Author's Notes: This is my first attempt at writing slash, so be nice to be. Yes, this WILL be slash. It just doesn't seem like it at the beginning. Also, Mandi Smith belongs to me, and Kyren Andrews belongs to Kenny's Goddess. Enjoy.
Eric Cartman was falling asleep in his Sociology 101 class. A small pile of drool had formed on top of his notebook. He shook his head, trying to stay awake. This was only his second week in college. He actually had straight A's for once, and he was hoping to keep it that way. But the class was just so goddamn boring! Ok…maybe it wasn't the class. He hadn't exactly been sleeping well lately, thanks to his girlfriend, Wendy, being at Berkeley. Yes, Eric Cartman actually had a girlfriend. And not only a girlfriend, but Wendy Testaburger. She was the one he had lusted after ever since third grade. He had lusted after her through her relationship with Token, which finally died in the seventh grade, and through his own failed relationships with Bebe and Heidi. In his heart, he always knew that she was the one for him. He knew it from the moment she first kissed him at debate club in third grade. But he knew that it would take time for her to figure that out, and so he gave it to her. And when they finally got together, it was Wendy who made that first move. He smiled as he remembered the way she had looked that day back in their senior year when she asked him to prom.
When he'd woken up that fateful day in March, he knew it was going to have some significance in his life. Something about that day would be special. It would be a day that he remembered for the rest of his life. His suspicions had been confirmed when he saw her. Her being Wendy Testaburger. His love, his goddess. Of course, she had yet to figure it out, but he was giving her time. He'd been giving her time since third grade. But if his food addiction therapy and eventual weight loss classes had taught him anything two years before, it was that patience was a great virtue. Sure, you could stop eating the ice cream, but that didn't mean that the weight would come off just like that. It took time. And if Eric could lose a hundred pounds, he could certainly wait for Wendy Testaburger to ask him out. Just as he had suspected, that day would be special. Wendy walking towards him, looking nervous told him this.
She approached his locker, tucking and untucking her hair behind her ear. Never before in her life had she been this nervous. Then again, never before in her life had she asked Eric Cartman out. Ah, Eric Cartman. Just his name made her face turn into a tomato, and her palms into waterfalls. Ever since she and Token had parted ways in seventh grade, she pretty much avoided relationships. Serious ones, anyway. She still occasionally, but it was never anything serious. She told her dates that she needed to focus on school when the time came to become an "exclusive couple", but really she was just scared. Scared of losing herself in someone again, and getting hurt like she'd been with Token. But Eric was different. She'd noticed the way that he'd been noticing her in past years, looking at her and no one else with a sort of devotion reserved solely for her. Even through two girlfriends, he'd still looked at her that way. Of course, he was always silent in his devotion, never saying anything about it, never acknowledging it in any way. Eric had been content in being her friend. He'd been content just talking to her about anything. He would listen to her ramble on about anything, although she'd caught him stifling a yawn a few times. Because of all this, Wendy realized that she had actual feelings for Cartman. Feelings that were like friendship, but they ran much deeper than that. And this time, Wendy wasn't afraid to fall.
"Hi, Eric." she said when she finally reached his locker. His head was inside, so she only got a muffled reply. She stood and waited until he finally pulled something out of his locker that he had apparently been searching for, holding it over his head like a trophy. Wendy just laughed. Cartman rolled his eyes at her.
"Hi Wendy. What brings you here so early?" he replied. That was when he noticed that she was tucking and untucking her hair, something she only did when she was nervous about something. And when was Wendy ever nervous?
Wendy sighed and prepared herself for what she was about to do. Even she couldn't believe that she was going to ask her elementary school tormentor out. Not that he hadn't changed, of course. The hippie comments had ceased around sixth grade, and his bastardly demeanor had left a few months later. Slowly, Wendy and Eric had built a sort of tolerance for each other. Once she and Token had broken up, it was Eric who had tried to cheer her up. Eric who brought her his mom's homemade quadruple fudge peanut butter cookies. And Eric who had sat around, bashing the male gender with her. Those few weeks of cheering her up had solidified their friendship, and they'd been close ever since. Their friends assumed that it was sort of a given that they'd eventually hook up, but they never acknowledged it. At least in front of them. Privately, they'd had conversations about how their children would look. And when Eric had gone to food addiction therapy in ninth grade, Wendy had been the first one to visit him. She'd even partook in his diet with him for awhile. Yes, what they had was definitely something. She figured that they owed it to themselves to at least give it a try.
