fake hipsters (13/14)
Dec. 14th, 2011 22:21![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sekritomgTitle: Fake Hipsters (13/14)
Rating: R overall; this chapter, PG13
Pairing: Stan/Kyle; various
Summary: You can take Stan out of South Park, but you can't take the South Park out of Stan.
“We can’t be together.” Kyle uttered these words with Stan’s seed still drying in his grasp, their shoulders touching comfortingly but not purposefully, their breaths ragged and out-of-sync. Or, rather, Stan’s was; Stan was practically shuddering, trying to let his thoughts catch up with reality. Was eight years a long time to want someone? To be hopelessly convinced that his bare skin in your grasp would be the death-knell of all life’s problems?
Stan jolted up, eyes suddenly more open than he thought they were going to get that afternoon. He looked down at Kyle, whose eyes were shut and whose eyelids were yellow, battered and swelling just enough to be noticeable, but those bruises couldn’t have been less than a week and a half old.
“Why not?” Stan asked. He grabbed Kyle’s shirt, the thin material collapsing into the webs of his clutch without protest.
Kyle sighed. He was smiling. He shook his head.
It just came out: “I love you.” It sounded so small and pathetic. Stan let go and clasped his mouth shut. He sank back to his haunches from his knees. “I’m sorry, but it’s true. I love you so much more than anything I’ve ever earned in my life. I’ve never even earned anything in my life; it was you, it was all you, everything I’ve done has been for you, or because or you, or, or — I don’t know if I can remember a time when I didn’t just need to divide my life into two parts, before you and after you. And the thing is.” Stan sniffed. “The thing is that that other part of my life, the part where I actually become someone, that can’t start without you.”
“If you need me so badly, why did you leave me?”
“Excuse me?”
“Stan.” Kyle sat up, still holding his sticky mess of a hand aloft, not smearing it clean but letting Stan’s fluids harden thinly in the bone-dry air of the bedroom. “I don’t know why you think I don’t love you. Somehow, in some way, I don’t really know. I do. But we can’t be together.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m not okay to be with anyone! And neither are you.”
“What do you mean, I’m not fit to be with someone?”
“Stan, look at you.” Kyle cocked his head. “You had sex with 15-year-old.”
“What!”
“Look, I don’t know who hurt you, or what you’re angry about, or what you’re afraid of. The last time in my life I was happy was in high school with you. I was confused and felt lost and like a cliché, but what your mother said at dinner the other night? It was true, at least for me. Being with you was the only thing I had. It was the only thing that I felt good or normal about. And then you left me. First you left me for Butters, then you left me to go to school. And I don’t — I don’t really know. I don’t know how to describe what I want.”
“We were never together, though. I didn’t ‘leave’ you for Butters.”
“I know.”
“But you said—”
“I don’t even know who I am!” Kyle cried. “I don’t know who I am, what I want, what’s normal, how I should be. I don’t know what I am. I don’t even know what gender I should be half the time when I wake up. And you’re a disgusting philanderer.”
“What? Oh my god, Kyle, do not turn that on me.”
“Why, because if you were with me you wouldn’t be? You can’t change that about a person. If it’s who you are, it’s who you are. I’ve had enough analysis to get that, you know.”
“But that’s why you have a relationship with someone, because you want to, like—”
“Fix each other.” Kyle reached over Stan for a Kleenex, and began wiping off his hand.
Stan couldn’t help but cringe at how clinical that gesture felt. “I was going to say, ‘make each other better.’ ”
“Same difference.” Kyle shrugged and threw the tissue on the floor. It made Stan’s chest seize. “Look, dude, you and me. This town. We’re done. We were done when we were 8.”
“Why are you so calm?” Stan felt like he was screaming, but Kyle’s face was impassive, turned off.
“Because I’m on drugs.”
“You were like crying half an hour ago.”
“I’m on drugs,” Kyle repeated. “Do you want some drugs?”
Slowly, Stan shook his head.
“That’s probably wise,” Kyle said. “Anyway. You should go talk to my mom now.”
Stan’s heart was tearing in half. “No. Why should I?”
“Because you said you would if I jacked you off?”
Stan’s heart was tearing in half and he was trembling. “Fuck you,” he gasped. “You sick fuck.”
