Disclaimer: South Park and all characters in it are copyright Matt Stone and Trey Parker, not me.
A/N:
Well friends, it has been much too long, indeed.
Many things had happened over time which made me keep putting Pink on the backburner.
One event, however probably put more of a damper on the continued creation of this story than any other. In chapter 3 I mention a ferret that slept on my lap throughout the writing of that chapter. Truth is, that ferret had been sleeping on my lap for most of the writing of all the chapters in this story.
Said ferret was named Pike, and he had been, at the time, recovering from a serious illness and surgery. Sadly, Pike left us in April, and along with Pike left a large chunk of my inspiration.
Now, however, I have returned to you all. I hope you're not too angry at me and my 3 month hiatus. I promise I'll be updating much more often now that I'm back.
Now, onto the notes, for I have a few.
Notes:
First of all, making you all think is exactly what I set out to do with this story. I feel great happiness when I hear that you're all trying to figure out what may be happening and how it is happening.
Secondly, and this I say with quite some regret, Pink is ending soon. Now, that's not to say the story that is in Pink is ending. I have a horrible habit of making multi-sectional stories, and Pink has fallen victim to that. Pink, as you know it, will end in another chapter or two, depending on how the story complies.
The story will continue, however, in the next section titled "Baptize Me In". Considering I have this outlined and started, you can be sure that updates will not be far behind.
Thirdly, I really wanted to say this, finally: This story is nothing like what I had expected it to be. It was experimental from the get go. I knew I was going to be writing different styles, and putting things together in different ways. I knew I wasn't going to be giving you, the readers, all your answers, and I knew I was risking losing readers because of it. It's not easy to read something where you can't figure out what is happening and why, or when you can only grasp certain things in a story. I wanted to make this something other than disposable; I wanted to attempt to build a story that would have you returning, not just for the new chapters, but for the old chapters as well. I wanted to make something that would have you reading chapter six and going back to chapter one and saying, oh, that makes sense now. Now, I know.
Unfortunately, I had also planned on this being a strict Stan/Red Goth story. That is where my writing deviates from my original ideas. Pink has become something more than just Stan and Red. It's become Stan and His World. And it has a certain other essence to it as well, one that isn't as mysterious as I'm making it sound here in this sentence, but that is just as deep as any that are in this story.
Pink will leave you with more questions than answers, I will not lie. Baptize Me In will answer some of those questions, but just how many remains to be seen.
I hope I will not disappoint in these coming chapters, and that you will stick out to the end.
Thank you all so much for your wonderful reviews!
And finally, a shout out to those who are so awesome I lack the proper words to say thanks:
Kyuubikun on Deviantart, I thank from the bottom of my heart for the wonderful Pink fanart. You can all visit the link on my profile to see it.
Uncmeister I thank for the shout out in Roots, another amazing Red Goth/Stan story you should all go read right now.
Thank you to:
Hot Monkey Brain
Wishmaster Kami
Thequillofdestiny
Fancee
Lilzenium
Shanello
Kusege-Chan
Dar
Red Shiloh
Andatariel.x
Itachi. Oh Enka
The Brat Prince
Gaarainapie
The anonymous reviewers
The love I feel for you all cannot be expressed in mere words! Thank you all for your support!
Title: Pink
Author: Zoshi the Confused
Rating: Ranging, mostly PG-PG13
Category: South Park
Genre: Angst/eventual tragedy
May contain: Shounen-Ai/Boy Love, Violence, Adult Situations, Swearing
Sometime around seven pm on a chilly Thursday evening I found myself sitting on top of one of the large granite grave markers in South Park's old cemetery. The snow covered the ground pretty deep in places, creeping up the sides of the ancient trees that the graves lay between. The air was chilly around me, biting. I couldn't see if the sun was still out from under the canopy of the interlocking tree branches above, but I seriously doubted it.
It was cold, and it was dark, and the stone I was sitting on was freezing my ass through my pants. I shifted slightly, looked over towards Red where he was crouched in the snow a few feet away. He had a large piece of paper propped up against the grave marker with one hand, and was rubbing a large black wax crayon over the surface of the paper.
