Author's Note: In between the last chapter and this one, I saw 'Crack Baby Athletic Association' for the first time and it definitely solidified my theory. Oh, Kyle. Oh, Cartman.


Chapter 1 – Meeting

Stan had just loaded his last suitcase into the trunk of the car when he smelled smoke and turned around to see Christophe standing there, cigarette in his mouth and a shovel over his shoulder, eyeing him with disdain. Or sadness. It was always hard to tell with him.

"Stan," he began, dropping his cigarette on the ground and rubbing it out with his boot only to immediately light a new one. "So zis… is goodbye."

"Oh, whatever, dude, like I won't be back every weekend my parents let me borrow the car." Stan closed the trunk with a thud, trying not to think about how his whole life was basically packed up inside it.

His parents had sold all of their furniture and the other two cars. Stan had given away some of his old clothes to the Salvation Army, minus the Terrence & Philip pajamas he used to wear when he was younger which he refused to part with even though they were collectors' items now. Shelley had even put all her old textbooks up on ebay and was waiting for a good bid to give the money to the family, which was the nicest thing Stan could ever remember her doing. Everything that Stan and his family owned now was in these suitcases inside this car. He looked up at the house that used to be his and sighed.

"This seriously sucks," he said.

"You know what seriously sucks?" Christophe said from behind him. "Getting attacked by fucking guard dogs on my way here because my mother locked me in the basement so I had to dig—"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Stan said, waving him off before he could start. "Give me one of those cigarettes, would you?"

"Go and fuck yourself with your sister's curling iron."

Stan was eyeing Christophe, debating the smartness of wrestling his box of cigarettes out of his pocket while he was holding a shovel, when a car pulled up in front of the house. Gary was out first, hopping out of the passenger seat almost as soon as the car came to a stop, to give Stan a hug. The engine cut out, the car door opened, and Gregory Yardale walked around the front of the car, looking for all the world like he hadn't tried to play grab ass with Stan just last wek. Stan glared at him over Gary's shoulder.

"We brought you a present, Stanley," Gregory said in his stupid annoying British accent like the stupid annoying British dick that he was. "To say goodbye."

"Are you the present?" Stan asked. "Because, if so, I'd like the receipt."

Christophe started laughing then hacking midway through, like he was trying to cough up a hairball or something. Gary let go of Stan to go and clap him on the back, watching Christophe warily just in case he needed to put his mastery of the Heimlich maneuver into action. Stan knew it wouldn't be necessary, though. That shit was probably early lung cancer; he doubted Christophe had actually choked on anything.

"Don't be silly," Gregory said with a roll of his eyes. "On behalf of myself and the fallen comrades who couldn't be here—"

"No one wanted to get up this early in the morning," Gary whispered to Stan, who bit back a smile.

"—I would like to present you, Stanley Marsh, with this." Gregory went back to the car, where he had presumably stashed the gift to keep the surprise of it intact, and then returned with a hockey stick-shaped parcel.

"Huh," Stan said. "I wonder what that could be."

"You were the best player that we had," Gregory continued, nonplussed. "And you moving is a great loss. I sincerely hope you continue to polish your talents in your new home and maybe we'll see you again at finals, eh old boy?"

Christophe exhaled a very large smoke ring and said, "Gregory, give the pretension a rest for five fucking seconds before we buttfuck you with that hockey stick."

"Quite," Gregory said, falling instantly silent. Stan, who had never seen this happen in the entire time he'd known Gregory Yardale, stared at the Mole in surprise. He wished he could have learned that trick a lot sooner, but even if he learned it now it would be useless to him. As far as Stan knew, there were no Gregory Yardales in South Park. He wasn't sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing yet.

His front door opened and his parents stepped out onto the lawn, his mother struggling with a final suitcase. His father had an empty beer can in his hand, but Stan turned a blind eye to that because otherwise he would have an apoplexy or maybe leave his dad here while he drove his mother down to South Park without him.

"We're all ready to go, sweetie," said Sharon, turning her smile from Stan to the other boys in the yard. "How nice! Did you boys come to see Stan off?"

"Yes, Mrs. Marsh," said Gary, stepping forward immediately. "Here, let me help you with that."

