It's Kyman week on Tumblr and this chapter has them apart, whoops.

Sorry this took so long, life is... very shit at the moment and I didn't think writing about death would be great for me mentally.

"This cannot be," Satan said and Kyle was sure he gulped in fright. "I truly did not expect you to follow him into the afterlife."

"Follow him – you mean like suicide?" Kyle's eyes widened. "No, no it wasn't like that. My kidney failed. His kidney."

Satan wasn't listening and paced in fervent thought. "This is troublesome. The moment he realises he shall leave his level to find you."

Kyle kept shtum about Cartman being on Earth. He'd said something about Satan not knowing he could leave Hell. Some deeper instinct told him the lack of information might come in handy. Kyle's wrist was suddenly grabbed by the devil's huge powerful hand and he was dragged into a cloud of smoke. He came out coughing on the other side in front of an ebony door embedded into a cliff face. Satan rapped against it furiously. The door creaked open slightly and a thin pale young man wearing a flat cap peeked out from the gap.

"Pip," Satan said with a ground shaking rumble, "Where is my son?"

"I'm ever so sorry but he's actually gone looking for you. How ironic! He's trying San Francisco first. He knows you're very fond of it."

Satan cleared his throat nervously. "Yes, well, I have a task for you. This boy is to be kept under permanent guard." He clapped Kyle on the shoulder and pushed him inside.

In spite of the outward appearance that the home might resemble some sort of Hobbit hole, it was clean and minimalist but black and red was definitely a theme, as it was in most of Hell. Kyle became aware that his rear was no longer suffering from the exposure of his hospital gown and he looked down to see the same outfit that Cartman wore. He felt his back and was disappointed to find no wings. At least that meant he was still human, he supposed.

"I shall meet up with my son and discuss this in further detail. In the meantime he is under your supervision. Watch carefully and if you so much as hear the name Eric Cartman-"

"Eric Cartman."

Satan turned to see Kyle with his arms folded defiantly. He patted the boy's head and laughed. "You are a sassy one; I shall give you that at least. But now I take my leave of you both."

"I hope you have a jolly time, my dark Lord. And I love your new poncho."

"Why thank you Pip!" Satan beamed happily and spun around to show it off. "Finally someone has noticed. It is real angel hair. I shall make you a scarf if you like."

"Oh I should very much love a scarf, thank you!"

With that Satan disappeared and Kyle screamed and punched the wall forgetting that it was sheer rock and slumped in pain.

Pip sidled over cautiously. "Don't worry," he said. "You can feel pain in Hell but you can't be injured. Unless it's what your torturers want. But that's an issue for another day. It's Luau Saturday, you know?"

"I know," Kyle said and wriggled his sore but intact fingers. If only Butters had punched a wall in Hell instead of Scott. "Wait, Satan called you Pip. You're Pip? As in our Pip?"

Pip's heart fluttered a little at being considered 'our Pip' but he knew better than to read into it. "It's been ever such a long time hasn't it?"

"Shouldn't you be nine still?"

"You can appear however you want in the afterlife."

"Yeah about that…" Kyle averted his gaze once he realised he was staring. "You might want to think about some clothes other than your hat."

"Oh for the love of Yorkshire pudding!" Pip yelped, completely mortified as he covered himself with his hands. "I'm not used to guests, you see. Come along with me."

Kyle was a little annoyed that he hadn't fooled Pip into leaving him alone whilst he got some clothes but he followed him into the small bedroom and chose a white dress shirt and some brown corduroy trousers for him to throw on. Pip didn't own underwear, or at least not practical ones, and he preferred bare feet.

Then he was led to a kitchenette he'd missed in the main room where Pip boiled some water for tea. Kyle sat on the floor as there was no seating and hugged his knees to his chest. He felt so stupid. Why hadn't he just admitted he was feeling unwell and gone to the hospital? Why hadn't he even considered the fact that if one of Cartman's kidneys was shitty then surely both were, especially as he had the faulty milk-spewing one.

