A/N:
Song in Chapter Title: "Good" ~ Better Than Ezra
Notes:
The next chapter will be the last. Fair warning, but I didn't think it would end yet, despite how long it had gotten.
This was another difficult chapter to write. I felt very all over the place with it, probably because of Stan's state of mind. Still, I enjoyed writing it. It's always a challenge, it is.
Please tell me what you think, whether you like it or hate it. I appreciate all feedback I get back on this.
Much Love:
Mattie Scary
xRaineParill
Jana-Z95
Oshii-enma
Kai21
R&R and I will love you forever
Title: Baptize Me In
Author: theZoshi
Rating: Ranging, mostly PG-PG13
Category: South Park
Genre: Angst/General
May contain: Shounen-Ai/Boy Love, Violence, Adult Situations, Swearing
A stiff wind had set the swings creaking on their chains. The bottle was cold and sweaty in my hands, the seat of the swing I sat on pinched at my jeans with its broken edges. The leaves on the ground whirled in a confused sort of spiral.
The bottle in my hand was open but full. The three bottles lined on the ground next to me were open but empty.
I felt somewhere in-between.
Or maybe nowhere at all.
"Guten Tag, Stanley. Wie geht's? How's mah favorite fag doing today?"
"I tol' you to stop callin', you fuckin' dick!"
Cartman's laughter grated, poisoning my ears. His voice was the lazy hiss of a serpent, a prying knife digging through my aching skull.
"Oh, is Stanwey in a bad mood today?"
I grimaced. My throat burned, my stomach roiled. The world wouldn't stop spinning above me and under me and on my sides. I tried to form my next words carefully but my tongue resisted and slurred.
"You fuckin' sonova bitch," I rubbed my eyes and tried to see again. "You know what I'm gonna do when I see you?"
"Give meh a faggy kiss?"
"I'll... I'll give you one in the kisser allrigh'." I bit my slurring, traitorous tongue and rolled over, vertigo and nausea pawing at me like an insistent cat. The walls got closer, like they were enjoying watching me writhe in agony.
"You fuck off, jus' fuck the fuck off." I shook my finger in the empty air menacingly. "Jus' fuck off."
"Staaann," Cartman's voice stretched in inquiring chuckling whine, "Have you been getting into the lager?"
"Shuddup."
Cartman tsk-tsked, a short staccato that drilled into my brain.
"Ah'm dissapointed in you." Cartman sighed with gusto, and then went on with disgusting false sincerity. "You were doing so good."
I growled into the phone and ignored the rolling and hitching of my interior organs.
"You were, though." Cartman said almost softly, and added in harsh afterthought, "Fag."
The line clicked off. I threw the phone to the floor and reached for a bottle.
The kitchen light blazed, burning my eyes. I glared at nothing in particular and dumped the bottles I was holding into the overflowing garbage bin. A couple bottles rolled off the top and onto the floor with a clatter that stabbed me between the temples. I eyed them warily for a moment, then with a grimace crouched down and picked them back up. The world swam around me as I shoved them back into the bin, and then pulled the bag up and out. Tying it closed, I walked out of the kitchen and towards the front of the apartment. The bottles clanked as I set the bag on the floor to put on my shoes. The floor tilted sickeningly as I leaned over, and I sat down instead.
I had just managed to get my shoes on when my cell began ringing in the other room. I staggered to my feet and nearly stumbled into the dividing wall, but managed to get to the phone before it stopped ringing. Answering, I stumbled back to where the garbage bag sat waiting.
"'ello?" I muttered, and lifted the bag back in hand.
"Hey Stan."
I sropped, surprised by the voice on the line.
"Kenny?" I leaned in the wall, still holding the bag in one hand.
"Yeah, so, how's it going?" Kenny sounded cheerful. I tried to process the fact that it was Kenny on the phone. I hadn't talked with him since that too-short visit a few weeks earlier, and hearing his voice now was almost surreal.
"It's... It's all right." I stammered over the words. "How 'bout you?"
"It's good too, you know?" Kenny said, and then gave an awkward, almost nervous laugh. "I, uh, actually, I sorta have a favor to ask?"
"Yeah, shoot." I wondered what kind of favor it was, and why the hell he was so nervous. Our last conversation ended on a good note, didn't it? Oh, right, it did, except for that part where I left without saying goodbye. Wow. I was a douche.
"I was wonderin' if maybe you'd be able to drive over to the Central Park bus terminal?" Kenny asked, sounding more cheerful than he should.
"The bus terminal?" I frowned.
