Leftovers
Summary: Kyle's a little less than amused when Kenny's not dead after all. If the rules of the universe don't apply, then what else has Kyle been wrong about all these years? K2, M for language.
Disclaimer: I just make awkward plotlines out of Matt and Trey's stuff. I own nothing.
My morning was short. I woke up on time, and I found a clean pair of underwear that didn't have any holes in it, so I was actually in a good mood. I knew, really, that it was because of what happened yesterday afternoon. I knew that I awoke from a pleasant six-and-a-half hours of sleep in a pleasant demeanor and was having a pleasant pleasant time because of Kyle. I knew it, but I didn't admit it.
No, I was not having a good morning because of him. I was having a good morning because God said so. Because I didn't need to smoke. Because Mom wasn't drunk yet.
I sighed as I tossed it all around in my painfully small mind. Somewhere, probably in one of those cheesy-ass motivational assemblies they made us go to in elementary school, I'd heard a guy in a suit tell all of us about making choices for the better. He told us that we were in control, and if we didn't like how our lives were going, we had the Power to Fix It! Though he was far from right (because, c'mon, like I really had fucking control over how many guard dogs had mauled me to death), I kind of felt like I was guilty of not trying to change anything. How, even on the best morning I'd had in weeks, I still considered my parents' sobriety and my working toaster oven a direct result of destiny not being a douchebag.
I thought about this, and then I ate my toast like a fucking champ. Was the whole deal with Kyle just a fluke? Was it fate or God or a domino effect?
For a moment, I almost convinced myself that I was actively seeking Kyle out. That I really was in control.
Holy balls, that made me a faggot.
I suddenly became very aware of the manner in which I swallowed my toast. I felt uncomfortable with it in my mouth, which was weird, because I usually liked having things in my mouth.
Titties and toast. I repeated it over and over as I chewed. Titties and toast. Nothing else. Right?
I couldn't help it. My brain couldn't stop. My toast was now a metaphorical dick, and my real-iphorical dick was kind of turned on by that.
I walked to the bus stop instead of jacking off. I was angry at my hormones for ruining my sterile mood, and I was at even greater odds with myself for trying to be sterile in the first place. I'd never denied my testes until this month. Call me a romantic, but I didn't want to have Kyle's face pop up in my mind's eye when I was wanking it. That space was reserved for Megan Fox only.
And sometimes goats.
. . . Let's not get illegal here.
"Dude, that's kind of gross," Stan told me in homeroom. "You should really put that away."
"What? It's natural."
"It's totally not. I don't want to see you lick it like that," he said, with a disgusted look on his face.
I rolled my eyes before scooping out the last of my yogurt. "Fine." I took the plastic spork out of nearly-empty cup and tossed it in the trash bin to my left.
"Where'd you get that from anyway? I didn't give you any cash last week, did I?" he asked.
"Jesus, dude, don't worry. I don't owe you shit right now," I said, stretching out at my desk. "I found a five on the ground the other day and I stocked up."
Stan hummed in acknowledgement or relief, I couldn't tell which. I didn't care, really. He still hadn't offered to help me out with the food thing, but I wasn't about to ask him outright. That wasn't cool of me.
A middle-aged voice from inside my head rang out. You have the choice to change your life! Face your problems! Take what you deserve!
I deserved a fucking handjob. I wasn't about to ask for that anytime soon either.
Instead, I sunk in my plastic seat as an overhead voice rang out across the PA system. Morning announcements. Hopefully, they'd be decidedly less homo-suggestive than they were yesterday.
". . . lunch will be delayed an extra fifteen minutes due to the food service workers' health inspection . . ."
Nothing had really caught my fancy for the first half. I'd managed to tune them out entirely as I shifted around in my desk hole, knowing that I'd stashed an extra pack of rolling papers there last week. I proceeded to waste them as I made miniature origami swans, one by one, until the wood grain of my desktop resembled cartoonish ripples in their "river".
I was as childish as I was starved and sexless.
"Mid-winter Formal tickets will only be sold until Thursday afternoon; I repeat, that's Thursday afternoon . . ."
Stan glanced over at me. "Dude, make me one."
"I've only got two papers left."
