Perchance to Dream
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Disclaimer: See Prologue
Summary: Blowback: the unintended consequences of an action that harm the perpetrator of the action.
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Elsewhere III
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"You're being a dick," Wendy says, slamming her hands down on the counter at Jumpin' Java and instantly bringing an eerie quiet to the place.
"Excuse me?" I ask, startled. What brought this on?
"You heard me," she answers, somewhat quieter, leaning over the counter to get in my face. "You're being a dick. We need to talk. Now." Her tone tells me there's no other option available to me.
"Fine. Back alley, two minutes," I say, grimacing. Wendy turns away and heads out the front door, and I head to the back room to get Greg back out front while I deal with whatever stick is up Wendy's ass right now.
Unsurprisingly, she's waiting for me in my smoking alcove by the time I get out the back door. Even though I'm maybe thirty seconds late, she's impatiently tapping her toes, with her arms crossed and a very pissy expression on her face.
"What the hell's the matter with you?" I ask, tapping out a cigarette and lighting up, taking a drag before Wendy unceremoniously snatches it from between my lips and crushes it beneath the heel of her thigh-high boot.
"Oh no you don't. First off, that's disgusting, and second, I don't want you derisively blowing smoke in my face just because you don't like what I'm going to tell you. Kyle's told me just how disgusting that is, and I'm not going to stand for it."
"Oh God," I groan. "He can't even fucking talk to me himself? Now he's sending his ex-girlfriend after me? How the hell does that work? I thought you hated him."
"Oh I did," she says, with a curt nod. "I did. I mean, I always had my suspicions, because he was way too caring and considerate to be totally on the straight and narrow, but I never really figured he would be after you, of all people."
"What the fuck do you mean, me, of all people?" I ask, more than a little anger seeping into my voice. "Love knows no boundaries, it doesn't just happen between people of the same fucking social status, Miss Homecoming Queen/Cheerleading Captain."
"That's not what I meant," she replies with a glare. "What I mean is, you don't exactly seem like his type."
"Good! Someone sees it! Tell him that!" I say, wildly gesturing in the direction of Kyle's house. At least, I think that's the direction it's in. I'm not entirely sure anymore.
"The problem is, you're not the guy he fell for in the first place. He's still in love with Stan-of-three-years-ago," Wendy tells me, taking a seat on one of the crates near the bottom of the alcove.
"Well I hate to burst his little puppy-love bubble, but Stan-of-three-years-ago doesn't exist anymore. He's dead. Froze to death, I believe," I reply, leaning back against the wall and trying to treat this as nothing more than a quasi-friendly chat. At least we haven't come to blows. Hopefully we won't.
"Obviously," Wendy retorts sarcastically. "Stan-of-three-years-ago would never have sauntered like a fucking pornstar leaking rainbows out of his distended asshole to lay a brain-searing kiss on the secretly-closeted King Jock in front of his friends, teammates, and girlfriend."
I gape at her fairly foul-mouthed description of my plan to out Kyle, choking back laughter. "WHAT!? Leaking rainbows out of my asshole!?"
"You heard me," she says. "But that was a fucking lowlife, scumbag thing to do. If you're going to out him, out him, but it wasn't fucking necessary at all to rip the closet door off its hinges, yank him out, and then bludgeon us all with the door. Kyle's not the only person whose life you ruined that day, Stanley." Ooh, full name, she's pissed at me.
"Look, if you're just pissed off because your dreams of having little Kosher love-nuggets have been dashed, you can go blog about it on LiveJournal while you listen to Death Cab for Cutie and My Chemical Romance. I don't care to hear it."
"It's not just about me, asshole!" she shouts, and all of a sudden she's looming over me. "Or Kyle. You ruined everybody's life that day. You changed the entire school hierarchy THREE MONTHS ahead of schedule! We hadn't even gotten the transition committee established yet, and now we have to do it with CARTMAN as interim leader of the jock clique, which is going to make MY job transitioning the cheerleading squad ten times harder, because of the imprint the Lardass is going to leave on next year's Jock King! Poor Kyle's getting his ass kicked every day, the entire cafeteria seating arrangements have had to be rearranged because of you eating with the jocks now at lunch, did you even stop to THINK about the ramifications of your actions, Stanley!?"