Kyle had reached into his boxers, whispered in his ear, licked his jaw. I’ll make it worth your while if you go talk to her, he'd said.
"Don't you want me to, like--" Stan tried to pull himself together. "You know, return the favor, or something?" He hated having to beg, but here he was.
"No, I'm okay." Kyle shrugged.
"Are you sure?"
"Yeah."
"Sure you're sure?"
"Stan!" Kyle snapped. "You said you'd talk to her if I got you off."
"But I thought--"
"That you weren't going to have to keep your promise?"
"Fuck you! You — that's not a real promise! Don't hold me some shit I said when you were teasing me, fuck you, you fucking mentally ill drama queen--"
"You fucking raped my brother!"
"I did not! Fuck! Stop fucking bringing that up! It's over, I don't care--"
"No, you don't, you don't fucking care!" Now Kyle was crying, actually. "You say you love me, well, why would you do that?"
Stan felt breathless. "Because he wanted it, Kyle, he wanted me to, and I was drunk and it seemed like a fun thing to do."
Kyle didn't respond directly, just sobbed, "Oh, god," and started pulling at his hair.
"Don't do that." Stan took one of his wrists. "It's okay, dude, it's over."
"Did you do it because he's my brother?"
"No, of course not."
"Then why would you do it?"
"I just did it!" Stan was shaking his head, holding Kyle's wrist still, away from anywhere it could do damage. "Fuck, I wasn't thinking about it."
"How could you not be thinking about it?"
"I don't know! Don't you ever have sex without thinking about it?"
"Yes!" Kyle freed his wrist from Stan’s grasp and clutched it. “I do, all the time! All the fucking time, okay, it’s not something I can help.”
“So, you have sex all the fucking time, but you don’t want to have it with me?”
“You don’t want that kind of sex, I’m telling you.” Kyle’s eyes were so red, but he’d stopped crying, again. “If I have sex with you it can’t be like that, it has to be careful, we can’t just do it.”
“Why not?”
Kyle sighed, rubbing his eyes, as if they weren’t strained enough. “It always amazes me that people actually like to hook up. It’s something I do — it’s a symptom of something being very wrong for me, half the time I’m not even aware that I’m doing it. I just — when I’m, um, being manic. Clinically manic. But I’ve never had sex that I’ve actually enjoyed. I wouldn’t know how. I wouldn’t know how to look at someone, to — to touch them. You have to understand, I associate sex with very negative feelings.”
“So you just offer me some hand job?”
“I just want you to talk to my parents! Okay? God.” Kyle buried his head in his hands. “Don’t you understand, living like this is going to kill me, and I don’t even fucking care. I have to get out of Colorado. And I need you to talk to my parents.”
“Okay, well, other than ‘Kyle thinks his bipolar diagnosis needs to be reevaluated,’ what am I going to say to them?”
“What if I came to Chicago?”
“What if?” Stan asked.
“You’ve never invited me.”
“You could have just come.”
“Well, I mean, with what money?” Kyle made a put-upon expression, like he was looking for a serious answer. “Sure, my parents would just let me get on some plane by myself, yeah. I would have come, but you never asked me.”
“It’s a free fucking country, dude, you could have just said, ‘I’m coming to visit.’ ”
“Don’t you get it? My parents wouldn’t let me go on some delusional jaunt! You would have had to call me up and ask, and talked to my parents, you know, made it like a known thing, totally safe. But you didn’t, why would you? You never take fucking initiative. Not for me, never. Anyway, maybe I’ll be in Chicago soon.”
“Okay, fine. Come visit.”
“Maybe forever.”
“Well,” Stan said, “that would be stalking.”
“It’s a free country,” Kyle snapped. “Like you said. I’ll go where I want to.”
“You just said you couldn’t!”
Kyle groaned and picked up a pillow and smashed his face into it.
“Dude.” Stan lifted Kyle’s head, so as not to startle him, trying to smile as well as he could, the way he remembered smiling when he was 8 years old, bright and genuine. “Kyle.”
Kyle sniffed back his tears, biting his lip.
Stan thought back to something Ike had said the day before, on the telephone. “I’m not good on being there for you,” he said. “You’re right. I’m sorry.” Stan waited for Kyle to say something. When it didn’t come, Stan continued: “But it’s not fair to say I don’t take any initiative. Because, well, I did take the initiative, this time.”
