Chapter Five – Purple Midnight.

"Don't tease me."

"We always do this when we're cooking, or when people are expected over."

"We always do this. Period. Now stop teasing me, Kenny!" Kyle whines, waving his wooden spoon about and bucking up into Kenny's palm. He's been pressed into the kitchen side, naked except for his sprawled, loose cooking apron which buckles and extends away from the body, allowing Kenny to peer down at Kyle's chest. His cock is being slackly held by Kenny's teasing hand. "Please," he begs, shakily breathing and letting Kenny kiss down the side of his neck, "We've got loads of time, so fuck me."

Kenny chuckles into Kyle's neck, unable to keep up his serious demeanour, his hand scallops around and develops Kyle's hip; lightly scratching the skin as it passes. "Say it a little louder and I'll comply."

"Fuck's sake, you really piss me off you know that." He growls, tapping the ladle against Kenny's shoulder in protest.

"I know that. c'mon Ky, please?"

"Fuck m–!"

"Kyl– Holy fuck!" A voice protrudes from the doorway, the duo whip around to see Stan hastily stumbling out of their house, a hand concealing his red face. They turn and gape at each other for a diminutive second, terrified wide eyes peering at each other before they begin to struggle to modest themselves and chase after him.

"Stan!" Kyle calls, trying to pull his shirt through his apron whilst locating his jeans. Kenny's already gone, running after and out of the house, leaving Kyle to panic alone.

"You're here an hour early?" Kenny struggles, slowing to a halt after re-joining his guests outside.

"Sorry," Wendy intervenes, struggling to put together a pushchair, "We didn't think the traffic would be this light." She seems blatantly unfazed by Kenny's unzipped jeans and his sporadically sprawled hair. Kyle appears, looking very similar, his shirt sits uncomfortably under his apron, and has ridden up over his back strap where it hasn't been tucked in properly. Wendy blinks at them blandly, before her apathetic glance turns into a cunning one. "Well, at least me and Stan can finally settle the debate on who tops." She giggles, "I win Stan, you owe me."

"Yeah, yeah." He dismisses, unpinning his daughter from her car seat and parading her around to where Kyle and Kenny stand. For such a young baby, she already has a thick lock of dark brown hair, with big brown eyes to match. She stares at Kyle dazzlingly, gurgling to herself as she raises a hand to wave at him. Her dummy has fallen, but it's clip on attachment means that Stan can easily feed it to her again whilst he gently rows her in his grip.

"Oh my god!" Kenny squeals, already infatuated with the infant, he doesn't make a move towards the child, instead squeezing onto Kyle's nearest arm and wiggling it in joy, "She's so cute, already looking so much like Wendy!"

They gather themselves in the lounge, Kyle finishes cooking in the kitchen, struggling to adjust himself back into his clothing. He returns to the lounge to find Kenny coddling Alice; he rocks her slowly in his hand and pulls endearing faces to make her babble. There's a soft silence, everyone just gazing fondly at the child and how easy she is to please.

"We're sorry," Stan begins after watching Kyle sit himself close to Kenny and press his index finger to Alice's nose, "We probably should've knocked…"

"Ah, don't sweat it." Ken shrugs, "It's not like that's gonna be the last time."

"We have some other news we need to tell you." Wendy begins; her voice affirmative and clear, yet she cowers behind Stan, waiting for him to bestow their news to them.

"You're not pregnant already, are you?"

"No, no! We're engaged to be wed – we're having an engagement party on the Friday too. Please come, oh! And please be the best men at my wedding." Alice is delicately past back to Wendy, Kyle's face bare of shock, they counter onto Stan quickly, pouncing at him and squealing "Yes, yes, yes!"

.

Sharron's currently holding Alice, parading her in kisses as the room begins to simmer, people hush themselves into a silence, peering dazedly at Stan and Wendy. They're both smiling, they're still holding hands and Kyle can see Stan squeeze Wendy's palm ever so slightly in encouragement. He's the first to speak; "Thank you everyone for coming tonight, we've been away for so long that it's been great seeing you all again – tonight's been full of surprises." He continues, "First with the announcement of our baby and now this;" He pauses, holding Wendy's claimed hand up and letting the thick diamond glimmer like a disco ball around the room, "We're engaged to be wed too!"

Thick cheers sound around them, Kyle peers over to see Cartman scoffing; no doubt laughing at the corniness of this announcement to hide his consuming jealously. He sees Butters clapping overbearingly, eyes closed with a smile and the ghost of the scar across his eye from when he and Kenny had accidently afflicted him when he was younger; he's got a sweet girl to the side of him who seems shocked by his overawed emotions, Kyle can't help but smile at it all.