"Wendy? Anyone home?" Eric asked, waving his hand in front of her face. Something was really up. Wendy never zoned out like that.
"Oh, sorry." she replied, snapping out of it. Mentally, she smacked herself across the face a few times, just to get herself together. She pulled on shirt and tugged at her skirt, attempting to bring herself back into the real world. He placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder, causing a sort of electricity between the two.
"Everything ok?" he asked, a bit stunned by the sparks he had just felt. He'd touched her in a friendly way plenty of times before, and never before had he felt that.
"Yeah…I'm fine." she replied, glancing at her watch. If she wanted to get the prom question over with, she really had to do it quick. The warning bell would be ringing in four minutes.
"Eric, I need to ask you something. And you can say no if you want, or you can say yes. It's your decision." she rambled, knowing how vague she was sounding. Eric merely nodded, as if he understood how difficult of a time she was having.
"Go on." he coaxed.
"As you know, prom is in about a month and a half. And…I want you to be my date. And not just as friends, either." she said, avoiding eye contact.
"Alright. That sounds good." he replied, smiling slightly. Now he knew why she'd been so nervous. He knew how Wendy was about relationships. Wendy looked at him, as if she hadn't understood his reply. Rather than subject her to a long spiel about his feelings for her, he simply took her hand a squeezed it. And that simply gesture was it for them. They became virtually inseparable after that, always doing homework or something together, basically planning their lives around each other. When she'd gotten her acceptance letter to Berkeley, he'd been genuinely happy for her. Deep down, he'd known that it would make their relationship more complicated, since he'd be in Fort Springs, but he also knew that complications made life more interesting. He wasn't worried. And once he'd reassured her that he only had eyes for her, and that his mom had racked up plenty of frequent flyer miles with her new job, she wasn't worried either.
He was so immersed in his daydreaming that he didn't realize that the class had been empty for virtually ten minutes. It was only when Mandi Smith smacked him that he snapped back into the real world. Mandi had gone to South Park High School with him. She'd had plans to attend Indiana University that year, but they'd fallen through when she'd abruptly changed her life plans after working with abused kids in Denver for a class project. Now she wanted to be a child psychologist. This was bad news for her boyfriend, Kyren, who was at Indiana University, solely because he wanted to be with her. According to Mandi, he had plans to transfer to Fort Collins the next semester, and until they, they had the phone and Mandi's dad, who still lived in Indiana, and was willing to fly Mandi out whenever she wanted.
"Wow, Cartman. I can tell that you're really interested in psychology." Mandi said with a smirk as he gathered his stuff and stood up.
"Shut up." he replied, starting for the door.
"So I'm assuming that you'll be at my door tonight, begging for lecture notes. Why don't I just save you the trouble and hand them over now?" Mandi said, grinning. Eric pretended to be annoyed, but in reality, he was relieved. It was a good thing that she took detailed notes. He took the binder from her and walked off, nodding a thanks in her direction. It wasn't that he wasn't grateful…it's just that according to his calculations and memorization skills, Wendy would be in her dorm, and she didn't have class for another hour. He wanted to head back to his dorm and call her, or better yet, do a live video chat with her via the Internet. He hadn't actually seen her in almost three weeks, and although she was planning a trip to Colorado during the upcoming weekend, he still wanted to see her. Seeing her via a webcam wasn't the same, but it was better than nothing.
He walked as fast as he could on his way to his dorm, not bothering to notice all the people he bumped into. Most replied to his hurried passing with choice words, some with particular finger gestures, and a few with quiet mumblings to themselves. He didn't actually see the familiar redhead until they were both on the ground, their things scattered everywhere. Cartman muttered his apologies, and nearly fell flat on his ass again when he looked into those familiar blue eyes. He had seen them before, he knew it. But not for awhile. Perhaps not for years. The eyes pierced something inside him. Before, that had been only something that Wendy's could do.
Before he could make his discomfort obvious, he gathered his things and quickly ran off towards his dorm once again. He told himself that the eyes only did that to him because they were so like Wendy's. As he stepped into his dorm and walked towards his computer, he conveniently forgot that Wendy's eyes weren't blue. They were brown.
Author's Notes: Alright, that was chapter one. Yes, I'm aware that it's nowhere near slash right now, though it will be in a few chapters. I'd like to thank Brown Sugar1 for her help and contributions to this chapter. Ladah, this story is definitely dedicated to you. And…that's basically it. Chapter two, for those of you who care, SHOULD be up sometime within the next week. Also remember that comments would be greatly appreciated.