“What, how?” Kyle asked, wiping at his nose. “You mean, by coming over here today and fucking around with my head?”
“No, I mean.” Stan’s voice grew very soft. “I mean, I came home for Christmas. Because, um. I wanted to tell you I loved you.”
“Loved. Like.” Kyle rubbed at his eyes, both at one time. “In the past tense?”
“No.”
Kyle took a deep breath, and turned toward the wall.
“Dude. Look, Kyle. I — fuck. I want to be with you. I’ve never wanted anything more in my life.”
“That’s a lie. Bullshit. There’s clearly one thing you wanted more, and it was getting out of South Park. And you did.” Kyle paused. When Stan didn’t reply, he said, “Congratulations.”
Stan wanted to say, “But I couldn’t help it,” or, “And my life there is so great without you?” But Stan knew that he could help it, and he loved his life at Northwestern, held it so deep inside of him that it tore at the part of him that still called South Park home. Stan didn’t want to lie, so he couldn’t speak, could only stare at Kyle, at the way Kyle was using his index fingers to dig underneath the cuticles of his thumbs.
“Congratulations,” Kyle repeated, when Stan said nothing. “And anyway,” he continued. He seemed calm again, although his eyes were still swollen and there were tear tracks on his cheeks. “I’ll be with you soon.”
“What does that mean?” Stan asked. “You want to, like, what, be with me?”
“Let’s just not discuss it.”
“You’re the one who wanted to discuss things.”
“I don’t know what I want! I don’t know who I am! I just know we can’t, okay. I don’t know what I want.”
Stan got off the bed, rolling his eyes. “That’s right,” he said, wiping his nose. He felt unsteady on his feet, wary of little wayward Lego pieces. “I forgot you have a fucking excuse for everything. I never get a fucking chance, and you have an excuse for everything.” And Stan bolted from the room.
Kyle followed him down the stairs, yelling, “Come back here, you giant douche!” But Stan had already slammed out the door, living Kyle in the living room, twisting around the find his mother, and Ike.
“When did you get home?” Kyle asked.
Ike turned away, wiping kohl from his cheeks.
“Kyle.” His mother patted the sofa, the cushion beside her. “Come sit.”
He shook his head. “Fuck, no.”
“We should talk—”
“About what?”
“Your brother,” his mother started to say.
Ike interrupted. His voice was strained. “Nothing you don’t already know. And nothing exciting, I promise.”
“Great.” Kyle grabbed the keys to his mother’s station wagon from a hook by the front door. “Uh, that’s cool, guys, um—” And he was out the door, underdressed for late December.
Stan was squatting, literally, at the corner where he’d turn to get home. “So you chased after me,” he said, his teeth chattering.
“Listen,” said Kyle. He almost made a point of pulling Stan up, but then he squatted down beside him. “We’re not going to resolve this on the street corner. I just don’t think you understand the full weight of what you want, what the implications of a relationship with me are. Or, or, actually — maybe you do, maybe that’s why you keep running away from it.”
“I don’t run away, I never ran away—”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, dude, you literally just got up and ran out of my house without your fucking coat.”
“Fine,” said Stan. “Point taken.”
They went to go sit in the car, the heater blasting. “She won’t hear us in here,” Kyle said.
“That again?”
Kyle ignored it. “I need to explain something to you. And I need you to not accuse me of being retarded if I, like, burst into tears for the ninth time in 30 minutes. It’s not easy for me, this composure, being the grown up, okay. But, I think maybe it’s a defense mechanism, how you avoid me. Because you know it would be bad, don’t you? If we were together?” He paused, again waiting for Stan to reply. “Well, think about it. I can’t work. I can barely be left alone. You’d have to support me. You’d be responsible for making sure I didn’t kill myself. You’d have to medicate me. You’d have to deal with my parents. We couldn’t have sex, because it’s just not something I enjoy, and I only do it to hurt myself when I’m feeling manic. And when it happens, it’s outside of my control, with everyone. I do have moments of lucidity. Like this one. Then again, I’ve been up and down on depressants lately. Do you have some money on you?”
“What?” Stan lifted his head from the window, where his breath had left a little spot of condensation.
