Kyle woke up face-down, so it took him a few moments to realize that he was not in his bed, or even anywhere near his house. He looked around and tried to ascertain exactly where he'd ended up, and gradually his night returned to him in a sepia-toned wash of memory: Worked on posters, walked Craig home, sucked Craig's dick, now in Craig's bed. Yeah, that was about right. Kyle looked around at the unadorned walls and failed to see Craig anywhere, although his trademark hat was sitting on a desk. For a moment there was an active fear that maybe, just maybe, he and Craig had gone farther than he'd wanted to go with anyone, but he hadn't been drunk. Could he be blocking it out? No, his ass felt rather unremarkable, and he was still fully clothed from last night, except that his jacket was on the floor.
While Kyle was still contemplating what had happened — and, even scarier, what could possibly happen now — the door swung open, and his lover (that term felt simultaneously wrong and right, like a deep-fried Snickers bar) entered, wearing his school clothes and vigorously drying his hair with a towel.
"I didn't rape you," Craig said earnestly, shutting the door with his foot.
"I know."
Craig sat down on the bed next to Kyle. "Please say it's all right." He threw the towel across the room and it landed on top of a bookcase uniformly filled with books, each shelf meticulously arranged by volumes of a single size.
"Does this mean we're going out?" Kyle asked.
"Well, I don't know. Do you go out with everyone you hook up with?"
"No, no," Kyle said. "I guess that makes me a whore."
Craig actually laughed at this, and reached over to grab his hat off the desk so he could replace it on his head. "If I dated everyone I did I'd be an awfully busy boy. I think the question is, would you like to be my boyfriend? Because that would make me really happy." Craig smiled hopefully. "Please?"
Kyle thought about this for a moment. He'd never had a boyfriend before. He had been saving himself for someone, really, and he had always assumed that when this didn't pan out he would just serial date in college. But Craig seemed to care about him so much, it was relatively heartbreaking. He wondered what Stan would say to his creeping out with Craig and hooking up in public, or the approximation of public that was South Park at midnight on a Tuesday evening. Would he be disgusted? He probably wouldn't care. Craig was holding his hand again, caressing it lovingly, and giving Kyle the most immensely pathetic puppy-dog eyes in the world.
"Please?" he asked again.
"Oh." Kyle wiped some morning gunk out of his left eye with the hand that Craig wasn't currently making hand-love to. They were good friends. Craig was cute. He had that jet-black hair, which was a lot like Stan's. He'd given a really good hand job. How bad could it be? Maybe this was the thing he needed. "Sure, okay." Kyle smiled. "Let's do it."
Instead of replying with words, Craig kissed him passionately, his clean shirt brushing against Kyle's filthy one.
XXX
They ran back to the Broflovski house through the backyards, gleefully waving at families sitting down to breakfast if they could glimpse them through the back doors and windows. When they crept into Kyle's, they immediately knew they were caught.
"Busted!" Ike cried, pointing his cereal spoon at the intruders. "Mom is going to be soooo pissed at you."
"Shut the fuck up, Ike!"
"Hi," Craig said jovially, waving at Ike. "Kyle's totally my boyfriend now."
"Dude!"
"I'm trying it out." Craig rolled his eyes.
"Well, don't tell my brother!"
"I've waited so long to say it," Craig sighed, making kissy-lips.
"You guys were doing it," Ike theorized.
"Well, no," Kyle corrected.
"What are you going to give me?"
"I'm not giving you anything."
"You have to owe me something or I will tell Mom." Ike wiggled in his seat. "You have to promise to let me watch all the hockey games next season on the big screen."
"Dude, no!"
"Hockey?" Craig asked, not believing this.
"And you need to take me out for pizza."
"Make Mom and Dad take you for pizza!"
"I want to go with you," Ike pouted. "And anyway, you'd better say yes if you don't want me to tell Mom that I saw you and Craig sneaking in after you totally both did it."
"Ugh, fuck it, fine," Kyle grunted. "Get your fucking stuff, then. We gotta go." He turned to Craig. "We need to drop him off."
"That's cool," Craig agreed. "More time in the car with you."
XXX
Kyle noticed that most students walking through the school around noon were carrying these bright-white flyers around with them on the walk to the cafeteria where Stan accosted him in the lunch line. "Craig?" he cried, shaking his friend by his shoulders. "Craig? Motherfucking Craig!?"
Kyle rolled his eyes. "Oh, now you care about me, but yesterday when I was miserable in the library all I got was 'grow up' and 'get over it' and 'just ignore Cartman.' "
"Two distinct issues!" Stan protested.
"How the hell do you know?"
"Dude, it's sick, you smell like Craig!"
"What does Craig smell like?"
"Shouldn't you know? You're the one sticking your face in his crotch!"
Kyle blushed, actually embarrassed by this. "Who told you?" he asked in his highest voice that wasn't a falsetto.
"Oh, please, everyone!"
"I don't really have time for this, dude. First you don't give a shit about me, now I can't date Craig. Make up your mind, Stanley!"
"It's sick!"
"And here I thought you were all tolerant and shit."
"I don't care whose crotch you cozy up to!" Stan felt weird having said this, because it wasn't true. He lowered his voice. "Just please, not Craig's."
Kyle gritted his teeth, and poked Stan in the sternum harshly. "For your information, you miserable breeder asswipe, I'll be with whomever I please! And if you want to have a say in it, you can't just treat me like crap all the time!"
"Dude." Stan's eyebrows shot up, but he was frowning at this. "That hurts."
"Then stop hurting me!"
At this Stan just scoffed. "Look, dude, you know I love you. You're my best friend. But you can't walk around acting like a damn victim all the time, and then get pissed when I say anything to you, well, you're just making it really hard. Okay?"
Kyle thought that this was entirely absurd, because Stan was the one making it hard for him, and he had been forever, but apparently he either had no idea or refused to acknowledge it. "You think I don't love you?" Kyle asked, his voice low. "I love you so much, and I just…" He heaved a sigh, and then raged again. "I just want to be with Craig, okay! And if you hadn't treated me like crap I wouldn't have done anything with Craig! You don't get pissed when I hook up with other people, what the hell do you care about Craig so damn much for?"
"Ladies, please," said a senior boy in front of them. "Some of us don't want to hear your homo drama!"