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."

"Of course. Would you like to talk about it?"

"Not really." But Kyle's grief came tumbling out before he could stop it. "It's just I thought I'd be in Heaven, or at least somewhere I could see my family. I miss my grandma so much. I expected to see her again – I really want to see her again. And what about when the rest of my family dies? I'll never see my brother or mom again." He clenched his teeth and tried to valiantly fight back his tears. "The last thing I said to her was some shit about going to get dessert. The last thing I said to my mom was a lie. And I can't even tell her I'm sorry."

Pip held the broken Kyle as he had held Cartman before, warmly and sweetly, and telling him in a sweet croon that it would all be fine.

It wasn't much of a source of comfort but staring down Wendy's shirt would have to do for now because Eric Theodore Cartman was a hundred different types of pissed and there was nothing he could do about it. He was stuck on Earth and no-one could speak to him or see him, and anyone who felt him just thought a moth had flown past or their arm had fallen asleep. He had never bargained that being a ghost would be so infuriating. No wonder they could become violent. He felt like marching up to Zak Bagans and smacking him in the face already. "Nah, I wanted to do that even when I was alive," he admitted to the thin air.

Wendy was rubbing Stan's back as he slumped on the bench outside the hospital. Kenny and Butters stood nearby, reeling from the news that Ike messaged to Stan. They didn't say anything apart from one brief conversation where Butters tugged on Kenny's sleeve and sobbed, "I'm still wearing his gloves. Will his parents be mad?" It was a strange thing to focus on, but the brain was like that sometimes. Kenny reassured him that the Broflovskis wouldn't care and hugged him tightly.

The whole thing was too depressing and schmaltzy for Cartman and he went back inside. If he could perhaps find another ghost, a veteran at the job, he could get advice on how to get to Hell. What he got instead was a tiny Canadian boy running around the ER waiting room with his head flapping out their names over and over. "Cartman are you here? Cartman! Kyle?"

A nurse stopped him immediately. "Young man, I'll help you find your friends but I need you to calm down, okay?"

"No you don't get it, they're dead. We can't find them – they have to find us."

She stepped back in bewilderment and Cartman took the opportunity to swipe his hand through Ike's body.

"Cartman!" he yelped in delight at the weird but familiar sensation. "And Kyle? That you guys?" He did it again and Ike clapped his hands. He turned back to the confused nurse. "Ma'am, do you have a marker or something?"

"I… er… sure. Here you go."

Ike scrawled something onto his hands and told Cartman to follow him outside. What choice do I have, he thought grimly, marching after the excited child. They snuck past their other friends at the entrance and found a relatively quiet area where Ike held up his hands palm outward. A 'YES' was written on the left hand, a 'NO' on the right. "Is Kyle with you?" asked Ike, cutting to the chase.

Cartman caught on quickly and touched the 'NO' hand.

Ike's face fell. "He's not? But… can you bring him here?"

He had no idea, but he answered in the negative again.

"I see. Can you go to him?"

No.

"Why not?"

"Yes or no questions, you dumb shit," Cartman snapped.

Ike's brow furrowed as he contemplated the situation. "Are you stuck here?"

Yes.

"Okay, so that's our first job. We figure out how to bring you guys back together." Ike looked up to a rough approximation of where Cartman's face should be. "I know I can't…" – he swallowed painfully – "I know I can't bring Kyle back. The least I can do is make sure he's happy wherever he is."

"Thanks, Ike. Maybe you're not such a little dildo after all."

Ike frowned again. "You just called me a dildo or something, didn't you?"

Cartman laughed and swatted Ike's left hand.

"When I'm dead I'll make you pay for that, Cartman," he said, swinging his fists at nothing.

From around the corner, Stan and the others exchanged concerned glances.

Next chapter:

"What I don't understand is why you don't just erase him. Keeping him around will just encourage and enrage Cartman."

"And incur the Wrath of God? I cannot destroy one of his Creations without good reason. The paperwork alone is monstrous."