Chapter Track: Paper Float – Cassettes Won't Listen

"So then they let Cartman go, as long as he promised not to ever try and massacre the whole town using ancient black magic," explained Kyle, as he pulled his clothing back on. Kenny hadn't bothered to dress yet. He was still finishing his post-sex cigarette.

Kenny replied, "You'd think people would realize that Cartman's just going to find something new and stupid to pull next time."

"You would, wouldn't you? But I think Cartman's mom has slept with so many of the dudes in this town, that Cartman can kind of do whatever he wants to," Kyle reasoned. He pulled up his jeans. He felt weird wearing nice clothes at Kenny's house. It had never bothered him before, but when he looked from Kenny's faded and torn jeans, piled on the carpet, to the designer pair that his mother had bought him in Denver, Kyle felt kind of guilty.

"Dude, even I've slept with Cartman's mom," Kenny said.

"What? Oh, that's sick, dude," Kyle grimaced.

"She's hot, dude," Kenny said, "but that was like three years ago, and it was only a couple times. And it was only to piss Cartman off, anyway." Kenny chuckled fondly at the thought. He frowned at Kyle's disgusted look and said, "Come on, dude. Don't be all prude."

"You fucked Cartman's mom when you were fourteen? That is so wrong," Kyle gaped at Kenny, unable to believe what he was hearing. When had Kenny told them that he'd lost his virginity, anyway? It had been very early on, it seemed, or at least it had to Kyle, who at the time couldn't wrap his mind around the concept of sex, let alone having sex. Kyle thought that Kenny had maybe been twelve, and had slept with an older girl at a rave that Kevin had taken him to, in Denver.

Kenny's eyes crinkled at the corners as a smirky half-grin flooded his face. He said, "Kyle, you know very well that I'm a whore."

"It kind of bothers me when you call yourself shit like that, dude," Kyle replied, pulling his Andrew Bird t-shirt over his head.

"That's touching, Kyle, but what else am I supposed to call myself? Slut? Ho? Tramp? Jezebel?" Kenny almost chortled out the last one. Where did that even come from? It might have been that Kyle had pressured him to at least attempt to do his English homework. Shakespeare was an interesting experience if one dropped acid directly before reading. And by that, Kenny meant that he had no idea what had been going on.

Kyle's face reddened, and he rubbed the back of his neck before he managed to stammer out, "You're just more than that, dude. I mean, if you're slut, you're a slut, I guess. But you're also my best friend and I don't think you're just a whore or whatever."

"That's nice, Kyle. But I'm not your best friend. Stan is your best friend," Kenny said, "Look, one of us was trying to protect you, and the other is fucking you. "

"Come on, Kenny, don't give me that self-pity bullshit. You know we're best friends. We always have been."

Kenny suddenly felt uncomfortable with having this discussion while his bits and pieces were hanging out in the open. He located the boxers he'd been wearing and returned them to their place on his hips. There was a hole in the front that he hadn't noticed before. He ground out, feeling oddly sore at Kyle's accusation, "You know what, Kyle? Fuck off. You didn't even believe me about my deaths until two goddamn days ago. People don't notice me, you know? I'm like background noise. Oh, Jesus, fuck this." Kenny threw open his sock drawer and pulled out a plastic baggie of pills.

"What the fuck are those?"

"Crack."

"In pill form?" asked Kyle.

"I'm pretty innovative, huh?" Kenny reached into the back, extracted two tablets and held them between his fingers, before placing them side by side on his tongue.

"Dude," was all that Kyle said, "That's…wow. I don't even know what to fucking say to you right now."

Kenny gave a dismissive wave of his hand and said, laying back on his bed with his hands behind his head, "I deal drugs, Kyle. I have gratuitous amounts of unprotected, depraved sex. I'll do pretty much anything for money. I have no future. If that wasn't clear to you by now, I don't know what fucking fantasy land you've been living in, but you should invite me."

