The Other Table, 6/10

[sekritomg]

Title: The Other Table (6/10)
Author: sekrit_omg
Pairing: Stan/Kyle; various
Rating: R
Summary: It's human nature to want to know everything about others, and nothing about ourselves.
Author's note: I mean, one exists.

Stan Marsh had never been involved with student government. He barely paid attention to elections, although he seemed to have a foggy memory of them taking place near the end of May last year. One morning he’d walked into school, determined to head straight to his locker. He was hungover that day, and it was perhaps the only reason he could recall the morning of elections at all. He didn’t know why he’d gone to a strip club with the football team, but they all liked him and wanted him to come. So he did come — oh, hilarity, he probably didn’t have to be that drunk to go do it in the alley with a stripper. But he had been, anyway, and then he contracted Chlamydia.

Whatever, whatever — these details were unnecessary to recount his hazy memory of voting in student government elections. But they weren’t unrelated, which was why he remembered them even in the slightest.

He could barely see, and he walked — well, no, staggered — toward his locker, passing some girls with clipboards and a huge, hand-painted banner. He nearly slammed into the locker’s metal door, and held his stomach in an attempt not to vomit all over the hallway, when Butters has bounced up to him, looking very dapper in a suit with a tie.

“Hey Stan!” he’d cheered, and it just made Stan want to heave all that more intensely.

Stan had muttered a “Hey, Butters,” and covered his mouth in case he did spew on Butters, the idea of which would have been real damn funny any other day.

“You don’t look very good,” Butter said with concern, and at this point in his mind Stan recalled Butters himself holding a clipboard behind his back.

“I’m fine.”

“Oh, well. You should take care of yourself,” memory-of-Butters said with genuine concern. “You don’t want to be getting sick during finals week, that sure would suck.”

“Sure.”

“Hey, have you voted for student government yet?” Stan shook his head ‘no.’ “Oh, that’s good! I mean, because, well, I’m running for head of the social committee, and, well, it sure would mean a lot to me if I could have your vote.”

“Fine.” Stan remembered Butters handing him the clipboard, and Stan filled out a pathetic, Xeroxed ballot, rendered in size-14 Comic Sans.

And, in fact, after this, Stan did vomit in the bathroom — for 19 minutes straight. It was glorious, and some boy who was then a senior (who was working at a gas station now, Stan believed) had exclaimed “sick!” sometime in the middle of it. He had been very late to intermediate geometry.

~

“It’s a turnabout,” she said, pulling on a curly lock of her yellow hair absentmindedly.

“Why would Butters throw a turnabout dance?”

“To shake things up?”

“Bebe, he’s gay!”

“I know that, Stan.”

“Well, then there’s nothing to turn, is there?”

“I don’t know,” Bebe said thoughtfully. “Have you ever seen Butters?”

“More than I’d like to,” Stan admitted.

“All right, fine. Be a dick, if you’d like, but I think you should know that most of the hot girls already have dates.”

“I’m not planning on going.”

Bebe gave him a look. “You owe it to me!” she exclaimed.

“Oh?” he crossed his arms. “And why is that?”

“Your dad puked on me!”

“That’s got nothing to do with me,” Stan said defensively. “I have no control over what that retard does or says.”

Bebe sighed, and groaned in frustration. She was trying to be quiet, as it was study hall, but she wasn’t going to let her inhibitions ruin this moment, if one could call it a moment. If nothing else, it was the first time she’d seen Stan without one of those guys he called ‘friends’ clinging to him in quite some time.

“Look,” she said slowly, trying to make this argument as convincingly as possible. “It’ll be fun. We’ll be drunk, I’ll put out, you’ll like it.”

“I’m sure I will,” Stan agreed. “Just, why does it have to involve going to a fucking dance?”

“Girls like dances. I mean, have you ever asked a girl to a dance?”

“No.”

“Have you ever been asked?”

“Um, yeah. Actually.” Stan coughed, not involuntarily. “Kyle asked me to one once. In eighth grade.”

