Perchance to Dream
Disclaimer: See Prologue
Summary: The aftermath is revealed.
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At School VII
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To say walking into school the next day was like smack-dab into a brick wall of silence would be a little misleading. Because it wasn't a silent sort of silent, it was more of a hushed-whispers-only sort of silence. The kind that creates a sort of buzz that makes you think something's wrong with your ears. The kind that indicates either a tragedy, a disaster, a catastrophe, a calamity, or a tragic disaster, a disastrous catastrophe, a catastrophic calamity, or a tragic, disastrous, catastrophic calamity.
The whispers are so quiet and so numerous I can only pick up snippets of conversation here and there. But from what I can hear, and string together, they've found out about my little face-suck with Kyle. Anybody with any high school experience knows that word travels fast, and it travels twice as fast when it involves the head jock or the head cheerleader, and five times as fast if it involves both. Since Wendy was there yesterday, watching while I gave her boyfriend what was probably the best kiss of his life, this means Bebe knew within fifteen minutes, and from there, the entire student body knew within the hour.
Word of my own arrival spreads through the usual channels, and by the time I'm at my locker, Kyle's gang is turning the corner. But, quite to my surprise, Jew-fag himself is not leading them. No righteously indignant glare, no angry snarl on his face that just screams "beat-down imminent" to a guy, no raised fist ready to deliver a lip-busting first blow. Nothing at all but fatass Cartman swaggering about like he owns the place.
Of course, if I were Kyle and in this position, I wouldn't be there either. I would be hiding in my room, dying of embarrassment, and nursing a HELL of a bruise on my face, placed there by a pissed-off and/or betrayed girlfriend who can slap a guy with roughly the same force as an Austrian bodybuilder swinging a two-by-four. So, I won't really expect to see Kyle until next week. But judging by the rumors, Wendy is fuming pissed. I'll probably get slapped myself. I'm certainly not going to get a medal for what I did. It was low, underhanded, and just disgusting. I'll probably be going to Hell for it. Oh well. Kenny always raved about how kickass the parties were there. I suppose the décor's ok too, given that you've got a literal giant gay in charge down there. As long as there's air conditioning…
"Marsh," Cartman says in passing, giving me a good natured punch in the arm as he passes by. Judging by my reaction, you wouldn't be able to tell it was good-natured, though, since I reacted by falling face-first into my locker in surprise. Because THAT was not supposed to happen. Of all the possible things that could have come from my presence in school today, being greeted positively by Cartman and the jocks was nowhere near the top as far as plausibility. But considering the fact that getting shot in the face Dick Cheney style was ranked second in probability, and that any possibility of positive reaction was buried near the bottom of the five page list, beneath the equivalent of thirty eight full suitcases of bad reactions, what little Catholic spirit still burns within me is screaming that I need to be dropping to my knees and praising Jesus. The other 96 percent of me immediately shoots the Catholic part an angry glare and beat it up. It stops screaming, and I gather myself from the awkward sprawl of limbs and head to my first class.
It is utterly amazing how the jock crowd's attitude towards me has been changed over the past four or five months since I gave Wendy a, in my mind, at least, sarcastic message to give to Kyle. It makes a little more sense after what happened yesterday, but it's still pretty damn amazing. OK, so back then, the sports crowd was pretty much Kyle's domain, and if he wanted me to look good for his fag-tastic fapping fantasies, he just had to tell them to back off and they would obey his whims. But I can imagine now that I'm going to be treated pretty much as a hero by them. Sports is one of the most homophobic institutions you'll find outside of the Republican Party and the Bible/Torah/Koran-thumping crowd, and any time an athlete comes out of the closet, he's always ripped to shreds and denounced by everybody and their brother, including those who before would have considered him a close friend and even teammate. Jocks don't want to think about people staring at their junk and fantasizing about ass-raping them in the showers after games and practices. Now that they know Kyle is a flaming ass-rammer, what they've probably done is beat the shit out of him as punishment before ostracizing him just as permanently as I was.
