so, but I really don't know. It's not the kind of thing a guy admits to his two best friends, y'know?"
Stan is justifying their relationship in a way Ike is coming to believe he shouldn't have to, so he raises a hand to stop the man talking. "Kenny didn't tell me any of this. Apart from what happened that last night, he didn't tell me anything about the three of you."
"No, he wouldn't have. He keeps things to himself." Stan hesitates. "Uh, how is he?"
Ike considers. "He's alive, he's working, he's – doing okay," he settles for, even if this is mostly a lie. Because Kenny is not doing okay. Because Kenny wears his aloneness in a way that is almost tangible... and he recognises that same aura on Stan too. He has not asked, but he knows without having to that Stan lives alone, he does not date, rarely socialises. He is still mourning, the way that Kenny is still mourning.
You can't leave them like this says Kyle's voice in his head, urgent. They can't be alone like this their whole lives.
Ike agrees, but he does not know what he can do about it... because it really isn't any of his business anymore. Back in the day, Kenny and Stan were like slightly distant older brothers to him but that was then, this is now and he lost that at the same time he lost his real brother. All of his brothers are lost to him now – and it seems that they are lost to each other as well.