Disclaimer: South Park and all characters in it are copyright Matt Stone and Trey Parker, not me.
A/N:
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Notes:
There seem to be some pretty well-defined categories that the parents in the SP-fanfic universe seem to fall into. At least, when they're not entirely shunted out of the story (I admit it, I've done it myself; just look at this story). We have a lot of angry parents, indifferent parents, accepting parents, and, in Kyle's case, accepting-activist parents. There are a few others, but they're the occasional, rare glimpse.
I have a hard time placing Red's mother into one of those categories, so let me know what you think of her. She's an interesting lady.
This is indeed, the beginning of the end. Next chapter will end this story (at a nice, even ten) and will give the green light to Baptize Me In.
I hope you all won't hate me too much; remember, my sequels tend to end on happy notes!
Not much to say now, I'll leave the rest for the final note in the next chapter.
I will, however, leave you with this one Stan quote that I unfortunately could not work into this chapter (the story decided to rewrite itself halfway through). See if you can figure out what it pertains to.
Stan: "I-I'm… heh… I'm not laughing. I'm not! I'm… it's just... No, no, it... it sounds very… Amish."
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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
I took the turn off of the road and onto the dirt path that led deeper into the woods. Slowly, I drove over the snow-clogged path, the car dropping into hidden pits every now and then. Cartman fiddled with something, glancing out every now and then beyond the side window.
Nothing but trees as far as we can see.
Ahead a parting in the forest slowly grew into a clearing, and I pulled off of the path and onto the snowy field. Cutting the engine, I got out and headed towards the trunk as Cartman clambered out of the passenger's seat. He walked over to me as I opened the trunk, holding his hands out for me to pass him the model airplane that lay inside. I took out a large bag as well, filled with tools and notebooks and whatever else Cartman had thought he needed, and followed him out to a patch of the field that had been shoveled off. A sign stood off to the side, its words obscured by a covering of snow.
"You think it'll fly?" I asked as Cartman set the large model onto the relatively flat surface of the field. The model itself was impressive; nearly four feet from wingtip to wingtip, with a bullet shaped body ending in a sleek rudder.
"Of course it will, I built it mahself," Cartman huffed, standing up and walking over to me. He motioned for me to give him the bag, and I handed it over. The sky was clear, the sun was bright but not glaring.
"That's why I was asking…" I grinned. Cartman grumbled something under his breath as he dug through the bag, finally pulling out a large radio controller.
I turned to look around the clearing. Towards the far edge there was a sudden drop, a steep hill that led down further to a stream a couple dozen feet down. There were a few birds out at the edge, flitting around a dark spot on the snow. The stillness in the air was broken by a sudden low whine of a motor, and I turned to find Cartman starting to taxi the model plane down the length of the field towards the drop.
"Ten bucks says it goes over," I said, watching the plane pick up speed as its propeller pulled it along. Cartman just grinned, a little evilly I'd say, and pressed something on the controller. The plane's wing flaps tilted and suddenly the model shot into the sky, engine whirring as it rose higher and higher.
"HA! Ha, take that Marsh!" Cartman crowed, shooting me a victorious look. I rolled my eyes and tried to look suitably upset. Cartman looked back up at his plane after a moment, and I dropped the stupid look I was sure I had on my face and looked over towards where I had seen the birds before. They were gone.
"So…" Cartman said, drawing the word out until it his voice faded. I shrugged, started to look at him but decided not to half-way through. My eyes rested on a fallen branch at the edge of the field. "Kenneh's been sleeping over the past few nights."
I shrugged, and then realized that probably wasn't a good enough answer. I tried to think of the right sort of answer, but it was a while before I understood, really, what Cartman had said. I laughed.
Cartman turned a thoughtful look my way, and I looked at him finally, because it hadn't been a laugh, not really.
"That's weird," I said, because that was probably the best way of putting it. Cartman nodded, raised his eyes back to the plane circling the clearing.
"Thought you might know why." He said, his voice coming easy and relaxed in the cool air.
"You don't?" I asked, and this time it was Cartman's turn to shrug. I eyed him for a moment, then looked up at the model plane. "Why do you think I would know?"
"Well, Super Best, I just thought someone would be talking to you," Cartman replied as if it were the most obvious answer in the world.
"I'm not –" I cut myself off, stared at the trees at the edge of the clearing.
"Not what, Stan?" Cartman goaded, and he knew damn well what he was doing. I avoided looking at him, felt my hands clench into fists. The model plane buzzed low over the treetops. I saw it twist nearly onto its side as it took a sharp turn.
"Shut up," I said finally, heard Cartman give a sharp laugh. A few large black birds lifted out of the trees as the plane flew overhead, silent except for the flapping of their wings.
"Fine then, let's talk about something else…" It was a tone I knew all too well, and I sighed and rolled my eyes. Nothing good would come out of it, but it had to be better than the previous conversation.
