Author's Note: Sorry it took so long to write this chapter guys! I wanted to write/update my other fics for a bit buttttt I neglected this one ;-; Updates will be a bit slower because of work and stuff but don't worry I will keep updating this until this is complete!

Truthfully I got a bit stuck because I didn't know how to do time skips correctly but now I know lol. I need to just let the story flow and not have to document every second of the day that passes by Kenny and Craig haha.

Besides all of that, please rate & review! it helps me to write and keeps me going :)

Disclaimer: I do not own South Park or any of the references made in this series.

(Craig's POV)

Craig opened his car door for Kenny and promptly closed it after. It was getting quite chilly now that the sun had all but set and the only sound they heard was the wind whistling for them to hurry home. Craig rounded the corner and hopped into the driver's seat, turning the ignition on. "First off, let's get you out of that hotel. You can stay at my place for the time being."

Kenny from his side gave him a questioning glance, but didn't push him further. It was a short ride to the hotel downtown. Kenny hopped out and went to gather his things, albeit it took a couple of minutes scurrying around, but the front desk receptionist was very accommodating and let him check out at late hours. He opened the car door and threw his duffel bag and other belongings into the back seat of Craig's car before hopping in himself.

"Got everything?" Craig asks, and Kenny nods silently. He knew that Kenny didn't want to share his more personal problems with his home life, especially after the party where Craig had come to learn more about him. Craig remembered back then that Kenny's face was beaten up and looked swollen. There were only a couple people who could do that to him, and he was pretty sure it wasn't anyone he knew from school. His home life seemed tough, and Craig didn't want to push him any further about it until Kenny felt comfortable enough to share. The two drive in a cozy silence back to Craig's house, where they unload their things quietly.

"My parents and sister are probably dead asleep right now, so just be really quiet on your way in," Craig unlocks the door with his house key and the two make their way inside. Upon stepping foot in Craig's house, Kenny's face, hands, and feet are immediately greeted to the warm feeling of a heater. It felt like a heated blanket touched his skin, making Kenny give a sigh of relief. Craig raised an eyebrow and whispered, "Are you just gonna stand there or are you gonna come in?"

Kenny rolled his eyes and gripped his duffel bag's straps tighter to his shoulder from where he was holding it. The two figures both took off their shoes before heading upstairs with Craig leading the way. He carefully opened up his room to Kenny, walking in and closing the door behind them.

"Well…welcome to my room." Craig introduced with his low voice. He hadn't cleaned it up too much as Kenny's arrival was a bit…unplanned, but it was spiffy enough. Kenny looks around to take in his surroundings, before his eyes land on a hole in Craig's wall.

"Uhh…you trying to make a glory hole or what?" Kenny jokes, pointing to the eyesore.

Craig gave a short grunt, crossing his arms. "To be fair, I literally just woke up this morning with super powers. I don't know how it happened." A thought crosses his mind as he voiced his opinion, but he doesn't outright say it out loud. I know how it happened, but I'm definitely not going to tell you.

Kenny set his things down next to the closet and nodded his head. "Sure, sure."

Craig continues to introduce his room to Kenny by saying, "I have an air bed in the closet but I haven't set it up yet. I can set it up for you tomorrow morning…ish? It's a bit loud to do right now."

Kenny nods, "So…that is code for I'll be sleeping on the floor tonight….got it."

As Craig takes one of the folded blankets from the closet, he feels a bit of guilt at having Kenny sleep on the floor. If he could, he would have had Kenny sleep on the bed next to him….but Craig shook the thought away quickly. He bit his lip before responding. "Again, sorry about that. This was kind of a last minute decision, but it's honestly better if you stay at my house for the time being while we figure things out. You won't be blowing all your money out on hotel rooms or food," Craig fluffs up an extra pillow he had on his bed and puts it onto the carpet beside his bed. "Plus, my parents are mostly out of the house at work. There's also extra food in the fridge if you need some, Ruby…hasn't really been eating a lot."

There was a quiet silence at that.

After Craig finishes setting up Kenny's sleeping area, Kenny flops onto the blanket on the floor. "Hey…at least this is a little more cozy than being at the hotel motel."

Craig raises an eyebrow as he sits across from Kenny on the floor. "How so?"

Kenny falls over onto his side, having the pillow catch him as he does. His words start to slur and his eyes begin to blink slowly, "I was getting sick of seeing the ceiling…." He yawns and his eyes close. "...The paintings looked weird and overall…it….doesn't feel like home…"

A silence fills the room as Kenny finishes his sentence, and Craig wants to inquire what exactly home feels like to Kenny until he hears the other lightly snore. Kenny had fallen asleep mid conversation. Craig smirks at that and gets ready for bed himself. That night, Craig is lying in bed peacefully until he feels something tossing and turning, grabbing his bed covers. His eyes blinked open to his right to see Kenny grasping onto his bedsheets, mumbling something in his sleep. "K-kenny….?" Craig whispers, but hears no response.