"Listen, Wendy, and listen good. If you think I give two shits about your precious clique society, you can go lay in the middle of the road and wait for a car to run you over. I didn't stop to think about the impact it would have on your party planning and prom plans because, frankly, I don't give a damn. They're not my problem, they haven't been my problem, and if you're having trouble dealing, blame Kyle. If he'd been open from the start, we wouldn't be having this fucking mess!" I shout back, and she flinches a bit from the loudness.
"Stan, for fuck's sake. You're acting like a four-year-old, and it's ridiculous. Kyle is a good guy. I dated him for three goddamn years, I think I know a little bit about his upsides. I'll grant you that he fucked you over, but it's nowhere near as bad as what you're doing to him." She's getting frustrated with me; losing her cool. Not to mention I think we've actually gotten to the topic she wanted to talk to me about anyway.
"Oh really? Did I stand by and allow my former best friend to freeze to death while subsisting on a diet of ramen noodles and hot chocolate while I slept in a cozy 72 degree house? Did I force my ex-BFF to stand in the cold waiting to ride the bus to school while I drove my cherry-red sports car with heated leather seats to school? Have I orchestrated debilitating beat-downs on Kyle? Tried to buy his affection with expensive gifts? Did I do any of that, Wendy?" I ask, mocking her assertion that what I've done and am doing to Kyle is worse than what Kyle did to me.
"Did Kyle break your heart when he threw you out of the group?" she asks in return. "Because you're breaking his each and every time you say the hateful things you've been saying, every time you stand by and encourage the guys to beat him, every time you throw away or pawn of a gift he's giving you…"
"You're not going to get me with the bleeding-heart shit, Wendy," I interrupt, wishing more and more she hadn't taken away my cigarette. "Old Stan would have been groveling at your feet begging for forgiveness, and practically spreading his legs begging for Kyle to physically express his love. But me? I could care less whether Jewboy's heart shatters into a million pieces."
She deflates. "Fine," she says, getting out of my personal space. "But don't blame me when you end up a lonely old miserable night janitor at Wal-Mart, because it's your pigheaded choices that are standing between brooding jackass you, and at least a chance at having a decent life. Bye, Stanley." She stalks off, and I immediately snatch a cigarette from my pocket and light it up. I'm going to need a beer when I get home, too.
Why in God's name is Wendy cheerleading for Kyle anyway? Last time I checked, she was just as raging pissed at him for being a closet fag-case as anybody else in school or even in town. I can't really see what he could have possibly said or done to persuade her to stop hating him and start trying to persuade me into not just turning gay, but turning gay to submit to ass-poundings from fucking KYLE.
Hopefully I've shown her how futile of an effort THAT's going to be. She'd be better off wasting her time choosing a new cheerleading captain and doing all that "Senior Transition" shit she was bitching about. Like school social life NEEDS to be that scripted and choreographed. Can't a kid just be a kid anywhere outside of Chuck E. Cheese's anymore?
As I'm heading back in, Greg corrals me and tells me to clean up. He apparently just got a call from his mother telling him his father's in the hospital, and he feels the need to close down early and go be with him three counties over. Fine by me, it just means I get my beer sooner.
By the time I get out front, everybody has dispersed. Apparently Greg announced the closure already. I straighten up the cups, mop up the little spills and toss out all the leftover coffee, clean the tables and straighten the chairs, turn out the lights and am on my way. It's a little chilly for April, but not too bad as I head down Main Street, passing more than a few high school girls prom-dress shopping. As I pass the hardware store, I find myself suddenly yanked into the alley between it and the drugstore, pressed up against the brick wall, and kissed.