It seemed all too soon before they were loaded up completely and Stan was sitting in the backseat of the car, staring at his friends and Gregory through the window. Gary looked like he was trying very hard not to say anything that would make Stan's last memory of him reek of pussy, Gregory seemed disinclined to say anything at all, and Christophe continued to chain smoke to the point that the inside of the car began to reek of it.

"Right, well," Randy said, then paused as though searching for the most tactful way to tell the group of boys to get away from his car. "Bye!"

He rolled up Stan's window and then put the car in reverse, flying down the driveway so quickly that he nearly hit Gregory's car. Stan got one last glimpse of his friends, now covered in the snow that had flown from under the wheels, before they were racing down the icy streets.


"Do you like your room, Billy?"

Stan stopped staring out the window like a princess in a tower long enough to turn to face his grandfather, who was sitting in the doorway and staring at him in an oddly lucid way. Well, as lucid as he could get thinking that Stan's name was Billy.

"It's nice, grandpa," Stan said, and almost meant it. It was a nice room… for Randy. His parents had gotten the guest room to themselves and grandpa had his own room, which meant Stan had gotten Randy's old room, the room he had grown up in. Some might look upon this as a chance to get to know their parents in a new and different way. Stan had just spent every day doing laundry because he wasn't sure how many times his father the porno addict had cranked it in that bed.

He'd lived out the rest of his winter break in relative obscurity, besides a meeting with the principle of South Park High School to make sure all of his papers were in order for his transfer. On his way into her office, Stan had noticed a scorch mark on one of the lockers, but pointing it out to Randy hadn't done any good.

"That means this school has character," Randy had said. "A unique history that you'll now be a party of. It'll be great! Maybe if you're good, your old man will show you a few of his trophies."

A few of his trophies turned out to be one trophy for winning a talent show, but Randy had been so proud of it that Stan had stayed and listened to him tell the story for the fifty thousandth time before he locked himself back up in his room.

School began in the morning, Stan's first day at a new school just in time for the last semester, and to say he was looking forward to it was a blatant lie. Despite his mother's encouragement, Stan hadn't left the house even once to explore the town or to make new friends. Instead, he had Skyped with Gary and occasionally The Mole and whined until Christophe threatened to hike down to South Park just to put a boot in Stan's ass.

"Billy," Grandpa Marsh said, reminding Stan that he was still in the room.

Stan pushed himself away from the window and climbed into bed, stifling a sigh. "Yes, grandpa?"

"Get some rest. And remember – give 'em hell."

"Give who hell, grandpa?"

"Them."

"Yes, grandpa."

Stan waited until the quiet whir of Grandpa Marsh's wheelchair had faded down the hall before he flopped back down on the bed, clenching his eyes shut and wishing he were back in Aspen. He realized he was being a little bit cynical. Sure, he'd heard a lot of weird, negative shit about South Park, but that didn't mean he would necessarily go through any of it.

But Stan was eighteen years old, which, he thought, entitled him to a little pessimism. He fell asleep with a scowl on his face.


Stan felt like he had stepped right into some kind of teenage romantic comedy. He looked at the paper in his hand and then at the lockers, half expecting that he'd made a mistake. But, no, Locker 437 was his – and there was a couple making out against it.

He was at least gratified that it was a couple of boys – at least he thought one of them was a boy – because he could at least cross a potential gay bashing off his list of things that made South Park suck. No one was paying the two boys even the slightest amount of attention except for Stan. Not even the teachers, which was weird because there was ass-grabbing going on and Stan could only see three hands.

He cleared his throat and was ignored. Then he cleared his throat again and still received no response.

"Hey, could you fucking move?" he tried.

One boy ripped his mouth away from the other boy's, his entire face going red when he nearly crashed right into Stan. "Oh, hamburgers. I'm awful sorry. This is your locker, isn't it?"

"Yeah," Stan said, puzzled. He'd been expecting more of an angry response, but the lighter of the two blonds was mashing his knuckles together and staring at the floor, muttering apologies.

The other blond took his good, sweet time peeling himself off of Stan's locker. Stan turned to see that this was because the boy was giving him an appraising look, starting from his sneakers and dragging his eyes slowly upward to meet Stan's. It felt like a caress and he had to actively tell himself not to shiver or run.