"Yeah. The bus for North Park just left and it looks like it wants to rain, and there ain't no way in hell I'm walking an hour in it." Kenny said. I couldn't comprehend his words, and after a pause he continued, "I was gonna call Kyle but I figured if I'm gonna be talking to him I should talk to him face to face, right? And so you're the only other person I can call, right?"
"You're at the bus terminal?" I said, my brain finally catching up to the situation.
"Yeah."
"Okay," I said, shaking my head. "Okay, yeah, I'll pick you up."
"Awesome," Kenny said. "I'll see ya then."
"Yeah, see ya." I hung up and slid the cell into my pocket slowly. Setting the bag back down with another clatter I grabbed my keys from the kitchen counter and headed out.
It was raining pretty hard by the time I drove into the bus terminal parking over half an hour later. The poor ol' Civic slid a bit as I hit the brakes, bumping up against the parking block. The last few blocks to the terminal had been a bit difficult to navigate with the blurry surroundings becoming even more muddled by my aching and detached mind.
I rubbed my forehead and winced; there was a pounding just behind it that was growing stronger with each moment. I didn't have much time to wallow in the pain, though. A figure was rushing through the rain towards the car, and I reached over to unlock the doors as Kenny ran up.
"Thanks man," The blonde said cheerfully, grinning as he tossed a large duffel bag onto the back seat and settled into the front seat. I managed to grin at him, but apparently it wasn't a good enough grin, because he was suddenly frowning at me. "Stan, are you drunk?"
"No." I scoffed at the idea. I wouldn't have gotten behind the wheel if I was drunk. Probably.
"You're hungover." Kenny stated. I looked over at him. "Very hungover. All right, get out."
"What?" I frowned at him. He gave me an extremely serious look that had no business being on his face.
"Out. I'm driving."
"You don't know where I live." I protested, but Kenny had already unbuckled my seat belt and was pushing me towards the door. I groaned and pulled myself out of the car and into the rain, cursing as it bulleted against my skull. The thudding in my head grew stronger, and I stumbled a little as I walked around the front of the car.
Thoroughly soaked, we both sat back in the car with roles reversed.
"Point the way, captain," Kenny's cheeriness returned, and I led him through the winding streets back to the apartment, only making a few bad turns. We ran from the car to the apartment building door, and took our time walking up the stairs in a companionable silence.
Kenny was back, I thought. I thought, but I couldn't understand. Kenny was back, and he was standing in my dark apartment dripping puddles onto the hardwood floor and laughing about something random he had said. I laughed too, even though I couldn't remember what we were laughing about, but it felt good.
The atmosphere changed quickly, though. Too quickly. Kenny toed the garbage bag full of beer bottles and gave me a searching look. I went to pull some spare towels out so I wouldn't have to look at him yet.
"Where's Red?" He asked as I handed him a towel. I shrugged, and dragged my own towel over my hair.
"Stan…"
I ignored him and headed towards the kitchen, flicking on lights as I went. The storm tossed rain against the windows in a mind-damning staccato that sent the thudding in my head into overdrive. I grimaced as I reached the kitchen, and pulled open the fridge door. I was pulling out a bottle of Coors when suddenly I realized someone was holding my wrist. I looked over to find Kenny giving me a critical look.
"What?" I said, frowning at him.
"You sure you should be doing that?" He said, and when I tried to pull my arm away he tightened his grip on my wrist.
"What's the problem?" I managed to pull free, bottle still in hand, and closed the fridge door.
"It's ten. In the morning." Kenny gave me an even look.
"So what?"
I pushed past him and headed towards the main room. God I was a dick. I was a super asshole douchey dick. I sat down heavily on the couch and reached over to grab the bottle opener off the coffee table. Flicking the cap off with a well-practiced twist of the wrist I tossed the bottle opener back on the table and took a swig of beer.
Kenny had followed me back to the living room, and I could feel his eyes on me as he wavered a bit in the hallway. He headed over finally, sitting down next to me on the couch.
"What happened?" He asked, still watching me.
"Fuck happened." I avoided his gaze and stared at the brown glint of light coming through the bottle.
Awkward silence. The pounding in my head getting both worse and distant. Two more swigs and then my head was getting deliciously cloudy again.
"I was too late," I said, suddenly, surprising myself. I hadn't planned on talking.
"You talked to him?" Kenny said as he continued arranging bottle caps on the coffee table. I watched him work at it.
"I told him evrythin'," I said, "Stuff I didn't tell you. Stuff I didn't tell no one."