He gets up and sees that Kenny is moving around quite a bit in his sleep, like he was running from something. For a moment, Craig was wondering if he should wake the blonde haired man up. He ultimately decides against it and pulls the blanket over Kenny to cover him, and sits by his head. Craig sighed to himself. Ugh…why am I doing this again…

He looks over at Kenny to see him pull the blanket tightly to his chest, his face relaxing into a soft smile. Craig's eyes wandered over Kenny's face for a few moments before looking away again. I guess…this isn't too bad…

—

The next morning, Craig felt energized and lethargic at the same time. He wouldn't outwardly admit this to anyone, but for the rest of the night he tried hard to keep his eyes open to watch over Kenny. The golden haired boy had had nightmares for the rest of the night, which worried Craig. He still wasn't sure if he had woken him up or not. But alas, here we were.

"Good morning," Craig mutters as he watches the blonde haired man arise from the blanketed floor. "You look like shit."

Kenny shook his head lightly and looked behind him to see Craig sitting on the floor, leaning against his bed. "Good morning to you too, you also look like shit." He chuckled, much to Craig's surprise, since laughs had been scarce in the time that he had gotten to know him.

Craig looks away suddenly and gets up, moving over to his closet. "You can use the shower and make yourself comfortable in the house," He organizes a pile of clothes for Kenny to wear. "My parents leave around 9am and come back around 5pm, but they pretty much keep to themselves around here," He passes the clothes to Kenny. "If you do see them, they're pretty chill so just say hi or something. Got it?"

Kenny eyes the clothes. "I don't need clothes, I brought some from my dorm."

"Just wear mine, I'll wash yours in our washing machine."

"No, it's fine."

Craig eyes the other man, "Kenny, it's fine. Seriously. Take up all the space you need." Kenny looks off-put by Craig's sudden huge generosity but accepts it, knowing that he would be staying in his house for the time being. Craig tells Kenny that he has to get ready for work and that he'll be looking at his phone if there's any kind of emergency.

"I'm actually going to head out later after I clean myself up." Kenny looks towards the floor, grasping onto the clothes a little bit tighter.

Craig sighs. "Don't endanger yourself or get yourself killed without me," Kenny meets eyes with the other. "And if you do find information on something, anything, you need to share it with me. Promise me."

Kenny closes his eyes and starts heading for the hallway door to make his way towards his shower. "I'm not sure if I can do that first thing, but I can do the second."

"Kenny, I'm being serious." Something within Craig's facial expression made Kenny feel a little uncomfortable, but he couldn't place a finger on what it was about. Could it have been worry? Whatever it was, it made Kenny's chest feel tight and tense.

"Alright Craig, whatever. I…I promise." Kenny bites his lip and heads out the door, getting ready to take his shower. Before he headed out for work, he made sure that Kenny's bed was made up and the air bed was properly filled. As he finished, he cursed as he looked at the time. Honestly, Craig didn't know what to do with this other man's complicated feelings. He just wished that he understood that he was only trying to help. But there was only one way to get him to trust him fully, and it would take .some time.

—

(Kenny's POV)

After Craig had left for work, Kenny made use of his time by doing more research on Craig's computer. Unfortunately he didn't find anything too helpful, just bits of information that he had found out at the library, so he decided to do some undercover work as Mysterion. He suited up for the day and decided to observe around the strip club for anything funny.

This is a small ass town, how hard could it be to find a black Jeep? Mysterion thinks to himself, as he slinks in the shadows of alleyways to get to his destination. As soon as he gets there, he overhears a conversation at the back of the club. There was a figure pacing back and forth, on their phone.

"-yeah boss, he took care of it," There was a slight pause as the figure listened to the voice on the other end of the line. The name rang a bell to Mysterion, from when he was in the computer lab looking for surveillance footage. "Don't worry about it, he brought it to the junkyard," The figure started to look around, a bit anxiously, worried that someone might overhear them, but Kenny slid his back up against the wall of the alleyway to merge himself with the shadows. They couldn't hear him or see him. "Alright, boss."

Mysterion rounded the corner again to get a closer look at the figure to see that it was an employee who worked at the strip club. So the next thing he would have to look into is the junkyard. Luckily for Mysterion, South Park had a huge junkyard a couple miles outside of town. For a moment he thought about Craig and wondered if he should get him involved, but he shook the thought. Craig is at work and he can't be of use right now…

Mysterion's weight slid down against the alleyway wall until his bottom reached the floor. He needed help. But he wasn't sure how to ask for it, since he mostly worked on his own. This would have to be something that he had to do on his own. He gripped onto his mask tightly and made his way over to the junkyard, making sure that he wasn't seen in the daylight. Once he reached the junkyard, he felt more of a hesitancy to enter. Somehow, he was getting closer and closer to where he needed to be, but in return- he kept feeling numb and alone.