And just as quickly, the crowd dissolves, people flee into the dance floor of Skeeter's Bar to dance and consume drink, Kyle lets himself stand idle to the lax commotion, watching Stan and Wendy's family bundle around them, all aweing at her newly fitted ring. It fills Kyle with something sentimental which he can't place, he feels Kenny's hand press onto his back and that alone makes him feel like this sole slushy feeling has a reason.

Kenny excuses himself to go outside to chain smoke with Craig, Kyle finishes surveying Wendy and Stan, who are mingling to pageant their newly dedicated rings. Kyle decides it's time to circulate the room. South Park is a spec dusted away on the top of hillsides, where weather blooms brilliantly and knowingly; it's hidden behind gravelly mountains and crumbling hillsides, where the next nearest town is almost 13 miles away. It's small popularity of 700 people lay tucked behind Colorado's natural towers. Kyle feels like he almost knows each 700 people familiarly, yet as he circulates around the room, he's at a lost for recognisable faces, he's struck with a foreign feeling of isolation. Working hard to keep Tweak Coffee's running along with his and Kenny's homes has cut him off from his old social circle. Whilst he still talks regularly with his old classmates, he can't see anyone right now that he wants to strike conversation with. He sees Nichole and Token sitting alone in the corner, they're the first married couple amongst his school friends – yet they no longer seem to hold the same fiery passion that they used to. He turns to find Cartman hovering at the buffet table; Kyle's flowery, passion lit mood would be instantly incinerated with one breath of Cartman, so for now he avoids it.

He wanders to the jukebox, flicking through the selection with mild interest; maybe if he'd smoked, he could join Kenny outside, bare the cold just long enough to kill himself slightly before joining everyone inside – his isolation teaches him that standing behind Kenny can only get him so far, he needs to be able to socialise and live without him too sometimes. He needs to be able to make more friends than just the ones Kenny provides.

He punches in whatever song he's flicked too, no one around him seems to recognise it either and, it's quickly changed to another track. He huffs, leaning against the side of the jukebox, surveying the room again. He can't help but frown, even Cartman has disappeared, he sees Bebe enter through the kitchen; she's playing Wendy's Maid of Honour. Her hair's been straightened for this event, yet it's starting to kink and defy back into its original shape, the colour has darkened a lot since her youth and now appears a mousey brown shade. She's radiant; her sequined bodycon top glistens blue and green hues off her skin, she drags Clyde behind her, who seems so deeply besotted that he doesn't notice his drink escaping down his wrist.

He sighs, peering at Sharron's infatuated face as she stares at her granddaughter to glancing towards Kevin, as he pageants he's newest Star Wars shirt, being careful not to let anyone near it. He wonders how much a person can change with such a tightknit community, one which seems to be thrown from one side of hell to the other without a second memory; one where celebs and their tom foolery have edged deep wounds into the history of the town all without a brief remembrance.

"Kyle!" Kip calls, he's pushing through the throng of people who have congregated on the dance floor, he's using his beer as a guide – letting it slosh out of the bottle and create a path for him to stumble through. "You seem sad-" he begins when he reaches Kyle, "Why? This is such a happy day. You're way too great to be sad! You're too amazing!" He garbles, slurring his words with drunken enthusiasm. His smile is an unconscious strain of fixed muscles, and he can't seem to stop even when he's talking.

"I'm not sad." He corrects, "I'm being sentimental, that's all, Kip."

"Good, you're too amazing to be sad, don't ever be sad." He repeats, stepping closer to Kyle and embracing him with one arm, residue from his beer leaks onto Kyle's shoulder and he has a rough time departing himself away from Kip's touch.

"Why?" He asks, where are Kip's words coming from? How had they become close enough for Kip to think he's too amazing to cry? It's bizarre, having someone throw themselves so willingly at you in hopes that you'll fall with them. Kip has an obvious desperation for friendship, and Kyle's semiconscious decision to part from Kenny's harem of friends embraces it.

"When my parents died, you made friends with me! You got me through it, you did some amazing things for me without realising it."

"Your parents died?"

"Hm." Kip turns, his voice stays light, but an underlying tone sweeps his voice into something more sombre, "They both killed themselves when I was a child. The police never found out why, though. I had to move to a horrible children's home, only just got rights to their old property so I could leave that place."

"Oh my god, I'm so sorry Kip!" Kyle sympathies, he had watched Kenny struggle through the same tragedies when his family broke apart – it had been a long journey until Kenny finally began returning to the empty doll he'd left behind when Karen had died. Kyle pretends he doesn't know where Kenny's fear of blood comes from, pretends he's forgotten that he's mother too killed herself when the realisation hit that they spent all her daughter's medical money on drugs. Plays innocent to the fact that his dad rots in prison for crimes of bodily harm against a woman who looked like his dead wife. Ignores the fact that Kevin has left him for a new life in Europe.

