Chapter Eight - Two Years Before.

A flicker of red, hot light was all that illuminated Stan's room. One moment, the darkness would completely envelope him where he sat in a ball on the floor against his bed. But then, with the simple flick of his finger, the fire would spark back up from the cigarette lighter once more.

Stan's mind was clouded with a thousand different painful thoughts. By this point, any other normal person would have totally lost touch with just about all action and time. But not Stan. He knew exactly how long this had been going on. It had been sixteen days now. Sixteen days, three hours, and thirteen minutes since Wendy had broken up with him and left South Park.

The very thought of it all made Stan's heart absolutely ache. All he had done for the past fortnight was ask himself why. Why? Why, why, why? Why had Wendy done this to him all over again? Stan knew deep down that he had never been perfect either, but Wendy was nowhere near as transparent as he was. Stan didn't have the first clue what was going on. She hadn't given him a single explanation. Not a real one, anyway. If her parents undeniably had to move to Malibu, then fine, so be it. But why wasn't Wendy willing to try a long distance relationship? Why wasn't she willing to even keep in touch with him? They were no longer friends online, and now on top of that she had changed her phone number, too.

It had been a while now since Stan had seen any of his friends, either. He hadn't been to school for about a week, hadn't spoken to any of the other guys, and he couldn't remember the last time he had seen even Kyle. All he could recall was what it was that best friend had said to him – that he was better off now than what he ever was with Wendy, that eventually he would learn to forget about her. Bullshit, he had thought. He would never forget about her. And if he was better off at all, it was being shut in his room away from everything and everyone.

Unfortunately, his family were included in that, as well. It felt like they were suffocating him, like all of their weight and pressure was being slammed down hard onto his chest. Randy was constantly trying to get Stan to do things with him, Sharon was asking him every two minutes how he was feeling, and Shelley just kept telling him to get over it. The more they tried to force him, the less fun he became to be around. That was why Stan was now permanently sheltered in his bedroom and why his family had gone to dinner without him.

But absolute worst of all, Stan didn't even know how best to deal with it all.

There was only one way he knew how.

Directing all of his thoughts down towards the lighter he was still holding in his hand, Stan was emotionless. His vision glazed over the blistering, red burns that sat on the skin of his left arm. He could barely feel the pain that it caused him. The pain he felt on the inside was a million times worse. Flicking the silver, circular switch once more, the fifteen year old boy watched, waiting as the naked flame heated the top of the lighter.

Stan was in control. He was in complete control. With the mere flick of his finger, he could solely determine how long the flame stayed alight, how hot he caused the top of the lighter to become, and how long he would ultimately press the searing, hot metal against his skin. This was his pain to control. He couldn't get hurt by anyone else this way – not his friends, not his family, not Wendy. Not anybody.

Just as Stan could sense the small flame becoming too hot to remain lit, he suddenly blinked and jumped slightly in surprise at a soft knock he heard rattle at his bedroom door.

"Stan?"

Stan's expression lingered on blankly despite his shock to hear Kyle's voice on the other side of his door. Quickly, he released the toggle of the lighter and then tipped it up on his head, pressing the solid metal head of it into his arm.

He winced from the instant burning sensation that exploded through the sensitive hairs of his skin, but also soon found himself flinching as his bedroom door unexpectedly clicked open and he heard Kyle taking a step into the darkened room.

"Stan?"

The dark haired teenager wasn't sure how, but nonetheless his best friend's eyes had apparently adjusted to the darkness as Kyle blew out an almighty gasp. This was swiftly followed by a thud as the Jewish boy dropped something onto his friend's carpet before yelling at him as loud as he possibly could, "Stan!"

The sickly image of the lighter pushed firm against Stan's arm was still visible when Kyle immediately turned on the light. He whipped his neck back around to gaze angrily down at Stan as he tried to hold down the urge to puke in anxious shock, "What the fuck, man?!"

Finally taking the scorching instrument away from his skin, Stan viciously pulled his sleeve back down over his bare arm and grimaced up at Kyle from where he sat on the floor, "Fuck off, Kyle, just leave me alone."