"Sorry," he said, but he sounded much less sincere about it than his companion. He pulled his orange hood up over his head and then pulled the strings until only his eyes were visible. Then he stuck out a gloved hand. "Kenny McCormick."

How Stan had understood that what with how muffled it was from the coat was a mystery. He took Kenny's hand and shook it firmly. "Stan Marsh. I'm new."

"I can tell. You interrupted me." Kenny didn't sound upset in the slightest. In fact, he sounded almost gleeful. "We haven't gotten any new blood around here in a while. I hope you're fun."

Stan didn't know how to respond to that, but thankfully he didn't have to. The other boy was grabbing his hand and shaking it, but his grip was feebly and he let go almost immediately.

"I'm Butters," he said with a smile.

"His name's Leopold," Kenny corrected, rummaging through his pockets until he found a mostly empty pack of cigarettes. "Leopold Scotch, but everyone calls him Butters for obvious reasons."

"Butterscotch? That's—" Gay, Stan wanted to say. "Cute."

Butters smiled like Stan had bestowed a rare honor on him with the compliment. It was making Stan uncomfortable, so he stepped past Kenny to try his locker combination. He had Biology first period and he wasn't sure watch to expect out of the South Park educational system so he shoved his textbook, a notebook, and four pens into his bag before closing the locker. Kenny and Butters were still lingering when he turned around.

"What?" Stan asked.

"Biology, huh?" Kenny said, clicking his tongue sympathetically. "Good luck, man. You'll need it."

Before Stan could ask what that was supposed to mean, Kenny had grabbed Butters by the wrist and was leading him away.

"Oh, if you don't have other plans by then, come grab lunch with me and Butters!" Kenny called over his shoulder. "Your treat!"


With that kind of introduction, Stan felt he was understandably wary when he found the Biology classroom. It was full of students already, all chattering excitedly to one another about how they had spent their summer vacations. The lab tables were organized two to a row and people were already paired off, so Stan grabbed a table at the back by himself.

"Oh, no," said the teacher was he walked in. He was a tall man with a salt and pepper beard and a very obvious comb-over, the latter of which was probably the reason he wasn't wearing a wedding ring. "Don't any of you get comfortable. I'm assigning your partners this semester."

A loud groan rose up from the students. Stan groaned with them in solidarity.

"Shut the fuck up," the teacher said. "Mr. Broflovski, Mr. Cartman, I want you two on opposite corners of the room. You nearly blew the school up four times."

"That was Kyle's fault, Mr. Barnaby," said the bulky boy sitting directly in front of Stan. He was built like a linebacker or a brick wall, wearing a red coat and a sky blue hat with a yellow poof on top. He also pronounced Kyle like it had a bunch of additional letters: Kahyle. "Jews can't do Chemistry."

"This is Biology, Eric," Mr. Barnaby pointed out, but his words were drowned out by the loud cry of shut your fucking mouth, you fat bastard that burst from the scrawny boy sitting on the stool to Eric's right. He whirled around on the stool until Stan could see his profile, his green ushanka slipping up enough to show a mass of bright red curls.

"All those times were your fault and you know it!" the boy – Kyle? – continued. "Who brings a blowtorch to Biology class?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about, Kyle."

"You set our bacteria samples on fire and I got an F! Because of you, fatass!" Kyle whirled around until he was facing the front of the room again. "Mr. Barnaby, I completely agree with you. I want a different partner."

"Ay," said Eric. "I don't want a different partner. Mr. Barnaby, I have to work with Kyle because—"

"Save it, Eric, I already have a seating plan ready."

Mr. Barnaby sounded like he already had a headache and, quite frankly, Stan couldn't blame him. He studied the backs of the two heads in front of them, figuring these two had to be the most popular kids in school or something, considering they could curse and yell at each other and the teacher without getting in trouble. No one else in the room was cringing or even looking up, like this was normal behavior.

Maybe this was South Park's idea of normal behavior.

Stan doodled idly in the back of his notebook until his name was called five seconds before Kyle Broflovski. He glanced up at the same time green ushanka boy turned around and squinted at him. His eyes, Stan took the time to notice, were brown.

"Are you new or something?" Kyle asked, studying Stan's face intently. "I don't know you."