"Wow," Kyle repeated, "Just wow, Kenny. I'll leave you to that, then, shall I?" And he was gone.

Kenny was already high, so he didn't care.

o.o.o.o

Kenny didn't show up for school the next day.

Nor did he show up for school the day after that. Or the one after that. Or after that, until it was the weekend, and genuine concern arose. With a couple of 7-11 slushies in hand, Stan and Kyle walked to their friend's house. To the entire town's relief, September had brought a slight coolness to the air, and they were all free to don hats and scarves and coats as normally they would.

"I had sex with him," Kyle confessed, as soon as the bell at the automatic front doors of the 7-11 announced their departure.

Stan eyed his friend and finally commented, "I thought you might have."

"I'm gay, Stan," Kyle said.

Stan took a sip of his slushie, gazing at Kyle over his drink. He replied, "I know, dude. I started wondering awhile ago. Like, when you turned Sally down when she asked you to the eighth grade formal when we were thirteen."

Kyle didn't think that Stan would mind if he was gay, but he hadn't been expecting that Stan had known for such a long period of time. Or suspected, at least. "Really? That obvious, huh?"

"A little, dude, yeah," Stan said, "and for the record, it doesn't matter to me, okay? Wendy thought you might be gay, too. She's excited to have a gay friend."

"You should inform her that I'm not some sort of novelty," Kyle quipped, speaking more sharply than he had intended.

"I know you're not, man," Stan assured Kyle, squeezing his friend's shoulder.

"For some reason, saying that seemed like it would be harder than it actually was," Kyle mumbled. He sipped thoughtfully on his slushie, which kind of tasted gross, now that he thought of it. Something about the sugar and artificial flavoring was just wrong…but he thought that sounded stupid, so he drank more of the beverage.

"Honestly, Kyle, I don't think anybody here would have a huge problem with it. Well, I suppose there are Kenny's parents, but they kind of have their own special category."

Yeah, the McCormicks did have their own special category. Kyle hated them. They were, and always had been, particularly horrible people. Once, when they were little, Kyle recalled Kenny asking if he could go out with Stan and him and Cartman, and Stuart threw a beer bottle at Kenny's head and told him to get out of the way of the television. That had scared the fuck out of Kyle. At the time, he was only around eight, and hadn't even known that anybody's parents had the capacity to be that…well, mean.

For all that, he didn't think that the McCormicks were cruel. They weren't smart enough to be cruel, quite frankly. Kenny's parents truly were just messed up alcoholics.

At the same time, that wasn't really a comforting thought, either.

Kyle found that he was still pissed at Kenny for Tuesday's incident. The fact that he was still mad just made him angrier, though that was more at himself than at Kenny. I'm a whore, Kenny had shrugged, as if saying, "It's common knowledge, Kyle, and you should just grow up." Why did Kenny's self-criticism bother Kyle so much? Kenny had been doing it for some years now—probably since they'd hit puberty, if Kyle had to put a date on it. Everybody else seemed to be fine with it. Everybody else shrugged off perverted Kenny McCormick. Why couldn't Kyle shrug this off? It had to be the sex, Kyle thought. Why else would he have suddenly started caring?

Kenny thought there was nothing to care about. That people didn't care about him and that they shouldn't start caring about him. "I don't do feelings," was what he'd said directly after he'd taken Kyle's v-card. Maybe the reason Kenny "didn't do feelings" was because he was too high most of the time to realize that he in fact had the capacity for feelings. Kyle was certain that Kenny did. Even people like Craig, who didn't seem to give a shit about anything, had feelings. Even if they were feelings that usually constituted being annoyed with people or flipping them off.

So, yeah. The past few days worried Kyle. Maybe he'd been too much of a dick the last time he'd been too much of a dick the last time he'd seen Kenny. But Kenny didn't just avoid people like the plague. That wasn't Kenny's style at all. He was a blunt, confrontational bastard, and there was very little that could keep him away from fucking around with his best friends. Or pissing off Cartman, and Kenny's very presence seemed to piss of Cartman, as of late.

