A/N: Updating on schedule this time, yeahh! I'm sure the upcoming holidays will include interruptions, but I hope to update this at least once before the end of the year, and then I should be able to do regular, weekly updates (I hope). Thanks for reading, and feel free to let me know your thoughts as you do!
Stan ended up on Bebe's couch instead of Kenny's, and he woke up early, shivering under a velvety throw blanket that wasn't doing much to keep out the cold. Kenny had stayed over, too, and Stan could hear the low rumble of his voice from Bebe's bedroom as he dressed to leave. Bebe's responses were brief and quiet; she was not a morning person. Stan had heard them having sex last night, and while it was the kind of thing that probably should have made him feel even more lonely, he didn't mind. He was beginning to wonder if he should discuss his recent problems with being alone when his mandatory counseling sessions began at work. So far he had been putting that off.
He pretended to be asleep when Kenny moved through the living room, not in the mood to talk. Kenny put his shoes on in the kitchen and left, locking the door behind him. Stan wasn't aware that Kenny still had a key to Bebe's apartment. He would grill Bebe about it later, or maybe he would just let it lie. Some people just couldn't manage to leave each other's orbit, and Stan was more jealous of their persisting connection than the sex he'd overheard last night.
He kept his face pressed against the couch cushions, eyes shut tightly, and wondered if Kyle had spent the night in MacKenzie's room at the Travelodge, leaning on him for friendly comfort. Stan had called Kyle three times after leaving the restaurant, and he had left one drunken voicemail message that he could only halfway remember. It was something about the night Stan drove Cartman home from Skeeter's, and what Cartman had mumbled about the dark woods around South Park. Stan was sure that his own mumbled recollection of that evening made even less sense, and hearing that voicemail would probably upset Kyle further. That seemed to be all Stan could do for Kyle anymore.
Stan tried not to think about what his life would be like if he had done things differently that summer, before the start of their senior year in high school. If things had been different between him and Kyle during the school year, he wouldn't have slept with Lola, and he wouldn't have his kids. He loved them so much that the thought was horrifying, but it still hurt to remember how easily he could have changed everything, how closely Kyle had orbited him that summer, and how Stan would have only had to stretch his fingertips out to close that last, ever-narrowing space between them.
It had started in June. Kyle seemed to fall asleep in Stan's room almost every night, and they were old enough, and free enough without the burdens of homework, to do this without their parents caring or even noticing, half the time. They didn't even have summer jobs that year, though they talked vaguely about getting some a couple of times. Stan had finally gotten the new Zelda game, and it was their tradition to play through every iteration of Zelda together, taking turns as they muscled their Link through each fortress that stood in his way. This seemed to provide all the entertainment they would need, because when they weren't playing the game they were just lying around talking, laughing, and napping together. All of that was free, so they stopped even talking about getting jobs by the start of July.
The TV in Stan's bedroom that was connected to his game system was directly across from his bed, on top of his dresser. When they played games, Stan pushed the dresser up against the end of his bed so that he could mound pillows against the headboard and stretch out on his back while he played, Kyle beside him and waiting for his turn. The bed started to feel like their personal portal into the world on screen, and they often fell asleep there directly after playing, Stan curled toward the wall with Kyle's spine curved against his back. It was a twin bed, but Stan never felt cramped. He dreamed about the game a lot that summer, and in some of these dreams Kyle walked the world map with him, helping Stan keep an eye out for surprise attacks. It was always a relief to wake up and find the real Kyle there, huddled up next to him as if they were sharing a tent on the grassy plains outside the Hyrulian castle.
When Stan woke up to the feeling of Kyle cuddled up against him some nights, he liked it. He'd always gotten high on making Kyle feel safe. He tried sliding his arms around Kyle, gently, so he wouldn't wake him, and he liked that, too. By the start of August they were rolling into each others arms as soon as the TV screen went dark, and sometimes they stayed up talking like that, Kyle's hand moving idly on Stan's bare back while Stan ran his fingers through Kyle's curls. Stan was always just waiting for Kyle to talk about it, or do something more, and when he didn't, it was a relief. Stan wasn't sure he wanted to suck on Kyle's tongue, and he was damn sure he didn't want to suck anybody's dick. They were just close, he decided. They were special, different but still mostly normal, and this was their secret, just like Kyle's sexuality felt like Stan's secret, too. He still masturbated to thoughts of Kyle in the shower, but it wasn't him fucking Kyle in his fantasies. It was some faceless, partially disembodied gay sex force that was making Kyle moan and come all over himself. Not Stan, personally.
On the morning when everything changed, Stan woke from a dream about the game that wasn't as pleasant as the usual ones. This one involved fire and swords clashing, blood. Before they fell asleep, he and Kyle had been working on the final dungeon, approaching the last boss. There was a drizzle of rain sliding down the window when Stan cracked his eyes open, but he could only hear it, couldn't see it. Kyle was filling his vision, shifting against Stan in nervous twitches and breathing little sighs onto Stan's face. Stan stayed still and allowed himself to take this in slowly, surprised but not alarmed to see that Kyle was so close. They didn't usually bump noses, but that was what Kyle was doing now, nudging Stan awake as he moved even closer, his eyelashes tickling Stan's cheek. He was smiling, so Stan smiled, too.