Kyle forgets his weeping, forgets that the real reason he got his job at Tweak's Coffee Shop was to help Kenny buy his apartment, forgets that Kenny's bereavements aren't his own. He can't cry for Kip in the same way but understands the mental toll it has; recognises that a small, alone child decaying in a tainted children's home can leading to many unseen pains; recognises that this overbearing, adolescence attitude would make sense of someone who never had a childhood to begin with. He wonders what would happen if something like that happened to Stan, or Cartman – losing his mother and then being sent away to a children's home, would he cope by becoming more deviant and deranged? Or, would the hate unravel from around his spine, travelling upward and to gush out of him like vomit? He's stunned by Kip's vulnerability, his want of Kyle's friendship. He's had a difficult time fully embracing Kip into his life, worried about their perception together, or how Kip wasn't like the people he regularly hung out with. He thinks of how he became Butters friend, from making fun of him to genuinely caring about him. He knows it's the same now, he and Kip really are friends. It excites him to know that the pleasure in his life isn't fading, that he and Kenny aren't becoming dull and monotonous. That everything in his life is vibrant and exhilarating and, it's only the beginning. The air becomes sensationalised with possibilities, with thoughts and promises and ideas.

He draws himself back onto Kip, wonders how he himself would cope – wouldn't cope. He takes Kip's hand and smiles, "Everything's OK now, right? I mean, you have me." It's a faded saying he used to calm Kenny down, he releases Kip's hand after a final reassuring squeeze to ignite the warmth and new founded, firm friendship between them.

"Yes," Kip breathes, "Everything happens for a reason."

.

Soon after Kenny's returned, Kyle makes a sudden dash for their coats, he whisks them out of Skeeter's Bar and makes Kenny run after him. It's clear by the path that they're headed towards Stark's Pond; an infamous meeting spot where the two of them began to brew feelings for each other under the thick oak trees and thin cold earth.

"Can we stop running?!" Kenny whines, already slowing down to a halt, the nicotine in his throat makes him wheeze, trying to breath around the black tar contaminating his throat.

"Tonight's a full moon." Is all Kyle replies with, he's stopped running too, but his face gazes upward, looking towards the fat moon which droops from the sky like a falling star. His conversation with Kip had struck him with the most ingenious plan, led by the moon's guidance, Kyle begins running again not waiting to see if Kenny's trailing him.

They walk halfway around the reservoir together in silence, panting candidly together until a single pane of moonlight directs them to their childhood spot. It had been a place of beginnings; confessions and secret meetings; tender kissing and closet loving was all discovered here. A place where kissing another boy was comforting and loving another boy was the only thing right, where sinning after church had never felt more like following God's word. A life of secret kisses and silent fantasies only revealed to their hypnotic stretch of midnight lagoon.

And now there's something about sitting under the deep purple sky whilst thick clumps of snow dance towards the earth, that have Kyle's insides quaking. He feels Kenny nudge against him before they slump their weight against each other, they've both pulled themselves up onto a large fallen log, one which has begun to wilt against the weather. Whether it had been knocked down due to freak weather or freakish people was still unsure, but Kenny and Kyle would always find refuge sitting here alone, peering out at Stark's pond as it reflects the night's stars and jumbles the darkness into something more intimate.

It's a fond moment before they begin to reiterate their past, where kissing at eight had been unthought about, only a convenient way of winning at the game 'Ooky Mouth', there was something inexplicitly devilish when kissing again at eleven, an almost curious addiction to it; one which had Kyle and Kenny crawling out to their hideout each weekend. Kenny wanted to practice love biting at thirteen, and at fourteen after a lengthy discussion about puberty, both had revealed what their penises looked like, it wasn't until Kyle was nearly fifteen where they gave their first hand-job to each other – one which burnt and sizzled and had them stumbling towards their spot during the week too. Having sex at seventeen wasn't how it was publicly portrayed, they had played Rock, Paper, Scissors to find out who had the glory of going on top and after three infuriating rounds of losing to Kenny's Rock, Kyle laid himself barren on his bed, listening to his parents shuffle out the door until the house felt just as bare. Kenny had barely lasted a minute; so fanatical about decorating Kyle's skin with marks to modest it again, that he'd worked himself up into a tight frenzy. Finally pushing himself inside only to spill right then. Although Kyle had enjoyed the feeling of Kenny's fingers inside of him whilst he was gently jacking his cock, it wasn't until he was eighteen that he had his first anal orgasm, something that was ripped and pulled out of him so suddenly that he fainted; "again, again" he panted when he awoke, ignoring Kenny's tired demeanour and the fact that it had taken a prompt thirty minutes to get there the first time. The second time was a lot quicker, yet still had the same pleasurable flare that touching his front seemed to lack. Soon midnight masturbation became a regular thing, where whispering Kenny's name seemed the only thing keeping him in reality. When his brother moved away for University, Kyle was left with the tedious task of looking after the house, it had only been a few months before his twenty first birthday, but it meant that he and Kenny would always have a place to stay, whether it be in Kyle's family home or Kenny's new apartment, they had been living this way ever since – and yet this seems like they'd been living like this for too long for Kyle; he decides wants a change.