“I thought we would go get some provisions,” Kyle said. “You know. For New Year’s.”
“Like, what kind of provisions?”
“The usual kind.”
Stan nodded, slowly. “Yeah, I have money. My parents’ credit card—”
“Great.”
Kyle slid the car into reverse, and they drove off.
~
There was a liquor store on Main Street; Kyle took them to one a bit out of town, in Bailey. It was far enough away that they had been able to buy beer there in high school with fake IDs.
“Should you really be driving?” Stan asked, getting out of the car. He wasn’t going to say anything, it was pointless, they were already there, but then Stan remembered that Kyle’s parents found him trustworthy and reliable.
“I don’t know.” Kyle slammed the car door shut. He wasn’t wearing a proper parka, just a sweatshirt, and he jogged into the store. Stan followed, rubbing his hands together for warmth.
In front of the coolers, Stan pressed his hands to the glass. There was nothing remotely good or, even better, ironic and disaffected for sale. “What do we want?” he asked, but when he turned to look at Kyle, Stan found Kyle wasn’t there. Pulling a case of Natty Light from the cold, Stan slammed the door and wandered past the liqueurs, up and down aisles of soda and bottles of pre-mixed drinks in every color, yellow for pina coladas and candy red for daiquiris, brown sludge for something else, Stan didn’t know what that was.
Kyle was in front of the sparkling wines, contemplating a black bottle.
“Do you like cava?” he asked. He didn’t turn to talk to Stan.
“At brunch, maybe.”
“Well, it’s New Year’s, so.” Kyle tucked the bottle under his arm. He finally spun around, on his heels, and looked Stan in the eyes. “Sorry, you’ll have to pay for this. But, it’s cheap.”
They picked out more champagne, and then went to look at bourbon, Kyle shaking his phone from his pocket. Stan was scanning the label of a bottle of Evan Williams when Kyle said, “Oh, don’t bother.” He snapped his phone shut. “Kenny’s got provisions already. Not of the liquid kind.”
“Fine.” Stan put the bourbon back on the shelf. “Do you think this is enough?” They had one case of beer, three bottles of Freixinet, and three of Domaine Ste. Michelle.
“Maybe more than enough.” Kyle shrugged. “But I self-medicate, so don’t ask me. Are you okay with this plan?”
“What plan?”
Kyle rolled his eyes. “Meeting at Butters’, at 9. Didn’t Kenny text you?”
Stan shook his head.
“Fine, regardless.” Kyle dragged Stan to the register, pulling his sunglasses from the pocket of his sweatshirt before facing the clerk. “Sorry I can’t help you pay,” he said, as they were rung up.
“Whatever,” said Stan. “It’s all right, it’s not like I wouldn’t be buying it anyway.”
“But we should split these things.”
“If you can’t work and you need me to take care of you,” Stan said, not minding if some drop-out kid working at a liquor store in Bailey heard him, “then $40 of cheap shit on New Year’s has got to be the least of my problems.”
“So it’s all right, then?”
“Why shouldn’t it be?”
Kyle shook his head.
Stan drove back, wresting the keys from Kyle with little difficulty.
“I should get wasted tonight.” Stan drove slowly down 285, not wanting his brief trip out of town with Kyle to end. The light was dimming, receding as the road sunk into the valley, and there were few cars to honk at them. Stan wanted to park and look over a ledge by the side of the highway, at the sun setting over Fairplay, South Park, and then Grand Junction, San Francisco, and the Pacific Ocean. Stan felt very small up here, suddenly, like he never had before. But he didn’t stop the car, because that wouldn’t be very responsible. It was a long way to the bottoms of these ravines.
“Sure.” Kyle’s feet were on the dashboard, his hands in his armpits, no seatbelt. “I don’t think I will, though. Too much — too much, lately.”
Sheila’s station wagon had exuberant acceleration, and stiff brakes.
“Stan.” Kyle sat up, legs back on the ground, where they should be. “I hope you understand, there’s no cure.”
“No sure for what?” Stan’s foot grew heavier on the gas pedal.
“Mental illness. You can manage it, you know, you can try — but it’s not like there’s any fix. Or. Like, redemption.”
It took Stan a moment, but he said, “I understand.”