"Do you want to?" Kyle asked, whispering. They were so close that Stan felt like the words had come not just from Kyle but from both of them, and he knew exactly what Kyle was asking. Kiss me, Stan, do you want to kiss me?
"What?" Stan said, though he understood perfectly. He turned red and stayed motionless, knowing that Kyle would see through his fake confusion. In hindsight, he would realize that the cruelest thing he'd done that morning was lie there, still pressed against Kyle, so that Kyle had to be the one who moved away.
Kyle rolled onto his back and looked up at the ceiling, taking measured breaths through his nose. Just as Stan decided that he should do it, kiss him, and figure out what it meant about him and them and everything else afterward, Kyle sat up and pulled away.
"I have to pee," Kyle said, mumbling. He left for the bathroom across the hall and was gone for a long time, almost half an hour. When he came back, the force field was already up. Kyle started 'interning' at his dad's office later that week, which became his perennial excuse not to hang out, and Stan never did beat that Zelda game.
For the lonely remainder of the summer, Stan felt broody and rejected as he constantly turned kissing Kyle over in his head like a coin. On one side everything was sweetness and excitement, the idea of the blankets on Stan's bed closing them into a cocoon that was more private than anything they had shared before. On the other was the idea of Kyle as his boyfriend, and the idea of himself as gay, which seemed like it would involve inviting the whole town into their cocoon. Stan knew Kyle wouldn't be okay with hiding for long, and this suspicion was confirmed when Kyle came out to everyone at school at the start of their senior year.
Though he was aware that it was absurd and unfair, Stan couldn't help feeling betrayed by Kyle's decision to come out without consulting him first. It was as if Kyle had taken the gift of his secret away from Stan and flung it to the masses. In an equally irrational way, Stan also felt exposed, and nervous that people would make assumptions about him based on Kyle's sexuality. Cartman made sure to do so, loudly, at the earliest opportunity. Stan had no problem with other people being gay, but the idea that his own attraction to not just Kyle but men, generally, could have sneaked up on him during his medicated adolescence was not only alarming but felt incorrect.
When Lola flirted with him in Chemistry lab, he decided to test his theory by asking her to hang out. He was excited when she agreed, a little anxious and uncomfortable on their date, but his cock was totally on board when they had sex in the backseat of her car. Everything about Lola was a relief, and even the boring stretches seemed to confirm that this was how love should feel: calm, settled, ordinary, and not like a dream about a video game. Even so, even in the darkest depths of Stan's denial, he never managed to fool himself that he was in love with her. 'In love' also didn't seem like an accurate way to describe his feelings for Kyle, which were mostly angry, hurt, and possessive, with a large portion of guilt heaped over everything.
"Breakfast?" Bebe called from the kitchen when Stan woke again, this time from hazy half-dreams about Kyle and that summer. He sat up and blinked at Bebe, wanting to go back to sleep with his memories and regrets cuddled up against him like company.
"I heard Kenny leave," Stan said when he walked into the kitchen, wondering what had become of his blue and black flannel. He was in his undershirt and jeans, shivering. Bebe was wearing a short, silky robe. She had full thighs and the kind of perfectly round ass that reminded Stan he was still attracted to women, too, though the newly exhilarating freedom of allowing himself to sleep with men had him tipping in that direction, lately.
"Are you waiting for a play-by-play?" Bebe said, glancing at Stan when he stood there in silence near the kitchen table. "Yeah, Kenny was here last night. We had fun, so what?"
"Nothing, I. Look, I can't stand in judgment of anyone's fun, so."
"That's right, you can't. Was it weird to see Kevin with Clyde last night?"
"No. I need to break it off with Kevin, he doesn't even like me. The McCormicks, though. They make for ideal fuck buddies." Stan felt bad for both Kenny and Kevin, saying it that way, though he'd only done so to see Bebe's reaction. She turned from the English muffin she was slicing and gave him a look.
"Kenny's not in love with me," she said. "Nobody's getting their feelings hurt, here."
"Okay."
"I don't have to get married just because I'm in my thirties now. Marriage is not always the answer."
"I know that, Jesus. But what- What's the question that marriage is not the answer to? Why aren't you two, just, like. Together?"
"I don't know, Stan." Bebe turned back to her breakfast preparations, and Stan could tell by the set of her shoulders that she was about to let herself say something harsh. "Why were you never 'just' with Kyle? It's not always as simple as it looks from the outside."
Stan said nothing, because he still wasn't sure there was a concrete answer for why he didn't kiss Kyle that morning, and why he didn't run over to Kyle's house at any other time before Lola's pregnancy and sweep him off his feet. He didn't even regret how he handled things now, and not just because of the kids. If he'd actually made a move back then, he would have screwed things up between them even worse.
"I was fucked up," Stan said. "Unstable, uh. You know I had to go back on Paxil when Wayne was a toddler."
"What does that have to do with Kyle?" Bebe made an incredulous noise in the direction of her English muffin, her back still turned on Stan. "You're so weird about him," she said. "You always have been, and I didn't think it would happen again if he came back- well, I never thought he would come back, but. It's like you want him riding in your pocket, but then you hate him for trying to climb in."
"You are making zero sense," Stan said.