"I love you." He begins, feeling his fingers trail over Kenny's downturned hand, "You utterly complete me."

"You're very sentimental today."

"I think it's the alcohol. It could also be the moon, maybe it's just you." Kyle tries to reason. "You make me feel goofy."

"You make me feel goofy too, and I love you too, very much." It's definitely Kenny's mismatched eyes that makes Kyle forget about the frozen log they're resting on, makes him forget about the party they've abandoned and his heart to heart with Kip and his upcoming birthday. It makes him forget his sense.

"Ken?"

"Hm?" Kenny pulls away from their sideward embrace and peers round to give Kyle a lax, tender kiss, it's soft and brief but it's filled with their lazy Sunday mornings together, Kyle's feet up and tucked under Kenny's thigh, both entirely engaged in a nature documentary. It's filled with their endless drives into the mountain side, where they'd sing and pull up along the side of an empty backstreet to slow dance or riot, Kenny driving and Kyle reading his latest borrow animatedly; using different voices for each character and pausing to add opinions and thoughts. When they pull apart from their kiss, they don't move away, instead reaching to gently trace the contours of each other's face with their eyes. "What is it?"

"Marry me." Kyle struggles to whisper, fixated by Kenny's eyes and the way they glitter for Kyle alone.

"I thought you said it was the last thing you wanted to do, after line dancing?"

"It was a lie, I wanted to propose."

"Do you have rings?"

"Not yet." He winces, he'd only just felt like this moment was the one. After a night watching Stan stare adoringly at his family, after watching Kip's vulnerable display, it had filled him with something so pudgy and tingly that it made his insides shiver. The feeling wrapping itself around Kyle's core, heating him up before slowly escaping from out of his fingers; he wants to scrunch them tightly together to stop the feeling from fleeing, but he thinks perhaps it'll pass through into Kenny too, so he lets their hands join and waits for Kenny's face to glisten the same way Kyle's is.

"Good! I'd found the most perfect rings, I've had them on reserve for the last two months!"

"You still haven't given me an answer."

"Do I need to?" Kenny says, pressing his palms onto Kyle's cheeks and smiling brilliantly up into the cosmic moonlight. "Can you feel that warmth? That is my love for you." His hands fall into his lap and his glowing faces cowers for a moment, "Sometimes I just sit and think about my mum and Karen. I miss them both so much. It's always a sudden realisation that they're gone. I can't call them, talk to them, feel their warmth – I can't reach them, and it sucks – but I can reach you, and I want to treasure it forever. I can't let you go like I let them, I won't let you Ky – you're my everything; my constant drive, my endless happiness, you're my soul. I want to love and protect you until we're both old and safe and happy. I've wanted to marry you since the second time we kissed."

"Me too." Kyle replies with a wishing chuckle, "I couldn't think of a different life."

"I got these eyes because of you," Ken smiles, tone changing into an almost witty one, he points at his brown eye, "I went to see Damien, I told him that as long as you were living, then I didn't want to die, that I couldn't – because I needed to protect you, cherish you as you grow and develop and turn from grace to elegance. That no matter what happened, I'd be here, ready to strike and protect. Told him to trade my life for yours. That's where I got my brown eye from. When will you believe me that I wasn't born like this?"

"When Damien himself graces me with his presence to remind me that I should be falling for your lies too." Kenny huffs, and Kyle kisses him.

.

Kyle returns to the party alone; Kenny had made a mad dash into the town centre to finally purchase the rings he'd been holding. He goes straight to Stan to ask him the same questions as he'd done earlier this week, "I'm getting married, so please be my best man!" Before making his way through the jutting crowd to buy him and Kenny a celebrational bottle of champagne.

"Kyle!" He hears a voice belch over the music, thundering the room into silence. "Kyle!" People begin to push aside, creating a pathway to connect Kyle to the distressed cry. There stands Kip, hunched over similarly to the first day the met, his hands on his knees, his mouth open and slacked eyes scrunched so tightly shut that Kyle wonders if he's gonna faint. But then he's standing with his full strength again just as quickly, the adrenaline pulses past his eyes and Kyle staggers towards him, afraid and confused.

"Kyle, you have to come quickly. Kenny's been hit by a car!"