"So tell me honestly. Does this make my ass look big?"

Kenny put on a very serious expression, modeling a pair of oversized pants that hung far too low and drooped around his hips and rear. Customers in the store looked at him disapprovingly and one associate looked like she wanted to say something to him about his poor choice in sizing, but he had only posed the question to one person and that person was Craig Tucker.

The blonde was pleased to see Craig clap a hand to his mouth to hide what must have been a smirk, hearing quiet laughter coming from the usually stoic individual.

"Well I'm thinking your ass is just a bit smaller than those jeans." Craig teased, raising one eyebrow and moving forward to usher Kenny back towards the fitting rooms. "Stop making people think I'm with a mental patient, show me what you actually chose."

The duo had reached the mall a little later than they had planned, thanks in no small part to Craig missing his alarm and having to insist Kenny wait in the driveway while he rushed to get ready. Kenny had teased him through texts as he'd waited and had made small talk with Ruby when the youth had come home from school for lunch.

She was an odd one, though not nearly as expressionless as Craig. Kenny had mistaken her for a boy in drag when she'd first turned into the driveway, bringing up a very awkward memory of when he'd been over at Craig's house last, but when she'd removed her hat and let her hair down Kenny had recognized her. Craig had full out picked her up round the waist and carted her indoors before joining Kenny in the car. Ruby had been shouting as they'd pulled away and Craig had stuck his trademark middle finger out the window at her. What a happy family.

Kenny had to admit, though, it was better than his family.

They'd been at the mall for hours now and Craig had been right about the deals. Kenny had been abusing his wallet, buying new jeans and t-shirts and a new pair of shoes that were far too expensive, even with the deal. Regardless of how he felt about throwing precious money away, Kenny couldn't deny that it was cheering him up. Who would have guessed Craig knew how to cheer someone up?

"Hey, what do you want to do for dinner, by the way? Food court's pretty packed." Kenny called out from the fitting room, changing into a pair of loose fitting, but definitely correct sized jeans and throwing a deep orange hoodie over his regular shirt.

"Food court's always packed. There were a bunch of burger joints on the way here, maybe just hit one of those up." Craig responded, but he sounded a bit further away. Kenny guessed he was looking at the racks nearby for clothes.

So far, Craig had only purchased two items, which consisted of a very nice leather jacket Kenny had pressured him into buying and a set of headphones for his iPod. He had claimed he didn't need anything else, but Kenny had the distinct feeling that he was having more fun just watching Kenny fall over himself to get to the cheap things.

"Sounds good. Any particular place you like?"

A huff, somewhere between a laugh and a scoffing release of air sounded from outside his door and Craig said, "Dude, they're all burgers to me. I don't give a fuck. Try this."

A jacket was held up over the top of the fitting room door and Kenny looked at it curiously.

"I can't pull this off." Kenny said, taking the jacket regardless. It was a soft sort of jacket with a hoodie attached inside. The color combinations were dark grey and light grey, shades Kenny never normally went with. "It's grey."

"Who the fuck cares if it's grey, try it."

"Oh, pressuring me now? Is this payback for that leather jacket I made you buy?" Kenny laughed, slipping the soft material of the hoodie off his arms.

"Yes." Was the only response from the other side of the door.

"For the record, that jacket made you look hella fine, you won't regret buying it." Kenny opened the door once he'd swapped the dark orange hoodie in favor of Craig's choice and stepped out to model the new ensemble.

Craig looked him over, the index finger of his right hand pressed against his lips as he did so. This was just one of the habits Kenny was learning Craig had. He didn't do it very often, but the finger to the lips was his thinking face. Earlier today, Kenny had discovered Craig bit his lower lip when he was listening carefully as well. Craig had fiddled with his car radio for nearly a full thirty minutes and one of the only reasons Kenny hadn't told him to pick a station and leave his car alone was because every time he'd look over, Craig would be abusing his bottom lip and Kenny kinda maybe sort of thought it was sexy.

"I like that it's not orange." Craig remarked and Kenny gave him a withering look. "No seriously, it looks fine, don't give me that."