Now they were going the speed limit, signs for eighth-mile markers flashing by.
Rating: R overall; this chapter, PG13
Pairing: Stan/Kyle; various
Summary: You can take Stan out of South Park, but you can't take the South Park out of Stan.
“We can’t be together.” Kyle uttered these words with Stan’s seed still drying in his grasp, their shoulders touching comfortingly but not purposefully, their breaths ragged and out-of-sync. Or, rather, Stan’s was; Stan was practically shuddering, trying to let his thoughts catch up with reality. Was eight years a long time to want someone? To be hopelessly convinced that his bare skin in your grasp would be the death-knell of all life’s problems?
Stan jolted up, eyes suddenly more open than he thought they were going to get that afternoon. He looked down at Kyle, whose eyes were shut and whose eyelids were yellow, battered and swelling just enough to be noticeable, but those bruises couldn’t have been less than a week and a half old.
“Why not?” Stan asked. He grabbed Kyle’s shirt, the thin material collapsing into the webs of his clutch without protest.
Kyle sighed. He was smiling. He shook his head.
It just came out: “I love you.” It sounded so small and pathetic. Stan let go and clasped his mouth shut. He sank back to his haunches from his knees. “I’m sorry, but it’s true. I love you so much more than anything I’ve ever earned in my life. I’ve never even earned anything in my life; it was you, it was all you, everything I’ve done has been for you, or because or you, or, or — I don’t know if I can remember a time when I didn’t just need to divide my life into two parts, before you and after you. And the thing is.” Stan sniffed. “The thing is that that other part of my life, the part where I actually become someone, that can’t start without you.”
“If you need me so badly, why did you leave me?”
“Excuse me?”
“Stan.” Kyle sat up, still holding his sticky mess of a hand aloft, not smearing it clean but letting Stan’s fluids harden thinly in the bone-dry air of the bedroom. “I don’t know why you think I don’t love you. Somehow, in some way, I don’t really know. I do. But we can’t be together.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m not okay to be with anyone! And neither are you.”
“What do you mean, I’m not fit to be with someone?”
“Stan, look at you.” Kyle cocked his head. “You had sex with 15-year-old.”
“What!”
“Look, I don’t know who hurt you, or what you’re angry about, or what you’re afraid of. The last time in my life I was happy was in high school with you. I was confused and felt lost and like a cliché, but what your mother said at dinner the other night? It was true, at least for me. Being with you was the only thing I had. It was the only thing that I felt good or normal about. And then you left me. First you left me for Butters, then you left me to go to school. And I don’t — I don’t really know. I don’t know how to describe what I want.”
“We were never together, though. I didn’t ‘leave’ you for Butters.”
“I know.”
“But you said—”
“I don’t even know who I am!” Kyle cried. “I don’t know who I am, what I want, what’s normal, how I should be. I don’t know what I am. I don’t even know what gender I should be half the time when I wake up. And you’re a disgusting philanderer.”
“What? Oh my god, Kyle, do not turn that on me.”
“Why, because if you were with me you wouldn’t be? You can’t change that about a person. If it’s who you are, it’s who you are. I’ve had enough analysis to get that, you know.”
“But that’s why you have a relationship with someone, because you want to, like—”
“Fix each other.” Kyle reached over Stan for a Kleenex, and began wiping off his hand.
Stan couldn’t help but cringe at how clinical that gesture felt. “I was going to say, ‘make each other better.’ ”
“Same difference.” Kyle shrugged and threw the tissue on the floor. It made Stan’s chest seize. “Look, dude, you and me. This town. We’re done. We were done when we were 8.”
“Why are you so calm?” Stan felt like he was screaming, but Kyle’s face was impassive, turned off.
“Because I’m on drugs.”
“You were like crying half an hour ago.”
“I’m on drugs,” Kyle repeated. “Do you want some drugs?”
Slowly, Stan shook his head.
“That’s probably wise,” Kyle said. “Anyway. You should go talk to my mom now.”
Stan’s heart was tearing in half. “No. Why should I?”
“Because you said you would if I jacked you off?”
Stan’s heart was tearing in half and he was trembling. “Fuck you,” he gasped. “You sick fuck.”
Kyle had reached into his boxers, whispered in his ear, licked his jaw. I’ll make it worth your while if you go talk to her, he'd said.