“Well, fine,” Bebe said huffily, standing up and gathering her books. “But don’t bother waiting for him to ask you to this one.”

Stan just rolled his eyes. “I wouldn’t go with him, either.”

“Fine, good. Because he’s already going with Craig.” She flipped some hair over her shoulder.

“Oh, Craig.”

“Yep.” He flinched. “Are you okay?” she asked.

“Yeah, I’m fucking super. Tell you what, I’ll go with you to your retarded little dance.”

”Technically, it’s Butters’ little retarded dance. But okay, good. I’m glad.”

“Me too,” Stan said. She bent and kissed him on the top of his head. He gave her an odd look. He was suddenly so angry, and despite the fact that he’d just agreed to go to some idiotic school dance with Bebe, her kissing him just made him angrier.

~

Predictably, Stan marched through the halls of the school that afternoon, not caring if he was late to football or had to do extra pushups or whatever. All he knew was that he was pissed. Pissed and insulted. He knew it wasn’t rational. He knew he was being sort of a prick about it. He didn’t care.

A few girls said ‘hello’ to him as he pounded the linoleum, but he didn’t even acknowledge them. He stomped up behind his friend, who was (as was his way) kneeling in front of something, although this time ‘something’ was his backpack. Stan knew he needed a dramatic way to get Kyle’s attention, so he slammed his fist into the locker next to his friend’s. The sound reverberated and Kyle kind of fell backward off of his knees and onto his ass. He looked up to see Stan standing with arms akimbo, eyebrows knitted. “Jesus shit, Stanley. What?”

“You’re going to that dance,” he growled, not asking, just saying.

“Uh huh.”

“Well, it would have been nice of you to tell me.”

Kyle stood up and brushed off his pants. “I don’t know, Stanley. Maybe I just assumed that you would be able to infer that I would be attending with my boyfriend.”

“Yeah, your boyfriend of three weeks.”

“Hell yes, three weeks. Have you ever kept a girlfriend that long?”

“Maybe.”

“No,” Kyle informed him. “You haven’t.”

Stan raised both of his eyebrows. “You’ve been keeping track of how long my relationships last?”

Kyle blushed, and shrugged, and rubbed his eyes. “Well, it’s not hard!” he exclaimed. “Besides, you’re the one who knows how long I’ve been with Craig.”

Stan pointed to a piece of paper taped to the inside of Kyle’s locker. “Fuck you, dude. You’re the one who has ‘three-week anniversary’ written on a fucking calendar in your locker with a goddamn heart around it!”

“Craig drew that.”

“Oh, Craig is just so fucking cute,” Stan growled.

“Oh, I know, isn’t he just?”

“No. No, dude, he is not.”

“Well, that’s fine for you, you put your tongue in vagina.”

“Yeah,” Stan sighed, finally relaxing a little and leaning back against the locker next to Kyle’s. “Well, I just wanted to say that I’m, ah, I’m going with Bebe.”

“Oh.” Kyle lowered his eyes. “That’s cool. Didn’t think you’d want to go.”

“I don’t really.” Stan flashed a wicked smile and began to speak quicker. “But she said she’d put out, so … well, how do you turn down that offer?”

“Haven’t you … haven’t you already had Bebe?”

“Yeah. But look, she puts on a solid show. Once you’re in repeats you have to watch the ones you liked the first time, if you know what I mean.”

“Um.” Kyle was shuffling his feet, trying hard not to look at Stan.

“Well, this was enlightening,” Stan said casually, patting Kyle on the shoulder. “See you around, dude.”

Kyle remained in the middle of the hallway, jacket half-off one shoulder, mouth agape. He shut his eyes tightly. “Godammit,” he moaned, making damn sure he didn’t see Stan walking away. Again.

~

By mid-April things were looking up. Kind of. Stan and Kyle were speaking — a little. They didn’t have much time to talk now that Stan scrimmaged with the other kids from the town who played regional football. On top of that, Kyle’s life had totally become Craig. It was nearly impossible to have a conversation with him without Craig being brought up. Stan convinced himself that it wasn’t so much that he didn’t like Craig. Craig was just utterly boring, and the things Kyle had to say about him were boring.