"All right then," I stuffed my hands in my jacket pockets, watching the plane chase after some more birds that had flown out from the trees.
"How about this…" Cartman began, and I waited, impatiently, while he sent the plane into a corkscrew, carefully pulling it out again and sending it curving higher up in the air. "We'll talk about why you're spending so much time hanging out with that faggeh goth kid all of a sudden…"
My breath caught somewhere in my throat, midway between inhale and exhale. I found myself focused suddenly on that dark spot in the snow near the edge of the drop.
"What are you talking about?" I asked, with the ghost of a laugh. I thought I handled that quite well, no faltering over my words. I had a half-grin on my face, a wretched, strained half-grin that I was struggling to keep even though I was turned away from him, and he shouldn't have been able to see. He couldn't see.
"Nothing, nothing." Cartman said with a well-placed sigh. "It's just, you know, I could swear that ever since Clyde's parteh you two seem to be spending an awful lot of time together…"
It took all my willpower to keep from turning my head, in any direction, to keep from letting that half-grin slip from my face. I tried to remember, what did I do when I was nervous? What were my tics? What should I not do?
"I don't know what you're talking about…" I managed to say, felt my throat constrict painfully midway through my sentence. The model plane dipped below the edge of the drop, out of sight for a moment.
"Strange, how Bebe seemed so… misplaced during the parteh… You know, after you ditched her in the bathroom…" Cartman's voice was low, precise. I found myself swallowing thickly, the grin having faded from my face long ago. He shouldn't be able to put anything together; how the hell can he put anything together? How can he know? How?
"You know, with your asthma historeh, I thought it was a little weird that you'd come back smelling like cigarettes…" The plane dodged up from behind the drop, twisting around to fly low over the treetops again, and Cartman added, almost as an afterthought, "And clove cigarettes, at that…"
I forced the bunched muscles in my back to relax, tried to ignore that single bead of sweat that was crawling down the back of my neck. He had nothing. He had to have nothing. He couldn't… I looked towards the sky, my breath clouding in front of me. Unaffected. He had nothing.
"Do you want to hear more?" Cartman's voice held his own patented form of temptation. My mouth felt dry. I closed my eyes; I wondered why I put up with this. Why I put up with him. I wondered why I was out there in the middle of a forest with a model airplane buzzing around over my head when I really wanted to be somewhere else, anywhere else. With him.
Then I realized, I didn't have a choice. I never did.
"What do you want, Cartman?" My voice sounded just as shaky as I felt. I didn't want to open my eyes; I had the strange feeling that I would see him in front of me, his mouth twisted in a maniacal grin.
"Want? Oh Stanleh, I don't want anything. Just knowing is enough…" A chuckle bubbled through his words, "… for now."
I opened my eyes, looking up at the sun above. Its light wasn't enough to keep the chill from cleaving into me.
I've never had a defense.
****
Time is a matter of perception.
I got lost somewhere between his dark eyes and the pale cream skin of his right hip. He had his stupid black arm-warmers on and that stupid spiked choker he'd said was to keep me far, far away from his neck, like I was a vampire or something. His hands were tangled in my hair, and his tongue was magic. I groaned, pressed my bare chest against his, slid my hands down his sides, over his back, down the line of his spine until my fingers were sliding across his skin past the edges of his black jeans. He moved, one of his legs sliding up across mine, thigh against thigh. I couldn't breathe, I couldn't care, but we parted anyway, his eyes half-lidded and his breath hot against my lips. My hips rocked against his, hard, and he let out a small gasp, head rolling back just slightly on his pillow to expose a tantalizing couple of inches of pale skin above the edge of his choker. I leaned forward, careful to avoid impaling myself, and pressed my lips to his neck, kissing and sucking softly. I felt him growl low in his throat before I heard it, but he wasn't pulling away, and I nipped at the side of his neck, his body arching against mine.
One of my hands moved to the front of his pants, fingers tugging the edge lower. He turned his face towards mine, forehead pressed against forehead. I grinned, gazed into his smoldering eyes and let my hand creep past the edge of his pants, fingers feeling taut-stretched denim above and hot skin below. I saw his lips curl at the edges, his eyes burning, his hips rolling as my hand probed further, and his tongue ran across my jaw line, and it was fire, and I had a hundred and one ideas in mind of what to do once I got his pants off, and I was going to do all of them, one by one by…
By…
It took me a moment to realize we had both paused, and moment longer to realize why we had paused. Among the sound of our panting was something else, something like a low and mechanical buzzing. I stared down at him, confused, my hand still hanging out down south. His eyes were unfocused, hovering somewhere above my right shoulder, his eyebrows furrowed.