"So? Just unfold one of those other bird things," he said.
"I can't, they'll be all crinkly," I whined. Stan shot me a look. Yes, I was being stupid. I knew I'd folded them up in the first place, and that they'd be unsuitable for any type of doobie shaping afterwards, but I didn't care. I'd made my damn origami swans.
"Couple's tickets will be discounted fifteen percent . . . " the PA rang out. I sighed, brushing the birds off to the corner of my desk. "Wendy taking you?" I asked casually, knowing fully that Wendy would've made such a thing mandatory, and Stan was enough of a good boyfriend to suck it up.
"Yeah. Our parents are making a big deal out of it," he said. "It's not like it's prom or anything."
"Nnnn," I mumbled. I stared down at the graded test that was just handed back by the teacher. It landed on my desktop, and the letter circled at the top of the page was above a C. I didn't fail.
"You should go with us, dude. I don't want to be the only guy there," he said.
"The only guy? What, no one else is going?"
Stan shrugged. "Well, I mean, Clyde's taking Annie, and I think Butters is taking his cousin or something."
"Oh," I said, flipping over both sides of the paper marked in red ink. I didn't fail. Not by a long shot.
Tutoring actually helped. I had someone to thank for that.
"What about Kyle?" I asked off-handedly. I didn't care if he was going or not (I mean, it was just a dance), but I thought it was a little weird that Stan hadn't asked him instead of me.
I expected Stan to give me a funny look for even bringing Kyle up, but he didn't. One of the reasons I liked Stan.
"Something about a Bar Mitzvah in the family," he shrugged. "So he's out. You coming?" Stan asked, sounding about as wonderfully excited as I felt.
"Iunno," I replied. Things like school dances only led to empty wallets or underaged intercourse. As much as I loved prepping myself for a career in the adult film industry, I wasn't so sure I wanted to put up with a girl all night.
And in a moment of weirdness, where all I could think of was my own stupid brain and my own stupid dick, I wasn't so sure I could. I wasn't so sure anything could adequately distract me from Stan's Super Best Friend.
If I took a date, they'd have to have some pretty huge fucking knockers.
I texted Bebe.
Classes let out early that Friday because of parent-teacher conferences. My parents weren't going. It wasn't that they didn't care about my grades, it was just that I'd forgotten to mention the date. They didn't need to meet with my teachers anyway— I wasn't exactly a favorite student.
I tossed my shit in my locker and shut the door, the motion mirrored by fifty other students in the hallway, all clanging their padlocks into metal. I doubted any of them were thrilled about tonight anyway; the only good came from the fact that we got to take off at one-thirty instead of three. I quickly flipped open my cell phone a final time before it died; Bebe finally texted back agreeing to going to the dance with me as a final resort. It was nice knowing I was a choice cut in popular boy steak.
I smiled in spite of myself, knowing I wasn't even on the same goddamn cow. If it weren't for my dashing good looks and my winning personality, I'd only have so much to brag about.
Yeah, right.
I took two steps sideways after pocketing my phone. For a moment, I thought I'd dropped it, or that it fell through an unknown hole in my pants, because I heard the clatter of plastic against linoleum.
In fact, I heard a lot of clatter and a lot of plastic.
It came from around the corner, and it came accompanied with a much louder slam! of body-into-metal, echoing sharply through the emptying halls. Shit, or what was better defined as the contents of a backpack, scattered across the floor a few yards ahead of me, and I heard the familiar sound of lard against vocal cords.
"You think this is funny?" Cartman's voice cut through in a hoarse whisper. "You think you can just do whatever the fuck you want? Oh, look, someone's standing up to his family! Look how cute he is, asserting his independence—"
I stopped moving. I knew who he was talking to.
"You're a piece of shit, you know that Kahl? You do not—" there was another slam, as something hit the lockers— "upstage me like that. You hear me?"
"Let go," I heard Kyle say. It worried me; he'd said it much more calmly than he normally would've. Kyle wasn't calm in situations like this— at least, not the situations I was used to seeing.
"Yeah, okay, sure. Let me just let you go. Do you even hear what I'm saying?"
"I said let go, fatass."