I grabbed the canvas bag sitting next to me on the grave stone and hopped off. Shivering slightly, I walked over to Red, watching as he nearly lay on the ground to get to the very bottom of the grave marker. Painstakingly he rubbed the wax crayon over and over until the white of the etchings stood out in sharp contrast to the black of the crayon. With a light sigh he sat back up, pulling the paper up and away carefully so that it wouldn't get wet.
"Cold yet?" I asked, shoving my freezing hands into my pockets. Red flicked his bangs out of the way as he inspected the paper.
"What?" He asked, slightly distracted. I nudged him with my knee, and he looked up at me finally, his breath clouding on the frosty air. "What?"
"Cold?" I asked, shivering slightly but unable to keep the grin from coming to my face. He looked so oblivious, knee deep in the snow and shuddering in the cold. I hadn't realized just how involved he could get with his little pet projects; he probably hadn't even noticed the cold creeping up on him.
"A little…" He admitted finally, looking around as if he had just realized he was in the middle of a graveyard on a cold winter evening. Standing up, he rolled the paper up carefully, making sure not to put any bends into it. He shuddered violently, suddenly looking annoyed, and handed me the roll. I tucked it into the canvas bag next to the others as he wrapped his arms around himself. "What time is it?"
"After seven," I replied, walking over to place an arm around his shoulders and pull him close. Having him next to me seemed to chase away some of the chill; I leaned over to press a light kiss to his cheek. "Want to stop by the diner?"
"Sure," He said, words distant as ever, but turned to catch my lips in his for a short, sweet moment. "Sorry…"
"For what?" I dropped my arm to his waist, fingers hooking in the belt loop on his jacket. We started walking back to my car, the chilly evening air winning out this time.
"I didn't realize it had gotten so late," He glanced at me from the corner of his eye, and just for a moment I saw the tiniest apologetic look flicker across his face. I grinned to myself; I was getting better at catching his expressions. It wasn't the easiest thing to do, with him having pulled the apathetic goth thing for so long, but I was managing it. It seemed like such a stupid thing to get happy over, but it worked for me.
"It's cool," I gave his side a pat before pulling my arm away to grab the keys out of my pocket. We took the last bend out of the cemetery gate and walked over to where the Civic was standing under a large oak tree. Out on the road I could see that the sky was dark and cloudy beyond the dark fingers of the leafless trees. With the car unlocked, I pulled open my door and sat down on the freezing driver's seat. Red settled onto the passenger's side seat, and I handed him the bag of papers before pulling my door closed.
Fumbling a bit with the keys, I managed to finally get them into the ignition. The engine turned over once, caught. I switched on the heater, turning the fans on full blast to heat the car as quickly as possible. Red was already digging through the glove compartment looking for CD's, and I let the car idle. The headlights lit up the side of the street ahead of us, gleaming off of the iced snow hanging on the sides of the trees and the branches above. There was little wind that evening, and the world was silent outside the car, very silent. It was a good sort of silent, a comforting sort of silent. The slight hum of the engine was barely there, just on the outside of my hearing; the silence was much louder than that, and it was all around me. I didn't even have to try to listen for it, it just came to me, and it was comforting. It was safe. It was just close enough to touch me, but it wasn't overpowering or stifling. I could live with that sort of silence, I thought; I could enjoy it even, enjoy the slight almost-there-but-not-quite static at the edge of my perception. It was fine here in the silence, it was perfectly fine in a place as perfect and serene as this.
"Stan?"
Red's voice came to me, distant, slightly hollow. It took a moment for it to reach me, really reach me, and I blinked slowly, forcing myself to focus. My hands were gripping the steering wheel tightly, white at the knuckles, and I realized I was breathing hard. I couldn't focus my eyes right, not yet, things in front of me were weaving in and out of my sight. I shook my head, closed my eyes to try and get things back to normal again. I felt Red's hand on my shoulder, could feel him lean towards me slightly. I opened my eyes again, finding my vision had returned to normal again. I turned to him, tried to fake a grin and failed horribly.