"Whatever." Bebe popped the muffin into the toaster and turned to look at him. "Kyle seems fucked up, too. In some other way. What the hell was that about last night at the restaurant? You really don't know?"
"I really don't, Bebe. And he hasn't returned my calls."
"Do you think he's onto something about Cartman?"
"Is that a serious question?"
"Well, he's not wrong! Cartman is capable of evil, certainly."
"Sure," Stan said, swallowing down a bad feeling about what happened last night. He dug his phone out to make sure, again, that Kyle hadn't called. "But it didn't feel like Cartman at those crime scenes. Do you know what I mean?"
"Yeah," Bebe said. She sighed and got out two mugs for coffee. "You want some?" she asked.
"I do, thanks."
"Sorry I- sorry. I don't mean to beat you up about Kyle."
"Sorry I'm nosy about Kenny," Stan said, getting up to fetch the milk from her fridge. "If you're happy with things the way they are, that's great."
"It's complicated," Bebe said, mumbling. "Do you want an English muffin?"
"Sure," Stan said. He bolted back to the table when he heard his phone ring, but it wasn't Kyle. "Fuck," he said when he saw the screen. "Gary's calling me."
"Gary - Harrison?"
"Yeah."
"You'd better answer."
"I know. Fuck, okay."
Stan walked into the other room and put the phone to his ear, bracing himself to confront Gary's grief. Though he'd never felt as close to Gary as he had to Kenny and Kyle, there was something about Gary that Stan had truly admired, and it had to do with the sincere and seemingly unbreakable cheer that his whole family represented. Now someone had thrown a brick through the placid surface of the Harrison family happiness, and it had taken one of them down with it, forever, to the muddy bottom.
"Gary," Stan said, breathing his name out like a kind of apology. "Hey."
"Hi, Stan." Gary sounded tired but still warm, like he didn't want to spread his misery around. "I just wanted to let you know that I'm back in town and ready to help in any way I can."
"I'm so sorry," Stan said. "So sorry, Gary. We're going to catch this guy. This person. We've got, um. The FBI has come to help. You probably know that."
"They've spoken to my father." Gary sighed. "And thank you for your sympathies. We've been praying with Melissa all morning, and the children. We know he's with God now. It's a comfort."
"Yeah," Stan said, and he wished he were less groggy, more eloquent. "It's. I just can't believe this is happening."
"It's surreal," Gary said. "Even for South Park. I'm going to stay in town for a while, until Melissa decides what she wants to do. This is the children's home, but it's also where their father, ah."
"Right. Jesus. Listen, while you're town, we should meet up. I'm sure you've got interviews scheduled with the FBI?" Stan thought of Kyle and hoped he would be gentle with Gary. Kyle had never liked him much.
"They haven't asked to speak with me specifically," Gary said. "My father said the agent in charge of the investigation is called Broflovski. Any relation to Kyle?"
"It is Kyle, he's. Here, for now."
"Oh, wow. I suppose I did know he'd joined the FBI. Well, that's a relief. He was always so smart. But yes, let's get together soon. I've missed you- I hope you're well?"
"I'm okay. Just call me anytime you're free, I'd love to see you."
"I might be busy with the family until Saturday," Gary said. "That's the day we're having the funeral. Kenny has been very kind in helping with the arrangements this morning."
"Good." So that was where Kenny was hurrying off to at the crack of dawn. "I'll come, um. Unless it's Mormons only?"
"Certainly not - you'd be welcome, Stan."
Stan walked back into the kitchen, again stuck on the idea that Craig and Gary had both returned to town because of the murder of a younger sibling. It wasn't something that should be discounted, but he couldn't make any sense of it beyond what it was on a its face: a small town, a coincidence. He saw his flannel shirt hanging on the back of a chair and pulled it on, still cold.
"Here," Bebe said, pushing a small plate with a buttered English muffin into Stan's hand. "How'd Gary sound?"
"Like he sincerely believes in heaven."
"Oh. Good."
"I'm gonna eat this in the car," Stan said, transferring the muffin to a paper towel. "I want to see if I can drive the kids to school. What time is it?"
"Almost eight. See you later, on shift?"
"Yeah, of course."
"Kyle wants to interview us about the murders today," Bebe said. She held up her cell phone and gave Stan a sympathetic look. "He just texted me. Three o'clock."
"Good." Stan checked his own phone, and there was still nothing from Kyle. "That's good, um. I'm glad he's feeling. Better, I guess?"
"Who can tell? Should be interesting."
Stan kissed her cheek and grabbed his jacket on the way out. The cold shocked him, and he closed his jacket around himself, wishing he hadn't left his car at Bennigan's. The walk was only a mile and a half, but he felt like an idiot, humping along the side of the road while cars passed him by. He kept waiting to see red hair in the passenger seat, Mac at the wheel, the car slowing down so they could both rightfully stare at him like he was a hungover wreck. He made it to his car without being spotted by them or anyone else he knew, as far as he could tell, and he called Lola while the car idled in the otherwise empty Bennigan's lot, the heat slowly starting to kick in. She told him it would be fine for him to drive the kids in, but he would have to hurry or they would be late.
"Kyle's back in town," Stan said, not sure how sensitive she would be to this news. "For work, about the murders. He's with the FBI."