Kyle's sense of being absolutely beside himself was instantaneous. He had just come over to deliver a mountain of homework to his absentee friend – this was the utter last thing that he ever expected to discover.

How could he have been so stupid? Kyle knew how badly Stan had taken it the first time Wendy broke up with him. Hell, he knew how much stress Stan had caused upon himself when he had ridiculously tossed Wendy aside for a few short days in the same year. How could he have not assumed that something horrible like this might have happened?

Kyle didn't know whether to scream or burst into tears. And he certainly didn't have the first clue about what he'd end up doing as he leapt over the pile of spilled text books and lunged towards his best friend, "What is wrong with you man? What the fuck are you doing to yourself?!"

Stan pulled back, dodging Kyle's grasp as he shot up to his feet, "Dude, I'm being serious. I'm not going to tell you again," his voice was menacing as he glared daggers at the red headed boy opposite him, "Get the fuck out of my room."

Kyle's breath was heavy in his chest. Even before he had arrived at Stan's house that evening, he felt like he had been carrying around the weight of the whole world. He knew that his friend was miserable, but he didn't think that there was anything he could have done. But now this? This was what Stan had been reduced to – collapsed in a depressed heap on his bedroom floor clutching desperately onto a blazing red cigarette lighter?

This final thought caused Kyle's eyes to narrow sharply at the slim, red tool in Stan's hand, "So, this is what you've been up to the past week?" he spat, "Sitting here all by yourself, skipping school, ignoring all your friends and feeling sorry for yourself? Hurting yourself?"

An eerie silence swept the room as Stan refused to open his mouth. As arrogant as he may have felt, it only made Kyle angrier.

"Give me that fucking thing," he demanded, sticking his hand out to snatch the lighter away from Stan.

The dark haired teen heaved a painful breath as he shut his eyes with a frown, "Kyle, you can't help me, okay? You can't help me and you can't stop me, so just get the hell out of here!"

"You dumbass," Kyle viciously sniped. A wave of fury hastily rushed over him, "Just watch me stop you!"

Before Stan even had the chance to react or retort, his eyes suddenly widened as Kyle made a beeline for him, grabbing his friend by the wrist as he tried to rake the lighter from his grasp.

"Kyle!" Stan growled at him, trying to fight back as he pulled his arm in towards himself.

Kyle instantly took hold of the opportunity as he twisted Stan's arm, bending it at his elbow and swinging it around his own back, as if he were arresting him. The red head used his free hand to try and grab the cigarette lighter, but Stan was quickly able to wriggle free.

The infuriating anger simmering between the two friends was rapidly beginning to bubble way over the top. Kyle was blinded by the rage that he felt to see Stan hurting himself, and Stan couldn't see past why Kyle wouldn't just understand and leave him alone.

As the darker haired boy manage to break away from his childhood friend, he spun around in an attempt to stop him, only to have Kyle instantly running at him all over again. On pure instinct alone, Stan took a step to the side and lifted up his knee, collecting Kyle in the stomach with it as he doubled over and tried to keep his balance.

There was no quit in the young Jewish boy, though, and the determination that filled his eyes as he continued to turn back only started to make Stan even more frustrated.

"What the fuck is your problem?!" Stan hissed, propelling his arm forward to prevent Kyle from diving at him again.

Fiercely shaking his head, Kyle clutched onto Stan one more time, pushing his sleeve up his arm to reveal the burns sitting on his skin, "You're the one with a problem! Look what you're doing to yourself, dude!"

Suddenly finding himself at a loss for words, Stan's heavy breathing started to pour out ferociously between his gritted teeth. Without stopping to think about his actions for even a mere millisecond, he ripped his arm away from Kyle and pulled it back into a fist, swinging sharply towards his best friend.

Kyle's eyes were wide with shock, but he didn't let it falter him. Swiftly ducking out of the way, he bolted back upright with a punch of his own – one which was aimed in a much less aggressive fashion as he clipped Stan just under his left ear. The blow was enough to make the dejected fifteen year old stumble, as he finally dropped the lighter and Kyle was able to claw it up from the carpet between his fingers.