"He's not gay!" Kyle snapped. Stan just blushed.
"Then stop having the gayest fight ever, you little fairy!"
Kyle gave Stan a pleading look, and Stan was ready to totally deck their antagonist. The older boy looked down on Stan questioningly, as if asking him to bring it, but for a moment Stan paused, fist poised near his shoulder. He wasn't sure he should bother standing up for Kyle if Kyle was just going to be a douchebag all the damn time. In that long moment, however, the senior turned away, and Stan dropped his appendage, no longer required to do anything at all.
"Face facts, Stanley," Kyle sniffed, slamming his tray down on the lunch counter. "You don't care about me or my happiness."
"Do you know how much you're hurting me when you say that?" Stan asked. "I mean, I'm just so fucking sick of trying to get through to you!"
Kyle rolled his eyes at this.
"Oh look," the world's most annoying voice sneered from behind. "The lovers are fighting!"
"God dammit Cartman!" Kyle cried, stomping his foot down for effect. "We are not lovers!"
"And we never have been," Stan said calmly.
"And we never will be!"
"I don't know, fellas," Butters cooed. He was clinging to Cartman's arm, holding an empty tray for both of them in the hand that wasn't hanging onto Cartman. "You certainly fight like lovers."
"What the hell would you know about lovers, Butters?" Stan asked, rolling his eyes.
"Eric is my lover," he replied, pulling Cartman's arm harder with each syllable.
"Cut it out, Butters." Cartman said this in a bored tone.
"You guys couldn't possibly," Kyle scoffed.
"Please, Kyle." Cartman shook Butters off of his arm. "You have no idea what I'm capable of." He grinned at this, flashing a dangerous row of teeth.
"I refuse to believe that you two have had sex!"
"Oh? Is that like how you refuse to believe that hooking up with Craig isn't going to solve any of your problems?"
"How the hell does everyone know about that?"
"Craig was talking about it."
Butters nodded in agreement. "Yeah, he told me, too."
Kyle shot daggers at Stan. "Well, don't look at me," he drawled. "I don't talk to that guy. I heard it from Clyde."
"All right, fine!" Kyle stomped both feet this time, making a kind of rhythmic clomp-clomp-clomp noise. "I really can't believe you would stoop to letting him fuck you, Butters, let alone kiss you. He's not even gay!"
"I assure you, I am 100 percent ass-rammer."
Butters just shuffled his feet, looked down, and clutched the lunch trays in front of his crotch as if he were hiding something.
"What? Oh, God, Butters, please tell me you haven't."
"I'm not saying anything," Butters sing-songed.
"You're not gay," Kyle seethed, reaching out to grab Cartman by his anemic little scarf. "Back the fuck away from Frank Granger, and leave poor Butters alone! I'll pay you!"
"It's always about money for the Hebrew people." Cartman directed this comment to Butters, who just shrugged, not really feeling comfortable with being the receptor for not-so-subtle racism in the lunch line.
"Fine! What do you want? Do you want me? Do you want to hurt me? Do you want to fuck me?" Kyle felt tears welling in his eyes.
"I'm not sure I really want to be up in Craig's biznatch, so no. Plus you're not really my type."
"I'm your type." Butters nodded.
"Be quiet, Butters."
"Kyle, dude." Stan put his hand on one of Kyle's shoulders. "Please, just let it go."
"He's horrible!" Kyle threw himself into Stan's unwitting embrace.
"What did I tell you, Butters?" Cartman crossed his arms. "Don't let Kyle phase you. He's just fucking unstable. Sadly, there's nothing we can do about this tragedy. Sometimes I just want to tell all the Jewish people, 'Ay! Jews! This is what happens when your religions promotes inbreeding!' And obviously Kyle here is a wonderful example of that."
Kyle let go of Stan and whipped around, but before he could let lose any attempts at damage, Stan's arms were around him.
"Aw, dude," Stan moaned. "I am not letting you get yourself clobbered again."
"Let go of me, Stanley!"
"Yes, let go of him." Cartman wiggled his two index fingers in a 'come hither' motion. "We all know I can take him."
"I don't think you want to be fighting around Butters."
"I'm—"
"Shut up, Butters!" Cartman cried. "This is between me and the Jew."
"Mr. Cartman!" Suddenly a voice rang out from a few feet away, and all four boys — plus several of their lunch room voyeurs — turned to see the school principal standing in the small doorway to the lunch counter. "Call off your dogs!"
"Why, sir, I was just talking to my friends here."
"Oh, can it, fatty, I know all about you."
"I'm seriously," he said plainly. "I would never hurt my friend Kyle." Then, under his breath: "Unless provoked."
"Enough! Marsh, Cartman, Broflovski! My office! Now."
XXX
The four of them trudged, single-file, to the main office, Stan leading, Kyle following him, and Cartman bringing up the rear. Along the way, Kyle noticed that he was trampling on white flyers, hand-scrawled and Xeroxed. He didn't bother to read them. He already knew about that stupid dance.
The entire walk was only a few minutes long, and largely silent, except for one remark Kyle heard from behind. "I got you in trouble again." Kyle's fists clenched and his left eye began to twitch, but it wasn't in vain, because he was able to restrain himself. For the moment.
Arriving at the principal's office, the older man took a seat behind his desk. "Sit, boys," he said wearily, indicating a few chairs in front of his desk. Stan tried to get in between Cartman and Kyle, but the large boy shoved his friend out of the way and plopped down in the middle. The principal gave them an odd look, but he shrugged it off.
"I'm afraid I have some horrible news," he said dully, removing his glasses. "I really shouldn't be the one to tell you this, but we received a call from the family."
"Whose family?" Kyle squeaked, assuming it was his, because his mother was the only person he'd ever met who ever bothered calling the school for any reason whatsoever.
"The McCormicks." He searched the boys' expressions, but Stan's and Kyle's were blank, and the one in the middle, well … he just looked annoyed. "It seems that there's been an accident." He waited for a remark, but they all sat in front of him entirely silent. "Your friend Kenny is dead. It seems he overdosed on sleeping pills. I'm so sorry, boys. His father said you were his closest friends, and he asked me to tell you. If there's anything I can do for you all—"
"Dude," Stan droned.
"Weak," Cartman shrugged.
"So, we're not in trouble?" Kyle asked.
"Trouble? Why?"
