Auri's Notes:

I'm like. Still alive. After a long time.

THIS CHAPTER TAKES PLACE THE DAY AFTER THIS ALL HAPPENED. IT IS WEDNESDAY DURING LUNCH.

I desperately needed a reason to communicate Clyde's disappearance to Stan and Kyle, so I put Clyde's made-up girlfriend in there 'cuz I couldn't use any of Clyde's friends for obvious reasons. Don't worry, she'll be gone and never heard from again soon.

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Since we'd missed Mrs. Pushman's detention yesterday, we were stuck in her classroom today. Stan and I shared a bag lunch and sat very far away from Mrs. Pushman's desk. A sophomore girl whose name I didn't know was also in lunch detention, apparently being punished for throwing a book across the room and hitting someone with it.

I kept glancing at Mrs. Pushman. She was grading papers and not paying much attention to us. Stan and I leaned together, hunched over our nearly diminished lunch and talked quietly.

"Have you seen Clyde at all today?" Stan questioned, his voice nearly a whisper. "I didn't… do you think he had problems with his eye?"

I shook my head. "Haven't seen him. Honestly, I couldn't tell you, but my best guess would be 'probably'." I took a bite of my granola bar and thought. I hadn't seen Clyde since two days previous. "Maybe he's plotting."

"Shut up, Kyle." He groaned, shaking his head. "I won't want to think of Clyde scheming." He rested his head on the desk and bit his lip nervously. "To be very frank, I don't want to see anything of him today." He chuckled weakly and held out his hand, open-palm. I put the granola bar into his hand with a kind of reluctance. He took a nibble from the corner, and then handed it back to me.

"I don't blame you." I said quietly, tearing a chunk off the sticky mass of granola, peanut butter, and chocolate chips and popping it into my mouth. I chewed thoughtfully for a few minutes, a flake of granola wedging itself between my teeth. I winced and sucked at my teeth. "You think he's waiting for you?"

"Let's hope not. Clyde's not one to-"

"Clyde?" Came a voice from across the room. It was the bespectacled sophomore girl, who was looking up interestedly at us. She was of average height and an athletic build, wearing a thin black t-shirt with some lime-green scrawly writing on the front and also a pair of dark blue jeans. "Clyde Donovan?"

I frowned. "Yeah," I said quietly, edging closer to her. She moved a desk over so she was only one desk apart from us. "You know him?"

The girl rolled her eyes. "I'm his girlfriend." She picked at her fingernail idly. "I'm surprised he doesn't talk about me."

"Wait…" Stan frowned. "Wait, wait, wait… I think I remember Clyde talking about a girl named Taylor. Taylor De..." He trailed off. "Something with a D anyways..." He glanced up at her, and cocked an eyebrow. She folded her arms and nodded.

"DeMartin. Yeh, we've been going out for about a month and a half now. He's mentioned me, I take it?"

I suddenly had a memory of Clyde talking about he and his girlfriend, Taylor, working on a project together for Chemistry. I nearly smacked myself thinking about it. "Yeah, a couple weeks ago!" I said eagerly with a nod.

Stan glanced at me with his eyes wide. "Uh…" Stan began, but Taylor cut him off.

"What's this about Clyde, anyways?" She said coolly, her arms folded. "You guys know what happened to him? You know who punched his eye in?"

"I didn't punch his eye in, I-" Stan stopped short, his face reddening. Taylor's eyes widened behind her glasses, and she raised her eyebrows.

"So it was you!" She gasped. "You hit Clyde! My God!" She leaned in closer, putting her hands on the edge of her chair, and whispered so that Mrs. Pushman couldn't hear. "You're the gay guy, right?"

I swallowed hard and nodded. "Yeah. We're the 'faggots' of whom Clyde speaks."

Taylor whistled low. "Woooow. I don't blame you, really." She said quietly, scratching at her head. "Clyde kind of deserved that one. I hate it when he calls people names." She sighed.

This was a relief. So she wasn't mad at Stan! This was definitely a good sign. "So…" I said carefully. "Do you know if Clyde's plotting a revenge lay or something?" I laughed half-heartedly with a smirk on my face. Maybe if I pretended that it didn't matter to me, she'd be more willing to give information.