"Now you're a fashion expert?" Kenny joked, looking at himself in the mirror. He had to admit, with the nearly black jeans and his white t-shirt, the jacket didn't look half bad. "I think grey looks weird with blonde hair."

"No," Craig shook his head, sidling up next to Kenny in the mirror and lowering his voice as if telling his companion a secret. "It only looks off because you've got some golden blonde shit going on up here."

Kenny stood still as Craig ran a hand through his hair and messed it up, letting it fall nearly in front of Kenny's eyes. He let out a long exhale, blowing his hair out of the way and reaching up to fix it as Craig continued to talk.

"It'd look cool if you were a few shades lighter."

"I'd probably look really washed out."

"Go out into the sunlight, Ken, it won't kill you."

Kenny smirked, noticing once again that Craig had begun calling him 'Ken' instead of Kenny. He'd been doing it all day, with no explanation for the sudden change. Usually, only Kyle or Eric used Ken as an affectionate friendly nickname, but Craig seemed determined to use it for his only name now. He'd thought about bringing it up, but it didn't bother him and he still preferred it to McCormick, so he really didn't want to draw too much attention to it.

After Kyle's birthday yesterday, Kenny had stayed awake much later than he probably should have, trying to work out the best way of dealing with Craig on their road trip. Cuddling on the couch had been new and Kenny wasn't quite sure he knew how to proceed from there. He had settled for casual closeness; it had seemed the best option because Craig hadn't been overly affectionate during their trip so far. He found himself wanting to hold hands or touch Craig more often today, but that wasn't really a surprise to Kenny.

It wasn't very hard to see that Kenny was attaching himself to Craig more so than he should be. The deal was simply Fuck Buddies, but they hadn't even done anything overly sexual in the last few days. It was becoming a lot more like friends and last time Kenny checked, Friends With Benefits never really worked out well. This could go one of two ways and the blonde knew exactly which way he was headed.

The fluttery feeling in his stomach was enough to go by.

Luckily the trip had kept him from overthinking this realization and as he wandered up to the till with his jeans and the jacket Craig had picked out, he tried to convince himself that this wasn't going to end up like some cheesy romantic comedy.

"Okay, so...any more stores you wanted to check out?" Kenny asked, smiling at the cashier as she handed him back his receipt. She kept glancing at Craig as well, but the dark haired boy wasn't paying attention to her at all.

"I think I'm good. My arms are getting tired." Craig said, holding up his two bags for show. Kenny chuckled.

"You must be weak." He teased and he got a jab in the ribs for his trouble. "Ow! Hey. Be nice, dude."

"Call me weak and then tell me to be nice? Oh, I see how it is." Craig replied.

Kenny led the way out of the store and gave a dramatic sigh. He was glad that they'd still gotten here early because the hallways between stores were starting to fill up with afternoon shoppers. This left only a few things to do...

"Let's go find dinner!" Kenny said, charging off at a determined pace towards where he thought he remembered the parking lot being. He didn't check to see if Craig was following, but he figured the darker haired male wouldn't stay alone in the crowd of strangers.

Sure enough, reaching the parking lot and risking a glance around him, Kenny saw Craig silently following his lead and texting someone on his phone.

"Reggie texting you?" Kenny loomed over the phone, not really caring who it was but definitely wanting to bug Craig for fun. Ever since that incident in the bathroom, Kenny had jumped on any opportunity to bug Craig about his co worker.

"No, I don't want to talk to that ass clown on my days off." Craig snapped, but there wasn't any real malice behind it. Even if he wouldn't say so, Craig was having a good day just hanging out and it was a lot of effort to pretend to be contrary to that. "It's Ruby, just asking if there are any sales at the stores she shops at."

"Are there?"

"You wanna text her and tell her? Cos there's no way I'm going to go poke through that list of deals to find her girly stores." Craig handed Kenny his phone without hesitation, without even waiting for a confirmation from the blonde. They had grabbed a brochure earlier with a list of deals from each store and Kenny pulled it out of his pocket, trying to match up the stores Ruby had sent names of to the list.