"We were fighting in the lunch line."
"What?"
"Yeah," Cartman agreed. "I thought you were gonna expel us or something, after two days ago."
"What happened two days ago?" The old man gripped the arms of his chair.
"Um, nothing," Cartman hastily replied.
"Exactly." Kyle nodded.
"None of you are concerned that your friend is dead?"
Stan spoke up. "Oh, yeah. It sucks. But we'll see him tomorrow."
"Oh, no." The principal shook his head. "Oh no, no, no. I'm so sorry, boys. You are never going to see your friend again. I know this takes some time to get used to, but I'm sure in time—"
"Dude," Kyle rasped. "It's Kenny. Have you ever met him?"
"Well, no."
"Yeah, I wouldn't worry about it too much," Stan said.
"Yeah, that little prick is always off and dying."
"Mr. Cartman," the principal drawled. "Your close friend is dead."
"Yeah, and he was yesterday and will be tomorrow, that's all I'm saying."
"I can't believe this. Do you even understand the gravity of this situation?" Kyle raised his hand. "You don't need to ask permission to speak here, Mr. Broflovski. Go ahead."
"I, uh, I think we're all in shock," Kyle said slowly. "We really need some time to let this sink in."
"Yeah," Stan agreed. "Yeah, that's what we need."
The principal looked at them incredulously for a second, but then he sighed. "Oh, all right," he said. "I'm so sorry for your loss, boys."
XXX
Two people were sitting in the reception area when Stan, Kyle, and Cartman finished their consoling meeting, and in alphabetical order they were Butters and Craig.
Stan and Craig made eye contact, and Stan looked to Kyle, who just glowered at him. "I'm out of here," he said pathetically, retreating.
"Hi Eric!" Butters cheered, getting up. Craig sat silent. "What was your meeting about?"
"Ugh, Jesus, nothing. Kenny's dead, what's new."
"That's terrible!"
"Butters, don't you have a class or something?"
"Yup!" Butters hopped on one foot. "I got physics!"
"Well, then, uh, why don't you go to it?" Cartman asked through gritted teeth. "I don't want you to miss anything."
"Oh boy! Um, okay!" Butters skipped away, humming something too upbeat to himself.
"Carry your books to Latin, Kyle?" Cartman asked, extending his arms in offering.
"Just get away from me."
"Kyle, denying this sexual tension between us isn't necessary. You can't let hate get in the way of love."
"He said to leave him alone," Craig said sternly, rising from his seat, brandishing his middle finger at Cartman like it was the first time.
"Oh, wow, Craig. You can extend your swear finger. I had no idea! I'm sure Kyle's into that sort of thing, too. You guys make such a cute pair."
"Get out," Craig growled, dropping his brows and pointing to the empty secretary's desk. "Or I'll have you incapacitated before she comes back."
"Real mature, Craig," Cartman mumbled, pushing through him and Kyle on the way out the door.
"Baby," Craig began, turning to Kyle.
"I'm not talking to you, Craig." Kyle crossed his arms.
"Aw, honey, why not?" Kyle was really hoping these names were all in jest and not something Craig planned on using in earnest.
"Why? Why? You told basically the entire school about us!"
"Well, we're dating now, right? Why shouldn't anyone know?"
"I don't want them to know what I do with my mouth! I don't mind if people know what I'm not doing with my mouth, which is playing the clarinet, because I gave that up in eighth grade." Kyle paused. "But seriously!"
"I only told the guys at lunch. And Clyde."
"Yeah, and he told Stan apparently!"
Recognition dawned on Craig's face. "Oh."
"Oh, yeah."
"Well, um, I'm sorry." Craig took Kyle's hand and kissed it quickly. "I have something that will make it up to you." He took a white piece of paper out of his back pocket and began to unfold it.
"I've seen it, dude. I don't want to go to that stupid dance."
"That's not what this is," Craig said smugly, presenting the unfurled flyer before Kyle with both hands, who immediately recognized it as the original of the one he'd been seeing around the school. The words, scrawled in fat black print, read:
Fight Intollerance!
Protest against the end of homosexuality!
Rally!
Saturday 3!
City hall!
Punch and pie!
"Craig!" Kyle cried, grabbing the flyer after he finished reading it. "Now I have to get food?"
"No, I'll cover it. I can hardly expect you to feed 1,000 people."
"What?"
"That's how many flyers I dumped around the school."
"Oh. Uh." Kyle scratched his chin while he tried to figure out what to say. "That's 10 times the number of people who go here, dude."
Craig shrugged. "Eh, whatever. I mean, I'm not actually going to get food. People just need to see that if they need a reason to show up."
"Where did you figure that out?"
"You." Craig and Kyle both blushed.
"But I thought we were going out on Saturday."
"Oh?" Craig asked. "You still want to go out with me?"
"Yeah."
"I thought you were pissed."
"I'm not, I'm just — well, I'm late to Latin. Please just don't tell anyone else what we do, okay?"
"What are we going to do?" Craig asked, absent-mindedly placing the palm of his right hand over his left nipple through his shirt.
"I'll have to figure it out," Kyle admitted. "But I won't disappoint you."
"Promise?"
"Yes. I totally promise."
"Good." Craig smiled as Kyle rushed out of the room to Latin class.
XXX
The truth was, Kyle wasn't sure that he couldn't disappoint Craig in the end. Kyle was working with the twin deficiencies of sexual inexperience and a profound, lingering longing for another boy.
Which wasn't to say that Kyle didn't like Craig. Actually, he found him quite attractive. He had nice pink lips that were good for kissing, and they were soft and full and gave a little resistance when Kyle gently gnawed at them. Craig's hair was nearly as black as Stan's, but not quite, and unlike Stan, Craig owned not only a brush but also hair products. The afternoon following their initial hook-up, Kyle found himself sitting on Craig's bed following one extended make-out session, anxiously wondering when the next would follow. Craig had lost his hat in a moment of ardor, and was now teasing his hair with a brush and a blow-dryer in the mirror. It was full and shapely, and looked nearly perfect peeking out of the blue hat when Craig pulled it back onto his head.
"I can't believe you just did your hair to put on a hat," Kyle hummed, still thinking about his unattended erection, and how pleased he was with how angry he had seemingly made Stan earlier that day.