For example, Craig wanted to be a merchant mariner. Just kidding, he wanted to be a hairstylist. Just kidding! He wanted to be cinematographer. His parents bought him a camera for Christmas. Oh, what didn’t Craig take videos of? Stan imagined that if he were interested — which he wasn’t — he could find footage of Kyle online, probably hogtied with some manner of something stuck up his rear. How upsetting.

Although to be fair, Stan hadn’t heard anything about their sexual exploits after the initial hook-up. It didn’t make any sense — he and Bebe were spending a lot of time together these days (as much time as he could spare, in any case) and she was the biggest gossip in school. After her, the student with the second-loosest lips was probably Craig. So Stan felt he should have received some information by this point, so maybe nothing was happening. He couldn’t imagine Kyle not telling him, anyway. The old Kyle certainly would have. This Kyle was probably too busy enjoying Craig’s business to bother wasting his time talking to Stan about what was going on down at the store.

~

The week before the dance found Butters sitting at a little card table in the middle of the hallway during lunch periods, selling tickets. They were $4 for a single and $7 for a couple, if you bought in advance. At the door, tickets would go up exponentially … to $5 for a single and $8 for a couple. Despite having been asked by Bebe, Stan found himself sneaking up to the table one day, $7 in hand, looking to buy a ticket.

Butters was, as always, pretty happy to see Stan. Stan was, of course, less than happy to know that Butters’ ass crack was peeking out of his pants back there. Still, he approached with a smile, pretty pleased with himself for no real reason.

“I’d like a couples’ ticket, please, Butters,” he said cheerfully, slamming seven singles down on the table.

“Why isn’t Bebe buying your ticket?” Butters asked, tearing one off his giant roll.

“Oh, I just figured this was something I should pay for.”

“She cheaped out on you, didn’t she?”

“Of course.”

“Well, that’s not very nice.”

“Whatever. It’s $7, I can afford it.”

“I know what you mean. My father pays me $2 an hour to sweep the basement, and the garage. If I don’t do it, he says he’ll ground me, but I’ve never not done it. Do you think he would?”

“I honestly don’t know.”

“I’m sure glad you’re coming to the dance, Stan.”

“Oh, yeah,” Stan lied. “Me too. See you around, Butters.” As he turned around to depart, he smacked right into someone.

“Ow!”

“Sorry,” Stan mumbled, stepping back to see that he’d just walked into Wendy Testaburger.

“Oh, it’s okay,” she said airily. “What’re you up to?”

“Nothing much. I was just buying a ticket to the dance from Butters.”

Stan and Wendy both turned and look down at Butters, who was looking up at them with his hands folded on the table, grinning widely. “Hiya Wendy!” Butters cheered.

“Hi,” she sneered. It was odd — she wasn’t usually this nasty to someone who didn’t warrant it. “Give me a ticket.” She pulled a $5 bill out of her pocket and tossed it, crumpled up, into Butters’ face. He attempted to catch it, but it toppled down his striped scarf and landed on the ground.

“Sure thing!” Butters bent over to fish his money off the floor.

“So.” Wendy turned back to Stan. “You and Bebe again, huh?”

“I guess,” Stan said ambivalently. “I would have gone with you if you’d only—”

“Only a single?” Butters asked over him.

“Yes,” Wendy spat. “One, one ticket. One ticket costs $4, you owe me $1.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“Sorry,” Wendy said to Stan, giving Butters the finger off to the side. “That’s kind of you to say, Stan, but I already have a date. Or I thought I did, but it turns out that sometimes men actually don’t think with their dicks.”

“Huh?”

“Here you go,” Butters said, handing Wendy a ticket.

“Thank you.” She snatched it out of Butters’ hand, along with her change.

“Bye again, Butters,” Stan repeated, walking away with Wendy.

“So, the after party,” she said leadingly.

“I haven’t heard about an after party.”

“Well,” she scoffed. “Of course you haven’t. It’s completely on the down-low. A select crowd. But you know you’re welcome.”