It wasn't that hard to find and text back. Then again, Kenny had grown up catering to Karen, so he supposed he had more skill at this than Craig did. He'd actually agreed to go shopping with Karen more than once and had been issued in as the eventual prom planner when Karen became of age.

"So you and Ruby don't get along either, huh?" Kenny asked once they started walking again, heading towards parking lot C, the lot Craig had demanded they park in because it was the first letter of his name. Kenny had to admit, it was easy to remember that way.

"Ruby and I don't anything, really. It's not that we don't get along but we're not close either." Craig shrugged in a noncommittal manner. "Told you before, we're not a close family."

Kenny remembered their late night conversation from a few days ago and nodded as if he was agreeing with something. Ruby had seemed more active than the Tucker parents, but Kenny had really only seen her a handful of times and never for long, so he couldn't comment.

"I guess it's just kind of weird, cos I'm so close with Karen. I kind of think siblings should be close. Even Kyle and Ike are close, despite the fact that Ike drives Kyle up a wall every time they see each other."

"Well, not everyone fits that outline." Craig noted, looking back at Kenny as they reached the car.

"You're an outline all your own." Kenny said, reaching forward to poke Craig's cheek, dodging the hand that came up to swat him away and moving instead to unlock the car doors. He didn't think he was wrong though, not knowing anyone else quite like Craig. Something he was actually rather thankful for.

"Damn right." Craig agreed, tossing his bags into the back seat while Kenny went to open the trunk to put his clothes in.

A small strip of restaurants lined their way as Kenny pulled the car out of the mall parking lot and headed in the direction of the highway home. He turned into one burger place at random and heard no protest from Craig so he asked, "Drive through or sit down?"

"Can you eat and drive?" Was the reply.

"Drive through it is."

Craig chuckled softly, a sound Kenny was getting to hear more often lately and definitely beginning to love the sound of. It was happening more today than any other day Kenny had hung out with Craig so far and the blonde was beginning to think that part of Craig's attitude was because of what was in South Park. Maybe a road trip every now and then would be good for the both of them.

"You're learning. Good." Craig spoke softly, sliding down in his seat and resting an elbow against the car door. He absently played with his hair as they rolled up to the first voice box and glanced at the menu for all of about four seconds before adding, "Just get me a meal or something easy, I'll pay for the both of us."

"I'm not that poor, Craig, I can pay for my own meal." Kenny retorted calmly, but Craig retaliated with a punch to Kenny's arm and began rifling around for his wallet anyway. "Ow. Why must you solve all your problems with violence?" Kenny pretended to be hurt, dramatically playing up a sob and turning his face away from Craig, just as the man over the speaker greeted them with a confused sounding tone.

"He probably thinks I'm beating you, play it up a bit more, Drama Queen." Craig teased, shoving Kenny with less force this time and motioning for the blonde to order.

Kenny stuck his tongue out and grinned, but managed to place an order all the same and roll up to the first window to pay. The cashier looked at them awkwardly as Craig, seemingly without a care to how this would look to a stranger, unbuckled his seatbelt and draped himself over Kenny's lap in the driver's seat to flash his debit card. Kenny could barely keep himself from laughing, the look on the cashier's face just entirely too funny to him.

Craig's body heat was seeping through Kenny's jeans as the darker haired male typed out his pin, casual as could be and apparently unaware of the fact that he had put them in an awkward position. As soon as Craig had handed back the debit machine to the girl in the window and started to retreat back to his seat, Kenny took the opportunity to pinch Craig around the waist. The eldest Tucker offspring jumped in between the two seats and gave Kenny a scolding look, but managed to shift back to his seat without much more difficulty.

"It was too perfect, I had to." Kenny said with his grin firmly back in place and Craig responded with his trademark middle finger.

"I did kind of walk into that one." Craig admitted with a grimace.

"You could walk into another if you'd like." Kenny said, gesturing to his lap as they pulled up to the last window.

"Fuck you, you've already had your hand down my pants once in this car, can't you be a bit more imaginative?" Craig retaliated, falling silent when he realized the associate in the window had heard them in the process of handing Kenny the food.

Oh fuck.