"Don't you want me to, like--" Stan tried to pull himself together. "You know, return the favor, or something?" He hated having to beg, but here he was.
"No, I'm okay." Kyle shrugged.
"Are you sure?"
"Yeah."
"Sure you're sure?"
"Stan!" Kyle snapped. "You said you'd talk to her if I got you off."
"But I thought--"
"That you weren't going to have to keep your promise?"
"Fuck you! You — that's not a real promise! Don't hold me some shit I said when you were teasing me, fuck you, you fucking mentally ill drama queen--"
"You fucking raped my brother!"
"I did not! Fuck! Stop fucking bringing that up! It's over, I don't care--"
"No, you don't, you don't fucking care!" Now Kyle was crying, actually. "You say you love me, well, why would you do that?"
Stan felt breathless. "Because he wanted it, Kyle, he wanted me to, and I was drunk and it seemed like a fun thing to do."
Kyle didn't respond directly, just sobbed, "Oh, god," and started pulling at his hair.
"Don't do that." Stan took one of his wrists. "It's okay, dude, it's over."
"Did you do it because he's my brother?"
"No, of course not."
"Then why would you do it?"
"I just did it!" Stan was shaking his head, holding Kyle's wrist still, away from anywhere it could do damage. "Fuck, I wasn't thinking about it."
"How could you not be thinking about it?"
"I don't know! Don't you ever have sex without thinking about it?"
"Yes!" Kyle freed his wrist from Stan’s grasp and clutched it. “I do, all the time! All the fucking time, okay, it’s not something I can help.”
“So, you have sex all the fucking time, but you don’t want to have it with me?”
“You don’t want that kind of sex, I’m telling you.” Kyle’s eyes were so red, but he’d stopped crying, again. “If I have sex with you it can’t be like that, it has to be careful, we can’t just do it.”
“Why not?”
Kyle sighed, rubbing his eyes, as if they weren’t strained enough. “It always amazes me that people actually like to hook up. It’s something I do — it’s a symptom of something being very wrong for me, half the time I’m not even aware that I’m doing it. I just — when I’m, um, being manic. Clinically manic. But I’ve never had sex that I’ve actually enjoyed. I wouldn’t know how. I wouldn’t know how to look at someone, to — to touch them. You have to understand, I associate sex with very negative feelings.”
“So you just offer me some hand job?”
“I just want you to talk to my parents! Okay? God.” Kyle buried his head in his hands. “Don’t you understand, living like this is going to kill me, and I don’t even fucking care. I have to get out of Colorado. And I need you to talk to my parents.”
“Okay, well, other than ‘Kyle thinks his bipolar diagnosis needs to be reevaluated,’ what am I going to say to them?”
“What if I came to Chicago?”
“What if?” Stan asked.
“You’ve never invited me.”
“You could have just come.”
“Well, I mean, with what money?” Kyle made a put-upon expression, like he was looking for a serious answer. “Sure, my parents would just let me get on some plane by myself, yeah. I would have come, but you never asked me.”
“It’s a free fucking country, dude, you could have just said, ‘I’m coming to visit.’ ”
“Don’t you get it? My parents wouldn’t let me go on some delusional jaunt! You would have had to call me up and ask, and talked to my parents, you know, made it like a known thing, totally safe. But you didn’t, why would you? You never take fucking initiative. Not for me, never. Anyway, maybe I’ll be in Chicago soon.”
“Okay, fine. Come visit.”
“Maybe forever.”
“Well,” Stan said, “that would be stalking.”
“It’s a free country,” Kyle snapped. “Like you said. I’ll go where I want to.”
“You just said you couldn’t!”
Kyle groaned and picked up a pillow and smashed his face into it.
“Dude.” Stan lifted Kyle’s head, so as not to startle him, trying to smile as well as he could, the way he remembered smiling when he was 8 years old, bright and genuine. “Kyle.”
Kyle sniffed back his tears, biting his lip.
Stan thought back to something Ike had said the day before, on the telephone. “I’m not good on being there for you,” he said. “You’re right. I’m sorry.” Stan waited for Kyle to say something. When it didn’t come, Stan continued: “But it’s not fair to say I don’t take any initiative. Because, well, I did take the initiative, this time.”