"So why were you too late?" Kenny asked, voice low. He was stacking the bottle caps in a pyramid shape at the edge of the table. I finished off the bottle in one last gulp and set it down on the floor so it wouldn't mess with his design.
"'Cause I was too late," I said, and he turned to me with puzzled eyes. I motioned around the apartment. "Too late."
Kenny took a long look around the apartment. It wasn't like he'd find anything tangible. He wouldn't be able to feel it, after all, feel that fucking dark hole where a fucking light used to be, a dark deep pit of black everywhere you looked, except it wasn't visible but like internal because the whole place was one huge fucking mirror reflecting just how dirty and empty you were. I was.
"So what're you going to do now?" Kenny asked. He was asking all the wrong questions, or the right ones. No, the ones that he was supposed to be asking, he wasn't. He was asking other ones and those were the ones I didn't have answers to. Like that one.
"Fuck now," I said, slouching deep back into the couch cushions. Fuck now indeed. What the hell was there to do anyways?
"Well, what do you want to do?" Kenny eyed me curiously.
"What do I want to do?" I repeated slowly. Somewhere behind the clouds in my head bits and pieces of some half-formed plans came up, having nothing to do with, but everything to do with, what was going on, both at the same time. There was a hand on my shoulder but it didn't belong to anyone in the room. There was something I wanted to do, after all. Something that came to me in the dead of night, when a twisting dream of kaleidoscopic views and faint tremors tossed me awake to the meet the invisible blue eyed gaze of a faint memory from too long ago.
Something that wasn't mine to want, but I wanted it all the same.
"This isn't what I came back for, you know?" Kenny muttered as we walked up the long driveway towards the posh house at the end. I ignored him, wiping rain out of my eyes with my sleeve, and after a moment he added, "I should've called Kyle."
"Yeah you probably should've," I snapped back, tripping my way up the front steps. Kenny stepped up next to me as I rang the doorbell, and I could feel him giving me a dirty look. I continued ignoring him and thought about ringing the doorbell again, and again, and again, but the door opened before I could act.
"Stan? Kenny?"
Clyde's surprise was genuine; I hadn't seen him since we graduated high school. His face broke into a wide grin, and he pulled us inside and out of the rain. I tried not to step on the plush rug in the, the… the whatever you call the entrance thing of a big house like this, and stood aside as Clyde pulled Kenny into a bear hug.
"Where've you been?" Clyde laughed, slapping the blonde on the back, and Kenny winced slightly before straightening.
"Around, you know. Oregon, specifically," Kenny grinned. Clyde laughed, then looked over at me.
"Hey Stan, it's been a while," He clapped my shoulder too, but somehow I managed to keep myself standing. I gave a lopsided grin, but it faded swiftly. We weren't here for small talk.
"We got a favor to ask," I said, running my hand through my damp hair.
"He has a favor to ask," Kenny said pointedly. He glared at me.
"I have a favor to ask," I amended. Clyde still looked cheerful. Shame. He wouldn't look cheerful for long. I licked my lips and cleared my throat. Clyde raised an eyebrow. Kenny looked away. "I need the camera."
"What camera?" Clyde asked, looking puzzled. I looked at him as steadily as I could.
"The camera." I said. Clyde's expression was changing, but he was still holding on to that carefree expression.
"I don't know what you're talking about." Clyde said. His tone was icy. I ignored it – maybe it was a good thing my brain wasn't at full function – and met his stony gaze.
"Craig's camera." I said. A visible shudder ran through the large man in front of me. I could feel Kenny's eyes flicker between me and Clyde, Clyde and me. "I know you have it."
"What if I do?" Clyde said, and then, angrily, before I could answer, "And what do you want with it?"
"The pictures," I said. Clyde narrowed his eyes. He was still cold. I wiped at my face and waved my hand around vaguely. "He was always taking pictures. Always."
Clyde was openly glaring at me now.
"There has to be something there, on them," I said. "He wouldn't just leave without… without leaving something."
"And how would you know?" Clyde's voice was low. I could vaguely see Kenny backing away slightly.
"I…"
Well, I shouldn't. I guess. What was I gonna say? There was no way Clyde accept the truth. There was no way I could explain without the truth. Was I gonna start lying again? Would I have to?
I winced, raked my fingers through my hair, tried to think of what to say.
"You lied," Clyde said suddenly, taking a step towards me. My brain froze a moment.
"What?" I managed. He gave me a dirty look.
"You told the police you didn't talk to him," Clyde said, "But you did, didn't you?"