"Red haired Kyle?" she said. "From school?"
"Was there - another Kyle?"
"Yeah, no, just. I don't know, he's someone from another lifetime."
"True," Stan said, though it didn't feel that way to him. It was more like he had returned to his previous and in some ways still more familiar lifetime, that brutal autumn and winter after the summer he spent in bed with Kyle and the video game controllers.
The kids were coming out the door of Lola's house when Stan pulled into the driveway, Evan dressed in a puffy purple coat and Wayne wearing only a thin windbreaker. Stan didn't mention it when Wayne climbed into the backseat, Evan taking the front. He remembered what it was like to be thirteen, a native Coloradan, and to need to pretend for as long as you could that the cold wasn't bad enough for real winter gear yet.
"Why are you driving us?" Wayne asked.
"Because it's safer," Evan said. "Daddy has a gun."
"That's not why," Stan said. "I just wanted to see you guys, and I was up early and not on shift, so here I am. Are you, uh. Worried? You don't feel safe at Mommy's house?"
"You should stay with us until they catch the murderer," Evan said, not exactly answering the question.
"I feel safe there," Wayne said. "I can watch them."
"Watch them?" Stan said, peering into the rear view mirror. Wayne shrugged.
"Mom and Evie," he said.
"You don't have a gun," Evan said. "Dad. Are you going to give Wayne a gun?"
"No, of course not. Kids can't-"
"Are you gonna give one to Mom? From your work?"
"No! Evan, stop it about the guns, okay? You're safe. Mom and Wayne can- These people, the ones who died, they're older. Certain, uh. Certain criminals go after kids. This is not one of those kinds of bad guys." He didn't feel confident about this or that he shouldn't stay with Lola and the kids until the case was cracked, but in the meantime there was no reason to alarm his daughter, who was staring at him and fidgeting with her seat belt.
"Who do you think is doing it?" Wayne asked. He was trying to sound cool, interested, but Stan could see that he was a little scared, too, also fidgeting.
"We don't know yet," Stan said. "But we've got big-time guys from Denver here to help us with things now." It hurt his pride a little to say so, but Bebe had been right the other day. It didn't matter who solved this, as long as people stopped getting killed. "Between us and them, we'll figure it out."
Evan gave him a hug and a kiss before climbing out of the car at the elementary school. Stan watched until she had dashed in through the front doors, waving to the security guard and teacher chaperone who were posted there. He glanced into the back seat and gave Wayne a hopeful smile.
"Want to ride up front?" he asked.
"It's okay," Wayne said. "Are you sick?"
"Huh? No, buddy, I'm fine. Why?"
"You look like you have a cold or something."
"I haven't been sleeping too great," Stan said. He turned back around and pulled away from the elementary school. "School going okay for you?" he asked.
"It's boring," Wayne said. He leaned forward a little, his elbows on his knees. "Do you think it's somebody we know?" he asked.
"Huh?"
"Me and my friends were talking, like. If somebody is killing people in South Park, don't they live here, too? And between me and my friends, we were thinking, one of us probably knows the killer. I mean, it could be the guy who works at the gas station, or one of our teachers, or somebody's uncle-"
"That's-" Stan shook his head. "That's not necessarily what's going on here."
"Who do you think it is? Just some stranger? Why'd they pick South Park?"
"Wayne, we don't know that much about anything yet. The investigation just started. These things can take years."
"Years? With people dying every three days? We'll all be wiped out before you catch him, at that rate!"
"I don't think somebody's going to die every three days. How, um. Are you sleeping okay? Are you worrying about this, you and your friends-"
"It's not worry." Wayne sat back and yanked his bookbag into his lap. They were approaching the middle school. "It's just interesting."
"It's sad," Stan said. "The last victim had a wife and two kids. Little kids, and now."
"Is that why you drove us to school today?" Wayne asked as Stan pulled up to the front entrance of the middle school.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean - never mind." Wayne slumped toward the window and stared glumly at his school. There was no security guard posted here, no chaperone waiting outside, but Stan could see the receptionist in the front office.
"South Park is still safe for kids," he said, speaking mostly to himself. "Just don't go wandering around on your own. Not ever, Wayne, not anywhere. You and Paul, in the woods that night-"
"Oh my god, stop!" Wayne said. "I know, okay! It was one time! And what, you never wandered around on your own when you were my age? Ever?"
Stan could confidently say that no, he hadn't. He'd always been with Kyle. He kept his mouth shut and watched Wayne climb out.
"Hey," he said, putting his window down. Wayne made an exasperated sound, but he turned, looking so vulnerable as he stood between Stan's car and the school that Stan wanted to order him back into the car again. "I know you're a good kid," Stan said. "I just want you to be careful. I love you, alright?"
"Alright," Wayne said, mildly enough that it felt like an admission that he loved Stan back. "Bye."
Stan went home, showered, and put on his uniform. He got coffee as soon as he was at the station, and sat down with the paperwork that would occupy him until he and Bebe went out on patrol in an hour. She was on the phone at her desk, speaking softly into the receiver. She looked well-rested enough, despite or maybe because of the night spent with Kenny. Stan thought of Wayne saying he looked like he had a cold, and Kyle telling Kenny that he seemed unwell. He had an email from HR in his inbox, reminding him about the mandatory counseling. Surely at bigger and busier precincts, in New York and D.C., there was no such thing required after dead bodies turned up on the job. Stan didn't delete the email, but he didn't click the link that prompted him to request an appointment.