It took everything in him not to burst out laughing at Craig's words and the girl at the window's reaction, but Kenny managed to thank the girl who had turned bright red and quickly drove out of the line up and trying very hard not to swerve into a parking space and just let Craig have it.

"That. Was. Priceless." He said, unable to stop a few chuckles from escaping him as he tried to concentrate on driving. Kenny dropped the bag of food in between their seats, letting Craig pick his stuff out if he wanted. The dark haired boy seemed to have been rendered speechless at his own blunder, but recovered in record time to slap a hand to his face and slouch even further in his seat.

"Well, that's one burger joint I can never go back to." Craig muttered, but he didn't seem too bothered by it. In fact, when Kenny glanced over at him, Craig seemed to be smiling, but it was hard to tell with his hand in the way.

"No way, we need to come back again!" Kenny said excitedly, still trying not to swerve off the road and let himself laugh until his sides hurt. "Soon, so they don't forget."

"Oh my god." Craig groaned.

Laughing softly, Kenny wiped a stray tear from his eye that had escaped with the effort of trying to keep himself from losing control. Sometimes...just sometimes, Craig's bluntness and lack of tact was just so perfect.

Kenny pushed on the radio to calm himself down with music, singing along absently to the songs played and maneuvering the car towards the highway. He wanted to keep making fun of Craig, but knew he'd only end up getting punched again in the long run and decided against it. Craig had begun to pull his set of fries out of the bag and stuck one between his lips, biting the end of it carefully to check if it was hot.

Apparently deeming it edible, Craig held up another one to Kenny's lips and said, "So we're right faggots now, better start sharing food and being disgusting together because I can't keep my fucking mouth shut."

"Aww, you're so sweet." Kenny cooed playfully, nearly choking as Craig's words made him laugh again and trying to eat the fry offered. He caught the slight roll of Craig's eyes at Kenny's reaction and just grinned in return. "And for the record, it wasn't that bad. It's not like we actually had sex in this car and you blurted that out."

"Not like we've had sex at all." Craig corrected and Kenny hissed at the truth of it.

"Yeah, my bad." Kenny said, half genuinely knowing it had been because of him that they hadn't gone all the way yet and the other half continuing with the jokes. Craig didn't take it too seriously, so Kenny didn't worry about it too much. At least not today. He'd replayed the scene from before over and over in his mind at home, trying to find some way to explain it without having to admit he'd felt something not so casual for the darker haired boy.

"Not a big deal." Craig shrugged and for a long while he was quiet, eating his burger and fries.

Kenny listened to the radio, humming along and every so often, Craig would be sweet (or what Kenny was going to call sweet) and offer him a few fries from his meal. Kenny might have called it comfortable, but the songs weren't all that good and he really wished he had something to say instead. It wasn't until after the food was gone that Kenny broke the silence between them.

"So how about a game?" Kenny suggested, which earned him a serious look from Craig.

"If you say I Spy or any of those lame car games, I will combat roll out of this vehicle."

"Fuck, Craig, stay in the car." Though he was laughing, Kenny couldn't help but be a little worried about the unlocked car doors. "I just meant like asking questions or something. Today was nice. You were right; it was a nice break. Figured maybe we could cap it off with some stories or something."

"Stories. See you say shit like that with a serious face, but I don't know if you actually realize how girly that sounds." Craig teased, narrowing his eyes and relaxing against the car door, his elbow up against the window.

"We're disgusting, remember? I'm allowed to sound girly."

Kenny didn't look over to see Craig, but he heard a sigh and knew he'd won. A thrill of pride ran through him when he heard evidence to his guess and Craig asked, "What do you want to talk about?"

"Hmmm." Kenny thought, trying to figure out a story he might want to tell or hear from Craig. There were plenty of ones he knew Craig wouldn't answer, so he started off simple. "What was your biggest injury? Or have you even been injured?"

"That's what you pick first? God, so morbid. Okay." Craig cleared his throat and took a moment to think. "When I was little, I was playing tag with a cousin of mine. I wasn't really focusing and ended up not seeing a picnic table in front of me. Gashed my chin open and had to be rushed to the hospital because it wouldn't stop bleeding."

