Perchance to Dream

Disclaimer: See Prologue

Summary: Graduation Day is here.

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At School IX

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If Kyle wasn't one of the people who had planned this graduation ceremony, I would kiss the whole group. Most High School graduations are held in gymnasiums; cramped, hot gymnasiums, with no air circulation at all to remedy the situation. Kyle and the Graduation Committee moved it to our school's auditorium. The auditorium isn't the Kodak Theatre, but it's not tiny, either. More than enough to seat our graduating class, adorned in the traditional fag-tastic lime green gown and hat, and our families.

I am also thanking God for the fact that I am seated well away from Kyle. He's two rows in front of me, and on the complete opposite end of his row. All the same, though, he's still turning back and making googly eyes at me while the Principal makes his opening remarks. I can feel it, even though I'm staring forcefully at the balding ex-nerd, to try and discourage Kyle's undressing me with his eyes. Sicko's probably not wearing anything under that damn robe, either.

"…Now, I know the controversy our next speaker has sparked over the past few months, however…as a result of summary judgment on an anti-discrimination lawsuit filed in Federal court on his behalf, please welcome to the stage our next speaker, Senior Class President Kyle Broflovski." Kyle gets out of his seat and walks up to the podium, and he does at least appear to be wearing pants. Thankfully, the only person who claps for him is Butters, and after Craig punches him in the arm to stop him, you can hear crickets. The silence appears to make him nervous. I can see the uncertainty in his eyes as he looks out into the audience. Figures his mom would file a lawsuit just to give him something to fucking brag about.

"Thank you, Principal Sneed," he says, hesitation in his voice. "And thank you, my classmates, as well as Judge Marcia Kreiger of the U.S. District Court, for giving me the opportunity to speak to you today. The plan for today was to talk to you a little bit about the past, a little bit about the future, and how important friendship is. But, recently, I had a little revelation. I heard a little voice inside me telling me how hypocritical it would be of me to reminisce about the past and tell you all to cherish friendship when I'd done such a stellar job of destroying the friendship that was most important to me, and severing all ties to the past I had with that friend." As soon as he says that, I get a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. I have a bad feeling about the rest of what is going to come out of his mouth, and judging by the reactions of Sneed and the Superintendent, this is not what Kyle was supposed to be saying.

"As most of you know, I was friends with Stan Marsh from preschool until halfway through our freshman year. He was my super best friend, and the fun times and adventures we had are more cherished memories to me than any of the six state title teams I was on as a member of this school's football and basketball teams, than any of the awards and trophies I received, even more than the night I lost my virginity. Sorry, Wendy." I look back a few rows, and boy is she red…though out of anger or embarrassment I'm not entirely sure.

"In the fall of our freshman year, though, I began to discover I had homosexual desires for Stan. In fear for our friendship, I kept these desires secret, realizing I had to take action to try and rid myself of them. It was then that I made one of the stupidest decisions of my life. Halfway through our freshman year, Stan's father lost his job, and he suddenly became poorer than the McCormicks. I felt at the time that my best chance at getting rid of my feelings was to get rid of the cause. In a moment of weakness, I decided that the best way to save my friendship with Stan was to end it. So I did. I sent him into exile, none the wiser that I wanted to push him up against his locker and ravish him.

"Three and a half years later, they haven't gone away. And because I was selfish, not only did I lose my friendship with him, I made him hate me. And because I made him hate me, I lost any chance of a relationship with him. This is my mea culpa, a heartfelt apology to all of you for lying to you for the last four years. I'm sorry for everything I've put you through, Stan, Wendy, Mom, Dad, and Ike. You didn't deserve any of it, and I hope that any underclassmen in the audience will learn something from my stupidity. Thank you." He steps away from the podium, walking back to his seat, and I'm pretty sure mine is the only dry eye in the place. Why does he have to be such a fucking good speaker? Now I've got two sobbing chicks on either side of me, I can hear Butters crying behind me, and I can see the tears trickling down the cheeks of Clyde and Cartman.

I'm not gonna say I feel awkward, because I don't. I make a habit of not feeling anything, which is why I'm not crying. I don't have any heartstrings to tug. But the situation is definitely awkward. How can it not be, when every single person around you is sobbing their eyes out? Even the school administrators up on stage have their faces in their handkerchiefs. Great. Now they're going to take five minutes and cry for the great speech delivered by the poor unfortunate Kyle, which is five minutes more I have to spend in this shithole. God damn him. All he ever has done lately is give me MORE reasons to hate him. He wants to know why I do? Look in the fucking mirror, faggot!

It takes forever for Sneed to overcome his emotional response to Kyle's "eloquent speech" and introduce the actual commencement speaker, some famous douchebag they hired to bore the pants off everybody. Thankfully, I manage to keep my pants on, mainly by closing my eyes and thinking of Boulder. Sweet, sweet Boulder, where I will be in just a couple of weeks, living and studying and being more than half a mile away from Kyle. I'll still be less than an hour's drive from him, but hopefully he'll be taking way too many classes to make the drive from Fort Collins to Boulder every weekend to try and woo me. And if he's not…well, it's a big campus, with plenty of places for me to hide. As for breaks…I just won't ever leave my room. If I'm careful, and I AM careful, he will never get ahold of me.