The day's patrol was busy but mundane, and Stan noticed as he drove around the town with Bebe that South Park already seemed more crowded with strangers than it had after Ruby's murder. News vans lingered, and the FBI presence felt obvious to him, everywhere they went, though there couldn't have been more than six agents in the field at the Harrison crime scene, and some of them had probably gone back to Denver with evidence and photos by now. He supposed he was just looking for Kyle, afraid to be ambushed by his searing-bright presence again.
"We've got a report of a possible 910 over at 32 Sycamore," the dispatcher radioed after Stan and Bebe had finished eating their City Wok lunch specials in the front seat of the car, watching for speeders near the restaurant. "The 911 call was from Linda Stotch," the dispatcher added. "So take that into account."
"Ten-four," Bebe said, and she groaned. Stan put the sirens on and peeled out onto the road, feeling defensive on Mrs. Stotch's behalf, though it was true that she often imagined things and seemed to have 911 on speed dial. Still, they had to take her seriously, and now more than ever. There were strange folk about, and at least one murderer at large. "Bet you ten bucks it's a squirrel," Bebe said when she noticed Stan's serious expression.
"C'mon," he said. "She's a woman living alone. I'm sure she's seen the news. She's probably scared out of her mind, uh. More so than usual."
"I asked Kenny when Butters was going to come back and do something about her," Bebe said. "He says Butters is dithering."
"Dithering?"
"That's the word he used, yeah."
"That's a very Butters-appropriate word, actually."
"Yeah," Bebe said. "Kenny can be surprisingly good at coming up with the right words."
Stan decided to leave that alone for now. He thought of Kyle in Denver, hearing about Stan's divorce and peering down at his cell phone, talking himself out of calling, telling himself Stan wouldn't want to hear from him, wondering how he was doing and what had finally emancipated him from his marriage. Dithering. The word didn't fit Kyle as well; Stan could hardly blame him for hesitating.
"Shit," Stan said. "I am an asshole, you're right."
"Huh?" Bebe said.
"To Kyle. Never mind."
They were unable to locate the reported prowler at Mrs. Stotch's house, and they found no signs of an attempted break-in. When they asked her what she'd seen and heard precisely, she seemed confused.
"He has chestnut brown eyes," she said, standing in the doorway of her house and frowning out at them. "Brown eyes - wait, I said that already. Brown hair, I mean, and he's about my height-"
"The prowler?" Bebe said. "You saw him?"
"Prowler? What prowler, no- My husband Stephen, he's missing. Aren't you people going to do something about it? There's a killer on the loose, for heaven's sake!"
"Linda," Bebe said, snapping her report notebook shut. "Would you like me to call up Butters for you? Maybe he should stay with you, if you're feeling nervous about the murders."
"He goes to the gentleman's club sometimes," Linda said, lowering her voice. "Butters saw him there once, when he was young. Is that place still open?" She seemed to grow more lucid after asking, and she frowned again. "You people ought to shut it down. What goes on there can't be legal."
"Make sure all your doors are locked after we've left," Stan said. Bebe was already walking back to the car. "And don't hesitate to call us if you see anything, um. Anybody on your property, looking suspicious."
"You probably go to that place yourself," Linda said. She sniffed angrily and slammed the door on Stan.
He walked back to the car feeling struck, and Bebe shook her head when he climbed in behind the driver's seat.
"I'm going to tell Kenny to call Butters," she said. "This can't go on- She's going to end up hurting herself."
"The place looked immaculate," Stan said. "It's like she can turn it on and off."
"What, her sanity?"
"Yeah. Do you think she knows I sleep with men?"
"What!" Bebe barked a laugh and shook her head. "No, Stan. Why?"
"She just. I don't know, she looked at me like she knew, and then she accused me of going to that gay sex club. That thing's not still open, is it?"
"The one next to the dirty movie theater? No, all that stuff's gone. We don't even have a gay bar anymore, do we?"
"You're asking me?" Stan said, and he turned on the car. "All we have is Skeeter's, as far as I know."
"Shit," Bebe said. "It's two thirty."
"I know what time it is," Stan said, mumbling. "Where are we meeting Kyle for this interview?"
"At the station. I figured that was, like. The most professional place to do it."
"Right."
Back at the station, Stan was jumpy while he waited for Kyle to arrive, the cheap Chinese food sitting uncomfortably on his stomach. He felt like Kyle would be interviewing him not on the the crime scenes but on what had happened back then, or not happened.
"Why are you doing this?" Kyle had said on the morning of Stan's wedding, after Stan had thrown up for the second time.
"Because it's the right thing to do," Stan said, his head still in the toilet. He'd meant because of the baby, because he was going to be a father so he might as well try to be a husband, but when he looked up he could see that Kyle had heard this like an admission that Stan thought Kyle was, simultaneously, the wrong thing to do. Stan was too ill and doomed and tongue-tied to say otherwise, so they went to the altar together with that hanging between them, and Kyle stopped answering Stan's emails a few months into his first semester away at college. It was a gradual, friendly, growing disinterest in Stan's miserable new life, and it hurt worse than a dramatic blowup would have.
