Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Oh boy. I didn't seriously leave you guys waiting over 2 months for a chapter, did I? Sorry about that. I didn't think that so much time had passed! I mean, I knew, but...
I'll try to be better about this. I want to finish this story. So let's get on to the actual chapter!
Kyle's POV
Things with Kenny seemed to be back to normal. That much had me sleeping easier. Oh right, backtracking a bit. I finally got to go home and sleep off my hangover after the movie fiasco. With Kenny's adamant explanations, my mom was sold on the idea of food poisoning to the point where, for a while, the two were sitting in the living room discussing potential law suits.
Anyway, the weekend passed without too much event. You could say it passed with no event if you don't count homework as being eventful. Normally I don't, but it'd sound lame as hell to say I didn't do anything worth mentioning after parting with Stan and Kenny. I do have a life outside those guys.
Class came earlier than I would've liked. It seemed like only hours ago since I was stuck sitting in a desk behind some moron who either smelled like he was shitting himself or eating a chicken sandwich. No matter how warm the classrooms got, I'd have to keep my scarf on. It was my only shield between myself and toxic fumes.
I fastened my scarf around my face in the most discreet way I could manage while still blocking out the impending stench. At the beginning of the year, I'd tried to convince Cartman to trade seats with me. Apparently my "Jew rat" skills weren't efficient enough. I muttered under my breath and leaned back in my seat.
"Getting ready to take a nap?" Kenny dropped in to the seat in front of me before the stinkpot could. He tried to get Kenny's attention, but Kenny spoke over him. "That's a pretty fucking awesome plan." He pulled his hood over his face and leaned back until half my desk space was taken up with his head. "Rome's boring as fuck."
I blinked a few times, not sure what to say. There wasn't really any way to predict what Kenny was going to do from minute to minute, so I can't say that his random as hell seat change struck me as horrifically outlandish.
"Dude, if you want to take a nap, you shouldn't sit in the front row." Stan took a seat to the left of me and unpacked his notebooks from his bag. "Besides, we've got that lame ass project due."
"Project?" Kenny and I spoke in unison, both sitting up with the same level of shock.
"What are you talking about?" I asked. I was flipping through my notes already for some indication of this 'lame ass project' I couldn't recall for a second.
"Shit. Kenny, didn't you give him the syllabus?" Stan turned to Kenny. I looked between the two, still at a loss.
"What syllabus? When?" I asked.
"Last week when you were out sick, she assigned a project on the aqueducts. Kenny said that he was going to be meeting up with you later on for-"
"Oh shit!" Kenny slapped a hand to his face. "Fuck." His blue eyes widened with guilt and concern.
"Look, maybe she won't get to you guys today." Stan spoke in a measured, though his words were hardly of any consolation.
"My last name starts with a B." I shut my eyes and sighed. "What do we have to do for this thing anyway? How much is there to say about God damned aqueducts?" Before Stan could answer, obnoxious laughter cut him off. Cue Cartman's arrival to class.
"This is fucking great!" Cartman pounded his fist on his leg, laughing loudly.
"Shut up, fatass!" I looked to Kenny who looked as lost for an idea as I was.
"There are five minutes before class. There's no fucking way you're going to get anything together in time!" Cartman bellowed.
"He's right, man." Stan looked pointed to the clock. The classroom was almost full. "You're going to have to either eat those points or come up with some awesome excuse."
"If we're not here, we can't get flunked." Kenny was on his feet in a second. "Come on." He grabbed my bag with one hand and my hand with the other.
"Wait, we can't just ditch! They'll call our parents and-"
"Trust me, I've got this covered." Kenny nodded to Stan. "Thanks for the heads up, man. You're a fucking lifesaver." Stan lifted a hand in confused acknowledgment and watched as Kenny and I darted from the classroom, speed controlled by the manic blonde.
"What are we doing?" I asked in a whisper once we hit the hallway. No one but teachers and disciplinarians were in the hall by this time. He let go of my hand and motioned for me to follow him. I didn't have much of a choice in doing otherwise, so I followed. With a delinquent kind of grace, he maneuvered the halls in a way that completely avoided any unwanted contact.
"Locker rooms." He pulled open the door and motioned me inside. When we walked in, we were surrounded by other students changing for class. I followed him to his locker. "Now we stall around here until everyone clears out." His calm was impressive. For a second, I was admiring how cool it was. I could feel my face red from the nerves of ditching class, missing an assignment, and embracing the path of a sure-to-fail student while playing over every worst case scenario in my head. Meanwhile Kenny stood beside me, smiling, calm, cool.
"Then what?"
"We make a break for it." His eyes glittered with excitement.
"If I didn't know better, I'd think you were enjoying this." I grumbled and pulled the scarf off my face. I wouldn't be needing it today.
"Who says I'm not?" He grinned and rocked back against the lockers.