He huffed frustratedly at the feelings growing inside of him and entered the junkyard, to see someone yelling at a crane operator to move some things around. Mysterion walked up to him, his heart pounding in his chest. "Can we talk in private?"

The other man was shorter than Mysterion and stubby, and was wearing a construction hat and neon orange vest with a pinned badge on it. He looked Mysterion up and down, a questioning look on his face, "And who the hell are you?"

Mysterion's eye twitched. He didn't have time for this. "Doesn't matter. Let's talk, now," He grabbed the other's arm and pulled him into the office, the other employees with shocked looks on their faces. Mysterion locked the door behind him and threw the stubby man onto the nearest office chair.

The stubby man looked nervous, fidgeting to adjust himself in the chair, "H-hey…! What's the big idea…?"

Mysterion crossed his arms against his chest, looking down on him, "A couple days ago, someone came in here and scrapped a black Jeep," He could see that the man was fidgeting nervously in his chair. "What. Was. His. Name?"

"Look, kid," Mysterion's eyes twitched at the demeaning word he was being called. He threw his hands up at the sides of his head, mocking a surrender. "I don't have time for this. Adults got some big jobs, and I got one to go back to–"

As he was about to get up, Mysterion kicks him in the groin, back into the office chair. The shorter man yelps out in pain, his eyes almost popping out of his head from the sudden blow to his baby holders. "AGH!" Mysterion put his foot against the man's knee to constrain him from getting up again, though he wouldn't any time soon.

"I'm not gonna be Mr. Nice with you anymore, what. Was. His name?" Mysterion was practically clenching his teeth at this point, his eyes darkening below the hood of his cloak. He was itching to rip this man apart, especially if he had some kind of correlation to Karen's disappearance.

"F-fine! I'll tell ya!" The man was recovering, with tears in his eyes. "His name was Adler, he's a teacher at some school. When he came in, he was drunk as fuck, said he just came from the bar…ugh…that's all I know! ….can you let me go now?"

Mysterion smirked at getting the information he needed, but he knew that there were eyes watching. "...Yes, but first," He peered up at the surveillance camera located near the ceiling of the room they were in. "That has to go," Within a second, he grabbed an office stapler and aimed it at the camera with perfect precision. There was a loud crack as the camera was hit and fell to the floor. Mysterion had a dark smile on his face, as he took the sides of his cloak and did a curtsy. "Thank you for your business, sir."

With a swish of his cloak, he disappeared before their very eyes.

—

On the way back to Craig's house, Kenny was weighing his options. Kenny hesitates on whether he should tell Craig the new information he learned, but ends up doing so anyway and they go onto a mission together at nighttime.

"Are you sure this Adler dude is who we should be looking for?" Super Craig looked over at Mysterion, donning his new 'superhero' costume- when in actuality he was mostly wearing a dark blue version of his usual wear. He had felt a little bit anxious that this would be their first mission together and he wasn't too sure about the gritty details of catching and interrogating the guy.

Mysterion speaks up as they are running, his voice heavy with contempt, "Trust me, it's him."

There was a tension that filled the air there, that caused Super Craig to say no more. The bar was near the outskirts of town, making the streetlights far and scarce in between blocks. The moon had been covered by clouds that were scattered, making this one of the darkest nights yet. Super Craig tried his hardest not to fall flat on his face as he kept up with Mysterion's pace- by not slipping on blackened ice.

"We're here," Mysterion suddenly stops, almost causing Super Craig to slam right into him. He looks up at the bar's neon lighting, which faintly reflects across the black ice on the streets. Super Craig gulps, catching his breath and looks at Mysterion's face to see an unreadable expression there.

They start to move again, Mysterion going first into the bar. It didn't seem like they had a plan, although, if something happened Mysterion would probably use himself as a shield to protect Super Craig's body from flying bullets. They weren't too sure about people being armed here. Inside the bar, they are met with a warmthness both in visuals and physicality; invigorated by the sparkling reflections of glassware. People were laughing and yelling at the sports televisions that hung in the corners of the bar, and there was a liveliness that welcomed them both in. Mysterion and Super Craig however, had other plans on their minds tonight besides indulging into this energetic atmosphere. They were instead heading straight towards the bartender who was cleaning off glassware with a white handkerchief to ensure their cleanliness.

They both sat down at an empty booth near the back of the bar, when Mysterion tensed up at the sight of someone. "Our target's here," He urges Super Craig to look towards one of the barstools, where they see a round man with a lone shiny bald spot atop his head. Mysterion taps the table. "Here's the plan: As soon as he leaves to go to the bathroom, we're going to follow him out. I'm going to take him out the backdoor, and you be my lookout."