"He's here," Bebe said, coming to Stan's desk, and he snapped out of it, stood up. Kyle was signing in at the reception desk, bending at the waist and writing carefully. His suit was dark grey, and his tie was black. He smiled at Bebe and Stan mildly as a rookie officer led him to their desks.
"Do you have a conference room where we can do this?" Kyle asked. He was carrying a black briefcase that looked expensive.
"We have a booking room," Bebe said. "Not much in the way of atmosphere, but it's quiet."
"That will be fine," Kyle said. He wasn't looking at Stan much, and his faint smile seemed weird, for the occasion. They filed into the booking room, Stan dragging an extra chair in behind him. Kyle sat on one side of the metal table in the center of the room, and Stan and Bebe took the other side. There was a pair of open cuffs looped around the bar in the middle of the table. Stan wanted to get rid of them, but he felt like doing so would be childish in some way. He watched Kyle open his briefcase and arrange his things: a slim voice recorder, a yellow eight-by-ten notepad, and a black pen that he uncapped and set beside the pad. He took off his suit jacket, revealing navy suspenders underneath. Stan heard Bebe bite down on a laugh as Kyle hung the jacket carefully on the back of his chair. Stan didn't see what was funny. The suspenders were cute. Everything about this whole ritual was, and it gave him an unexpected thrill to see that Kyle carried his gun at his hip, on a subtle belt holster. Stan hadn't noticed the bulge under his suit jacket.
"Do you want coffee?" Stan asked, though it seemed like a stupid question. Kyle shook his head.
"I have to stop drinking coffee at noon," he said. "Or I'll chug it all day."
"I drink too much of it," Stan said. He had to fight the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose, feeling like an idiot. Kyle cleared his throat and touched his fingertips to his yellow notepad.
"Before I turn on the recorder," he said. "I'd like to apologize to you both for last night. Me and Mac had left Denver at three in the morning, and I was in the field all day. I didn't eat as well as I should have, because I was overwhelmed with work, so my blood sugar was screwy. I shouldn't have pushed myself to go out, but I didn't want you all to think, um. That I didn't want to see you."
"Kyle, it's fine," Bebe said. "Really."
"That wine went right to my head on a mostly empty stomach," Kyle said. He was still looking down at the notebook, touching it lightly. "Hence my dramatic exit. Sorry." When he raised his eyes he was looking at Stan.
"It's okay," Stan said. "We were just. I called you, um. I think I left a weird message."
"Anyway," Kyle said, waving his hand over the notepad. "Let's get started."
Kyle asked them about the call to the crime scene, their approach to the building, why they felt something was off when they got there. Stan let Bebe do most of the talking. He nodded along with her, muttering his input here and there. It was all in his report, anyway. Mostly he watched Kyle, staring at the fine red hair on his wrists, which peeked out from the cuffs of his shirt when he rolled them back a bit. Kyle's fingers were tense when he took notes, and his writing was just as Stan remembered it from the notes he'd borrowed in high school: small, precise, making efficient use of space on the paper.
"At the diner yesterday," Kyle said, and Stan's attention returned to the conversation. "Stan mentioned that he saw the number two in the slashes on David's body, whereas Ruby's wounds were three horizontal lines. I just want to include that in the official interview transcript," he said, glancing up at Bebe before turning his gaze on Stan. "It's an excellent observation, whether it means anything or not."
"You would have seen it eventually," Stan said.
"But maybe not until we found the next victim," Kyle said.
"Jesus," Bebe said. "You're sure there's going to be another one?"
"Sure? Of course not. But this kind of ritualized killing is rarely limited to two victims. We're going to need you all to be incredibly attentive to your patrols in the coming weeks, and meticulous in your response to any disturbances."
"We always are," Stan said, offended. "We just spent an hour poking around Linda Stotch's place because she called us about some vague prowler she may or may not have heard in her backyard."
"Linda Stotch." Kyle frowned. "Did you find any evidence of an intruder?"
"Nah," Bebe said. "Nothing, and we really did look the place over well, just in case. But she's a lonely fruit bat who barely knows what's going on, as far as we can tell. She once called 911 to complain that an acorn hit the roof of her car."
"Christ." Kyle turned off the recorder and tapped his pen against his thumb. "What's Butters doing about this?"
"Nothing," Stan said. "He lives in Vermont. I think he might be married?"
"To a man or a woman?" Kyle asked, looking alarmed.
"I don't think he's married," Bebe said. "He's not really in touch with any of us except Kenny, and just barely with him. I'm going to try to get Kenny to encourage him to come home. I thought there was some rumor that he'd be back soon?"
"Don't look at me," Stan said. "I hear all my rumors from you, after you hear them from Kenny."
"Does it still feel like that here?" Kyle asked, his fingertip hovering over the 'record' button on his device. "Like. Everybody knows everybody else's business, more or less? Eventually?"
"It's still a small town," Bebe said. "But, come to think of it- no, not really. Not as much as when we were kids. People are a little more closed off. I'm not sure why."