"Whatever," Craig scoffed, fiddling with a few stray pieces of hair. "It takes work for the rest of us to look as good as you."
"Oh, I don't look that good at all."
"Are you crazy?" Craig flopped back down on the bed.
"Sometimes I think I might be," Kyle confirmed.
"Well, I think you're so hot. I find craziness a little hot, I guess." Craig shifted and slid one hand under Kyle's shirt, which made Kyle squirm and seize into the touch. "Hey," Craig whispered. "You barely have any chest hair."
"Sorry," Kyle gasped. "I, ah, just don't."
"I always thought you would."
"Wait." Kyle grabbed Craig's hand and stilled it through his shirt. "Please tell me you haven't been thinking about whether or not I have chest hair."
"Well, yeah. I mean, a little."
"Dude." Kyle inched a little away from Craig. "That's … it's a little creepy."
"Oh." Craig's hand wriggled out of Kyle's grasp and slid downward, stopping at the waistband of Kyle's underwear. "Don't tell me you don't think about those things," Craig hissed seductively. "I know you do."
"Well, yeah." Kyle tried to give Craig's hand a little push south, but Craig just hooked his thumb around the elastic band.
"Don't tell me you don't."
"I do."
"What are you thinking about now?" Craig slipped his other hand underneath Kyle's jeans, and over his underwear.
"I'm—"
"Make it sexy," Craig commanded. "Lie if you have to."
Kyle grasped Craig's shoulders and gave him a squeeze, moving his face near to Craig's. He gave Craig something of a liberal sniff, and finding that the boy smelled like gasoline and nearly raw banana peel, Kyle pressed his lips to Craig's, lightly applying pressure but refusing to open his mouth while he thought.
What the hell was he thinking about? Homework, how Craig did his hair as he created a carefully sculpted rat's nest. His Latin homework, a translation of the first 10 lines of the fifth book of the Aeneid, and how that wasn't getting done as long as Craig's careful little fingers were playing close to his pubic hair, teasing a couple of strands and retreating back to his hip bones. He was also thinking of Stan, and what this would be like with Stan's fingers instead, bony and long as they were. It was something he contemplated repeatedly, all the time, since he was old enough to think those things. Generally when he was alone, Kyle indulged in these visions. With someone else he generally felt wrong and confused, like he was betraying Stan despite the fact that Stan was with girls all the time, and betrayal would indicate that Stan had these thoughts about him, too.
But he couldn't say this to Craig. Craig was so simple, and yet complex. Ha, yes, he was like a simplex, a mathematical theory he didn't quite grasp or an infectious virus. Perhaps if he said this to Craig, Craig would find it alluring. But no, that was just scattered sex talk, it didn't mean anything. All Kyle wanted was to feel Craig's hand on his cock, all he had to do was figure out what to say to bring that about again.
Direct was always best, he figured. "I'm thinking about your hand on me," he murmured, concluding this statement with his tongue on Craig's lips. They were still a little swollen from making out before, and for a moment Kyle wondered why they'd stopped, but then he remembered: So Craig could do his hair. And then put on a hat. Craig: the only kid in the world who would stop kissing to do his hair, and then cover up the hairdo.
Craig grinned and Kyle felt the corners of his mouth stretch under his tongue. "Awesome," Craig gasped, following Kyle's orders. "I hope to hell I can take your pants off this time."
"Yeah." Kyle wiggled his bottom up a little, and undid his pants, allowing Craig to slip to them down to the floor. "What about you?"
Craig continued smiling, and he pushed Kyle down on his bed while he removed his bottoms. Then he basically sat down on top of the smaller boy, and laughed.
"What's so funny?" Kyle tried to thrust up, but Craig used his butt to keep Kyle's groin down.
"It's not funny, I'm happy. I have waited so long."
"So?"
"Well, you read about people requiting their love, and you just don't think it'll happen to you." Craig sniffed again and didn't cry. He blinked. He bounced up and down a couple of times. "Do you like this?"
"I'd like it more," Kyle growled, grabbing Craig's shirt with both hands. "If I got off this century maybe."
Laughing still, Craig grabbed Kyle's legs and put them over his shoulders. He took the waistband of Kyle's underwear in one hand and practically ripped them off, or at least you'd have expected to hear the sound of tearing fabric, but the underwear only got as far as Kyle's knees before Craig leaned over and committed the act he committed second-best.
XXX
Having left his car at home before sloshing over to Craig's, Kyle now had to slosh back to his house, and hopefully get in without his parents knowing where he'd been. Granted, they were likely to have figured out by now that their son often went off to commit acts of sodomy, but he was expected to keep these to weekends and holidays. And seeing that it was now dark out, and probably past dinner, his ability to complete his homework was indeed going to be severely compromised. So yes, he hoped they didn't ask any questions.
XXX
Kyle spent the rest of the week pointedly avoiding Stan while he and Craig planned their protest. All they really did was paint signs; all of Kyle's blandly brandished crisp block letters and all of Craig's were profane and sloppy. They attempted to think of a rallying cry or protest song of some sort, but their two attempts were interrupted, the first because Craig crawled on top of Kyle and began dry humping him, and the second because they couldn't think of anything that rhymed with 'threat level orange.' Craig's suggestion, "I have a remarkable scrotum," made Kyle giggle appreciatively, but was ultimately rejected.
On Friday afternoon, Kyle took his brother out for pizza. He didn't know why he was doing this, because his mother had figured out about Craig anyway, given that they spent three nights straight together. Still, despite the fact that Sheila was still one step ahead of her son, Kyle felt the need to at least maintain the illusion that he hadn't snuck out of the house the night his whirlwind affair had begun. Perhaps it had to do with his guilt at having hooked up outdoors, where the eyes of the town could potentially leer at him. Like it mattered — it was pretty clear by now that if anyone had seen them, they didn't care. And if they did care, their little secret was rendered invalid the next day anyhow, when Craig told everyone he met in a 30-minute lunch period that he and Kyle had in fact swapped spit out of doors and were thus an item.