"You okay, dude?" Stan frowned at Kyle. Kyle stared back at him, without saying anything at first. Stan was wearing a Greenpeace t-shirt, and his usual red-and-blue knit hat. Same old friendly, athletic Stan. Maybe Kyle really should just leave Kenny alone. Stan sure as fuck wouldn't get into drugs and use crack as a proverbial "fuck you."

"Jesus, Kyle," Stan said, snapping his fingers in front of Kyle's face, "dude, you really zoned out there. Are you alright?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine," Kyle sighed, and he was. Sort of. "I'm just worried about Kenny, you know? I mean, I know I pissed him off last time I saw him, but he pissed me off, too. And you know how he is. He'd go out of his way to piss me off more until we forgave each other. Instead he just disappears."

"That's nothing new, though," Stan pointed out.

Okay, another fair point. Maybe Kenny had gone traipsing off on one of his adventures and hadn't bothered telling anybody. That sure as hell had happened before. Kyle would be relieved if this is what that was. But for whatever reason, he didn't think that's what Kenny was up to. Kyle may have not been the most intuitive guy, but he felt like he knew his friends well. Did screwing somebody count as you knowing them better than another person? Because sometimes he did feel as though he got Kenny more than Stan could.

"Do you think that he's just fucking around?" asked Kyle.

Stan shook his head, "Actually, I don't know, man. I've got a shitty feeling about this whole thing."

They jogged across the train tracks together. Kyle wondered why he hadn't ever noticed the condition of Kenny's neighborhood before. There were more than a few ragged homeless people shuffling around, and a starving stray cat leapt out at them when they passed by the trash bin it had perched itself upon. The streets were trashed. Kenny's front lawn was uncut and covered with prickly-looking weeds. No Home Owner's Association for these people, he guessed.

Stan rang the doorbell beside the McCormick's front door.

"It doesn't work, dude," Kyle reminded him, and knocked.

Carol opened the door. She mumbled incoherently, "Oh, iz Kenny's little friends. He's upstairs with his girlfriend."

That made Kyle's stomach lurch and his heart jump up into his throat. Stan noticed the expression on his face and commented under his breath, "I told you that you shouldn't have gotten involved with him, dude."

"Fuck off," Kyle muttered back.

Cautiously, they enter the McCormick house and traversed up the rickety stairs. Even from the other end of the hallway, they could hear the commotion from Kenny's bedroom. There were feminine moans, and the floor beneath their shoes shook slightly. But, what Kyle thought hurt his feelings the most was Kenny's voice. Between the cries of the anonymous woman, Kenny tossed in a soft curse or a grunt. Like he did when he and Kyle had fucked each other.

Kyle and Stan just stood there, at the top of the stairs, both with eyes focused like laser beams on Kenny's bedroom door, like they were looking right through the Playboy poster Kenny had taped to it and onto whatever debauchery was going on inside. It all matched so terribly. I thought I'd be satisfied after I fucked you once, Kenny had mentioned, so casually. But that was just it. Kyle had been some stupid fucking conquest, and in truth, Kenny just like hot chick with huge racks. Like Bebe, who was tan and athletic and had the breasts of Aphrodite. Kyle was pale and slender and, well, a dude.

Finally, Stan placed his hand on Kyle's shoulder. He said, gently, "Kyle, we definitely don't want to go in there. Let's go and skip rocks at Stark's Pond or something, okay?"

"Yeah, okay," Kyle said, not at all surprised by what he was hearing from Kenny's bedroom, but entirely wounded. You should have known better, Broflovski, he told himself, but that didn't do anything to cheer him up, and he just began to feel worse. They left their empty 7-11 slushie cups at the top of Kenny's stairs, figuring nobody in the family would notice the difference, since none of them were sober anyway.

"See you later, Mrs. McCormick," Stan said, out of his need to always be polite.