As for me, as the outer, I'll be treated even more favorably than before, but I still won't be welcomed back into the fold. That most probably because I was, after all, the one who initiated yesterday's kiss, so it'll be treated more like a Judas-type situation. You don't exchange friendship with one fag for that of a supposed second. It would defeat the purpose of ending friendship with the first fag in the first place. But I didn't do it to get back in the guys' good graces in the first place…I didn't want that, and with only two months left in the school year, and the only sport left being baseball, there's no real point in re-joining the jock crowd anyway. I managed the last three years without those guys for friends, what's another two months? Nothing at all.
Halfway through first period, I get my first indication that Kyle is in fact, in school. All activity in my classroom suddenly halts and we all get very quiet at the sound of a LOUD smack of a yardstick against the chalkboard in the room next door. Someone's in trouble. Big, big trouble.
"BROFLOVSKI!" Mr. Snyder bellows. "WAKE THE FUCK UP!" Kyle's in school then…and apparently sleeping through his Economics class. His response to the shouting is inaudible – the walls are thin, but you can only hear people if they're shouting, like Mr. Snyder.
"YOU WERE SLEEPING. I HEARD YOU SNORING, DON'T GIVE ME ANY LIP!" Well, it stands to reason he wouldn't admit to sleeping in class, anyway. "IF YOU WEREN'T SLEEPING, BROFAGSKI, WHAT WERE YOU DOING WITH YOUR HEAD DOWN AND YOUR EYES CLOSED?"
I snicker. I'm the first one who called him that. I don't think anyone heard, but it's a logical permutation of his name once I threw him out of the closet, so I expect to hear it a lot more often. A lot more often than I expect to hear his actual name spoken.
"I THOUGHT SO. PROBABLY DREAMING OF FUCKING SOME MAN-WHORE LIKE MCCORMICK OR MARSH," Mr. Snyder continues, probably because Kyle either said nothing or said nothing and turned a very bright shade of red. I bristle at the implication that I'm getting ass-fucked on a regular basis, when in fact I'm still a virgin (through no fault of my own), but the fact that Kyle's getting chewed out and insulted in front of two entire classrooms makes me forgive Snyder the slight. I just won't invite him to my graduation party.
"GET YOUR DISGUSTING FAG ASS TO THE OFFICE. DETENTION FOR A WEEK!" he roars, and we hear his door open, a crash as Kyle is pushed out of the room and into a locker, and then the door slamming shut once more. Oh, this is just delicious.
"OK…" Ms. Young says, somewhat uncertainly. "Um…we were talking about the causes of the Great Depression…"
"People made stupid decisions in the Twenties. That's what caused the Depression. Just like people making stupid decisions in the first few years of this decade has made our economy go down the tubes," I say, wanting to just waste the remaining fifteen minutes of class basking in Kyle getting bitched out.
"…Thank you, Stan," she says. "Can you be more specific?"
"I could, but I don't want to. It's on page 359, if anyone else is interested," I remark, leaning back in the desk. Ms. Young is indignant, snapping at whatever unfortunate student meekly raises their hand to answer the question, scaring them all and causing the student –a girl or a tenor, by the sound of the voice, I'm not looking- to stammer out an answer about stock markets and credit.
For the rest of the morning, there's no trace of Kyle. I don't know how long he was made to stay in the office, though probably not long, because (thankfully) none of the rest of his morning classes are located anywhere near mine. I manage to get through my own classes without even thinking that much about the fag, and basking in my own glory. Plenty of that to be done. I draw a nice happy scene with frolicking rabbits – I make sure to note that the rabbits are a male and a female – and sunshine with no clouds and plenty of green grass for my Art project of the day, in Math I breeze through a quiz and an in-class worksheet, and in English, I ace another quiz, this one on the characterization of Dickens' Oliver Twist.
Then comes lunch. And, I swear to God, when I walk into the cafeteria it is like I have died and gone to heaven. I even stay in there because of what I see. Well, partly because one can't really transport spaghetti and garlic bread, but also because of what I see as I take a seat over by the windows and dig in with gusto unrivaled by a football team at a pre-game pasta dinner.