“Because I’m going with Bebe.”

“Well, of course.” Wendy stuck her ticket into her back pocket. “Not really a party so much as post-gaming.” She paused. “You in?”

“Of course.”

“Great! My parents are out of town that weekend. But seriously! Keep it down, okay? I don’t want a bunch of underclassmen and pathetic fags showing up. Got it?”

“Got it,” Stan confirmed. “No pathetic fags.”

“That’s right,” she nodded. “No pathetic ones.”

~

Stan decided to flout Wendy’s orders, in regard to issuing invitations to ‘pathetic fags.’ Wendy had never come off as homophobic, although she was resolutely heterosexual, or at least as heterosexual as Stan himself was. He liked to think of her as a giver, particularly because she gave stunning head, and because she never acted indignant about the whole thing. She had never thrown herself on him, which many girls in town were wont to do, and she encouraged the pursuit that Stan yearned for. This lovely dynamic resulted in the most mind-blowing sex, so Stan didn’t want to piss her off. Still, his mind was on other things (or rather people) these days, so he told himself he would tread carefully, and invite no pathetic fags to her house — only Kyle.

For the past month or so Kyle had been sitting with Craig during study hall. Today, though, he was by himself, flipping through his Latin text, unquestionably checking some kind of syntax. Stan could tell that his little notebook was open to a page of half-completed sentence translations.

He approached with caution, but it was a wasted effort, because Kyle’s head jolted up in shock the moment he slammed his book down on the opposite side of the table. “Oh, Jesus,” he panted, sticking a pen in his textbook and shutting the cover.

“Hey.”

“Don’t do that, dude, I thought you were Craig.”

Stan rolled his eyes. “Oh, I am.”

“That’s not funny.”

“I wasn’t being funny.”

Kyle blinked and said, “Right,” drawing out the I. But after that they sat there for a few seconds, just looking at one another. Kyle shuffled his feet. Stan coughed.

“So,” he began cautiously, his lukewarm smile dissolving into seriousness. “Have you heard about Wendy’s party?”

“I don’t talk to girls,” Kyle said in all seriousness.

“Well, I don’t know, maybe you heard through your boyfriend.”

“Mmm, no, he hasn’t said anything about a party.”

“Okay. Well. Saturday night, after the dance, Wendy’s having people over.”

“This is the first I’m hearing of it.”

“Well, of course, it’s totally on the down-low.”

“The who?”

Stan just waggled his eyebrows.

“What’s on the down-low?” a third voice asked. A black-clad torso seated itself in the chair next to Kyle and began remove books from a backpack.

Stan tried to wave this off. “Nothing, Kenny.”

“Stanley says Wendy’s having a party.”

“No she’s not!” Stan hissed.

“You just said she was, dude!”

“So she isn’t having a party?” Kenny asked, blinking. He pulled a felt-tipped pen from his back pocket and removed the cap with his teeth.

“You just said she is!”

“She’s not!”

Kenny put his hands up, the pen still uncapped between his middle and index fingers. “This is one of the pressing issues of our time,” he said slowly. “So think very, very carefully. Is Wendy having a party?”

“No,” Stan said very clearly. “She is not.”

“You just told me she is!”

“All right, fine!” Stan pounded his fist on the table for some reason. He then shrugged. “Okay, she’s having a party.” He lowered his voice. “But you both understand, she told me to keep it on the down-low.”

“It’s pretty low down if I haven’t heard about it,” Kenny mused. “Why would you lie to me about it anyway?”

“Well.” Stan lowered his voice again, really not wanting to risk someone overhearing. Or, worse, Wendy hearing him discussing it. Or, even worse than that, Bebe hearing him, and deciding maybe she wasn’t horny for his loving, or whatever thing she’d concluded she had to gain from making him endure the torture of a school dance. “It’s just that she told me—” He blinked. “Well, she said she didn’t want me to invite any pathetic fags.”

“Then what the hell were you doing telling him?” Kenny exclaimed, jabbing the bottom of his pen into Kyle’s arm.