"Sorry, just tired, I guess…" I sighed, detaching a hand from the steering wheel to run shaky fingers through my hair. The outside word was pushing in on me, pressing against me.
"Maybe we should skip the diner?" Red's eyes were shadowed, worried. I could feel his hand move to the back of my neck his fingers cold against my skin, but comforting all the same.
"No," I said, more sharply than I had intended. I leaned back against his touch, closing my eyes again, willing myself to focus. "No, we'll go. Let's go."
"Stan…"
I heard the silent question in his tone, but I shrugged it off and put the car in drive. Red settled back into his seat, pulling his seatbelt on as I drove onto the street, but thankfully stayed silent. I thought I knew what he might ask, but I wasn't sure I could answer his question. I focused on the drive, on the road ahead, trying to ignore the brand of silence in the car and outside of it, ignore it and not focus on it because I wanted to, so badly.
The diner came into view sooner than I had expected, but I caught on quick enough and took the turn onto the parking lot. We got out of the car, walked to the diner with just the right amount of distance you'd expect to find between two guys who happen to be hanging out with each other. Rectangles of light lit the sidewalk right outside the diner and the door seemed to shine brightly in the darkness of the evening. I was greeted with a burst of warm, cinnamon and bacon scented air the moment I pulled it open. Red followed me inside, glancing around quickly as we walked across the entrance mat. I couldn't see anyone familiar, and apparently neither could he. We made our way across the sticky diner floor and past a few half-full tables to the corner booth in the darkest part of the room. I dragged my jacket off impatiently, tossing it onto the booth seat before falling onto it myself. I was suddenly stifling in the heated atmosphere of the diner; I felt overheated, slightly nauseated.
I barely noticed when the waitress stepped over to us, barely registered her not-exactly-cheerful smile. She chewed her gum loudly as we ordered our coffees, mine with cream, Red's straight black and bitter. I avoided his look as she walked away, fiddled with the salt and pepper shakers instead. The table between us was greasy and slightly wet beneath my hands. It was a long moment before the waitress returned and I was able to switch my focus to adding sugar to my coffee and mixing it slowly.
I looked up finally, unable to stand the feeling of his eyes on me any longer. He had his arms crossed on the table in front of him, the coffee sitting untouched, a look of practiced patience on his face. He was good at that patience thing, too good at it. I sighed, leaning back against the back of the booth, and tried not to look defeated.
"You don't talk much lately," Red said once it became apparent I wasn't the one who was going to start. I shrugged.
"There's not much to talk about, really," I said, trying to grin. He didn't look convinced, and I looked away, fiddling with an unopened pack of sugar.
"I'm here, Stan…" He said, his voice soft. I couldn't look at him, not then. My fingers clenched around the sugar packet. Something inside me felt pained, hollow. Something inside me wanted to escape to him again.
"I know…"
****
The silence was deafening; there was a roar to it that I'd only begun hearing in the past few weeks. It was hard to think in that house, it was hard to do anything really. Voices seemed hollow there, movements seemed slowed. I found myself getting nauseated there much too quickly, hit by strange feelings of weightlessness, helplessness. Paranoia, maybe. Maybe a phobia developing, I don't know. I don't know. I couldn't step foot inside without my head aching, my eyes burning, my legs threatening to buckle beneath me. It was overreaction, I knew it, but why, I couldn't say, I couldn't even begin to try and understand. I had hoped I'd get over it, eventually, fight past the feelings that threatened to overcome me. I thought I knew what it was, but that didn't help. I thought if I knew what was poisoning me, maybe I'd be able to find the antidote. I didn't want to find the antidote for this, though, not this. Not this.
At the moment, it was all I could do to keep myself sitting on the couch. I was trying to concentrate on the TV in front of me, but that was proving a little difficult with the speed at which the channels were being flipped. The word "mute" flashed along with the changing channels, hanging over the head of a surprised looking police officer one second and a floating crocodile the next. The speed of the changing images probably wasn't helping the nausea creeping in my stomach, the strange feeling of detachment that was crowding in my head.