My mouth was dry. I licked my lips and tried to find my voice. Clyde was not happy. He was very not happy.
"I did," I said, barely getting the words out. My palms felt sweaty, and that familiar twist was starting in my gut. Fuck. Shit.
"Why didn't you say something?" Clyde yelled. I took an involuntary step back and bit my lip.
"Wh…what was I going to say?" I groaned, backing away from his heated glare. I could feel the night again, see the creaking, hear the leaves, taste the darkness. The roiling in my stomach pitched and heaved and it came out spewing words. "What was I going to say, Clyde? That I… I talked to him, and I couldn't do anything? T-that I was right there and I couldn't s-see what he was planning?"
"What do you mean you were right there?" Clyde growled. I barely heard him. My head hurt suddenly. My stomach was acid and sulfur. I couldn't breathe right.
"Why did he call me, Clyde? Why'd he ask me to meet him?" I backed up against the wall, my hands on my face. My pleasant cloud of detachment was shattering like too-thin glass. I tried to hold on to my resolve but it was all I could do to keep the wolves off my neck. I twisted my fingers in my hair and could only stammer words but no meaning. "Why me? Why me why me…"
I fought to breathe, to struggle against the staccato of my heart and the tightening of my lungs. My world was fucking cracks and canyons and deep dark spaces. I should've known this was a bad idea. I could stand the park with a beer-clouded head but I couldn't stand the words and the accusations and what explanation could I have?
"I don't know."
Clyde's voice was quiet, but it broke through the harsh gray clouds in my head. I looked up to see him eyeing me carefully, looked over to find Kenny shocked and confused. I detangled my fingers from my hair, licked my lips slowly.
"Why do you want the pictures?" Clyde asked carefully.
"I just… need to know," I said. Pitiful. "I need to know."
Clyde wavered for a moment, but finally nodded towards the inside of the house. He headed down the hallway with heavy steps, and I followed him, hearing Kenny's footsteps behind me. We walked further on towards an impressive staircase and upstairs. The housed looked bigger than it was, almost too big, almost as if it were growing bigger with each step I took. I worried I was going to lose Clyde in the growing house, unable to keep up with him, unable to move faster as the carpeting stretched on and on beyond my steps.
Clyde stopped, then, just as I was about to reach out and feel just how far away he was, and he opened a door and motioned for us to follow him inside. The room was large as well, extravagant but not gaudy. I could see the large king sized bed and the flat screen on the far wall across from it but then I could see the desk on the side wall and while everything was hazy and cloudy and distant I could see sitting on the highest shelf above the desk the camera. The Camera. I stopped, suddenly, and Kenny walked into me. He cursed, and walked around me but I could see the glint off the black metal and I couldn't look away.
Clyde walked over to the desk, but hesitated.
"I… I, uh, developed the film," Clyde said, and cleared his throat. He looked like he was going to reach for the camera, but changed his mind. He reached over to pull open one of the drawers in the desk, and pulled out a large yellow envelope. Turning, he glanced at Kenny, and then turned his gaze to me. I fidgeted, felt my eyes get watery. I didn't know what was in those pictures but maybe I'd find the answer to that deep dark question and maybe those answers would once and for all shut those blue eyes in the dark and let me sleep.
Clyde opened the envelope and pulled out a stack of pictures. He looked at them for a moment, then looked at me and held them out. I reached out to take them, my hand shaking. They were glossy finish and shiny and I looked at them and saw that they were all black and white.
"I don't know what you think you'll find," Clyde muttered, shifting uneasily. "I couldn't find anything…"
I nodded, but I didn't pay much attention to his words. The first picture on the stack was our old high school, a freeze frame of a morning with people heading into the double doors with brass letters gleaming "Joseph F. Thomas" above their heads. It was oddly focused on those letters, the students blurring slightly, as if they were an afterthought. I remembered the building with those shining letters; I remembered the days sitting in stifling rooms with my pencil in one hand and inhaler in the other as dust sifted out of the ceiling panels. Two months into freshmen year the building was demolished due to building code violations.
The second picture was a view off of the church bell tower looking over the town, the sun setting in the distance behind a screen of puffy clouds. There was a silence in the photo, an eerie detachment. Maybe it was the lack of color, or the vivid contrast of light and dark, but I couldn't quite figure out what it was that caused me such disquiet. The third photo was of Stark's Pond, surface dotted by ducks, a lone figure with a fishing pole standing at the edge of the pier. The same sense of distance seemed to exist in that photo, and when I turned to the next picture the feeling became almost tangible, choking the air. I sat down on the floor spreading the photos out on the carpet in front of me.