“What, how?” Kyle asked, wiping at his nose. “You mean, by coming over here today and fucking around with my head?”
“No, I mean.” Stan’s voice grew very soft. “I mean, I came home for Christmas. Because, um. I wanted to tell you I loved you.”
“Loved. Like.” Kyle rubbed at his eyes, both at one time. “In the past tense?”
“No.”
Kyle took a deep breath, and turned toward the wall.
“Dude. Look, Kyle. I — fuck. I want to be with you. I’ve never wanted anything more in my life.”
“That’s a lie. Bullshit. There’s clearly one thing you wanted more, and it was getting out of South Park. And you did.” Kyle paused. When Stan didn’t reply, he said, “Congratulations.”
Stan wanted to say, “But I couldn’t help it,” or, “And my life there is so great without you?” But Stan knew that he could help it, and he loved his life at Northwestern, held it so deep inside of him that it tore at the part of him that still called South Park home. Stan didn’t want to lie, so he couldn’t speak, could only stare at Kyle, at the way Kyle was using his index fingers to dig underneath the cuticles of his thumbs.
“Congratulations,” Kyle repeated, when Stan said nothing. “And anyway,” he continued. He seemed calm again, although his eyes were still swollen and there were tear tracks on his cheeks. “I’ll be with you soon.”
“What does that mean?” Stan asked. “You want to, like, what, be with me?”
“Let’s just not discuss it.”
“You’re the one who wanted to discuss things.”
“I don’t know what I want! I don’t know who I am! I just know we can’t, okay. I don’t know what I want.”
Stan got off the bed, rolling his eyes. “That’s right,” he said, wiping his nose. He felt unsteady on his feet, wary of little wayward Lego pieces. “I forgot you have a fucking excuse for everything. I never get a fucking chance, and you have an excuse for everything.” And Stan bolted from the room.
Kyle followed him down the stairs, yelling, “Come back here, you giant douche!” But Stan had already slammed out the door, living Kyle in the living room, twisting around the find his mother, and Ike.
“When did you get home?” Kyle asked.
Ike turned away, wiping kohl from his cheeks.
“Kyle.” His mother patted the sofa, the cushion beside her. “Come sit.”
He shook his head. “Fuck, no.”
“We should talk—”
“About what?”
“Your brother,” his mother started to say.
Ike interrupted. His voice was strained. “Nothing you don’t already know. And nothing exciting, I promise.”
“Great.” Kyle grabbed the keys to his mother’s station wagon from a hook by the front door. “Uh, that’s cool, guys, um—” And he was out the door, underdressed for late December.
Stan was squatting, literally, at the corner where he’d turn to get home. “So you chased after me,” he said, his teeth chattering.
“Listen,” said Kyle. He almost made a point of pulling Stan up, but then he squatted down beside him. “We’re not going to resolve this on the street corner. I just don’t think you understand the full weight of what you want, what the implications of a relationship with me are. Or, or, actually — maybe you do, maybe that’s why you keep running away from it.”
“I don’t run away, I never ran away—”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, dude, you literally just got up and ran out of my house without your fucking coat.”
“Fine,” said Stan. “Point taken.”
They went to go sit in the car, the heater blasting. “She won’t hear us in here,” Kyle said.
“That again?”
Kyle ignored it. “I need to explain something to you. And I need you to not accuse me of being retarded if I, like, burst into tears for the ninth time in 30 minutes. It’s not easy for me, this composure, being the grown up, okay. But, I think maybe it’s a defense mechanism, how you avoid me. Because you know it would be bad, don’t you? If we were together?” He paused, again waiting for Stan to reply. “Well, think about it. I can’t work. I can barely be left alone. You’d have to support me. You’d be responsible for making sure I didn’t kill myself. You’d have to medicate me. You’d have to deal with my parents. We couldn’t have sex, because it’s just not something I enjoy, and I only do it to hurt myself when I’m feeling manic. And when it happens, it’s outside of my control, with everyone. I do have moments of lucidity. Like this one. Then again, I’ve been up and down on depressants lately. Do you have some money on you?”
“What?” Stan lifted his head from the window, where his breath had left a little spot of condensation.
