Cartman is Cartman and Kyle is Kyle, no matter where they are or what happens.

Amber hues caressed the curves of the round morose face as it stared past the coals and reflected deeply. Eyes that were normally a bright sapphire had been tinted dark purple by the firelight and they flickered like the flames as their owner considered and explored facets of his life – or rather death – that he had been ignoring.

Cartman's head tilted to observe the two blond boys huddled together beside him, and caught the tail-end of a memory where he had been doing the same that evening past: Kyle warm and safe in the embrace of his leathered wings. He fancied for a moment what Butters' reaction would be if he were to suddenly be swathed in plush white feathers.

Kenny was born human via his parents. Kenny was cursed by Cthulhu via a cult. Kenny was blessed as an angel via the Heavens. And because Cartman had been a pretty damn stupid kid he had drunk his ashes and thus his half-demon soul became marred and tarnished. Satan could not erase him, no-one but God Himself could destroy him, but with this advantage came fear; Satan's fear that Cartman would take over Hell – and Jack's encouragement that he should.

"Don't you think it's unfair, son? Don't you think it's unfair to separate loved ones in the afterlife? My darling wife – I did her wrong I know that – and now I can't even make amends?

"Don't you think that's unfair?"

Of course it was unfair, it was Hell.

"You could change it all. You could if you ruled Hell.

"Damien is your only obstacle…"

Cartman shook his head out of his thoughts at the sound of Kenny's ringtone to his right. Butters groaned sleepily as Kenny shifted his arm from his chest and tugged the phone from his pocket. "Yo, Stan my man!" he began but then stopped to listen to the other end.

Taciturn and trembling, Kenny's shift of mood was immediately noticeable even to the introspective Cartman. Butters turned around in worry at his quickened heartbeat. "Ken, what's wrong?"

He hung up and extinguished the barbeque with a few handfuls of snow and closed the lid. "We have to go."

Butters didn't question further and obediently followed Kenny's rush back inside the kitchen.

"Liane, can we have a ride to Hell's Pass?"

"Oh dear, did you get a burny-wurny?"

"No, it's…" He inhaled sharply. He'd been holding his breath since the call. "It's Kyle. He's sick. His kidney. They don't think he'll make the night."

There was a commotion of noise and movement around Cartman as his mother and Butters exclaimed and questioned and prepared to leave. He stood reeling, going over the last few days and all the signs he'd missed. Kyle's flushed panting on the court from just a few minutes exercise, his desperation for as much sleep as possible, and things he couldn't express outwardly but that he'd hidden because he was always too proud to admit weakness.

Cartman pressed his hands into his eyes, screaming silently at how he'd been too selfish and caught up in his own misery to notice how ill his lover really was.

At the sound of the doors to his old car slamming open and shut, he burst into action and dashed out of the house, jumping onto the roof of the car and held on for Kyle's life.

"Any luck, my love?"

Damien paced one end to the other of his room as Pip watched warily from the bed. "I can't feel my father's presence, which means he's topside. He could be anywhere, dammit."

Pip hugged himself in sympathy for Damien's agitation. He didn't know why he was upset but Damien's feelings were his feelings, he was bound so tightly. If only portals worked on Satan.

Damien stopped in front of the one he had opened the second he had arrived home. Kyle was stable in a hospital bed, closed eyes dark and sunken, with sobbing family gathered around. "How long do you think?"

"Did the file not say?"

"I didn't read it that closely. And apparently my father didn't read it at all." What game was he playing? Did he realise that Jack was playing too? Or was it Jack who held all the cards. "At least Cartman will be stuck on Earth. Father is safe."

"You don't know Cartman," Pip said blithely. "If there's a way to Kyle, he'll find it." And under his breath he added, "We have faith that you shall."

Cartman threw himself off the car rack as his mother circled the parking lot for a space. They were limited by the rules of the real world but he had the freedom to just run straight through the crowded reception and halls. He found the Broflovskis quicker than he thought, thanks to Sheila's red beehive bobbing down one corridor above all the other heads. He'd never been so glad for the eye-catchingly awful hair.

She was clinging to and sobbing over Ike, who in turn was stoically staring ahead at the room where Kyle was recuperating from his collapse. Gerald hung behind them like a zombie, unsure and confused. "We should have listened to Liane," he said, though no-one heard.

Cartman went through to see Kyle. Normally they were similar heights though Cartman's bulkiness made him appear square and therefore shorter, and Kyle's quiff of curls made him seem tall, but he looked horrifically small in the bed as nurses and doctors busied about him. Kyle's immune system was compromised by his diabetes, and the kidney wasn't his own, so he'd taken a bigger and faster toll than Cartman had.

He stood beside him and tried to squeeze one of the pale twitching hands but he passed seamlessly through. "Asshole," he said. "Who's going to look after our cats now, Kahl?"