There was a knock on the booking room door, and Stan jumped a bit, in the same instant that Kyle did.
"Come in," Kyle called, as if this was his personal office. The door opened, and the rookie officer who had led Kyle back poked his head in.
"Are you guys almost done?" he asked. "We just got a call about some kids trespassing up at the old Mephesto lab. Me and Durham would take it, but, uh, last time we got a call about teenage hoodlums they were kids we were in school with just a few years back, and it got, kind of, more heated than it should have-"
"I think we're done," Bebe said. Stan turned back toward Kyle and rolled his eyes. Bebe was too easy on the especially baby-faced rookies, and this kid was one of them. "Kyle?" Bebe said. "You have all the info you need?"
"For now, yes," he said, nodding. "I'll be back in touch, of course, as the investigation progresses. Um, if there are questions."
"What's the nature of the complaint?" Stan asked, annoyed that some teenagers making trouble up on the mountain had shortened his time with Kyle.
"Just the usual from that old lady who lives at the foot of the mountain," the rookie said. "Kids laughing, driving up that dangerous old road, breaking windows up there."
"Kids still do that?" Kyle said. He was putting away his things. Stan watched, waiting for Kyle to meet his eyes.
"Yeah," Stan said when Kyle looked up. "They still do."
Kyle shrugged his jacket on and followed Stan and Bebe out through the station. He seemed impervious to the angry stare that Yates was giving him as he passed by. Outside, the daylight was already beginning to fade. Stan could smell a chimney fire somewhere in the distance, and he thought of his uncle Jimbo's cabin out in the woods, not far from the Mephesto lab. He stood watching a jet trail streaking through the sky, just where the pale of the afternoon met the deepening blue, like a seam. He was aware of Kyle standing beside him, and of Bebe dawdling near the car, bending down to see her reflection in the window while she adjusted her messy ponytail. It was like she was trying to give them a moment to say goodbye, as if this might be the last time Stan saw Kyle while he was in town.
"I was thinking," Kyle said, and Stan turned to him too eagerly, wondering if he was chilly in that thin suit jacket. "I could come with you guys. Ride up to the old lab with you, I mean. I'm on dinner break until six, and I. I'm still trying to get a feel for the town, you know, again. Just riding with you on a low-key call might help."
"Yeah," Stan said. He'd been ready to agree six words in. "What do you carry?" he asked.
"It's just a Glock 22," Kyle said, pulling his jacket back to show Stan his gun. "Yours is M&P, I assume?"
"Yeah, a forty. I've got a Remington in the car, too."
Kyle raised his eyebrows. "You think we're going to need to draw weapons on this call?"
"Oh, no, Jesus, I just. Noticed, uh. In the booking room, when you took off your blazer."
"It's not a blazer."
"Didn't you bring a real coat from Denver?" Stan asked. "It's gonna get cold soon, dude. What?" he said when Kyle just grinned at him.
"Nothing." Kyle looked away, toward Stan's car. "You still call me 'dude.' I think that's the third time now."
"You've been counting?" Stan couldn't stop himself from beaming, only gloating a little. Kyle shoved him toward the car.
Stan drove, and he mostly stayed quiet while Kyle and Bebe talked, exchanging the animated gossip that Kyle had missed out on when he rushed away from the restaurant the night before.
"I'm surprised Kenny is still single," Kyle said at one point. "Maybe it's the mortician thing? Women don't want to live in a funeral home?"
"It's not that," Bebe said. Stan looked over at her in surprise, and she seemed to consider whether or not she should say more, her jaw shifting. "He disappears."
"Oh," Kyle said, sounding so much like his eight-year-old self that Stan had to push down a happy laugh.
"Disappears?" Stan said, not familiar with that facet of Kenny pathology. Bebe shook her head.
"Put your lights on," she said as they started up the mountain. "Headlights, I mean."
The sun had just begun to set as they reached the steep gravel driveway that led up to what was once the eccentric geneticist's private laboratory. Before that, the building had been a state-run mental hospital. Mephesto had bought the property cheap when state funding dried up and the mental patients were bussed to other hospitals - or released into the surrounding woods, if the urban legends Stan grew up with were to be believed. The drive up toward the crumbling building was bumpy, and Stan hoped they would be able to corral these kids before the sun finished setting. He'd never been up to the old lab after dark, but he'd made plenty of trips during the afternoon as a cop, and also when he was a teenager himself, with Kyle and his other friends.
"Wow," Kyle said as they pulled up. The building was seven stories tall and not designed to be aesthetically pleasing; it resembled a fortress. The exterior was still solid and intact, though badly scarred by time and dotted with broken windows, jagged glass. "This place is a mess," Kyle said. "Why don't they tear it down?"
"Don't know," Stan said. "It might still belong to Mephesto's son. He went to some Ivy League college, hasn't been back since."
Stan climbed out of the car, wishing again that Kyle had a coat. It was colder up in the mountains, and the chill of evening was descending fast, too. Even the tree line looked sinister as the glow of sundown lit it from behind, making the silhouetted pines resemble a monster's uneven teeth. Stan went back to the car for his spare flashlight and handed it to Kyle. Bebe was patrolling the perimeter, shouting that they were police and asking if anyone was there. Stan couldn't smell fresh spray paint layered onto the already overlapping tags on the building's exterior, didn't see flashlight beams in the upstairs windows or catch a whiff of nearby pot. There weren't even any fresh cigarette butts on the ground, but he did see muddy tire tracks that looked recent.