"I'm new. I just transferred in," Stan said, moving his stuff up to the now empty side of Kyle's table.

Kyle huffed out a sigh. "Great."

Stan lifted an eyebrow at him, but Kyle was studiously ignoring him now, taking notes on everything that Mr. Barnaby said and highlighting the important things. Stan was already insulted, though he wasn't entirely sure why, but he let it go and flipped open his notebook, too.

Mr. Barnaby wasn't that bad of a teacher. Stan found it easy to keep up with the chapter, which was about animal biology, and gathered information to realize he'd arrived just in time for their unit on dissection.

"We'll start out with something easy, like dissecting an owl pellet—"

"Ew, gross," said Eric Cartman, who was now seated at a table in the front next to a dark-haired girl who had pushed her chair as far away from his as it could get while still allowing her to reach the table. "What the fuck do Biology and owl shit have to do with each other? Can't we cut up something cool like a falcon or a set of twins or a Jew?"

"Fuck you, Cartman!" Kyle snapped without looking up from his notebook. His voice was high and screechy enough to carry across the room, but Stan again assumed from the fact that no one else was looking up – and Mr. Barnaby hadn't even bothered to stop writing on the board – that this was somehow considered normal behavior.

Cartman turned around in his seat. "Why don't you come up here and make me, Jew?"

Stan realized that Kyle was actually about to get up and grabbed his arm before he could think better of it. Kyle's head swung around and his eyes were narrowed with barely contained outrage.

"What the fuck are you doing?" His eyes fell to the hand Stan had on his elbow, then back up again. "Get off me, new kid."

Stan loosened his hold a bit, but didn't let go. "Dude, are you really going to start a fight in the middle of Biology class on our first day back? That kid's been baiting you this whole time. Why are you letting him? Just let it go."

"Let it go?" Kyle echoed, indignant. "Were you failing History at your old school or did you not get the Holocaust reference that fucktard was making just there?"

"I got it, thanks. He was doing it to bait you into doing whatever it is you're about to do. I don't even need to know him to know that; I know kids like him. Just sit down and ignore him. It'll piss him off worse than anything."

Kyle stared at him, clearly conflicted between his self-righteous anger and actual logic. Stan just stared him down, his hand warm on Kyle's arm and his eyes earnest. Slowly, almost reluctantly, Kyle yanked his elbow out of Stan's grip and sat back down, scribbling notes in his notebook again. Stan hid a smile as he returned to his own notes.

"Ey!" he heard Cartman shout from the front of the room. "What the hell did you say to him, new kid? Kyle! Kyle! You scrawny Jew, what did he say to you?"

Neither Kyle nor Stan paid him any attention.

Eventually, Mr. Barnaby began to talk over Cartman about the other creatures they'd be dissecting over the course of the unit and how they could prepare for it. There was a part of Stan that expected Kyle to hang around after the class was dismissed, but he was packing up his stuff before Mr. Barnaby had even said they could go and he and Cartman left together, arguing passionately without a single glance at Stan. He watched them leave, trying to figure out if they were weirdly racist friends or enemies with unresolved sexual tension or boyfriends or what. Two people who hated each other didn't spend that much time together, he was pretty sure.

"Hey."

Stan stopped staring at the doorway and turned to see the dark-haired girl that had been assigned as Cartman's new partner. Up close, he could see that she was very pretty. She had gentle blue eyes and was wearing a pink headband in her hair, which was weaved into a French braid. Her pink knapsack was covered with all sorts of pins from FEMINISM ROCKS to GREENPEACE.

"Hey," he said belatedly.

"I'm Wendy. Wendy Testaburger." She held out her hand for him to shake and then smiled at him. "So. Stan, right?" She leaned in conspiratorially. "What did you say to Kyle?"

Stan laughed. "If you can help me find my next class, I'll tell you all about it."


By the time he got to lunch, Stan considered Wendy to be his first friend.

It turned out that his next class – Trigonometry – was her next class as well. They'd grabbed two desks in the back and, at Wendy's instruction, Stan had claimed to have forgotten his book at home. This strategy allowed them to write notes back and forth to one another in her notebook while they sat close to share her textbook. Wendy was really funny, in a biting and sarcastic kind of way, but she was really good about giving him help with the things he did need help with and recommending a couple of animal shelters around town for him to volunteer at when she found out how much Stan liked them. She was also a fountain of information.