Thankfully, a smattering of applause breaks me out of my daydreams to tell me asshat is done. With asshat done, we move on to getting our diplomas and getting the fuck out of here. And running away from Kyle, assuming I can turn in this robe without being accosted. I take my place in the line of students forming to receive our diplomas, waiting my turn to cross the stage.

"…Stanley. R. Marsh," Sneed intones solemnly, and I go up the steps, across the stage, grab the diploma from the Superintendant with my left hand and shake his and Sneed's hands with my right, go down the steps on the other side, and back to my seat. And just like that, I am no longer a high-schooler. It's weird, in a way. I don't feel strange, like I probably should. I don't feel like I'm any different than I was before I went up onto the stage, the exception being I am now in possession of an embossed piece of parchment in a little leather folder. Now that I have it, though, I do believe I have solved the mystery of the shitty school lunch. There's no way they can afford decent food when they spend a hundred bucks on each of these things, and pay the speaker's fees, and buy that huge banner that hangs behind everyone on the stage welcoming them to the South Park High School Class of 2008 Graduation. I think that green cloth is actually silk.

"Class of 2008," Sneed says, returning to the mic. "To signify your graduation, please shift your tassels to the other side of your hat. Go forth and do us all proud. Mr. Wilson, strike up the band!" As he steps away, a few kids throw their hats in the air. I toss mine about a foot, so I can be sure to catch it. The small band assembled in the orchestra pit does as instructed, trumpets singing out the back end of Pomp and Circumstance while we march up the aisles, out of the auditorium while our parents stand up and cheer us on our way out.

In the hallway outside the auditorium, there are arrows directing us to where we're supposed to turn in our robes. Thankfully, they split us into two groups: A-L, and M-Z, which means Kyle and I will be turning our robes in separately. In an effort to get a head start on everything, I unzip mine and take it off immediately after exiting the auditorium, running down the hall (yes, running, there's nothing they can do to me anymore) with it slung over my arm to the turn-in point for M-Z. I'm at the front of the line, not in the least because of my mad sprinting skillz, and am on my way out the door to head back to the car when I'm grabbed by my shoulder and spun around.

"Kyle," I say in greeting, knowing it's him, and of course it is.

"Stan!" he says, pulling some little card out of his pocket. "Come to my grad party!"

"Excuse me?" I ask, grabbing the thing and looking it over. "You are cordially invited to Kyle's house for a celebration of his graduation, blah blah blah blah blah…how the hell do you expect to start this in ten minutes?"

"Oh, I set everything up before I came here, all the food was made last night and is in the fridge just waiting for me to get back and set it out. So…you gonna come?" Kyle says, like anybody would do exactly as he has and it's no big deal that he scheduled his party to start RIGHT AFTER the fucking ceremony.

"Why, so I can save you from spending three hours with your Jew relatives wearing an embarrassing party hat and talking about how cute your tuchus is?" I ask, quite skeptical of Kyle's motivations.

"No…other people are going to be there," he says softly, shuffling his feet, entirely unconvinced of that statement.

"Who, Butters?" I ask. "In case you didn't notice, you just made pretty much everybody in town cry. As a matter of fact, I'm the only one who didn't cry."

"Of course you didn't," he mutters, scowling. "There's always one, and just my luck, it would be the person I was actually trying to affect."

"You were trying to affect me?" I ask, a touch of anger creeping into my voice. "Oh, I see. You were expecting that your nice little heartfelt speech would be enough to melt my frosty heart, make me stand up in the middle of our graduation ceremony, proclaim my undying love for you, run up onstage, drag you behind the curtains, and allow you to ravish me, weren't you?"

His silence and suddenly very red face says it all.

"Fuck you, Kyle. Fuck you all to Hell." I rip up the card and fling the pieces at him like confetti. My spirits are lifted only somewhat by the fact that more than a couple shreds of the paper land in his Jewfro. I spin on my heel and resume my walk towards the car, though it's decidedly more of a stalk this time due to my angry mood.

"Stan! Stan wait!" a very female voice calls out. I hear someone running after me, and a small hand on my shoulder to stop me once again. I turn around again to face Bebe, who is not dressed as fancily as one would expect. It's a pink tank top and grey short-shorts, and the heels she had on have been replaced by sneakers.

"I wanted to know if you think you could make it to my party later this afternoon," she says, handing me a pink card. It's very girly, and tells me that Bebe's party is at her house, in four hours.

"I dunno…" I say.

"I'll make it worth your while," she says, winking at me. "If you can come over closer to the end…it'll be better." Her finger tracing a path down my chest tells me everything I need to know about how much better, exactly, it would be for me to arrive closer to the end.

"I'll be there," I promise, smiling at her. "See you in about six hours."

"Bye Stan!" she says, waving at me. I wave back and grin as I finally manage to reach the car, letting Dad drive me and Mom home.

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Notes: There will be an additional bit of this on dA sometime later this weekend, assuming I can manage to write some heterosexual sex.

So. I managed to get this out in early December. Actually before Finals Week starts, which actually amazes me. Sadly enough, though, I could have probably written this a couple of weeks ago, if I wasn't a lazy jackass.

Anyway, reviews are appreciated greatly. Thanks, and assuming I don't update before then, Happy Holidays!

Phoenix II