“Um, wow,” was all Kyle would manage.

“Her words,” Stan reassured them. “Not mine.”

“Well, sailor.” Kenny grabbed Stan’s hand and began doodling something on it. He didn’t look down at this, fairly certain that he deserved whatever he got from Kenny. “Well,” he mumbled again while drawing. Stan continued to ignore him, staring right at Kyle.

“I just thought it would be nice if you were there,” he said simply.

“All right,” Kyle muttered. “We’ll go.”

“We? Me and you?” Stan asked.

“No, we, me and Craig.”

“Craig?” Stan cried out, pulling his hand away from Kenny.

“Hey!” he cried. “I wasn’t done! You messed me up!”

Stan glanced down at his hand, turning it over in disbelief. “You … you drew a penis on me.”

“Yeah, because you’re a motherfucking dickhead,” Kenny said conclusively.

“I take offense with that.”

“Oh, bitch, please. Like I should care what you give a shit about since you’re being such a cock about this party, not inviting me and all.”

“It’s not my party! And it’s not even a party, it’s more like a post-game,” Stan parroted, not knowing how to defend himself.

“Well, I’ll forgive you if you invite me.”

“It’s not his party,” Kyle offered, trying to be helpful.

“It’s not a party at all!” Stan sighed in exasperation. “Fine, dude. Kenny. Please come to Wendy’s party … deal. I know you’re good for some drinks if nothing else.”

“That right,” Kenny said smugly, recapping his pen.

“I didn’t even know you were going to the dance,” Kyle said.

“Oh,” Kenny said lamely. “Well, I’m not. But I can still go to the party.”

“Well, maybe if we’re all there it won’t blow nearly as hard,” Stan reasoned.

“Nope.”

“Aw, come on, dude,” Stan pleaded. “Why not?”

“Because, Chris doesn’t want to go.”

“What?’ Stan asked, suddenly surprised. “What the hell do you care what that freak does?”

Kenny’s face immediately went red, and he gritted his teeth. “Well,” he spat. “Some friends you are.”

“I don’t understand,” said Kyle.

“Me neither.”

“All right, well, let me spell it out for you: Chris—”

“You mean, Christophe,” Stan said, not really asking.

“He hates that name, but yes, Chris is my boyfriend.”

Kyle and Stan both stared at Kenny like he had a disgusting skin disease. It was, in all honestly, about the most stomach-turning thing Stan had heard all day. “You what?” he shrieked, the pretense of study hall quietude going right out the window. Kyle, not knowing what to say, just stared at Kenny, and when Kenny tried to make eye contact, he quickly averted his gaze, turning his face down to bore his sights into the table.

“We’ve been dating since the school year began,” Kenny continued. He was audibly angry, his voice tinged with hurt. “I was sort of wondering if you guys already knew and you just weren’t bringing it up because you’re assholes or what, but I guess you’re really both too absorbed in your bullshit sexual-tension drama to notice what’s going on with me.”

“But you were … you were with Red two months ago!” Stan protested.

“Yeah, well, the thing with that is, Sherlock, we have an open relationship. I’m with a lot of people a lot of the time.”

“You should have just said something!”

“Well, don’t feel too bad, Stan,” Kenny said, standing up. He made guns with his fingers. “He doesn’t like you guys, either.” He shook his head. “Man. You guys are such selfish pricks.”

As Kenny was walking away, Stan looked to Kyle, whose head was still hung low. “Hey,” he said softly. “I wouldn’t worry about him.”

Kyle lifted his head and rubbed his eyes. “Him?” he asked. “Dude, it’s not him I’m worried about.”

“Oh.”

Kyle didn’t bother removing his pen from his Latin book, which he shoved into his backpack before hightailing it out of the library as quickly as possible, leaving Stan sitting at the table on his own, wondering what the hell Kenny was thinking, and what the hell Kyle was talking about.