Taylor rolled her eyes. "I haven't seen Clyde all day. I have him in 5th hour. He's got art after lunch, so-"

"Shit!" I hissed, then clapped a hand over my mouth. I had momentarily forgotten that Mrs. Pushman was in the room. Thankfully, she had coughed at just the right moment, so she seemed not to hear.

"Ohhhh," Taylor nodded comprehendingly. "That's right. You guys have art with him!"

Stan and I glanced at each other, the nodded uneasily. We'd forgotten about next hour. So there was no chance of us finding out if Clyde had a revenge lay for us without him telling us personally. "So you have no idea if Clyde's even here today or not?"

She shook her head. "Nope, sorry. No idea. I'd guess he's here, though. He was here yesterday when you guys weren't, so I don't know why he'd miss a day in the middle of the week like that..."

Stan grimaced, his face very red. I put a hand on him, uneasily, and glanced at Taylor. She was wearing a kind of twisted smirk on her face. "Tell you what," She said, "If I find anything out, I'll come and find you if I can."

I nodded eagerly. "God, yes, thank you!" Stan ran a hand through his hair and sighed, resting his forehead on his palm and looked intently at the desk, as though it was some amazing discovery.

The bell suddenly rang. Lunch was over. Taylor didn't say anything else, except to scoop up her things and hurry out of the room before the bell was even done ringing. I nudged Stan in the ribs and stood up. Stan stretched and crumpled up the brown paper bag. I pulled it from his grip and threw it towards the garbage. It landed inside, dead center. "Damn you and your basketball talents." Stan growled, pulling me out the door by my arm.

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Uneasily, I stuck my head into the door of the art room. I looked around at the crowded room, dreading to see the boy with brown hair. After a quick sweep of the room, I nodded and ushered Stan inside. Many people stared at us as we wound our way through to the back of the room towards the pottery closet. "Someone probably put our pot in here." Stan said, his voice shaky. He glanced over his shoulder, and then pushed me into the closet.

"Hurrryyyyy," He moaned, his hand on my shoulder uneasily. "C'mon, let's see how long we can stay in here before we're forced to come out."

"Calm down..." I said quietly, glancing at him. I rifled through the pots on the shelves, searching for ours. I heard the teacher's voice ring out as she began to take role call. "Fuck." I mumbled. "Oh fuck. She's taking attendance. Fuck." Stan tensed up, his grip on my shoulder like a vice.

"And... Kyle?" I heard Mrs. Klein say. I bit down abruptly on my lip, and yelped. She didn't seem to hear, likewise, she proceeded to say, "Kyle? Is Kyle here?"

"I'm here!" I said weakly, sticking my head out of the closet door uneasily and spanning the room quickly. I didn't see Clyde.

"Okay, thank you Mr. Broflovski." Mrs. Klein said cheerfully, making a note on her clipboard. I ducked back into the closet and turned to face Stan. He stared at me, his face ashen.

"Did you see Clyde?" He asked, his voice guttural and shaky. "Was he out there?"

I shook my head, and Stan sighed tremendously. "Oh thank god. I was about to freak…" He trailed off, breathing hard. "Damn… so you didn't see him?"

"No," I said quietly. "But I was only out there for a quick glance. Either way, if he IS here, he knows that I'm he-"

Stan held up a hand suddenly and I stopped abruptly. "Sh," He hissed. "She's at the D's." We were both silent, listening hard.

"Clyde?"

There was a silence. I felt what seemed to be my skeleton melting inside of me.

"Hm… no Clyde today…" Mrs. Klein said, in what appeared to be a contemplative voice. "Oh well…"

I looked at Stan, disbelieving. "We are SO fucking lucky." He whispered, his face pallid. "You have no idea…"

I nodded slowly and went back to looking through the pots. "Yeah." I murmured. "Lucky."

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School, for the most part, went pretty okay… until the very end. There wasn't a lot else to worry about, now that we knew Clyde wasn't present, but it we passed Taylor in the hallway once or twice and she gave us a few strange looks that we couldn't explain. After the bell droned out for the end of 7th period, Stan dragged me out of Advanced Technology with my fingers throbbing. We'd been made to do typing exercises over and over again. Normally I'm very good with a computer, but in this case, it was torture.