Kenny's eyes widened and he chanced a small laugh, hoping it wouldn't offend Craig.

"Really? Wow."

"Okay, now you. When did you start loving interrogation games so much?" Craig gave Kenny a sly sort of smirk and waited for an answer.

Well, that one was kind of deserved. Kenny tilted his head and signaled into the next lane to pass a slower car before answering.

"I used to play them all the time with Kyle. It's how I found out about him liking both teams and it because sort of my way of coaxing information out of people." Kenny confessed. "It's working with you too."

"Haha." Craig said sarcastically.

"If you were easy to get information from, I wouldn't need games." Kenny said in a musical tone, glancing quickly over to Craig for effect.

"How ever would I keep things interesting if you just knew stuff about me?" Craig looked at him with an exasperated expression and Kenny snickered.

"You are always interesting, Craig. Even when I think I've got you figured, you surprise me." Kenny admitted. Though it wasn't exactly true, since he could still predict some of what Craig did, there were those little gaps when Kenny was utterly unprepared for what Craig decided to give him.

Like yesterday...

"Okay, next question." Kenny said, taking his chances and asking, "What was with the cuddling yesterday?"

Craig blinked at him and shrugged, but Kenny barely caught the motion. He gave a short hum to press for more information and Craig sighed.

"Do I need a reason?" Craig leaned back against his seat lazily, reaching up to link his fingers behind his head. "Sometimes even I want to do that sappy shit."

"Really?" Kenny asked, genuinely surprised by this. He'd assumed he'd been the only one to feel that way. The weird heart problems, the butterflies in the stomach...sure, Craig wasn't admitting to those things, exactly, but...it was almost as good. "Figured you'd be against all that. The whole no kissing rule and all kind of indicated a lack of intimacy that way."

Craig scoffed and replied with, "The kissing has nothing to do with me liking or not liking romantic shit. I just think I should be saving something for the people I actually date and...well, sex is kind of already off the table."

"Who have you had sex with?" There was a familiar tightening in Kenny's stomach, but it wasn't jealousy. Seriously, it wasn't.

"You already had your question, it's my turn. Why are you so preoccupied with my intimacy issues?" Craig quickly rebounded and Kenny wanted to say he wasted no time answering, but this was tough.

He paused, knowing full well he couldn't just launch into an explanation of how his heart sped up when they were close or how he'd wanted to hold Craig's hand all day today. Not that he had...okay, whatever, he had. He knew enough about his own feelings to know shit was getting real with Craig and Kenny wasn't about to screw things up by actually voicing it to the stoic male.

"I just find it weird. I had my first kiss before I slept with my first partner, so it's never been a huge thing in my eyes." Kenny finally managed to respond and without missing a beat, returned his question from earlier. "Now who have you slept with?"

"It was a kid from my camp. Tom or something, I don't really remember. But I've had others. Like Bebe Stevens, from school."

Kenny blinked stupidly for a few seconds before remembering the blonde girl who'd been Wendy's friend in nearly every class. The two had been inseparable.

"I thought she was a lesbian." Kenny said.

"She classifies herself based on who she's dating at the moment, but she's actually pansexual." Craig didn't seem to care much about explaining Bebe, but he did anyway. "She wasn't that good."

"Ew." Kenny made a face. "Now I can't get Bebe's face out of my head."

Craig actually grinned at that and mumbled a rather insincere sounding, "Sorry."

Kenny sighed and tried not to let his heart start thudding against his chest from the news that someone else had seen that face from the night Kenny had slept over. They'd even seen more. Those bitches.

"Ask me another." Kenny prompted, wanting to get to his next question so he could pry more into Craig's life. It was probably going to do more damage than good, but he didn't much care.

"Who was your first?"

"Her name was Jade. Transfer student. Didn't last long. She went back to New Zealand and conveniently forgot my e-mail." Kenny remembered most of the people he slept with, mostly because it hadn't actually been that many. He could count on one hand the amount of people he'd actually had sex with, even if the amount of people he'd done other shit with probably took two or three hands. Jade had been one of the pretty ones. Long dark hair and that accent...thinking back on it now, it had probably been the accent he'd fallen for.