I glanced over to the right where Kyle sat at the other edge of the couch, eyes fixed on the TV screen, his left arm tucked tight against his body. I was hit with the urge to comment on something, anything, anything to break the silence, but the stiff way he held himself scared me out of acting on it. I shifted on the couch, almost wincing as the couch cushions shifted underneath me. My hands felt sweaty; I rubbed them against the ribbed fabric of the couch. I felt a sense of vertigo, a sudden shift of gravity from below to just somewhere on the left. I swallowed thickly, looked at the TV again, attempted to make sense of the flickering images, the silent pantomime. A car, and some people, and a dog running across a field and I wanted Sparky suddenly, I wanted Sparky so bad, wanted to pet him and feel his fur and feel his life and that wasn't possible; Sparky was dead. Sparky was dead.
"W-wanna take a w-walk?"
Kyle's voice was low, very low, but loud enough to be heard over the roar of the silence. I started, swallowed thickly. I still hadn't gotten used to that stutter. I should have gotten used to it already.
"Okay," I replied, surprised by the sudden blackness of the TV screen. Slowly I stood up, waiting until Kyle had passed me to follow him to the front door. He pulled his coat out of the front closet, pulling it on with a strange sort of cold calculation. I grabbed my jacket out of the closet, focused on getting it on and zipped up. I was almost consciously avoiding looking at him, looking towards him, looking at anything in his direction, and I wondered if he could tell. I hoped he couldn't tell.
We left the house, walking down the slush covered sidewalk towards Main street. The sun glinted off of the white snow on the lawns of the houses we passed, but it was muted by the low laying clouds. Every now and then a dark shadow passed over us, a large cloud blotting the sun for a moment. I kept pace with Kyle, trying and failing to look in his direction. I didn't know what I had to do. I wasn't sure I could do it if I even knew what I should do. I should do something.
"Where do you want to go?" I asked after we'd walked a few blocks. I managed to catch Kyle's shrug out of the corner of my eye, forced myself to look at him. He didn't seem to be focusing on anything; his eyes were darting around everywhere. He still had his left arm pulled in close to his side, hand stuffed in his coat pocket. He turned towards me suddenly, and his eyes caught mine before I could look away. They were a deeper gray than I'd ever seen before; there was a strange sort of glossiness to them.
"Park?" He asked, his voice wavering slightly. I nodded, unable to speak, and we turned right down Grant avenue. A car passed us, slowing along the icy street, and I saw Kyle glance at it, a haunted look on his face. He picked up at the pace once the car passed us, head lowered, and I hurried to keep up with him. The walk wasn't long, most of the way having been shoveled by the owners of the houses we passed. At the corner of May and Grant was our old elementary school, large pale building looking much as it had when we were younger.
Some kids were out front, digging through the snow piles the janitor had built up by the school walls. A little fat kid started complaining about something, angrily shoving another kid into the snow pile. The second kid struggled to get up, losing his hat in the process, and shoved the fat kid into the pile as two more kids started laughing. I slowed for a moment as we passed, watching as they finished laughing and pulled the fat kid out of the snow drift. Their shouts and laughter resounded off of the buildings around, a cacophony of joy and the energy of youth. I grinned softly, watching as they tore off down the sidewalk, the fat kid at the end of their little group.
A sound caught my attention, something close to but not quite a growl. I turned my attention back to where we were going only to find Kyle stopped on the sidewalk in front of me, his eyes on the kids I had just been watching. There was something strange in his face, something feral in his eyes. The twist of his lips resembled a snarl more than anything, and for a moment I was frozen there, on the sidewalk, unable to move for fear he'd turn that inhuman look on me.
He shifted suddenly, coughed. I noticed him shudder, like a sudden, violent twitch, and then he was off again, moving down the sidewalk towards the park that was located just across the street. I followed after him, a good few steps behind. I could hear laughter behind me, distant and faded, and something was twisting in the pit of my stomach, something sour and wrong.