"Dude… I can FEEL myself getting carpal tunnel." I mused out loud, examining the fingers on my right hand with mild interest. "Can't you?" I glanced up at Stan to see his jaw set and his eyes wide, staring at something down the hallway. "Stan?"

"Kyle," Stan turned around to face me hurriedly, his hair swinging in front of his face as his he did. His expression nearly made me cry out in shock. I'd never seen him look so scared before. "Kyle, we need to go this way." He took my by my arm and herded me down the hall, the opposite way. "Now."

"Stan, dude, what the hell?" I said, looking over my shoulder at the hallway. "What are you…" Then I realized what he was talking about. One of the few faces I'd dreaded seeing all day was staring at us from the very end of the hallway. Craig, accompanied with Token, were staring at us and talking quietly close together. I watched as Token craned his neck to look over Craig's shoulder to get a better view. "Fucking hell." I whispered, my voice as dry as my mouth. "They know. They've got to."

"No shit," Stan said, his voice trembling. "Just go, don't bother looking at them… pretend we don't notice," He muttered, swallowing hard.

"Kinda hard not to," I said, shoving my way past some freshmen who gave me nasty looks and a few even cried out in anger. I ignored them. "I think they realize we've seen them."

Stan paused to open the huge double doors that led out into the cafeteria. The front doors lay across the cafeteria, beyond the rows of tables that the janitor was just now stacking up to be stored for the night. He stuck his head out into the cafeteria, looked around for a minute, before waving me forward. "It's okay, we're-"

His voice was drowned out by my sudden yelp. I'd felt a hand clamp down on my shoulder, and was spun around to stare into the face of Craig. "Hey Kyle," He said, his nasally voice sounding like fingernails on a chalkboard. "What's goin' on?"

"Nothing." I said rather quickly. "Going home." I tensed as Craig tightened his grip on my shoulder to an almost painful extreme. "Um… how's about letting me go?"

"Nah, I don't think-"

"Craig!" Stan snapped. "What the fuck do you want? Leave Kyle alone, let him go!" He stood beside me, glaring nastily. I watched his eyes turn to the left as Token approached, his hands in his pockets. "Oh. Hi Token."

"Hey, guys." Token was grinning waspishly. "We noticed you guys staring at us a few minutes ago… you looked kinda scared. Anything you guys want to say to us?"

"What the hell… Token, you were staring at us!" Stan growled.

"I dunno," Craig said. "If it wasn't for the fact that you guys are already the token fag couple around here, I'd say you guys looked like you were checkin' us out. That's sick, fag-boy, and you'd better realize that we don't want anything to do with your ass-pounding little fag group, 'kay?"

My jaw dropped. How dare he? "What the fuck are you talking about? We were NOT checking you out!"

"Sure you weren't, Kyle." Craig sneered nastily. "Sure you weren't."

It had just occurred to me that Stan's hands were clenched into fists. He looked as if he'd strangle anybody who walked by at the moment. I could see red marks where his fingernails were digging into his palms, and I winced at the thought of how that felt.

"'sammater, Stan?" Token was about four inches from Stan. "You gonna do to me like you did to Clyde? You're going to definitely pay for that…" He poked Stan in the shoulder. "Clyde was right. You guys are waayyy oversensitive about this whole thing."

"Yea," Craig hissed. "We should just forget this whole thing. So why don't you guys just go be your gay little selves. Go suck face like you did in those pictures."

He saw the look of horror on my face, and I felt ice trickle down my spine. Pictures?! Since when were there EVER any pictures that existed of this ordeal? Then, it hit me.

Cartman.

I felt a sudden wave of dizziness that nearly made my knees buckle. Sweat was beading on my forehead, as cold fear flowed like ice in my veins. Oh no. Oh no. He didn't. There was no way he could have. How… how could've he? He had no camera… or had he?

"W-what?" Stan babbled, "What pictures are you talking about?" He had taken an abrupt step backwards, away from Token, who had his arms folded for added effect and an ugly smirk on his face.

"Don't lie," Token said, his voice one of utmost seriousness. "Craig, show him." Craig bobbed his head in a nod and finally let go of me. I stepped away from Craig, towards Stan, and watched as Craig rifled in his backpack for something. Finally, he pulled a small Ziploc bag out of his backpack and handed them to Token. Token opened the bag and extracted three color photos, and shoved them in Stan's face. "See?"