Despite the fact that Ike's threat was entirely unnecessary Kyle would have felt horrible, just horrible, to deny him a slice of pizza. Ike loved pizza, almost as much as he loved thumbing through Kyle's DVD collection and helping himself to whatever he wanted. He wasn't really allowed to do this, of course, but Kyle considered himself aptly fit to meter out justice to his little brother in great, heaping teaspoons. Hence the trip to the Pizza Gultch, and the swift and brutal ass-kickings that Kyle distributed on something like a weekly basis. Kyle did not make the connection that this was why Ike found his fading bruises so enthralling — to him, his brother was a bringer of doom rather that its victim. Perhaps Ike considered this his own little piece of vengeance; the topic didn't come up at pizza.
Instead, Kyle simply glowered at Ike, feeling resentful despite the fact that neither his mother nor his father had directed him to do this. Ike, being what Kyle thought of as retarded, ordered his pizza with ham and pineapple on it. Kyle liked his plain. "Mom and Dad would never let you eat that," he taunted, folding his slice up New York-style, a habit he'd picked up from his parents somewhere along the way.
"You eat whatever you want," Ike pointed out, picking the pieces of pineapple off of his food.
"What are you doing that for? I had to pay for that pineapple!"
"I don't like the pineapple on the pizza," Ike explained. "I only like it when it tastes a little like pineapple juice."
"You're a little freak," Kyle replied, baffled.
"You're a big freak!"
Kyle rolled his eyes.
"Where's Craig?" Ike asked, now removing the ham from his pizza and eating the little chunks one-by-one.
"He's obviously not here." Kyle blinked. "Now you're picking off the ham?"
"But I'm eating it," Ike reasoned.
"If you just wanted ham I could have just bought you a ham!"
"Mom wouldn't have liked that very much."
"Oh, like I give a crap what Mom likes." Although it wasn't true; Kyle gave a great deal of crap about what his mother liked.
Ike asked for a second piece of pizza. "Um, what?" Kyle asked. "Eat that fucking pineapple and maybe I'll consider it."
"But I don't like it," Ike whined.
"Fucking eat it!"
"Jeez. What crawled up your ass and died?"
"Nothing crawled up my ass!"
"Uh huh." Ike put a piece of fruit in his mouth and began to chew on it demonstratively, making slurp-y squishing noises, smacking his lips on purpose. "I think then maybe your problem is, nothing crawled up your ass."
"What!?" Kyle dropped his pizza.
"I think if you and Craig did it, it would really take the edge off."
"There is no edge!" Kyle shrieked, and just as soon as he said this, he covered his mouth. Ike just rolled his eyes and continued to shove pineapple past his lips, gobbling the little chunks out of his own palm and gnashing on them as disruptively as possibly.
Kyle leaned in and pressed his lips up to Ike's smallish ear. "Listen to me, you little brat. Eat your fucking pizza, and never fucking talk about me like that again or I will make sure you shoot your own testicles out of your nose."
Ike just nodded and finished his pineapple. Kyle went ahead and ordered him a second slice.
XXX
Back at home, Kyle lied his way out of Friday night dinner. Generally he didn't bother fibbing about where he was going or what he was doing, because he didn't care if his family knew that he didn't give a crap about Shabbat or them. Generally he only went if Stan wanted to tag along, and there was no Stan around this week. In the car ride after pizza, Ike quietly asked if maybe Craig wanted to come to dinner, but Kyle didn't dignify that with an answer. His plan had been to say nothing to his family and go over to Token's, because Token was having people over, although Kyle was now unsure if this was just going to be the guys, or the whole grade, or what.
But when his key was half-plunged into the lock, his father swung the door open preemptively, and seeing both of his sons together, his eyes became a little softer, and he asked where they'd been. "Kyle took me for pizza," Ike gushed, pushing past Gerald and running upstairs, probably to play internet poker.
Kyle looked up at his father, who was still an inch or two taller than him, and saw the most soul-crushingly warm expression on his face. "That was really nice of you," Gerald said softly, putting a hand on his oldest son's shoulder.
Feeling immensely horrible, he shook and said, "I can't eat dinner with you guys. I, um. My blood sugar is really high. I kind of feel like crap." So the first thing was a lie. The second, well, the second thing was true. Kyle wrapped his arms around himself and slowly stomped upstairs, figuring that he didn't want to go out anymore because 1) he'd seen enough of Craig to last him through next week, 2) he didn't particularly want to talk to Stan at all even if Stan would be there, which he might not be, 3) Kenny would be there regardless of who else was, assuming he weren't dead, which he was, still, and 4) Eric Cartman would probably be there. But he felt he at least owed his father a lie about why he was planning on spending the evening lying in bed reading William Shatner's TekWar. He made a point to turn his phone off.
XXX
Saturday did not bring improvements in the weather, which was still gray and thick with moisture, despite the lack of any snow since Tuesday night's small powdering. Kyle set his alarm for 1 p.m., at which time he figured he'd need an hour to get up, eat some cereal potentially, and drive his signs and himself over to City Hall.
To his great dismay, he was barely able to sleep past 11 a.m., when he heard things slamming into his window. In the tail-end of his dream he thought this might be Stan, except Stan looked exactly like Ike in this dream, squinty little eyes, dirty fingernails and all. It was frankly a disturbing idea, since he and Stan were playing doctor at one moment, in which Stan was carefully pressing on Kyle's nipples with a tongue depressor and saying, "That's not right at all." Then, in one shift with no distinction, Stan (the Stan who looked like Ike, rather) was slamming himself into Kyle's window.
Kyle hazily sat up and pressed his face to the glass, expecting to see either Stan or his brother or maybe both. Maybe they were the same now. The coldness of the window pane gave Kyle a bit of a shock, and he realized that Stan was wearing Craig's hat and clothing. Then he really woke up, and figured out that it was just Craig after all. He opened the window and stuck his head out.
"What the hell, dude?" he asked.
Craig paused, looked sheepish, and pocketed something. Kyle glanced down to the ground, where he realized that Craig had not been throwing rocks at all; he had been throwing gum balls. The measly layer of as-yet unmelted snow two stories below his window was in fact dyed in little circlets of acid pink and sewer blue, not to mention the nauseous yellow of the situation.
"Do you want breakfast?" Craig asked, hands cupped around his lips.
"Craig, what?"
"Your phone was off!" he shouted. "My mother is making breakfast!"
"Oh, dude, no," Kyle sighed. "Hold on, I'll let you in."
XXX
Craig kissed him at the door, which caused Kyle to blush madly and glance around the room to make sure his parents weren't around. Clearly they were sleeping, which is what Kyle intended to be doing himself at this time. "Please tell me you never get up this early on weekends and never will again," he said.