“I thought we would go get some provisions,” Kyle said. “You know. For New Year’s.”
“Like, what kind of provisions?”
“The usual kind.”
Stan nodded, slowly. “Yeah, I have money. My parents’ credit card—”
“Great.”
Kyle slid the car into reverse, and they drove off.
~
There was a liquor store on Main Street; Kyle took them to one a bit out of town, in Bailey. It was far enough away that they had been able to buy beer there in high school with fake IDs.
“Should you really be driving?” Stan asked, getting out of the car. He wasn’t going to say anything, it was pointless, they were already there, but then Stan remembered that Kyle’s parents found him trustworthy and reliable.
“I don’t know.” Kyle slammed the car door shut. He wasn’t wearing a proper parka, just a sweatshirt, and he jogged into the store. Stan followed, rubbing his hands together for warmth.
In front of the coolers, Stan pressed his hands to the glass. There was nothing remotely good or, even better, ironic and disaffected for sale. “What do we want?” he asked, but when he turned to look at Kyle, Stan found Kyle wasn’t there. Pulling a case of Natty Light from the cold, Stan slammed the door and wandered past the liqueurs, up and down aisles of soda and bottles of pre-mixed drinks in every color, yellow for pina coladas and candy red for daiquiris, brown sludge for something else, Stan didn’t know what that was.
Kyle was in front of the sparkling wines, contemplating a black bottle.
“Do you like cava?” he asked. He didn’t turn to talk to Stan.
“At brunch, maybe.”
“Well, it’s New Year’s, so.” Kyle tucked the bottle under his arm. He finally spun around, on his heels, and looked Stan in the eyes. “Sorry, you’ll have to pay for this. But, it’s cheap.”
They picked out more champagne, and then went to look at bourbon, Kyle shaking his phone from his pocket. Stan was scanning the label of a bottle of Evan Williams when Kyle said, “Oh, don’t bother.” He snapped his phone shut. “Kenny’s got provisions already. Not of the liquid kind.”
“Fine.” Stan put the bourbon back on the shelf. “Do you think this is enough?” They had one case of beer, three bottles of Freixinet, and three of Domaine Ste. Michelle.
“Maybe more than enough.” Kyle shrugged. “But I self-medicate, so don’t ask me. Are you okay with this plan?”
“What plan?”
Kyle rolled his eyes. “Meeting at Butters’, at 9. Didn’t Kenny text you?”
Stan shook his head.
“Fine, regardless.” Kyle dragged Stan to the register, pulling his sunglasses from the pocket of his sweatshirt before facing the clerk. “Sorry I can’t help you pay,” he said, as they were rung up.
“Whatever,” said Stan. “It’s all right, it’s not like I wouldn’t be buying it anyway.”
“But we should split these things.”
“If you can’t work and you need me to take care of you,” Stan said, not minding if some drop-out kid working at a liquor store in Bailey heard him, “then $40 of cheap shit on New Year’s has got to be the least of my problems.”
“So it’s all right, then?”
“Why shouldn’t it be?”
Kyle shook his head.
Stan drove back, wresting the keys from Kyle with little difficulty.
“I should get wasted tonight.” Stan drove slowly down 285, not wanting his brief trip out of town with Kyle to end. The light was dimming, receding as the road sunk into the valley, and there were few cars to honk at them. Stan wanted to park and look over a ledge by the side of the highway, at the sun setting over Fairplay, South Park, and then Grand Junction, San Francisco, and the Pacific Ocean. Stan felt very small up here, suddenly, like he never had before. But he didn’t stop the car, because that wouldn’t be very responsible. It was a long way to the bottoms of these ravines.
“Sure.” Kyle’s feet were on the dashboard, his hands in his armpits, no seatbelt. “I don’t think I will, though. Too much — too much, lately.”
Sheila’s station wagon had exuberant acceleration, and stiff brakes.
“Stan.” Kyle sat up, legs back on the ground, where they should be. “I hope you understand, there’s no cure.”
“No sure for what?” Stan’s foot grew heavier on the gas pedal.
“Mental illness. You can manage it, you know, you can try — but it’s not like there’s any fix. Or. Like, redemption.”
It took Stan a moment, but he said, “I understand.”
Now they were going the speed limit, signs for eighth-mile markers flashing by.