Much Ado About Shakespeare

"Dude, this is weak. Super weak."

Kyle merely nodded, too busy scanning the row upon rows of books stuffed onto shelves on the university's campus bookstore. Where was their class section number? He chewed his bottom lip in annoyance, hoping they hadn't sold out so soon.

"I mean, shit, you'd think we'd get out of summer reading assignments by now..."

Stan was still complaining and it was damn distracting, so Kyle held up a hand to cut the other off. "Bitch about it later, help me find books now." This earned him a snort, but Stan did cease his bitching for the moment, probably in favor of just getting what they needed and getting the fuck out of there.

It was their first term, and although both of them were more than pleased that their schedules overlapped for several college-required courses, they were somewhat horrified to find out that they had required reading for their English class. Well, Stan was horrified in general; Kyle was just upset that he he'd completely missed the notice until Stan started bitching about it.

Fortunately, it was only the end of June and they still had nearly two months to deal with their reading assignments, but Kyle didn't want to push it to the last minute. They'd be moving into the dorms mid-August, and figuring out where their classes were, and... he just didn't want to put it off. When he put things off, he got irritable, and when he got irritable, he reminded himself of his mother, and that was never a good thing. Especially when it resulted in Stan getting pissed at his mood and pointing out that sore spot of comparison, which always led to thrown punches and harsh words and bruised egos.

If wanting to avoid that sort of situation made him anal-retentive, well, he could accept that. Even if it had Stan smirking every time he described him as such. Bastard.

"Aren't you getting the books for your other classes?" Kyle interjected Stan's latest fit of snickers. They both had their Biology and Analysis textbooks, and Kyle had his Anthropology and Psychology books, but Stan hadn't gotten his Computer Science or Political Science texts yet. Kyle found it oddly amusing that they were taking classes in each other's major before either had taken a major-specific class yet, but maybe it would prove useful... at least when it came time to listen to each other complain about how their upper-level classes were killing them.

"Yeah, yeah." Stan shrugged the blatant shift in topic off. "Let's just take care of English first." He reached out and grabbed the first book listed under their section number. Immediately his face fell into a tortured expression. "Oh God... this is a poetry class?! Fuck!"

Kyle took the book from Stan's fingers and couldn't help laughing at the other's distress as he skimmed through the table of contents. Shakespeare, Dickinson, Frost, Arnold, Cummings, Keats, Eliot... "Aw, c'mon, Stan. It probably won't be that painful. Besides, professors never use entire anthologies for a class, so it's not like we'll have to deal with all of these."

"But Kyle!" Stan looked on the verge of panicking. "You know how bad I suck at poetry..."

Oh yes, Kyle knew. Certain high school memories of junior year English class and their teacher from hell who had a hard-on for Shakespeare were sure to haunt Stan for years to come. Not only did that teacher make each of them memorize and recite a sonnet in front of the class, but he also managed to convince the principal that it would be a great idea to have the class put on a production of Much Ado About Nothing. Stan had been absolutely certain that the teacher had something against him, because he'd had the misfortune of being casted as Benedick.

Still, Stan had survived that class and the performance; Kyle had made certain of that. He'd spent countless hours drilling Stan on his lines, and when memorization alone failed to work, he'd taken to practicing Beatrice's lines opposite him. When the afternoons grew late and Stan lost focus, he'd resorted to stuffing a wig (courtesy of Cartman's collection of things he'd rather not think too much about) on his head, just to hear his best friend's laughter. And when their practice sessions stretched late into the evening and they'd finally collapse on the floor of Stan's bedroom, he'd apologized for being so harsh and demanding before, even if it had been for Stan's benefit; and under the cover of darkness, he'd made it all up to him, in every way he could.

So yes, Stan may have sucked considerably at poetry and had a deep-seated loathing for Shakespeare, but fortunately he had Kyle to help him survive this sort of thing.

Still, that didn't stop him from groaning when he grabbed the second book for their class section only to find that it was a collection of three of Shakespeare's tragedies.

Kyle shook his head at Stan's distress and pulled the other book from Stan's hands. "I guess you're damn lucky I'm taking this class with you, huh?"

He managed to earn a small, relieved smile at that. "Yeah, guess I am."