"Have you ever kissed anyone before? I mean, like...I guess I should say, have you ever really dated before?" Kenny asked, watching Craig out of the corner of his eye.

"No. I almost did, I had a girlfriend for a bit, but we never kissed. She ended up cheating on me." Craig answered, now paying full attention to Kenny. It didn't take an idiot to see how this was affecting the blonde and it was kind of fascinating to watch the array of emotions flit across his face.

Before Kenny could ask another question, he realized they'd come up to the exit they needed and veered off, letting the car slow down as he reached the regular road that would take them home. It'd be about twenty minutes now before they got to town and they would have to part ways.

Kenny's chest tightened. Should he? Shouldn't he?

"Any more questions?" He pressed.

"Hey, Ken?" Craig ignored Kenny's words, but his tone sounded questioning all the same. "You're not over thinking this, are you? This thing we have."

"Over thinking how?" Kenny inquired.

Craig just sighed. He shifted in his seat and turned his eyes out to the road, leaving Kenny confused. What the hell had Craig meant? Now Kenny definitely couldn't ask what he wanted.

"Thanks for inviting me out." Kenny changed the topic, turning the radio down and rolling his window down as well, letting the cool air come in through the car and ruffling his hair. "I had fun."

"Just remind me not to talk when we go out next, kay?" Craig said, a hint of teasing to it and Kenny grinned.

"You got it." Kenny nodded.

For about half the remaining trip, they sat in comfortable silence, listening to the quiet thrums of the radio that was playing a Korean song Kenny knew from Youtube. It was oddly out of place on the English speaking station, but it was catchy all the same. He was beginning to fall into a lull, nearly half asleep at the wheel when something touched the back of his free hand. He'd let it rest on his leg and jumped at the feeling, very narrowly avoiding an accident when his quick reflexes caused the hand on the steering wheel to seize up.

Kenny looked down to see what had startled him and saw Craig's hand over his own. He glanced over with an incredulous expression, heart beating just a bit faster in his chest to see Craig looking down at their joined hands.

"What the heck, dude? Scared the shit out of me." Kenny breathed out uncertainly, trying to sound firm and failing.

"Sorry." Craig didn't sound too sorry. "You like this, don't you?"

"Huh?"

"Me being all affectionate and shit."

Kenny didn't reply and his silence caused Craig to look up at him. He seemed to find the answer he was looking for in Kenny's expression alone and hummed softly, looking out the window without removing his hand from Kenny's.

Kenny couldn't admit it, but Craig was right. He uncertainly squeezed Craig's fingers and recieved the slightest of reciprocation from the dark haired boy. There was only about five more minutes until they rolled up into the Tucker driveway, but Kenny didn't much care anymore. His hand was warm from where Craig had been holding it and even as the taller boy stepped out to get his purchases, a fluttery feeling in Kenny's stomach stayed firmly in place.

Craig rounded the car to get to the driver's window and leaned on the door again.

"I'll see you later, Ken." He said quietly and Kenny nodded, cracking a small smile.

"What, no kiss?" He teased.

Craig shoved Kenny playfully through the window and flipped him off.

"I can only stomach so much sap, don't get greedy." Craig called to him as he headed back to the house. He waited until Kenny pulled out from the driveway before shutting the door and Kenny started home, a tingling feeling across his hand.

Kenny didn't want to over think things, but sometimes he couldn't help it. In the silence of the car, shutting off the radio that was advertising the latest boy band, it was really all that was left to do. He reminded himself to talk to Kyle about this feelings crap and see if the smart ass had any easy way to deal with having feelings for someone like Craig Tucker.

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Author's Note:

Okay, so this chapter could have gone 8 different ways. Not a word of a lie, I have 4 versions of this saved on my computer and many more that never became save worthy. This was the only version I managed to finish.

With work and everything going on right now, this chapter was actually insanely difficult due to lack of actual plot development, but some of the key transitions had to happen in this chapter so here it is.

The next chapter will come easier, I hope, haha~