~

It had been Kyle who had asked, actually. Craig liked dancing, obviously. But he liked to do it on his own terms, in his own room, with his own friends. Dancing was supposed to be fun and sexy and there was nothing even remotely fun and sexy about school. Therefore, in Craig’s mind, the term “school dance” was oxymoronic, or perhaps just moronic. He spent all week long sitting in classes wishing he weren’t there, his mind virtually clamoring to get out, to escape, to run out into the streets and far, far away from anyplace where he’d be told what to do, or who to talk to. The idea of dancing at school, where he was trapped for seven hours, five days a week, didn’t sound like a good time regardless of who he went with.

And honestly, he wondered why Kyle wanted to go anyway. Kyle was a horrible, horrible dancer. When they danced together, late one night in Craig’s room, funky music bleeping along carelessly, Kyle had been slightly drunk on mojitos but for that matter, so had Craig — who had to admit that that was something rather secretly pretty about seeing Kyle turn and wriggle his hips giddily, for Craig’s own enjoyment. But, yeah, in front of the school, not so much. And what else was there to do — sit around on the bleachers, watching everyone else stumble around the gym? If it had been anyone else, Craig would have resigned himself to an evening of playing fashion critic, scoping out the ill-advised choices on the parts of ninth-grade girls. But Kyle was too precious to waste on something so boorish, albeit entertaining. Besides, being with Kyle was entertainment in itself. He was prone to random outbursts of unguarded emotion, verbally sparring with both sworn enemies and random passersby. It made Craig a little lascivious just thinking about it.

He was still one part confused and one part excited when he banged on the Broflovskis’ door that evening, one hand clutching a bouquet of calla lilies, although perhaps ‘bouquet’ was stretching it — it was a bunch of about four majestic stems, each one crowned with a sleek white head. Craig didn’t know why, but they felt phallic to him, or about as phallic as a flower could be, considering that blooms were generally accepted as a metaphor for the female anatomy. He’d tied a ribbon around them, but when he’d gone to the gift store to look for an acceptably masculine style, the best he’d been able to do was black. “I’m so sorry for your loss,” the saleswoman had said.

“Who?” Craig had replied.

“Oh,” she said sheepishly. “You know, when someone dies, you wear a piece of back ribbon.”

“You do?”

“Well, some people do.” She handed him back his change. “I think particularly in the Jewish faith.”

“Oh really?” he’d asked, making jaunty eyebrows.

“Um, sure,” she’d hastily agreed, a little weirded out by him. “Thanks for shopping.”

“Thanks for your sympathies,” Craig had responded. He also helped himself to a handful of starlight peppermints on the way out the door.

But here he was, chewing up the end of a mint, and slamming his fist against the front door of Kyle’s house, not really sure just what the fuck he was doing going to this dance. When the door did swing open, he was fully expecting to see Kyle there, ready and waiting to go, hopefully wearing something hot. This prompted Craig to think about what sorts of hot little numbers Kyle might own, but he really didn’t see his boyfriend as the kind of guy to make Daisy Dukes out of an old pair of jeans, or own a fishnet shirt. Kyle barely knew how to dress himself, although he figured it was something they could work on later.

And this was what Craig was pondering when Mr. Broflovski opened the door and gave his son’s caller a warm, broad smile. “Kyle’s upstairs getting ready,” he said gently. Craig seemed to not hear this.

“It is I, Craig.” He raised his unencumbered hand into the air and flashed a toothy grin.

Gerald Broflovski looked at the boy in front of him, whose eyes were rimmed in black makeup. “Yes, Craig,” he said. “I’ve known you since you were 4.”

“I am here for your son.”

Gerald smiled again. “And what are your intensions toward my son?”

“Um.” Craig blinked. “Uh huh.” He began to dig around in his back pocket and he pulled out a condom. “Protected, I assure you,” he said haughtily, waving it in Kyle’s father’s face.

“Um, yeah.” There was a moment of silence before Gerald cocked an eyebrow and said, “You might want to be careful of whose face you wave that around in.” Craig shrugged, and crossed his arms. “If I were a less reasonable man, I might not let you go out with my kid now. I mean, I’m not stupid, but it might be in your interest to refrain from flaunting your plans.”