Why am I not sitting in the dark corner I occupied for most of the past three years? Because the dark corner is already occupied. By a disgusted, sad, dazed-and-confused Kyle Broflovski, who looks like absolute hell. For starters, it doesn't look like he showered last night, his hair is all ratty and un-styled. Then there's the way he's dressed: he's got on a black hooded sweatshirt and some very garish yellow sweatpants. And as I suspected, he's got a whopper of a bruise on his left cheek. There's some evidence he – or more likely his mother – tried to use concealment cream on it this morning, but I can still see the glaring purple handprint on his face. He's got his head down, wondering what the hell happened to him over the past twenty-four hours. His head's probably spinning because he can't process all the action that's been thrown at him.
And I…am proud. Not ashamed of my disgusting actions that caused it; not a hint of pity directed towards my ex-best friend and would-be ass-rapist, just beaming pride with such a huge grin that has probably got people looking at me wondering if I've gone insane. A smile that is both happy and sinister, dangerous and just a small bit sexy at the same time.
"Stan?" Kenny asks, suddenly in front of me. "You want to come sit over with us? We've kind of got an empty spot…" Eat with the jocks…I must say it's a tempting offer.
"Just for lunch, right?"
"Yeah, just for lunch. At least until Cartman finds a freshman worthy of
'promoting' as he's calling it."
"Heh. Ken, can I ask you a question?" I ask as I get up to follow him over to the jocks' table.
"Sure. Shoot."
"Did I do the right thing by throwing Kyle out of the closet the way I did?" Kenny hisses as he breathes in, which concerns me.
"I'll say you did the right thing by outing him," Kenny said. "But the way you did…"
"The way he did was fucking awesome," Cartman says appreciatively as we arrive. "Fucking hell, Stan, I had no idea you were so devious. I always thought you were kind of a soft, liberal hippie-type fag. I don't think even I would have thought to do that!"
"Um, thanks, I guess," I say, a little uncomfortable as I start eating again. "Coming from you, I suppose, that's a giant compliment."
"Well thank you. Nice to know my genius is appreciated by some people. You gave us exactly what we needed to ruin the bastard…and finally get Wendy someone who deserves her."
"Oh?" I ask, internally bristling that apparently he feels I didn't deserve her either. "And who would that be?"
"Me," Kenny pipes in. "And I'm not sure if you know Stan, but if you don't, I'll give you a tip: always pick up depressed girls. Pity sex and rebound sex are fucking awesome." There are hoots and hollers of encouragement from the rest of the table, and Kenny gets more than a few high-fives.
"Thanks for the advice," I say deadpan. "I'll keep it in mind when I'm bar-hopping…always look for the depressed ones."
"Yeah man, they look unhappy but you get 'em in the sack and they get wild and crazy REAL fast. As long as you don't mind hearing some other guy's name a few times while you're doin' her," Kenny says, and the noise starts up again. I finish up my meal and get up to dump my trash and return my tray.
"Hey, guys, thanks for letting me sit with you, and Ken, thanks again for the advice, but I need to pop out back. I'm getting a little short on time here, and I need to have a cig before class starts back up. See ya 'round," I say.
"What if Brofagski bothers you?" Craig asks. "He knows where you'll be, after all."
"Worry not," I answer. "I know just how to deal with horny fags after my ass," I say on my way out, glaring at Kyle, who's just staring blankly at the wall. I'm not entirely sure if he knows I'm looking at him. I hope he's not.
I have my cigarette, and finish it just in time to apply my Axe before the bell rings to shepherd us to fifth period. Kyle doesn't bother me. I hope to God this lasts. I hope to fucking hell this lasts.
Probably won't, though.
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Notes: Heh. OK. Well, at least it's before August 15th. That counts for something, right? Seriously, I'm SO sorry this thing was so damn late. But like I expected, my work left me almost ZERO time for doing anything related to writing (the fact that I was working three of the last five weekends helped absolutely NONE), as when I got home I just had enough time to get on the Internetted computer, check my e-mail and chat.
But now that I'm done with that, I decided to dedicate myself to updating this lovely story before I head back to college, and also before everybody who was reading this and has it alerted forgot it even existed. I'm thinking about all of you…
And please, even if you're very angry with me, think this update is the worst chapter in this entire fic (as I do), let me know!!
Thanks,
Phoenix II