Super Craig nods, and as if on cue, the round man sloppily pulls himself off the barstool to relieve himself. Mysterion nods towards Super Craig and the two follow a few steps behind, before Mysterion grabs the other man by the collar and pulls him out the emergency exit. Super Craig had his eyes wide open as he looked around hurriedly, making sure no one saw, and ran out the door with them to close it shut.

Mysterion pushed the other violently against a pile of trashbags that lay near the entryway, seething. It took all it had in him to not do more, but he had to contain himself to get answers. Behind him, Super Craig tucked his hands into his armpits, looking around nervously to make sure nobody came up at the wrong time. The man whom Mysterion had pushed into the trash bags was lolling his head about, looking like he was drifting off to sleep- but Mysterion was not going to let him go that easily.

"Hey, fucker!" The man woke up with a start, trying to focus his eyes on the figure in front of him. "You're Adler, right? What the fuck did you do with Karen McCormick?" Mysterion's voice was deep and unshaking, as he grabbed the collar and necktie that bound Adler's neck.

"I have…no idea….hic…you're talking about…."

"Here, maybe this will wake you up," Mysterion let go of Adler's necktie before swinging a punch directly into Adler's face. There was a sound of something making contact and cracking before Adler yelped out in pain, as he fell backwards onto the pile of trash, cradling his cheek with one hand. Mysterion was unleashing his fists into the other before he started to vomit up what he had drank that night. As Mysterion lifted up one of his legs to stomp on him, it came to Super Craig what Mysterion was about to do. Super Craig held Mysterion's hands back and pulled him away hurriedly, as he realized that he was going to beat the crap out of him if he wasn't going to stop.

"F-fuck! Y-you're crazy!" Adler was now panicked, crawling on his forearms and trying to get away from them.

Super Craig had a low voice as Mysterion tried to struggle out of his grasp, "...Kenny, we're trying to get answers," Mysterion shook Super Craig off before stepping away and taking a deep breath. "Calm yourself. Breathe."

"...Fine," Mysterion growled, as he paced around and then walked in front of Adler to stop him from getting any further away. "I'm gonna ask you again. What did you do with the girls?"

"I..! I don't know! Please! I swear to God," Adler is now whimpering, sobbing in his own vomit. "I just…I just drive the cars and have them scrapped….Honest, I swear to God…" Mysterion's eye twitches and he raises a fist up again, causing Adler to flinch and Super Craig stepping forward- worried that he would have to intervene again. "Hold on! Please! Denkins!" Mysterion and Super Craig share a glance, wondering why the name sounded so familiar. "Denkins! Oh God…Denkins has been working with some rednecks around in South Park, with some shady business going on…But I don't know anything about girls, I swear, that's all I know!"

Mysterion lowers his raised fist now, looking down silently at Adler. Rednecks, huh? That would make Stuart one of the suspects that Denkins has been working with. And with Stuart's shady confrontation with the 'boss' from the strip club whom Mysterion had not seen since, he could only assume that his dad was the next person he needed to talk to about what 'product' they were moving…

Suddenly, there is a wailing siren that interrupts Mysterion and Super Craig's senses, which alerts them that it is time to go.

"Oh, thank God…the police are coming…" Adler whimpers to himself and cradles himself, before Mysterion shoots him a disgusted glare. The two make their way back to Super Craig's house, slinking into the shadows and staying stealth as much as they could. Mysterion couldn't stop thinking about the earlier events of the night and trying to rack the information around in his brain. He would have to debrief with Super Craig later. Once they get to Craig's house and get situated into his room, Kenny starts to wrap some bandage around his fist. He had thrown a couple punches in Adler's body which had caused some bruising along his knuckles.

There was a deafening silence, with Kenny's body facing away from Craig's as he wrapped himself. It wasn't until Craig started up the conversation, a tinge of worry coating along his words. "Okay, thoughts? Comments?" Kenny stops wrapping his bandage and turns to face the other, a scowl on his face. "Are we not going to ignore the fact that you almost killed him, Kenny?"

In the dim moonlight that graced Craig's room, Kenny walked up to Craig and grabbed him by the collar. "If you don't want to help me, or you aren't prepared for the things that are going to happen, don't even bother. Those sick fucks kidnapped my sister. And I would do anything–" His eyes darken as he looks into Craig's. " –to find her again."

Kenny let the other go, Craig's bottom landing softly onto his bed. He gulped as Kenny faced away from him again, focusing on wrapping his bandage. If Craig could be completely honest with himself, he wasn't sure if he was ready to see the side of Kenny that harboured murderous intent. As the two turned out the lights out for the night, Craig shifted uncomfortably in his bed facing away from Kenny. He wasn't sure if he was going to get sleep that night.