"I'm just, you know," Craig muddled by way of explanation. "The protest and all."
"Ah, yeah," Kyle agreed, shutting the door. "Can't miss that."
"Well, don't tell me you were going to just sleep through it."
"It's not for four hours!"
"Uh huh. You should eat breakfast with me."
Kyle brought Craig upstairs and he began to put on his clothes. "I'm not going to eat with your family," he said, putting on deodorant under his shirt.
"Well, why not?" Craig asked.
"I just don't want to. They're not really very nice at all."
"I know."
"So you can hardly blame me." Craig frowned and did what he did when he was frustrated, and sat down on the floor.
"I thought it would be nice if you met them."
"I know them!"
"My mom is making a whole nice breakfast for you."
"Oh, no." Kyle sat down next to Craig and put his arm around the other boy's shoulders. "Tell her I have too many dietary restrictions." Craig looked hurt by this. "Look, um, I don't mean to be, uh."
"A bitch?"
"Yeah, that."
"It's not a problem for me," Craig said. "I think it's cute."
"Aw, dude." Kyle smiled and pressed his lips to Craig's cheek. "Why don't you have some cereal with me?"
"First don't you need to put on pants?"
Kyle looked down at his black underwear and sighed, but it wasn't a particularly emotional sigh at all. "Yeah. First I'll put on pants."
Kyle put on jeans because he only owned jeans. Actually, no, he owned some dress pants. But unlike Craig, who seemingly owned only dress pants, Kyle did not like to wear them for no good reason, and he felt that slumming around South Park was less of an occasion than a cruel, cruel fate. So jeans it was, and he slipped them on in front of Craig, who sat on his bed in perpetuity, humming appreciatively at what Kyle was sure he assumed was a show for his own benefit.
They indeed had cereal, and Craig pronounced every option "stupid." In the end he settled on oatmeal, which he felt was the same as cereal. This resulted in a conversation about what, if any, the differences between oatmeal and cereal were. Predictably, Kyle had something akin to a right answer, which was that they were essentially the same, and that oatmeal was basically hot cereal. Kyle's boyfriend found this answer both intriguingly adorable and idiotic, maybe idiotically adorable.
Having finished eating with a couple of hours to spare, Kyle asked Craig what he wanted to do. "Ike's not around so we can get the TV to ourselves," he suggested. "I bet I could take your ass in Halo." Craig, being both crass and perverse, told Kyle exactly whose ass would be taken, and it wasn't in the context of gaming. Kyle shrugged and, again, allowed himself to be seduced to another plateau of indecency. But he still refused to allow Craig access to the one place Craig really wanted into. Craig feigned disappointment, but he was equally fine with frottage.
XXX
City hall was set back toward the end of a wide open space — but then, much of the town was. Urban planning, for all of its advances over the past century, was irrelevant in a place this barren. If it had been landscaped at all, or festooned with any kind of decorum, there might have been some temptation to call the area a "plaza," but this just wasn't the case. There was a flag pole, and a couple of benches. The building had a domed roof that created the illusion of grandeur, or fullness, but there was little inside the building. The rotunda was basically empty, and upstairs there was a smattering of civic offices.
Having gotten up so ridiculously early, Kyle and his wayward companion were alone when they arrived, with 10 or so minutes to spare before the start time of their so-called protest. For lack of anything better to do than stand or sit around, they opted for the latter.
"I hope a lot of people come," Kyle said.
"I'm not so sure I do," Craig countered. "I mean, it's not like we have a plan or anything."
"Oh, you don't need a plan for this shit."
"No?"
"People come, they're pissed, you kind of egg them on. The whole thing does itself."
"I guess it's a good thing this town is full of bored rabble-rousers," Craig sighed.
"Yes," Kyle agreed. "Although this might be the first time I ever thought that."
They sat talking about nothing, really, some television Craig liked. He apparently watched a lot of TV. "Don't you ever read?" Kyle asked.
"I read all kinds of things," Craig answered.
"Like what?"
"You know what I read, dude."
"Then how come all you ever talk about is TV?"
"People don't understand fancy-ass things like blogs," Craig explained. "I only watch TV because I'm bored. And people understand TV. It's the great common element of our time. And besides," he added. "I don't think there's anything particularly endearing about reading Star Wars novels."
"Whatever." Pause. "Where are we going tonight?"
"I don't know. I didn't really think about it."
"Dude. You asked me out."
"We're out right now."
"I want to go somewhere."
"Why don't you just come over and we can watch something on my computer."
"Uh, no."
"Pizza?"
"I had pizza last night."
"It's pizza. You can eat it every night."
"That's sick!" Kyle exclaimed.
"Well, don't look at me, it's not like you eat anything anyway, because you're an anorexic ho."
Kyle blinked. "A what?"
Craig snorted. "Okay. Well. Let's go see a movie—"
"Mmhmm."
"—and go to Token's."
"Didn't Token have people over last night?"
"No," said Craig. "Tonight."
"Tonight?"
"Yeah, so I'll take you to a movie, then to Token's. How does that sound?"
"Fine."
"Just fine?"
"No, fucking super."
"Okay." Craig smirked and put an arm around Kyle's shoulder. "Sounds good to me."
The entire time they had been sitting there — all 15 minutes or so — plenty of cars had driven by, but no one had appeared to protest Frank Granger. For that matter, no one had arrived to protest anything. Kyle was getting worried, but Craig seemed perpetually chill, swinging his legs under the bench, kicking dirty little chunks of frosty mud and grass all over the pavement.
Kyle felt someone unpredictably lean his weight against the bench, and he whipped around to see Stan, who was frowning intently. "So this is your rally," he said smoothly, sitting down on the bench next to Kyle, who joined Craig in just staring at him.
"What are you doing here?" Kyle choked.
"Yeah," Craig added, tensing the arm he had around Kyle.
"Coming to your protest?"
"Oh, okay." Kyle blinked. "Why?"
"Because I'm your friend?"
"Is that a question?" Kyle pursed his mouth. Craig raised an eyebrow.
"No."
"Look, dude," Stan said. He removed his blue mittens and stuffed them both in the same pocket. "Maybe it's a foreign concept but I care about what's important to you."