“You asked me my intentions.”

Gerald just sighed. “Do you want to come in, Craig?”

Craig did indeed want to come in, and he pushed past the man blocking the door, proceeding to stomp up the stairs. Gerald shut the door and smiled to himself, turning to his wife, whom Craig hadn’t noticed standing off to the side.

“He’s a very brazen boy,” Sheila said carefully. “I don’t trust him with Kyle.”

“Kyle is old enough to make his own decisions.”

“Decisions? He’s going to make mistakes!”

“And we’re going to let him.”

“But,” Sheila sniffed. “My baby.”

“Yeah. I know,” Gerald sighed. “I know.”

~

Kyle was, in fact, getting ready, although as far as Craig could perceive this process involved a lot of cursing, and apparently sitting in front of a mirror with a spray bottle of water and a straight iron. The scent of burning hair lingered in the bathroom. “Straightening your hair? How ironic!” Craig cried happily.

“What? Oh, fuck.” Kyle slammed down the hair straightener. “Why are you so early?”

“I’m not early. You’re late.”

“Well, as you can see I’m not really done here.”

“What are you doing to your head?” Craig asked, approaching Kyle from behind. He took a warm lock and yanked on it.

“Ow!” Kyle tried to swat Craig’s hand away from his head. “Don’t do that.”

Craig refused to budge. “Not that it’s not flattering, dear, but I don’t require this sort of effort.” He removed his hand, but not before giving an untouched, bouncy curl a quick tug. “I like your pretty hair just how it is.”

“Well,” Kyle huffed, turning himself to face Craig. “Maybe I’m not doing it for you.”

“Aw. Well.” He lifted the flowers. “Look what I bought you.”

“What the hell.” Kyle voice pulsed with amusement and a touch of confusion

“They’re for you.” Craig extended the bunch of flowers in offering.

“I know that.” Kyle snatched the lilies away from Craig and lifted then to his nose, taking a whiff. “Smells nice.”

“I didn’t think they smelled like anything. I think you’re smelling cooked hair. Where the fuck did you get this, anyway?” Craig asked, picking up the iron and sniffing it. It smelled like a kind of fried chalkiness. “What the fuck.”

“If you must know, I swiped it from my mother.”

“She straightens her hair?”

Kyle rolled his eyes. “You’ve obviously never looked at it up close.”

“And I’m sure I never will.”

Kyle laid the flowers down on the counter. “Well, I’m not really ready to go. I mean,” he indicated his head, “I’m not sure I should go out with half of it wilted and half of it just as hideous as ever.”

“Why are you doing this?”

“I don’t know,” Kyle said honestly. “I thought I should.”

Craig sighed and put his hands on Kyle’s shoulders. “Listen to me,” he said slowly. “I will fix it for you.”

“You will.”

“Yes, I will. I’ve been doing my sister’s hair forever. I will make it look spectacular. But you have to promise me something.”

“What?”

Craig leaned into Kyle’s ear. “Promise me you will never, ever touch it again.”

Kyle swallowed. “Okay,” he agreed. “If you insist.”

“I insist.” Craig picked up the iron and cranked up the heat setting.

Continued here.

Comments

[imaginaaation.livejournal.com]

YOU CAUGHT THAT STUPID LITTLE REFERENCE OH MY GOD, I'M SO FUCKING HOT FOR YOU RIGHT NOW.

No, though, it's not like I just...sit here, waiting and refreshing. I mean, that would be...lame. I'M DONE READING AND I HAVE SO MUCH TO SAY TO YOU!! Fuck work, fuck work SO hard, I gotta run now because I'm late. But I feel so useless and thoughtful and thrilled and I can't wait to start writing this review, HOLY GOD.

[sekrit-omg.livejournal.com]

I wish it were that easy. No, how sad is that?

Work sucks. At least you have a job with hours, so it's over when it's over. Oh my god, a review. These chapters just getting more and more over the freaking top. At least I have a couple weeks to finish up this contest story and pretend the Other goddamn Table doesn't exist.