As Stan dramatically clutched onto the side of his face yelling out all kinds of profanities, Kyle weaved his way around him, regaining his friend's attention. By this point, the angry tears that Kyle had been considering before were even closer to pricking the corners of his eyes. His nose crinkled in livid disbelief at all that had just occurred between he and his best friend over the past fifteen seconds. The confusion he felt building within him was overwhelming. He didn't know what to say. The only thing that his thoughts would dedicate themselves to was his actions, no matter how stupid they were. And unfortunately for both of the boys, Kyle was about to do something way more stupid than just hitting Stan in the face.

"Oh, you're telling me that hurt? That, after what you've been doing to yourself?" he asked with cruel sarcasm, "Honestly, Stan, why stop there? Why not just go all the way?"

Watching on with slim hatred on the brink of his vision, Stan's expression suddenly turned from disgust to distress as Kyle sparked the lighter back up and brushed the naked flame directly against his arm. The dark haired boy gasped as he ran across the room to his friend and smacked Kyle's arm, knocking the lighter back to the floor.

"Kyle!" he choked out in agony.

Kyle remained firm-faced while proving his supposed point to his friend, but the second that Stan dragged him back to reality, a small yelp echoed from between his lips as he sensed the unimaginable heat coursing up his arm. It continued to throb, shocked from the abrupt pain that now reflected in a burning, red mark that glowed on the underside of Kyle's arm.

The two boys were silent, the only sound filling the small bedroom being the fast, deep breaths that they were both desperately expelling from their lungs.

Slowly shaking his head as the realisation of what he had just seen began to dawn on him, Stan wiped his forearm against his brow before shoving Kyle back by the shoulders, "Don't fucking scare me like that, dude!"

Kyle pushed him back just as hard, "How the fuck do you think I feel?!"

The surprise of his friend's instant response caused Stan to fall back and land straight onto his bed. He sank down into his mattress as a grunt heaved out from his chest. There was still a painful sting pulsating up his left arm that jumped along each of the burns he had inflicted upon himself. But still, it all seemed to be the last of the fifteen year old's worries as he gazed up from his spot on the bed to find Kyle still frowning at him with hurt confusion.

The impulsive anger that Kyle had felt was slowly beginning to subside. The position he found himself in, towering above his best friend and finally holding all control over the situation, certainly helped him calm his nerves. On a less fortunate note, however, it wasn't able to help the Jewish teenager think of what he was possibly supposed to say next.

Clearing his throat, Kyle finally blew out a shaky breath into the silence of the room, "How long has this been going on?"

Stan groaned, his expression unmoved, "Dude, I'm not gonna' tell you anyth- "

"No, God damn it, Stan!" Kyle suddenly screeched, cutting off his friend. He sure was starting to get pretty damn sick of Stan's nasty, arrogant attitude. He defiantly pointed to the lighter sitting on the ground and held out his other arm, showing off his own burn mark, "After all this shit that just happened, I'm not going anywhere until you start to give me some answers!"

Stan felt his mouth go dry at the sight of the florescent scald on his Kyle's forearm. Kyle may have pissed him off to absolute no ends tonight, but despite all that, Stan's heart had still gone cold to see his best friend since preschool do something like that to himself. He could only imagine how he must have made Kyle felt.

Swallowing a sudden guilty lump that had formed in his throat, Stan sighed, "Since… since I stopped coming to school. That's when it started."

Sort of surprised by his willing admittance, Kyle fell quiet for a minute, staring at Stan as he mulled over what else to say, "Well… I mean, don't you think there's something… anything, any other way to make yourself feel better?"

Immediately, Stan scoffed, "How?" he asked with a cynical laugh, "How? What else can I do? What am I supposed to do when the best thing I had in my life isn't here anymore?"

The sobs that were dangerously on the verge of spewing from between his friend's lips made Kyle bite his tongue. His brow furrowed in severe uncertainty. It was clear he needed to perhaps dance around these topics with Stan a bit more sensitively. But how was he possibly supposed to know what the right thing to say was?

"You need to talk to somebody, dude," he gently urged.

Stan's response couldn't come fast enough, "No way."

"But, Stan – "

"No! No, I won't do it," he pushed, "I'm messed up enough without actually having to sit down in front of some stranger and admit it."