Kyle and Cartman have been friends since they were in pre-school, she wrote in between taking actual notes. But they're the kind of friends who really hate each other, you know? I think they just like fighting or maybe they're just used to it, but they're both loud, stubborn, and sociopathic, so their fights tend to… get out of hand.

Mrs. Danby, the Trigonometry teacher, had interrupted to ask Wendy a question about the material before Stan could ask her to clarify what she meant by 'out of hand'. Before he knew it, the class was over and Wendy had a lunchtime meeting with the girls to get to, leaving him to once again fend for himself.

The lunch here was just as unrecognizable as the lunch back at his old school. Stan poked at what he assumed was some kind of meat and some white stuff that he hoped was mashed potatoes, then looked around for an empty table to sit at. He had never really been one of those kids who got anxiety from trying to find a table at lunch. After all, he'd grown up with all the same people, so that sort of thing had never been an issue. In fact, he and Trent liked to laugh at those kids because they looked like fucking idiots, standing there like lost puppies without the balls to just approach a ground, slam their tray down, and say hey, fuckers, I'm sitting here now.

Stan realized now that he was kind of an asshole.

"Dude! Kid! New kid! Over here!" said a muffled voice somehow audible over all the other voices in the cafeteria. Stan searched for the source and found the orange parka he had spoken to that morning. Oh, right. He had made lunch plans.

Ignoring the people he could feel pausing and watching him, he made his way over to Kenny's table and sat down. "Thanks, dude. I felt like an idiot."

"You looked like one," Kenny said. "Are you going to eat all of that?"

"I was contemplating that. On the one hand, I paid for it. On the other hand," Stan dipped his fork into the mashed potatoes and was unsurprised to find that it was hard as a rock. "Is an early death really worth five bucks?"

"Well, if you're not going to eat it…"

Stan pushed his tray across the table and took the time to look around the cafeteria again. Every table seemed to be full of an eclectic group of people, except for one table in the corner furthest from the door. It was quartered off from all the other tables by ropes, on which hung a sign that said VIP. At the table sat Eric Cartman, consuming what appeared to be his weight in KFC chicken. Next to him was Kyle Broflovski, whose nose was buried between a copy of Swann's Way by Marcel Proust. Every once in a while, Kyle would lower the book in order to grab a piece of chicken and whisper something to Cartman.

"Oh, hey," Stan said suddenly. "Where's your friend? Scotch?"

Kenny responded with a guttural moan, pressing his face down on the table. Stan stared at him, blinking owlishly as he wondered what he was supposed to do. Was Kenny sick? Had he actually tried the food? Was this a job for the Center for Disease Control? Oh god.

And then Butters climbed out from under the table, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, and then smiling brightly at Stan. "Well, hiya, Stan. Sorry I didn't say hello to you sooner. I was kinda in the middle of something."

"Aw-aww!" Stan cried, slapping his hands over his face. "Oh, my god. Were you – were you just – did he just – while I was — Is there fucking hammerspace down there or something? How were you – doing that and I didn't even notice?"

Butters had the decency to look embarrassed, but that only lasted as long as it took for Kenny to lift his head, pull down his hood, and stick his tongue down Butters' throat. And, considering what the inside of Butters' mouth tasted like right now, Stan felt dirty just looking at them.

"Jesus Christ," Stan grumbled, turning around to give them some privacy.

His eyes found Kyle again almost as if by accident. Kyle had turned half of the table into a desk and was studiously doing homework, ignoring the occasional attempts at conversation that Cartman was making. Stan could tell, because Cartman was getting increasingly annoyed over it, his voice growing progressively louder. He couldn't make out what Cartman was saying exactly – too many people talking for that – but he could at least tell it had a hell of a lot of curse words in it.

Then, suddenly, Cartman turned and met Stan's gaze dead-on before he could look away. His mouth curled into something that was almost a snarl. Then he used two fingers to point at his own eyes before turning them around and jabbing them in Stan's direction.

"Whoa," he heard Butters say from behind him. "I'ah wonder what I did to piss Eric off now."