Kyle walked through the opening in the park fence, his eyes on the ground in front of him. The walkway in the park was full of sludge and half-frozen boot-prints, bordered by large trees on either side. The octopus-shaped whirligig stood half-covered in snow, one single cheery octopus eye looking happily over the mound of snow. I looked over towards the jungle gym, its slide and tunnel painted the same garish orange it had been when we were little. Icicles hung from the monkey bars, long and dangerous looking like the teeth of some carnivorous beast. I shuddered, realized I had lost sight of Kyle. Looking around, I hurried on down the path trying to catch a glimpse of him. The wind gusted suddenly, and I could hear the familiar squeaks of the swing chains. I stepped over the low fence that bordered the pathways separating the different sections of the park, and walked towards where I thought remembered the swings to be.
Kyle was sitting in the swing the farthest from the path, eyes focused somewhere on the ground in front of him. I made my way over to him, nearly slipping on the frozen snow as the wind gusted again. It was bitter, cold, biting even through my jacket. I shuddered as I reached the second swing, and sat down. The chains squeaked in protest, and I eyed them warily. The swing set was old, and rusty. The chains were grimy with caked on dirt and flaking orange rust. I thought I could hear the pipes of the frame creaking, thought I could see them twisting under our weight.
"Stan?" Kyle asked suddenly, softly, and I nearly missed his voice as the wind gusted again.
"Yeah?" I asked, gripping at the swing chains. I couldn't look anywhere other than ahead suddenly. He didn't say anything for a long time, and I looked over at him finally, carefully. I could see him start forming words, start trying to say something.
"N-nevermind," He grimaced, dropping his head slightly.
"Kyle, it's cool," I said, paused. I dropped my hands a little lower on the chains, felt the rust flaking as my fingers ran over them. "Talk to me…"
"F-fuck, Stan," He shuddered, shook his head. Grimacing, he pressed his face against the chain of the swing. I could see him rubbing his left arm, could see his left hand twitch slightly. I thought I should say something, but I didn't know what I could say. I didn't know anything anymore.
"I-I… Stan, I j-just… fuck, I h-hate him, Stan, I h-hate him s-s-so much…" Kyle breathed, his voice low, raw. His eyes were cloudy, muddy almost. I couldn't see much in them - I haven't been able to see much in them for so long – but what I could see made my stomach twist. I wasn't sure if it was from that strange glare in them, a glint that couldn't come from anywhere but inside, or if it was from the strange way they seemed to focus on nothing, or rather not focus at all.
I swallowed thickly, turned to look somewhere else, anywhere else. The snow was gray around us; there was a distinct lack of light even though there were less clouds in the sky.
"M-maybe… Maybe I d-don't hate h-him… M-maybe I d-do…" Kyle continued, voice hushed, pained. It was cutting into me with each word. "B-but maybe I d-d-on't… You – you c-can't hate something t-that isn't there, r-right? Can y-you hate it? If i-it's not t-there? C-can… can you n-not hate it?"
I didn't want to look at him, I did not want to look at him, but I was looking at him; his eyes pointed towards the sky, his face too pale even in this cold. His right hand was on his left arm, twisting and flexing; he was shuddering. I could see him shuddering.
"Kyle…" I stood up, the swing rocking slightly as I left it, the chains squeaking. He wasn't paying attention to me, his eyes still focused above us somewhere. Maybe he couldn't pay attention to me. Maybe I wasn't there at all.
I moved in front of him, grabbed hold of his shoulders. His hand was still twisting around his arm, knuckles white. I could feel him shivering beneath my hands, but it was like I was feeling it through layers, as if he was somewhere else, somewhere different, and I was just feeling his echoes. "Kyle…"
He turned to me, then, slowly, mechanically. I couldn't read his eyes, couldn't even see their color, but they glistened a little too much in the lack of light, and even as I watched, a single tear broke free at the corner of his right eye, slid down the much too pale skin of his cheek to his chin. I crouched down in front of him, pulled him towards me until he was pressed against my chest, dangerously close to falling out of the swing. For a single, terror filled moment I couldn't feel him, couldn't feel his weight against mine, couldn't feel him between my arms, and I squeezed him tighter, held him so tightly I thought I would break him. He was muted, his entire being was barely visible; he shuddered but it was just more echoes in my arms.
"I l-lost something. S-stan… I l-lost s-something…"