Now, I do a funny thing when I'm kissed. I don't know if anybody else does, or how many if some do, but when I'm kissed I close my eyes. So, I'm being pressed against this wall being kissed by someone whose tongue is begging entrance into my mouth, and I don't have any idea who it is. Whoever my mystery kisser is, she's damn quick, and strong to have dragged me back here this fast. I relax a little and let the probing tongue in, letting myself be kissed silly while I try to figure out who it is. Freeing my hands, I start feeling up my kisser.
I freeze when, while moving my hands across the face, they brush stubble. My eyes snap open and are greeted by tangled red hair dangling in the face of someone with a big nose. I'm being kissed by Kyle. God DAMNIT! I shove him off me and punch him in the stomach.
"What the fuck!?" I yell, wiping my contaminated mouth furiously and mentally making note to drink THREE beers. "You are really starting to get on my fucking nerves, Brofagski."
"Don't start that Brofagski shit on me, Stan," Kyle says, glaring at me. "You fucking liked that."
"I thought you were a girl!"
"Bullshit," Kyle spits. "A girl who can pluck you off the street and have her lips on yours in about five seconds?"
"They let girls be ninjas now!"
"Right. And you figured there was a girl ninja in South Park who all of a sudden wanted to jump your bones, so you decided 'What the hell, let's roll with it'?"
"Exactly!"
"Even Fatass isn't that dumb, Stan. Why can't you just admit you liked being kissed by a guy?"
"I don't like being kissed by you, Goddamnit!" I retort. "I'd rather kiss a Wookie."
"I still have my Chewbacca costume," Kyle says, waggling his eyebrows at me suggestively. I think I want to vomit.
"That's sick! What the fuck is wrong with you?"
"Oh lessee…" Kyle says, leaning casually against the wall and starts ticking off items on his fingers. "I'm gay, I'm Jewish, I'm diabetic, I'm in love with a Christian boy, he doesn't love me back, I don't have any friends because he threw me out of the closet, he's in denial…I've got more, if you wanna take a seat."
"I am not in denial!" I say, looking just as incensed as I feel.
"Oh please," Kyle says. "Oh yeah, one more for the list, he's a closet case."
"I'm not a fucking closet case! I don't even use my closet. It's still got Tom Cruise germs!"
"See, that right there. You're a total rainbow child."
"How is not wanting whatever brain-consuming parasites have eaten Tom Cruise evidence I'm gay?"
"Because if you weren't gay, you wouldn't care about Tom Cruise's cooties."
"Maybe I'm just a germophobe!" Even as we're having this argument, I can't help but feel like I'm back in kindergarten. Except, if we were back in kindergarten, I would be sticking out my tongue and pouting at this point. If I did that here, he'd probably rape me.
"Or maybe you just can't admit to yourself that you want me to make sweet love to you!"
"There's nothing to admit! I don't want you to make sweet love to me! I don't love you, I can't stand you, I'm disgusted by the fact that you love me, and at this point, the only thing I do love is the pleasure I get from watching you see how it feels to be reviled by people who you thought were your friends."
Kyle glares at me. "You're a cold bastard, Stanley."
"Thanks for the compliment," I say, and head out of the alley for home. My agenda for the rest of the night now includes dates with four beers and two cigarettes.
God DAMN do I ever hate Kyle!
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Notes: OK, here's the next chapter! And relatively quick, considering, eh? Well, there are a couple reasons I got this one out so quickly. First, I was struck by a spark of inspiration that told me it would be a really good way to start this chapter by having Wendy and Stan argue about Stan's recent streak of douchebaggery. Partly because I hadn't done a lot with her to this point, and partly because I noticed that a lot of you are unhappy with the way he's behaving.
Second, I wanted a chance to gloat further about the victory of Barack Obama, and decided why not do something to commemorate it than update your fic and put a note in so that you can remember when you put this chapter out?
And third, I honestly had nothing better to do with my afternoon than write, and this story is begging for attention, though it does have to compete with four or five other original stories I'm working on.
That's all I've got for now. Maybe we'll see another update at the end of the month, but at the least, it'll be early December. Enjoy!
Phoenix II