"Dammit," He breathed, and we fumbled for a moment to disentangle ourselves. The buzzing seemed to grow louder, almost impatient, as we fell apart, and Red reached for his phone on the side table. I lay there, propped up on my elbows and trying to be as quiet as I could as he answered. "Hello? H-Hey Mom… Yeah – What? Oh… yeah, okay. All right."
I frowned as he hung up the phone and his eyes met mine.
"My mom's heading home…" He said, putting the phone back on the side table. I couldn't help but focus the dark spot just above his choker and just under his jaw line.
"How long?" I asked, running fingers through my hair.
"Ten minutes…" Red's voice dropped near to a whisper, and for a moment I stared at him, frozen. "Maybe…"
"Shit!" I wasn't panicking, I wasn't. "Shit!"
This was pulling it closer than we ever had before; the one day we were supposed to have a few hours – goddammit! Red tossed me my shirt, and I struggled to put it on. I was strangely uncoordinated; I couldn't find my shoes. I had no idea where my shoes were. And my jacket! Dammit, was it here or in the living room? I couldn't remember. Couldn't remember.
Red had pulled on his own shirt and was trying to get his hair to look like something other than Hello-There-I-Was-Almost-About-To-Have-Wild-Crazy-Sex-Maybe and I was tying my right shoe and still had no fucking clue where in the hell – Where in the hell was my fucking jacket?! – when the front door opened.
"Hello Jeramiah!"
I almost – no, no, I did snort – Jeremiah? – but one look at Red's face was more than enough to put the fear of God back in me. Now, I had met his mother all of once in my life, and she seemed pleasant enough at the time. The problem was, she was of good old fashioned South Park blood and while she seemed fine enough with her son dressing in black and hanging out in cemeteries all night, I had the feeling she wouldn't be very partial to him bringing other people's sons home to fuck around with in his bedroom. For a moment I entertained the idea of jumping out his window and making a break for it, a very tempting idea –
"Oh, do you have a friend over?"
-but fate obviously was a bitch and had other things in mind. I caught Red's eyes; I couldn't think. Footsteps were heading down the hallway. Our heads turned; my breath caught, my heartbeat sped up.
The
Door
Was
Open.
I jumped up from the bed and Red sidestepped away from my direction the moment his mother's figure appeared in the doorway. It didn't matter, either way. We might as well have painted a sign and hung it in the doorway. I tried to breath, tried to tell myself that this lady didn't look scary at all; she was significantly shorter than either one of us, with coppery-brown wavy hair and kind eyes in a round, pleasant face. She looked like someone's kindergarten teacher, which she was, and therefore she shouldn't be scary. At all.
"Why hello there boys," She smiled, and it wasn't exactly the most cheerful of smiles. Her eyes traveled from Red to me and then she was doing that thing where she was looking at both of us at the same time. "Why don't we go take a seat in the living room, hm?"
Did we have a choice? A minute later I was sitting at one side of the couch, with Red sitting at the other end, and his mom sitting in the seat across from us, her hands clasped on her knees in front of her. I was trying my best to look like a proper young man, and Red had put on the best indifferent look he had in his arsenal; somehow, I got the sickening feeling we weren't going to come out of this in one piece. I hoped I was wrong.
"Well now boys, I'll be honest. I'm not exactly all that supportive of … this," She motioned with her hand towards us, then brought it back to her knees again. That patient smile of her was killing me. "I know, oh I know that the teenage years are all about experimentation, I understand how it is. The world is a big, big place and you're just starting to venture out into it, and you're trying new things in new ways. Apparently, the 'hip' thing now is to actually encourage you, to just, get it out of the way now."
I glanced at Red; he seemed to be intensely focused on a spot on the wall opposite us.
"That's fine, boys, that's perfectly fine." Mrs. … Mrs. … I couldn't even remember at this point - she put on a, well, not exactly patronizing look, but close to it. "Everyone has moments where they want to, oh, try something different. Be something different, maybe. I know. I also know you two have been trying, very hard, to keep this on the 'down low', as they say, and that's why I wanted to talk to you both."
For a moment there I thought I misheard her; she knew? I felt Red shift on the couch, I spared a glance and saw that his mask had slipped a little.
"If you insist on… on… Well, see boys, some people have begun to talk," Her smile was just as sweet and fake as before; I thought I had an idea who those 'people' were. Her eyes locked on mine suddenly, and her gaze was hard. "They've begun to talk, and, well, we wouldn't want to have this get out, and get blown all out of proportion, would we?"
I couldn't look away from her gaze. I swallowed hard. I had to look somewhere, somewhere where I couldn't see that steel edge in her eyes. My eyes jumped to the side, tried to find something to focus on, settled on a small figurine of an angel standing on the edge of a cabinet, dressed in white and holding its angelic harp in hand.
Angelic.
Ideal.
Pure.
My breath caught in my throat, but I forced the words out anyway.
"No ma'am… we wouldn't…"