"You think you're a little angel, don't you? Go ahead, crusade all you want. Show me up a thousand times. I dare you, Kahl! Do it! See if I care when you make a goddam faggot out of yourself when you try to one-up me again!"
"Dude—"
Jackets, or the sound of jackets fighting, briefly interrupted them. Kyle had tried to pop Cartman in the jaw, and there was a loud fist-to-face slap as a result.
"—Fuck!— stop—"
"I'm not the one who needs to stop, Kahl! You want to up the freakin' ante, go ahead! It won't be your parents this time around. I won't even bother telling them about how much you love to take it up the ass if you've already told them for me. I swear."
My pulse was already at a jog. All I needed to do was walk over there.
Where was Stan? Why wasn't he here?
"Dude, fuck you—" Kyle interjected.
"You'd like that, wouldn't you, Kahl! That's fucking sick. Don't even worry about your family anymore, man, 'cuz you've already got bigger problems."
All I needed to do was walk over and separate them. I'd done it a thousand times before.
Why wasn't I doing anything?
From around the corner, Cartman didn't shut up. He never did. But his voice quickly dropped to a much lower decibel, barely audible from where I was standing. "I want you to know something, Kahl. I can arrange for any provisions I want. By this time tomorrow, I could have your ass in Juvie for double homicide. You're worried about being a flamer?" A quick jerking sound bounced off the padlock. "You've got bigger things to worry about, Kahl."
"You're overreacting," Kyle spat out.
"Oh!" Cartman huffed. "You think so? My bad, Kahl. Let me apologize to you."
On cue, my legs unstuck themselves, and finally, after three— four— five extra hurried steps, I turned the corner and got a look at them.
Cartman had Kyle up by the collar, one fat hand around the material and one fat fist curled back into slingshot position— but after a quick double-take at the new presence in the hallway, he paused in mid-action.
I stared at him.
And after a moment of dead air, in which Cartman eyed me carefully for several seconds, he smiled courteously and let Kyle drop an inch closer to the floor.
"You're not dead yet?" Cartman asked in a joking tone. Something inside me lurched, in the same way that my stomach knotted up when Kyle had first recognized my post-humous resurrection. But no, Cartman was only referring to the fact that I hadn't starved to death yet.
Cartman didn't know anything about my condition, and yet he was so spot on, I nearly forgot what I was doing.
"No," I said, taking a casual step forward. "You wanna let Kyle go?"
I watched them both with a sharp focus on Cartman's hands.
"You want me to?" he asked in a weird sort of way. We weren't glaring, and Cartman certainly had a friendly smile spread across his mouth, but his words hung on his breath.
This wasn't a friendly conversation.
I nodded, and without taking his eyes off me, Cartman let Kyle sink until his sneakers touched the tile again. Kyle quickly ducked out from his grip and edged his way closer to me.
"Nice to see you looking out for your friends, Kinny. I hope I get to see more of that."
I stared at him, my lids at half-mast, with a keen attempt to keep my cool. I didn't say anything. I didn't want to.
"I'll catch you guys later. I've got some errands to run anyway," he continued, as he slung his backpack over his shoulder. He took a few steps toward the end of the hallway, before he looked back over his shoulder.
"Oh, and Kahl? I'll text you later tonight."
His last comment almost unnerved me. Almost.
I watched as he made for the exit, and Kyle and I were left alone to the mess on the hallway floor and the anxiety in his face. When he finally said something to me, he sounded a lot less calm than he had when he was held up face to face with Cartman.
"Sorry," he commented, quickly bending down to shove his books back into the biggest zipper. I couldn't see his face too well, but he looked shaken.
"'Sorry?' What the hell are you sorry for?" I asked, watching stupidly for a second before leaning down to help him.
He opened his mouth, but shut it right after a sigh. I caught a glimpse of red, and his movements were much too vermin-like at the moment for him to have been in the right mind. "I don't know. Yeah," he spoke, nearly close-mouthed.
"Dude. Kyle. Chill," I offered, handing him his pencil case. I knew it was the inappropriate moment, so I tried not to laugh that the fact that he actually used one in high school.
I felt really bad for thinking it was funny.