"Okay, well then talk to me," Kyle suggested. His expression had softened with immense sympathy compared to how it was five minutes ago. He sighed as he walked over towards Stan's bed and nervously sat down beside him.

There was a massive gap between the two boys on the bed. They had honestly been the absolute closest friends that anybody could ever imagine from the time that were just four years old. But now the physical space that existed between them on the bed was eerily similar to the bewildering lack of an emotional connection Kyle suddenly felt to his best friend.

"Talk to me, Stan," he repeated, continuing to lightly press the issue.

For the longest time, Stan's face remained firm. This was the first instant in which anybody had discovered what he had been doing to himself. But that didn't mean that he needed help now, from Kyle or from anybody. He had been dealing with all of this all by himself up until this point – why did that have to change now?

And yet somehow, the more Kyle's imploring eyes burned right through his conscious, the more Stan felt himself crack at the thought of talking to him about everything.

The dark haired boy tentatively licked his lips, a final wave of hesitation washing over him. Eventually, his stubborn appearance faded, "Some days… Some days are okay, ya' know?"

Kyle stayed deathly silent, nodding his head and allowing Stan to carefully consider his thoughts.

"Like, I'll wake up and feel like maybe everything will be okay," Stan paused, "And then other days I just wake up and feel like absolute shit."

At this point, Stan was feeling incredibly conflicted. He could concede that there was some relief in finally getting all these heavy thoughts off his chest, but at the same time, it was sort of scary to actually be verbalising it all and admitting it was all true.

"And, like, it actually feels pretty pathetic. To feel like maybe I should just quit and give up, and then to be doing nothing else but sitting by my phone all day thinking she might actually call me… I dunno'…"

The feeling of helplessness was beginning to seep back through Kyle's bones as he cleared his throat, "Did she really not tell you anything else when she… ya' know, when she left?"

Stan shrugged his shoulders, "Not much else other than what I've already told you," he droned. God, it pained him to think about Wendy, "She explained why she had to go, but not why she felt that meant we couldn't even talk to each other anymore."

The extreme sorrow in Stan's voice was all too obvious to Kyle as they continued to talk, "What is it gonna' take for me to convince you that there's more painful things out there, dude?"

For a short moment, Stan stayed quiet, until all of a sudden, Kyle froze. He narrowed his eyes at the appearance of a long-awaited, tiny, half-smirk in the very corner of Stan's lips.

"You could punch me a little harder next time," Stan suggested with as much light-hearted sarcasm as he could muster.

Rolling his eyes, Kyle held back a laugh. It certainly was nice to hear that Stan's sense of humour still simmered somewhere inside him, but the seriousness of this particular conversation desperately needed to be maintained.

"I'm serious, man."

It almost amazed Kyle to see just how much he had been able to convince his best friend to talk about and get off his chest. But he knew that this truly was only the tip of the iceberg. Stan obviously still had much more progress to make before he could ever hope to feel even a little bit better again. And something else Kyle realised was that he couldn't continue to help Stan all his own.

The Jewish boy gulped, his voice nervously shaking as he opened his lips to speak, "Look, Stan… I'm sorry it took me so long to realise that I should've been here for you sooner, but…" he was nearly shivering in anxiousness, "But, I need to tell your mum what's happened, dude."

Stan scoffed in angry disbelief, "Kyle! – "

"No, Stan, I have to!" Kyle spat back, the volume between the two immediately creeping up again, "Look, you know I'm gonna' be here for you, man, but I can't do this all by myself! You need to talk to someone who's actually going to know how to help you."

With all the fiery, furious blood rushing back through him all over again, Stan shot up from his bed and heatedly began pacing back and forth across his room, "I never should have fucking told you anything."

"And you know what? That's fine," Kyle admitted, jumping off the bed, too, "Be angry with me, Stan. Be as angry as you like, as long as you're feeling something else other than sadness that's gonna' let you hold on."

The overwhelmingly intense rollercoaster that Kyle had been stuck on ever since entering Stan's room finally came to a crashing halt as a pool of salty, hot tears formed in both of his eyes. The thought of everything he had seen and experienced in the short amount of time came toppling down on him like a tonne of bricks as he fearfully imagined what might have happened if he had never brought around Stan's homework to him that evening.