"You know those guys?" Stan asked, turning back to the table. Butters was mashing his knuckles together again and Kenny, who seemed fully recovered from his inappropriate orgasm, was wolfing down Stan's lunch like it was a gourmet meal.

"Of course," he said with his mouth full. "I've known those guys since pre-school. Butters too. We used to sit there. Well." He swallowed then shrugged. "In elementary school, we sat there."

"What happened?"

"Life happened. People grow up. They change. They grow apart. Cartman and I never got along and he was always taking advantage of Butters. One day, it got to be too much and I just said fuck him. And so did Butters. But Kyle didn't." Kenny glanced past Stan, to the table, then blew out a sigh that was almost wistful. "Kyle and Cartman always had a connection I could never really understand. Or maybe Kyle was just the easiest to manipulate, I don't know. But Cartman talked him into staying pretty easily and now, well, I can't even tell the two of them apart most days."

"I can," said Butters, giving Kenny a brownie that he pulled from his backpack. "Cartman's the fat fuck and Kyle's the Jew."

Stan, who had began to envision Butters as the kind of boy who belonged in a Disney movie and whose voice summoned birds and squirrels to his side to help him clean his room, stared.

Kenny laughed. "Get used to that, Marsh. Butters and I aren't friends because I like corrupting angels."


"Hey! New kid!"

Stan stopped halfway across the parking lot, trying not to roll his eyes at what was apparently his nickname for a while, and turned around. To his surprise, Kyle Broflovski was running toward him. He came to a stop in front of Stan without appearing even remotely out of breath. Instead, he seemed more concerned with glancing around the parking lot to see who was watching them and why.

Stan wondered when he'd walked into the middle of a spy drama. "I swear I'm not wearing a wire."

"Funny," Kyle said in a tone that said just the opposite. "Look, you did me a favor earlier so I'm paying you back. I hate owing people favors."

"It wasn't a favor. I was just—"

"Stay away from Kenny McCormick."

Stan blinked. "What?"

"Kenny McCormick. Cartman saw you sitting with him at lunch." Kyle glanced around the parking lot again and then he grabbed Stan's wrist and pulled him behind a tree, of all places, his face set with determination. "Kenny McCormick is a slut and a mooch. He'll eat all your food and spend all your money and sleep with all your girlfriends. That's the kind of asshole he is. I would know. We used to be—"

"Friends, yeah. I heard." Stan tried to focus on the weirdness of this conversation and not on the fact that a boy was pressing him against a tree. That hadn't happened to him since sophomore year. Good times, that.

Kyle scowled. "Forget whatever he told you. It's probably crap anyway. Kenny and I used to be friends. Good friends. Best friends, even. But then I realized that all he ever does is use people. He used me for food and money and a place to sleep just because his fucking family's on welfare. He's using Butters for sex even though he can and will go and get it anywhere else knowing Butters is fucking in love with him. He's a user, Stan. And everyone in the whole school knows it, so he's latched on to you because you're new and you'll feed him and feel bad for his boo hoo I'm so poor I eat Poptarts for dinner every night act. You're a nice guy, Stan. I realized that in Biology. And what you need to realize is that being a nice guy also makes you a total pussy."

Stan suddenly missed The Mole.

"Look, I can't tell you who to make friends with or not, but you're better off sticking with Wendy," Kyle said, stepping back so there was more room between them. "She's great. Really smart, loves politics and nagging and doing the right thing. I know you're new and looking for friends where you can find them, but don't settle for Kenny. Just rent a bunch of gay porn. That's what hanging out with him and Butters is like anyway."

With Kyle a safer distance away, Stan was able to think a lot more clearly. And he was pretty sure his brain had rejected all of this as bullshit already, even just out of spite at the audacity of anyone thinking they could warn him away from a guy who had been nothing but sort of nice to him.

"Is this you trying to be my friend?" Stan found himself saying. "Or am I just stuck in a really bad adaptation of Mean Girls?"

Kyle snorted. "Fuck no. I already have a friend."

With that, Kyle turned and walked away without another backward glance.

"You're allowed to have more than one friend!" Stan called after him, but if Kyle heard him then he sure as hell wasn't acting like it. He watched until the green hat disappeared around the corner of the building and then pulled his bus pass out of his pocket again, sighing. He couldn't wait to hear what Gary had to say about this.