He took it and promptly shoved it into his backpack, along with his Chemistry notebook and a few test strips for his blood sugar. I didn't want to acknowledge that I thought any of it was funny. And, for once, I couldn't laugh at the fact that Kyle was a huge nerd.
After all, I realized, I'd been a huge coward. I didn't move until the last minute, when I was certain that Cartman was going to beat the shit out of Kyle, and when I was certain I wasn't going to miss out on a crucial piece of information. Was it really more important to me that I waited for the "right" moment to intercede?
I picked up each individual stick of #2, .7mm lead, and dropped them back into their plastic container. I didn't get it. I thought Stan was supposed to save Kyle from this sort of thing . . . not that Kyle usually needed saving.
Hell, if anyone needed a knight in shining armor, it was my periodically rupturing aorta. And by shining armor, I meant new defibrillators.
"Here," I said flatly, passing him the last of his messily strewn notebook paper. "You okay?"
He nodded. "Yeah. It's no big deal." Kyle zipped up the front pocket of his backpack, and kept his hand on the seam. "I wish we were still in fourth grade. I could still beat him up when I was taller than him."
"It's your fault for going vegetarian during puberty," I commented lightly. "You were worse than Stan that year." I meant it as a joke, because god knew we both needed a joke, but it didn't sound funny at all when it came out of my mouth.
Kyle didn't seem to appreciate the way I said it either.
"Stan's not that bad."
He elbowed his way awkwardly back into his backpack straps and kneeled his way upright. I was afraid that, for a second, he wasn't going to offer to help me up. It wasn't that I was expecting it; I just felt that, for some reason, he'd have to. Because it was me.
I felt selfish for thinking it, but I didn't give a fuck. It was me.
Kyle leaned down to retie his shoe, and I ignored his unevenly popped collar. I ignored the fact that he hadn't cussed out Cartman nearly as much as usual, and that something was clearly wrong with his normally defiant nature.
He pulled me up anyway. It was a sheer force of good will, because he didn't look happy.
"Look, I'm sorry, I didn't mean it like that—" I started.
"I know." He said it simply and in one short breath. "I know. I'm not angry at you."
I nodded. "Kay." I hoped he wasn't. I still couldn't tell with Kyle, even if he assured me only last week that he wanted to become better friends.
Or something like friends.
"Hey," he said, after inspecting his locker for a minute's worth of damage assessment. "I've gotta get going. Thanks for helping me out." He said it to me in a depressingly boring manner.
I didn't get it. I'd just saved him, albeit at the last possible moment, and he didn't seem to care. He was still very plainly shaken up, but there was something else underneath his skin that I couldn't dig out.
I swallowed my cummy pride and decided to let it go, for his sake. "Watch your back," I told him as he turned to leave.
"Uh-huh."
"Oh, and have fun at that Bar-Mitzvah thing tonight," I continued easily. To be nice. He looked at me with a twinge of confusion, which at first made me wonder if I'd heard Stan right earlier, but then he gave me a nod and assured me he would.
"I'll catch you around Ken," he said as he collected the last of his things.
"Yeah. You too," I replied, watching him walk towards the office and around the corner. I waited until he was out of sight before I even considered leaving, because I'd already pussied out on helping him once.
When I finally decided it was time to move, I shuffled my foot forward and kicked something small into the bottom of the lockers. I squinted at first, because I wasn't sure I was seeing what I thought I was seeing, but I wasn't wrong.
Kyle had a tooth knocked out of him. It was sitting on the floor, covered in a bit of spit and a bit of blood, and even though it was a molar, I felt like the biggest douchebag in the world.
I could've spared him the loss, if I'd only stepped into their fight earlier.
The voice of that fucking motivational speaker kept looping in my mind. Change your life! Make the right choices! Only YOU can push yourself to reach the stars!
I was choosing this. Kyle's dentistry, my domestic situation, my grades. It wasn't fate, or predestined karma.
It was all on me.
A/N: So, a month and a half later, I'm back with a short chapter. It's cool, chapters 10 and 11 will be more of a two-parter anyway; the next one is already written and simply needs to be edited! I've been awake for the past 41 hours without sleep (cosplay! convention! birthday party! work! travel!) so forgive me if there are any fatal errors in this chapter XD Thanks for keeping up guys!