"Bastard." Despite my words, I was grinning too. An uncomfortable kind of silence fell between us afterward. For some reason, I felt out of place. Maybe that wasn't the right word, but something felt off about the whole thing. Kenny was getting under my skin a lot lately.
Kenny's POV
It was a long shot, but it had worked out better than I had planned. How do you get one on one time with someone when you're constantly stuck with two other people every time you try to get that alone time? That's a harder question than you might think.
Last Friday Kyle was out with another cold.
"Fucking Jew is always getting sick with something." Cartman was in a particularly pissy mood. He always was whenever Kyle missed school.
"Did you stay up late coming up with another Jew joke or something?" Stan asked, rolling his eyes while he spoke.
"Fuck off, hippie! What's your boyfriend doing anyway? Fucking every snot nosed shit head in the school?"
"Fuck off, Cartman!" Stan threw a punch and the two kept up their squabbling until the bus showed up.
For some reason, the question of when the last time I'd hung out one on one with Kyle popped in to my head. I knew that he and Stan did that all the time. Sometimes I'd hang out with Stan one on one too, but never Kyle.
"Huh." I took a seat in the back of the bus, unsure of why the thought bugged the shit out of me. It wasn't so much that I didn't have that time as it was that Stan did, and often. I wanted to ditch out of the bus and head over to Kyle's to remedy that, but the bus was already in motion by then.
When the opportunity to drop an assignment off at Kyle's came up, I jumped at the chance. I sounded like a fucking moron, so I made up some dumb as fuck excuse about returning a power tool to his dad or some shit like that. I never intended to give him the assignment and saw to it that every time it was mentioned, I was distracting him in some way or the other. Handing the red head a homework sheet while he was stuck at home sick wasn't the one on one time I wanted. I wanted a full day of undivided attention. Stan could suck a fat dick.
Everything went according to plan too. Kyle was clueless when Monday came around and Stan brought up the fucking project syllabus. I almost felt bad for Kyle, but I already had his back covered. If we couldn't get out of class, I'd written up some shitty project for myself and a better one for him. I wasn't going to let him fail. I'm not Cartman.
So the two of us were standing around in the locker room for a couple minutes. Kyle was doing anything possible to avoid eye contact. I didn't mind too much. I had a lot going on in my own head. Last Friday's thoughts still stuck in my head. The jealousy toward Stan and Kyle's relationship had not left, not for a minute. My resolution of staying away from Kyle had fallen apart within the first day too.
"It looks like everyone's gone." Kyle pulled me from my thoughts. "What now?"
"Two choices." I took a step from the locker and stood in front of him.
"And those are?"
"One, we stay here. There's a shitty as hell attic structure up in the bathroom. We can sit in the vents until classes end."
"Thrilling."
"Two, we get out of here."
"How?"
"Simple. We walk right out the doors."
"That's impossible. Security has the exits on total lockdown."
"Not the door in here." I grabbed his hand and pulled him to the shittier side of the locker room.
"There's a door here?" He looked around when we stopped. In response, I pulled open the storage supply room. He looked at me questioningly before stepping in. I shut the door behind us. The room went black after that.
Kyle's POV
When Kenny shut the door, we were left standing in a pitch black room. I freaked the fuck out. Kenny grabbed my hand again. I could feel him move close to me, but I couldn't see him. He didn't say anything either. My heart sped rate jumped through the roof.
"What are you doing?" I asked, panic almost completely concealed in my voice.
"It's dark. If you don't know where the door is, how would you know which way to go?" He asked, voice as calm and cool as it had been before. I felt the blood rush to my face and muttered some idiotic response like 'oh' before putting my head down and offering silent gratitude to the darkness.
The light from outdoors nearly caught me by surprise.
"Woah." I looked around, recognizing the courtyard of the school.
"Now you know why there's a steel wall in the middle of our fucking flower garden." Kenny kicked the door shut, no concern for the sound it made registering. I laughed. "So where to?" He asked, voice playing on something between making fun of the prince charming dialect and consideration.
"Preferably off school grounds." Without needing to ask, he led the way to the exit from the courtyard. When we got to the door, he looked at me expectantly. "What?" He raised an eyebrow, feigning surprise.
"You don't have anything to say after leading you through the escape of your fucking life?" He smirked. It didn't look like he planned on opening the door until I said something. As much as I wanted to shove him to the side and tell him either to fuck off or that this was just making things equal for having forgotten to give me the assignment, I laughed.
"All right, Mr. Knight in shining armor. I'm in awe. Can we go now?" He returned my laughter and opened the door.
"After you."
A/N As per the usual, I am not exactly happy with the way this chapter came out. The next one, hopefully, will come out sooner. Thanks for everyone who has stuck around and offered encouragement for getting past the writers block/laziness/business that comes with a busy school schedule. I hope you liked it!