"How nice," Craig slurred. "You should have brought along all of your little breeder friends."
"I really don't like being called that."
Craig rolled his eyes. "Whatever."
"Well." Kyle picked up a rolled up poster board from the ground under his segment of bench and handed it to Stan. "You can have this one."
Stan undid the rubber band and gawked at the poser. " 'Prostates are hot,' " he read. "I'm sure people will be really moved by this." He tapped on Craig's messy illustration of an arrow pointing behind the colon on a makeshift anatomy diagram.
"Do you want to be helpful, or not?"
"Craig, dude. Lay off."
"Whatever, Stan."
Kyle cringed. "You guys," he said quietly. He closed his eyes.
"This protest is pathetic," someone taunted cheerily, and all three boys turned to see Kenny in his black hoodie and greasy jeans, hands in pockets.
"Dude!" Stan cried, jumping up to hug his friend across the back of the bench. "You've been gone forever!"
"I know," Kenny said drolly, tentatively embracing Stan. "My brother found me not dead yet."
"What are you talking about?" Craig asked.
"You wouldn't understand," Stan said.
"Tell me." Craig tugged on Kyle's jacket collar.
"It always takes longer when they interfere before I actually go, you know," Kenny continued. "But any chance to have something rammed down my throat, you know, with the ventilators."
"What?" Craig asked again.
"It's nothing," Kenny sighed. He surreptitiously removed a cigarette from behind his ear and lit it quickly, inhaling deeply. "Fuck, that is awesome," he sighed.
"Is there something I'm missing here?" Kenny asked, gesturing back and forth between Kyle and Craig with his cigarette.
"Is there ever," Stan groaned.
Kyle looked at Craig, whose arm was still around his back. "Don't look at me," he said moodily. "You're the one with privacy issues."
"Well, Kenny," Kyle said carefully. "I think Craig and I are dating."
"You think?" Craig and Kenny asked at the same time.
"I'm pretty sure," Stan mumbled.
"That's so cute!" Kenny exclaimed, bringing his hands flat together with a loud smack. "Who's going to carry the children?"
"Children are idiots," Craig breathed.
"Oh, no, this is too cute," the blond boy continued. "Willing to throw me a few details?"
"Sure," said Craig.
"What? No!"
"All right, fine." Kenny put his cigarette between his lips and parked himself down on the bench next to Stan, filling it to capacity. "Anyway, here I was all ready to help you protest, but it seems like the only thing being protested here today is young love." The three other boys all gave Kenny a stare. "Well, if my services are not required," he drawled, standing up, "I think I should remove myself to the military surplus store down in Conifer."
"What the hell are you going there for?" Kyle asked.
"How the hell are you planning on getting there?" Stan chimed.
"Eh, I'll hitch." Kenny flicked his cigarette to the damp ground. "I don't know, Chris asked me to meet him."
"Chris?" All three boys on the bench asked at the same time.
"You know, ze Mole," Kenny clarified. "Christophe, if you will. Although I wouldn't. Later, tools." Kenny trudged away, but he gave a final upside-down wave behind himself as he left.
There were a few minutes of silence following Kenny's departure.
"No one is coming, are they?" Kyle finally said drearily, leaning into Craig.
"Yeah, no."
"Well, what are we going to do now?" he asked.
"I don't know. Go home, take a shower. Find a movie."
"Sounds like a plan." Still lying on Craig's torso, Kyle turned to his right. "Stan?"
"I guess I'll go home."
"Do you need a ride?"
"No," Stan said, standing up and stretching. "I'll walk."
"Are you sure?"
"I'm sure," he said quickly. "See you guys later tonight, maybe. Craig."
"Stan."
And Stan walked away.
XXX
Kyle dropped Craig off, turning down his attractive offer of a joint shower. The idea was a little engaging for him, he had to admit to himself, but Kyle did not doubt that there would be other chances to hook up in the bathroom. Craig promised he'd borrow his father's truck and pick Kyle up later. Kyle assented to this and returned home completely grossed out, his first attempt at political uprising having been a complete failure.
Predictably, his mother was sitting with a book on the living room couch, and she heard him come in. "What's wrong?" she asked pointedly, wasting no time reading his demeanor.
So Kyle explained to her about the protest, and she took his face in her hands and gazed across at him, their eyes nearly entirely level. "Don't worry about it," she said.
"I just wanted to do some good," he sighed, bending over to undo his shoelaces.
"Kyle," she said slowly. "If there is one thing I have learned as an adult, besides how to talk to Canadians, it's that you can force weak-minded people to follow you if you want — if you know how to agitate them right."
"That's what you've learned," he said, unimpressed.
"No, you didn't let me finish. I've learned that that's what you can do, if you want. But it won't make a difference."
"So, what you're saying is, don't try."
"No! That is not what I'm saying. What I'm saying, bubbe, is that you need to put more time into planning these things and less time into being angry and abrasive. It's not good for you, Kyle. You might get things done by being an angry loudmouth, but you'll distance people."
He brought a finger to his lips, contemplating this. "So, it's better to be a crafty, insidious bastard like Cartman than a raging asswipe."
"I'm proud of you," Sheila said softly, kissing him on the forehead. "You're such a smart boy. You can do good things, I know."
"Thanks," Kyle said sadly, removing himself to bathe.
XXX
Craig took him to see some stupid action film, and indeed he paid for both of them, and drinks. They shared a package of Jujubes, as per usual, but unlike before, they spent most of the time swapping spit, literally. Kyle was beginning to feel at ease with Craig's voracious nature — it almost seemed like he was lapping saliva out of Kyle's mouth, trying to trade slimy chunks of gelatinous candy back-and-forth in a battle to end up with the most pieces. It felt like Craig was trying to lick the plaque off of Kyle's teeth or something, the way he consumed the other boy's mouth with insatiable hunger and erratic twists of his tongue.
They'd never kissed before Tuesday night, and with this development there was one less boy in the grade Kyle hadn't kissed. He didn't know why he'd been holding out on Craig for this long. Apparently Craig's fixation hadn't been apparent enough to strike him. And it was probably the unspoken codes of friendship that kept them apart on drunken nights out in the forest — the same rules that kept him off of Stan, no matter how intoxicated he got or how hopelessly bereft he felt some days. Anyway, besides Stan, the only guy standing in the way of his complete set was Cartman. And that was not happening, at all, ever. Sometimes he wondered if he could drunkenly fall on top of Clyde — if he could drunkenly end up getting precariously close to a kid in a wheelchair — maybe it could happen.