Stan snatched one of the photos from Token, and held it to his face. I craned my neck to look, and then recoiled in cold horror. The photo was a close-up of Stan and I, on the couch. We were quite clearly kissing. Kneeling on the couch on all fours, our faces leaned in towards each other with lips pressed together. "Where did you get these?" I spoke up, my mouth dry and my voice coming out as a wheeze.

"Our sources," Craig tore the photo out of Stan's hand and put it back in the Ziploc with a sneer.

"How many people have seen these?" Stan spluttered, "Do you know?" He looked as if he'd rather like to have the photo back, but Craig was already putting the Ziploc back into his bag.

"Nope," Token shrugged. "Fair few people."

Stan looked as if he was about to collapse, so I stood slightly behind him to catch him if he chose to faint at this very appropriate moment. "So… so what do you want from us?"

"Dammit, fag-tard, we've TOLD YOU already!" Craig barked. "Clyde! He didn't deserve what you did to him, so now you're going to fucking pay!" He stood directly in front of Stan now. He was about four inches shorter than Stan, but he was more built in the muscular persuasion.

"Fine," Stan said calmly, his voice gone of all traces of fear. "I deserve it. I know I overreacted." He took a step away from me to give them a clear shot.

Craig narrowed his eyes at Stan, and clenched his fists so hard that I heard a knuckle crack. Curiously I made a point of looking over my shoulder to see if there was a teacher or any students around. There weren't… the students had apparently all left and the teachers were all probably in their rooms doing pot or something. Silently I cursed our luck and turned back around to face the soon-to-be fight and was met with Craig's fist in my stomach.

Pain. Pain like I had never felt before coursed through me. For a minute I couldn't move and I felt hot agony spreading through every vein and artery in my body… I couldn't breathe. Red haze filled my vision. Dimly from above me I heard fists landing and yelling as Stan literally leapt on Craig. My legs suddenly no longer felt the need to keep me supported and buckled beneath me. My knees hit the floor and sent another jerk of pain shooting through my body.

I curled my arms around my stomach and heaved for breath, feeling the walls around me crumble. I needed a wall to lean on or something or else I was going to pitch forward and fall down. I'd never in my life been hit that hard. I could make out through the red haze Stan putting Craig in a headlock and Token was standing over me, a grin splitting his face.

"You okay, Kyle?" He asked, kneeling down so that he was eye level with me. He poked my shoulder (hard) and leaned in to me. "Your boyfriend's standing up for you. Shame he's too busy to protect you now." His fist tapped against the same shoulder that he'd just poked. I was too out of it to care at the moment but was aware of the hatred I could feel radiating from my own skin.

"Stan…" I managed to gasp out, my voice barely a whisper.

"I don't think he can hear you." Token said. He looked over his shoulder to see Craig putting an elbow in Stan's back. I winced, and tried to call his name but my voice was constricted in my throat. God, it was so hard to breathe. "C'mon, Kyle, stand up for yourself. Or is it true that gay guys can't fight?"

I couldn't move, still. Even as Token shoved my slumped form against the wall behind me, I was totally limp. Even as pain split my head in half as it hit the wall, stars dancing before my eyes, I couldn't move. Even as Token stood, towering above me, his foot raised for a kick, I couldn't move.

Even as the excruciating sting of his shoe in my side buckled me over for the second time, I wasn't able to do anything to defend myself. I heard my name being called from what seemed like ages and ages away, it was Stan's voice. My breath had totally left me, as did my voice.

No.

No, no, no, fucking no. I wasn't going to let Token take me like this, and I sure as fuck wasn't going to let him have the satisfaction of knowing that I was weak. I sat up, and put a hand against the wall, feeling something wet and slick on the cold tiles. I tried to rise to my feet, but I buckled beneath the weight of my own pain and slumped to the ground.

"Nope, I was right." Token's face swam before my vision, doubled, tripled, and then whole, breaking apart and then rearranging and fitting back together and then reversing… "Gay guys CAN'T fight." He disappeared from my range of sight, and then I fell prey to unconsciousness.