"I need you to hold on and realise that this," he emphasised, grabbing on to his friend's arm once more and gesturing to his burns, "this is not how you're going to live your life until it's over."

By now, Stan had fallen completely blank. He was empty of all powerful emotion as all he could do was keep his eyes locked with Kyle's, surprised to see just how upset his best friend suddenly was. Watching the tears now freely falling from his face made Stan's stomach twist all up in tight knots. He couldn't remember the last time he had seen Kyle cry – not since they were little kids, at least. And whenever the Jewish boy had gotten this emotional, it was always for a pretty damn serious reason, like when his brother Ike's biological parents had tried to keep him back with them in Canada. Had what Stan done really affected Kyle this much?

A final sombre thought flew through Kyle's mind as he choked on a small sob, "I'm not gonna' let my best friend die on me."

The very moment that this sentiment left Kyle's mouth, Stan felt his heart stop. He was totally solidified in his place, not even paying attention to the fact that Kyle still had a grip around his wrist. He was instantly stricken with the harshest guilt. Why would that thought have even crossed Kyle's mind?

Wanting to open his mouth to speak, Stan felt his throat become completely dry again.

What had he done?

"Kyle, I was never trying to…" Stan soon trailed off. He gently pulled his arm out of Kyle's grasp as he tried to wrap his tongue around the right thing to say. But what was there to say that could possibly explain himself? To guarantee his best friend that he never even thought of hurting himself to the point of no return?

Stan shuddered. Quickly realising that he couldn't possibly bring himself to even say the exact words that his friend had been thinking of, he simply stared Kyle firmly in the eye, "I'm not going to die."

Sniffling to himself, Kyle allowed the statement to settle between them and sink decisively into the back of his mind before he slowly nodded his head, "Then will you talk to somebody?"

The distraught expression that still dominated Kyle's face was all that Stan needed to see as he, albeit reluctantly, nodded his head in agreement, "Okay," he murmured.

In a split second, a ridiculous mass of realisation weighed down on Stan as his actions and their consequences decided to make themselves clear to him. So clear, in fact, that in all unwillingness he sensed his own eyes begin to fill with tears.

"I'm sorry, dude."

The words mumbled from his mouth as Stan tried to hold in his bubbling emotion. The sadness he felt was such an intense combination of a million different things. It may not have been the first time that fortnight where he had cried over Wendy, but now the thoughts of how he had been treating his family and the rest of his friends and what he had put Kyle through was beginning to affect him just as brutally.

At long last a loud sob escaped Stan as his angry exterior crumbled all around him. Through an ocean of tears he tried to muster another sincere apology, before Kyle simply grabbed him by the jacket and pulled him in towards him, collecting his best friend in a tight hug. The moment that he felt his head comfortably land on Kyle's shoulder, Stan hugged him back, finally expelling all of the devastating sadness he had built up over the past two weeks.

As much as he couldn't believe he was admitting it, Stan couldn't wait to share one of these hugs with Sharon when she arrived back home, too. He thought about how he had treated his mum and all he had said to her since Wendy left him. He thought about the impending comfort he was finally willing to open his arms back up to – from his family and all the rest of his friends, as well. It was definitely the first of many, many steps in the right direction. And it was all thanks to Kyle.

But Stan knew he had one hell of a long, long way to go until he could be a happy person again.

Because he was never going to forget about how much he still loved Wendy Testaburger.

"...I just want to be okay."

Okay, first off, let me apologise for all the italics! I hope they weren't annoying! When I planned this flashback, I had no idea it would end up being the length of an entire chapter, but since all my previous flashbacks had been written this way, I really didn't want to change it. But I'm sure you all won't mind because of how awesome and cute and sweet it was, right? ;)

So now you all finally know what happened after Kyle walked into Stan's room that night! It may not have been pretty, but maybe it was necessary? What do you all think? Please leave a review and let me know, I would love to hear what you're all thinking of this story so far and what you think might happen next! There are still plenty of gaps from the last two years that need to be filled in ;)

Till next time guys,

Reneyyyyyyyyyyy x.