The fourth photo; five pairs of sneakers on a shoe mat sitting under a coatrack. I don't know how or why I could tell that the battered pair of dark canvas sneakers on the right of the photo were Craig's; I couldn't remember ever paying attention to anything he wore, but somehow I knew. There were other canvas sneakers, there were hi-tops, but these were different. For all that the shoes were grouped on the shoe mat, those sneakers were still set apart, by how miniscule a gap I couldn't tell, but they were apart and not a part.
Pictures are worth a thousand words each but these were entire lifetimes captured on a four by six inch piece of glossy paper. I scattered through the rest of the photos, past grayscale images of parties distanced by blur effects (like looking through a dirty telescope at another life far away from this one), past pictures of eerily serene landscapes waiting for something to awaken, to come back to life among the ink-black branches of dead trees and the glossy eyes of sparrows. Interspersed randomly between shots of nature were pictures of what should have been lively high school moments, a shot of the football team at practice, of honor roll study sessions, of the goth kids smoking behind the school. Every one of them felt empty, lacking. I didn't know if I was projecting onto the pictures or if I was reading them properly, pulling something out of them that Clyde couldn't hope to.
I stopped looking at the pictures. I put my head in my hands.
"Stan?"
I ignored Kenny's voice. I could feel the tears seeping between my fingers as I pressed them against my eyes.
" 'm sorry Clyde," I muttered. I got to my feet somehow even though I couldn't feel my legs or my arms or my anything. The photos lay on the floor and I could see them all but nothing helped.
"…It's all right," Clyde said. I shook my head.
"I'm so sorry," I didn't know what I was apologizing for anymore. I couldn't look at Clyde. I couldn't look at Kenny. I rubbed my forehead and tried to breathe without shaking.
"Come on, let's go," Kenny said softly. His hand was on my shoulder, but I couldn't feel it, really. Somehow we made it back to the front of the house. Somehow we were heading back outside.
"Stan," Clyde's voice seemed too far away. I turned to look at him, and he looked okay. He looked okay. I was jealous. "You can come over whenever you want, you know? Don't be a stranger, man."
I nodded, and we walked back to the car, and Kenny drove. The landscape slid by in dreary, washed out color.
"There's some people you just can't save, right?" My voice wavered. My fingers were in my hair but I didn't know how they got there. The world was washed out and my eyes couldn't focus on a thing.
The hum of the engine in the silence between us filled my ears. I rubbed at my temples. Kenny let out a quiet breath. The drizzle outside lightened and the windshield wipers squeaked over half-dry glass.
"If you're going to try to save someone, you should focus on the living," Kenny said, carefully, softly. "You got a chance at succeeding then, at least."
I stared out the window some more.
Breathed out onto the glass of the window.
Watched it fog up and blot out the world.
There were three people in the waiting area at the front of the tattoo shop when I walked in. Henrietta was behind the counter; if glares could wound I'd be bleeding on the floor two steps in. Before she could open her mouth I walked through the dividing doorway into the back area. The first partition was curtained off, but I could hear someone moving around in the back.
I walked back there. The ceiling was high but it felt like it hung just above my head. I didn't have problems with claustrophobia but maybe no space would have been big enough at that moment. I couldn't feel the time or the presence or the atmosphere but then I was there and so was Red.
Pain was a good sign, after all. If you could feel pain you were alive, but if I thought that the pain of being without Red was bad then maybe I wasn't really living. Seeing him and fully realizing just how close we were to being apart sent a new sort of pain searing through my system, as if I wasn't really alive until that moment and suddenly my body had remembered that this 'pain' thing existed and that it was supposed to do something about it. Heartache is such a cliché concept, but it was either that or a mild heart attack that dug into my chest.
"I need to talk to you." I said.
Red bit his lip. I thought I saw him shaking.
He looked weak.
I felt weaker.
Was this how life went? When had we ever been strong, anyway?
Red looked around, looked helpless, looked lost. The sterilizer was open and he had his gloves on.
"Come to the apartment."
My voice was stronger than it had a right to be.
Save the living.
"I… I get off at six," Red said, looking at me.
"I know," I said. He looked torn; I wanted to touch him.
Save the living.
I turned around, and I walked back outside.
The clouds had parted while I was inside. There was no real sun yet but the rain was gone and color was coming back to the world.
I took a look around, and thenI got in the car and asked Kenny to drive me home.