But, no, he'd make sure it wouldn't. This thing with Craig was really solid, and Craig was a really good … well, it occurred to him that Craig hadn't let him down so far, almost literally. If the idea of someone basically drinking the spit out of his mouth in a movie theater had appeared before him on paper, he'd have dismissed it out of hand. But this was pretty decent.
XXX
Kenny's older brother was a complete loser who worked as a checkout boy at a liquor store. He never brushed his hair, and never bought a new pair of sneakers despite the fact that his soles had been peeling off of those things since the boys were in middle school. Unlike Stan's older sister, who was roughly the same age, Kevin did not graduate and move away to attend a mediocre state school in some other town. The matter of whether or not he graduated was actually somewhat up for debate, if anyone (Kenny included) had found it a topic worth debating.
But because of Kevin McCormick, many of South Park's under-aged residents were able to drink on weekend nights. So even though he was a complete loser, would probably be shot to death in a bar brawl before he turned 30, and had never been able to hold onto a girlfriend past her inevitable abortion, there was a special place for him in many of the hearts of the celebrants in the basement at the Blacks' that evening.
Kyle was not surprised to find Kenny crouched on top of the keg when he descended the stairs, Craig leading him by the hand. The first thing they heard was Kenny's voice ringing out clearly, "Tap this shit!" Then he made devil's horns with one hand and raised it into the air. "Only a 5 buy-in! Send your good wishes to this desolate wretch, my friends! It's what God would want! Merci beaucoup! In the port of Amsterdam!"
"I don't get him," Craig said in his nasal way, indicating Kenny with a slight of his shoulder. "What he's saying is dumb. And he's overcharging. Again."
Kyle shrugged this off. "He has his way." Which was about when Kenny lost his balance and fell backwards off of the keg, tumbling down to the ground.
"I meant to do that," he cried, but his words were muffled and no one made them out. No one checked to make sure Kenny was okay. Kyle wouldn't buy any beer from him. Kenny got the kegs from his brother for free, and they split the profit. Besides, it was probably something weak, something that tasted like soap or piss or something.
Craig took off to talk to Token, and Kyle sat down on the couch by himself. He looked around: No girls, anywhere. But he saw Clyde and Tweek talking across the room, the latter wiping his nose as furtively as he possibly could, drooling slightly, albeit unwittingly. It had been a long day, and he was hardly in the mood to rage, as they said, so Kyle laid his head back on the couch and began to let his mind empty, until—
"Hey Kyle!"
"Jesus!" A slight body in a purple leotard sat down and put an arm around Kyle. "Oh my god, Butters, I can see all of your junk." Kyle gagged almost as soon as he said this. "Why the fuck are you wearing that?"
"I don't know," Butters said, adjusting himself. The sound of glass hitting glass resonated, and Kyle noticed a nearly full bottle of Goldschlager.
"Ugh, please stop. Here." Kyle handed Butters a pillow. "Cover yourself." Butters did.
"Listen," Butters said. "I just wanna say, well, I feel awful bad that you were mad at me this week."
"What?"
"You know." He'd obviously had a few drinks before coming, that much was obvious. "We were fighting, and you and Eric don't get along, I just—"
"Sheesh, Butters, dude. It's okay, really."
"So I was thinking."
"What were you thinking?"
"I was thinking, I don't want to fight with you. I feel just awful, real terrible, so — maybe we could make up?"
"Uh." Kyle nodded. "Fine." He glanced around. "Where is, um, Eric?"
"He's studying with Wendy." Butters picked up the bottle of alcohol. "He'll be here later I guess."
"It's not upsetting that you're here wearing a faggy little tutu thing and he's, er, studying with a chick?"
"Aw, heck no. I'm not possessive. So." Butters unscrewed the bottle and handed it to Kyle. "Friends?"
"Um, yeah." He took a swig, and almost gagged. "Butters, this shit is disgusting."
"Oh, I know you don't care."
Butters was right. He didn't. He cared so little that he took another sip. He smiled at Butters. Butters smiled right back, kissing him on the cheek. Then he took the bottle back from Kyle, and they passed it back and forth for some time, although neither of them could say how long that was, exactly.
XXX
After that he and Butters finished the bottle, and then he went to go talk to Kenny for a while. Kenny gave him a cup of beer for free, and then for some reason he was talking to Pip about crepes or some French shit like that. Still, Pip had a bottle of gin, and Kyle helped himself to some of that. After telling Pip that France was the armpit of the Earth and that he was a worthless piece of crap, Kyle didn't remember much until he found himself kind of hugging the banister on the staircase, feeling wonderfully sick to his stomach.
A pair of arms wrapped around him, and a black-haired boy lifted him away from the railing. "Aw, awww," he moaned. "If I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times — don't mix hard booze with beer." Now that he felt kind of safe, Kyle just shut his eyes. "I know that look. Come on, dude. Let's get you to a toilet."
They plodded up the stairs, but were stopped at the landing by Craig, who was standing sturdily with arms crossed, scowling.
"He's, um, you know, he's like." Stan stammered. "He's gonna barf," he finished quietly.
"I can take it from here," Craig offered, extending his arms. "Come on."
"I was just gonna." Stan handed the dizzy red-haired boy over to Craig. "Drive him home or something."
"Who the hell are you? You've been drinking that disgusting piss Kenny passes off as beer for the past hour and a half!"
"I'm cool," Stan gasped. "I always take care of him, don't I?"
"Whatever. Not any more you don't."
"Oh." Stan looked down and behind at the revelers in the basement. "Don't try to tell me you're sober."
"Actually, I am."
"Good job."
Craig rolled his eyes and picked Kyle up, the smaller boy curling into his chest.
"Craig," Stan called after him. The other boy paused and kind of looked over both his shoulder and the top of Kyle's fairly substantial hairdo. "Aren't you going to give me the finger?"
Craig scoffed. "What are you talking about?" he asked.
"You know," Stan said, raising both of his middle fingers and kind of bouncing his hands up and down for Craig's benefit.
"I don't have time for this shit, Marsh," Craig said conclusively, setting off again to get Kyle to a bathroom.