"Brings back memories," Kyle said. He walked alongside Stan, shining his flashlight beam here and there before returning it to the same spots that Stan focused on.
"Yeah," Stan said, thinking of those late fall afternoons, riding bikes all the way out here with Kyle, laughing nervously as they poked around outside the creepy old building. They'd never been rebellious enough, or brave enough, to cut the chains on the front doors or tear the boards from a first floor window and slip inside. "You want my coat?" Stan asked.
"Your- what?" Kyle laughed and looked at Stan like he was crazy. "No, thank you. Stan. I'm not even cold."
Stan didn't buy this, because Kyle was letting his shoulder bump against Stan's while they walked, which was something he always used to do when he was hoping Stan would offer his jacket or toss an arm around him for warmth. Kyle had been so skinny back then, always shivering.
"You guys see anything?" Bebe asked, radioing this to Stan from the other side of the building.
"Nope," Stan said. "You?"
"Not yet. Let's meet at back, circle the perimeter again on the way to the car and get the hell out of here. This place stinks."
"What is that?" Kyle asked, wrinkling his nose.
"Rotting leaves," Stan said. "And, just. Decay, disuse."
"It's chemical," Kyle said. "Like formaldehyde."
"Well, I'm sure old man Mephesto left plenty of that inside when he abandoned the place."
Stan slowed his steps on the walk toward the back of the building. The woods behind the lab were thick and rapidly darkening, silent except for a soft wind that moved through the pine branches overhead. The building and even the surrounding woods emanated a kind of sad, hollow menace, but Stan had strangely good memories of this place, tied up with the season of trick-or-treating and pumpkin carving. He had sort of loved coming here as a kid, though the place did scare him. It was something about the anticipation of approaching an unknowable danger, then dashing back home before the sun went down, Kyle beside him the whole time.
"Tomorrow is your birthday," Kyle said. He had turned his flashlight off and was still walking close, letting his shoulder bump against Stan's.
"Yeah," Stan said. "A boring one. Thirty-one. I don't really have anything planned."
"October nineteenth," Kyle said. "Every year, you know. That day always makes me sad."
"Why?" Stan asked, though he knew. May twenty-sixth, same thing.
"Because we don't talk anymore," Kyle said. "But I still feel like I know you, even though I also know that I – don't. You're like this phantom limb."
"I know," Stan said, not wanting to pretend anymore that he didn't understand. Not now, here, in the huge shadow that this place threw over them. "I mean. I feel the same."
Kyle seemed to be trying to say something, his lips parted and his eyebrows drawn together. He stopped walking when they reached the corner and turned toward the back wall of the building. Stan could see Bebe's flashlight bobbing up ahead, moving toward them.
"There are things I never told you," Kyle said, speaking softly. He was watching the beam of Bebe's flashlight, looking like he'd just passed through a cold spot that might have been a ghost.
"I know," Stan said, again, wanting to slide his jacket off and wrap Kyle into it. "There's, yeah, so much. I should have, back then, things I should have said—"
"I think we're talking about different things," Kyle said.
"What – yeah?"
"You said you don't have plans for your birthday," Kyle said, finally looking at Stan. "Would you, um. Like to hang out? With me?"
"Yeah," Stan said, withholding a smart ass remark about whether or not Mac would be invited along. "Oh, shit, but I do have to work until six, and I was planning on having dinner with my kids. They're spending the night, um. But you could come over after they go to bed. Or, you know. You could meet them."
"God," Kyle said, and clearly that was the last thing he wanted, which hurt a little. "No, I. I need to talk to you, so. It would be strange, with your kids there."
"Okay, well. Day after my birthday?"
"What are you guys doing?" Bebe shouted. "You want to just go?" she asked when she reached them. She was slightly breathless, hurrying her steps. "I mean, I do," she said. "Whoever was up here is gone, and it's getting dark."
"Yes, let's go," Kyle said, taking her arm. "Walk with us. It's still so eerie up here. I didn't think it would bother me."
They headed back to the car, finding no signs of the trespassing teens on the way. Stan figured those kids were probably on their way home when the old woman heard them making a ruckus. He had no trouble believing they'd been here; it was just a few weeks from Halloween, and calls about break-ins at the old lab always increased as the holiday approached and kids went looking for a 'real' haunted house.
"What are you doing for your dinner break?" Bebe asked Kyle as they drove away from the lab, Stan's cruiser bouncing over the gravel road again. The sun was almost gone, and Stan was glad that they would reach the main mountain road before it disappeared entirely.
"Hmm," Kyle said. "I don't know, honestly. The dining selections here are even more limited than I remembered."
"City Wok's still good," Stan said. Kyle laughed, to Stan's annoyance. That hadn't been a joke.
They drove Kyle back to the station, where he'd left his car. He thanked them for the 'nostalgic field trip' and waved to Stan as if he'd forgotten about their half-formed plans, but as Stan headed back into the station he felt his cell phone buzz. It was a text from Kyle:
Day after your birthday, yes. Sounds good, dude.