Kyle's eyes moved under his bruised eyelids but he made no other response.

"You can't just Jew me like this!" Cartman yelled as his misery evolved into anger. "What am I supposed to do without you? You NEVER think about ME. Fine, go ahead and skip off to Hell then you fucking fag, see if I care." He turned to storm off when the machines attached to the still body began to shriek. The medical staff sprang into action, and Cartman dove amongst them trying not to lose sight of Kyle and retracting his cruel tirade in a panic. "I didn't mean it, Kahl, don't die!"

He watched them work in a catatonic state and the seconds ticked into minutes before one of the doctors asked if it was time to declare. "No," Cartman cried, "no don't declare!" But he could already see the plume of pale grey mist leaving Kyle's body and descending into the ground. He tried to pull the soul back but could gain no purchase on the smoky substance. "Kyle, I'm begging you, don't leave me! I can't be here alone, I don't wanna be here alone."

"Time of death: 8.03. I'll go break the news."

Cartman stared at the ground, defeated, and wiped the tears from his face. He couldn't bear to watch as the sheet was pulled up over that beautiful face and he shivered with dread, but when his legs finally allowed him to stand he went over and kissed the matted hair of the cooling body (now that the staff were gone and he was able to touch him again) nuzzling it adoringly. "Didn't take that shower after all, huh?" he teased gently. "Guess it doesn't matter now." He righted himself and looked through the door at Kyle's family, clutching and clasping and weeping and shaking. A resolve he didn't know he had strengthened at the sight.

"I'm going to get back to you Kyle. I'm going to find you and keep you and treat you right and we're going to have the happily ever after we deserve. I swear."

Kyle yelped when the wind was knocked out of him as he landed on the sharp stony floor. He jumped to his feet and wrapped his open hospital gown tighter around his back to cover his modesty. He moved aside as another person, and another fell out from the portal behind almost on top of him. He accidentally bumped into a small child who didn't react to the contact and simply gazed at his feet, rocking his head and wailing, "Mommy told me to look both ways, mommy told me, over and over, a hundred times."

A lump formed in Kyle's throat and he tried to comfort the boy but he sprang away in terror right into the path of a large woman with a clipboard. "There you are," she said in a thick accent Kyle couldn't place but just about understood.

He stepped in front to protect the child. "What do you want with him?"

"To take him to his level, of course."

"Level?"

"Everyone goes to a specific level of Hell, depending on their sins." She flicked through the notes on her clipboard. "For instance you're Seven. My my, about halfway then."

"What did I do to get that level?" he asked, adamant that he shouldn't be half-evil.

"Let's see; child abuse and negligence in regards to your younger sibling."

"Aw c'mon, who hasn't kicked their brother through a window?"

She continued, "Theft, several counts of assault, medical neglect on some butter? That doesn't make sense. Oh goodness!" She tapped the clipboard with her pencil and stared at him in disgust. "One million deaths?"

"Shit! Uh, I mean – that wasn't technically my fault."

"Surely you should be higher than Seven with… oh never mind; they were just Canadians. And so is your brother, that's why you're only level Seven. Anyway, you're old enough to get there by yourself once you've been given a good talking to." She glanced down at the little boy who was giving Kyle an admiring look. "You're a lucky one, sweetie. You're on level Eleven, and your great aunt is waiting for you. Isn't that nice?"

Relieved that the boy wouldn't be by himself, Kyle let them go without protest and concentrated on his own problems. He surveyed around the cluster of people, trying to gauge the situation. Another woman was walking around his fellow deceased and placing leis around their necks. "Isn't this cultural appropriation?" he chided when she approached him.

She blinked slowly in concern and then laughed uproariously. "Lighten up kid, you're in Hell."

Before he could make his rebuttal a loud bang and puff of smoke nearby startled them all into attention. Satan stepped out from the cloud with a flourish of his arms. "Puny mortals, thou hast been in fear all of thy lives of the end that comes to all but God, and yet thou canst ne'er imagine the horrors and torments thou hast ahead of thee."

The lei-woman spoke up. "My Lord Satan, Prince of Darkness, forgive me but it's Saturday. Our weekly luau, remember?"

"Is it?" he said and ceased firing thunderbolts at passing demons as a demonstration of his power to the quivering humans. "Oh well then, have a great luau everyone. Torment is postponed until tomorrow." He turned his head to give her a grateful smile and then froze at the hot-headed figure beside her.

"Satan! I got a fucking bone to pick with you!"

Next Chapter:

He flinched when Pip settled beside him and tucked away one of his curls behind his ear. Pip pulled back his hand. "Sorry old chum, it's just you looked rather down in the dumps."

"Well I did just die, Pip."