"Huh?" was her only response, which she uttered without glancing away from her whiskey glass or the television, which was playing some stupid commercial for a kitchen product that nobody fucking needed.

Stan steered Kyle away from Kenny's house and out of the sordid neighborhood, like a mother directs a child through a crowded place, since Kyle seemed to be having trouble moving his limbs by himself.

o.o.o.o

By some miracle, no other wandering teenagers had decided to congregate at Stark's Pond, and so the entire place was left to Stan and Kyle.

"Are you going to be okay?" Stan asked his best friend. With an expert flick of his wrist, Stan flung a rock out across the water. One, two, three…"Six skips. Sweet."

"I'm sure I'll be fine," Kyle said, voice quiet. Instead of joining Stan in rock-skipping, he'd laid down in the grass, body stretched out with his hands resting behind his head. He was trying to pay attention to Stan, to assure the guy that he would be alright. Who needed Kenny anyway? The guy had always been a bit of a bastard. He was no Cartman, but he wasn't exactly Mr. Nice Guy, was he?

Stan's thick brows hitched, the corners of his lips turning down as he looked at Kyle. He said, "It's okay to be upset, man. I get it. You really liked the guy. He's always been a bit of a bastard, though, hasn't he? We don't need him."

"I was just thinking the same thing," Kyle muttered, though his feelings weren't cooperating with his brain. Why was it, precisely, that when situations such as these arose, that heart and mind just couldn't get along? It was fucking annoying. And pathetic. Just so fucking pathetic.

Stan tossed another stone out across the water. Only three skips, this time.

"I'd give you the 'there are other fish in the sea' speech, but that seems a little faggy, so I'm just going to tell you that Kenny's a dick and you deserve somebody that has feelings like a normal human being," Stan tried reassuring him.

Kyle sat up, then, crossing his legs. He took up his own rock and heaved it out to the water with all his might. It didn't skip at all, just hit the surface, rippling, and then sank out of sight.

"That's…not how you do it, dude," Stan said hesitantly.

"I fucking know that, Stan," Kyle replied acidly, and found himself irritated when he glanced up and saw a look of understanding gracing Stan's stupid face.

Stan reached out with another rock to skip, when his phone went off. The ringtone was 'Girls' by the Beastie Boys. Wendy's ringtone (she hated it).

Stan flipped his phone open, his hand with the rock clutched in it lowering to his side, "Hey Wendy. Now's not the best time. Kyle's having a shitty day, so we're hanging out at Stark's Pond." There was the muffled noise of Wendy's voice on the other line, and Stan answered, "That's probably not a good idea. I know. I'm sorry. I can call you later tonight and we'll figure it out, alright?"

Stan hung up his phone and explained, "She wanted to join us, but that kind of didn't seem right."

"She mad?"

"Nah. Wendy's more even-tempered than people give her credit for," said Stan. He dropped the stone he'd been holding in the grass and dropped down to sit beside Kyle.

They just sat, in silence, really. It seemed like Stan had realized that Kyle wasn't going to be comforted by trite words, and that just having Stan around was enough, at least for awhile.

o.o.o.o

Kenny peeled the condom off of himself and tossed it in the direction of his overflowing trashcan. He didn't think he'd made the shot, but that was okay.

Who had he just slept with? He didn't even know. Crack + acid = his mind doing weird ass shit to him. It was pretty awesome weird ass shit, but he still had no idea what was going on.

But he just felt so good. Maybe it didn't matter that he couldn't figure out what the fuck was real and what was in his own head. He felt good. Really good. And that was all mattered to Kenny.

o.o.o.o

Here, enjoy this depressing, longer-than-usual chapter. Many thanks to my reviewers: InstruMental, Little Loki 2.0, TheNerds, and TheAwesome15. You guys are fabulous. If you have any constructive crit, don't be shy. :) I am open to questions/comments/suggestions, all that jazz.