Dead weight

by lemonandbread

Summary:

Stan is a ghost, and the only person who can see him is his good friend Kenny.

Notes:

Hello! I just came up with this idea while driving home, and I couldn't get it out of my head.

Chapter 1

Kenny has been working nonstop ever since his dad was caught by the cops for dealing with illegal substances, and his brother ran away from home. Not to mention that his mom also left South Park in hopes of providing more for them in the city. He gets sent an envelope every month with a hundred bills inside and no letter, which he can only assume was from his mom. He also dropped out of school to work full-time to support Karen's stay in school. He’s the breadwinner of the family. His shift starts from 8 am to 3 pm at a gas station, then from 3 pm to 9 pm, he’s a busser at Tweak Bros, after that, he’s at 7-Eleven from 11 pm to 7 am. And it repeats. He wonders how he’s still alive with a tight schedule, but he has good friends in the workplace to thank for. Tweek sometimes lets him sleep in the breakroom and gives him pastries to bring home. His coworker, Charles, takes his shift when Kenny isn’t feeling well, and he gets to rest at the gas station too. He’s grateful for having understanding friends. He couldn’t say the same with the others. His new routine caused him a whole personality. He wasn’t the same happy-go-lucky fuck it guy, but he’s the stressed, in debt, and tired guy. He doesn’t have the time to hang out, and when he does go out, he’d feel out of place and get pitied looks. He was flat-out told by Craig and his gang that he wasn’t that fun anymore, even though he supplied them with narcotics before. The only person he gets to hang out with is Cartman. The guy doesn’t have a filter and at least acknowledges Kenny for who he is and not what he’s done. If things didn’t happen the way they happened, he’d still be in school, banging chicks and living his best life. Now, he’s an adult at 17, looking dead with his deep bags under his eyes and a bony figure. Of course, he had to lie on his way to work.

“You’re dazing again, Kenny.”

Kenny blinked and was out of his trance. He was looking at the grime on the counter while he was swimming in his thoughts. He grabbed a tissue paper from the side and wiped it out.

“What are you thinking?”

Kenny looked at him. Ah, another food for thought. His dead friend Stan in his ghostly form was floating beside him.

“Didn’t I tell you to wait outside, Danny Phantom?” Kenny asked him, raising his brow.

“Your shift ends-” Stan paused and looked at the clock on the left side of the store.

“In 10 minutes, so I don’t see the reason why I should wait.” He shrugs.

“Just be quiet, I don’t want a stranger to file another case of me talking to myself to the manager again,”

“Fine.”

Stan hovered away from him and passed through the walls outside the store.

Kenny released a deep sigh and rubbed his eyes to shake the sleepiness out of him.

It’s been 3 weeks since Stan showed up in Kenny’s life, and it’s been 3 years since Stan died. He was the turning point that led him here. Stan found him in an awful and pathetic situation. Kenny thought he was hallucinating or he was having a bad trip when he saw him in that dark and dirty alleyway. He was real. Kenny thought he was an angel warning him not to follow his father’s footsteps and ruin his life or that god cursed him, reminding him of what he did if he pursues that path. It was like a sick joke, considering that he was the one who killed him, or so Kenny thought. He’s not sure why he’s here. So when Kenny gets the day off every weekend, he and Stan go seek out answers around town.

 

A few minutes passed and Charles walked through the front door. His savior. He smiled at Kenny and waved.

“Morning, Ken, I’ll just put my coat and stuff in the break room then you can go,”

He gave Kenny a gentle pat on the shoulder and went inside the break room. Kenny nodded in return. Charles came back after 5 minutes wearing his 7-Eleven uniform and signaled Kenny to move out with his thumb.

Kenny took his turn in the break room and changed his clothes to his usual worn-out orange parka. He grabbed his messenger bag and slung it over his shoulder, and went out. Before he pushed the glass door, he looked over at Charles who was refilling some items on the counter.

“Thanks for everything,” He gave him a tired smile.

“No problem, have a great weekend!”

Charles gave him a salute. And with that, Kenny pushed the door and was greeted by the cool breeze of his town. He palmed his pockets for his cigarettes and lighter. Nothing beats frigid weather than smoking. He found one, but it looked crushed, he shrugged and lit it anyway. Warm smoke filled his lungs, and he felt the pain in his head disappear. He doesn’t like smoking nicotine, but it was one of the ways for him to cope with the loss of weed and cocaine. Thanks to Stan. And right on cue, Stan stood beside him.

“Isn’t it too early to smoke?” Stan looked at him like a puppy, tilting his head to the side.

Kenny took another puff and released his smoke in front of Stan’s face.

“It’s cold.”

Stan crinkled his face as if he could inhale the smoke. He covered his nose with his hand, while the other fans the smoke away from his face. Kenny noticed that the swirls of smoke dissipate as he fans it out. And for a moment, he thought that Stan didn’t die and he was there with him. His clothes were the same as the last time he saw him. He was wearing his usual brown coat, a white undershirt, and sweatpants. He doesn’t remember him being barefoot.

“I don’t think that’s good for you, dude,”

Kenny closed his eyes and took another puff. It’s like Stan was his new father, a better one. Always keeping tabs on him. Telling him what to do and what not to do. And what’s even more surprising, Kenny follows it. It’s one way he can compensate for his sin. He opened his eyes and faced him. He released his cigarette and dropped it on the cold concrete and stepped on it. Never breaking eye contact. He felt bad for not finishing it.

“Fine. let’s go, Dad,” He placed his hands in his pockets, and walked away from Stan.

“I’m just looking out for you, ya know?” In an instant, Stan was walking beside him, hands in his pockets too.

Kenny released a heavy sigh. “Yeah… I know,”

They continued to walk, passing shops and places that they used to hang out as kids.

After a few minutes, Stan broke the silence.

“So, what’s the plan for today?”

“I’m gonna sleep,” Kenny replied quickly.

Kenny rarely used to sleep when things were normal. He loved going out and vibing with his friends, be it all day or all night. When there are parties he’d crash there for the whole day. Now, all he wants to do is sleep and he rarely gets invited to go out.

“Fair enough, you’ve had a busy week,” Stan replied, nodding his head in understanding.

“Tell me about it,” Kenny rolled his eyes.

This week was hell for him. Rude customers were shouting at him, Tweak Bros was packed with people, and worst of all, he didn't take a break. He could faint with the amount of work he puts into himself. He’s looking forward to going home and sleeping. Then he realized that Stan didn’t show up for most of his shifts this week and only appeared when he was done. He wonders what his ghost friend was up to.

“How about you? I barely saw you this week. Where have you been?” Kenny looked at him with a questioning look, like Stan was hiding something from him.

“You know, just visiting places that I used to go, the usual.”

‘Used to’ That word hung over his head. It’s still surreal. Kenny looked ahead over the streets. It’s going to be another busy Saturday morning, he thinks as he sees people do their daily routines.

“Oh! I’ve also practiced my ghost powers,” Stan suddenly exclaimed.

“Ghost powers? Like what? Levitating stuff?” Kenny faced him again, interested in the topic.

“Something like that, a dog recognized me and wouldn’t stop barking. The owner was spooked when she thought there was some evil spirit standing outside their house,” Stan released a small chuckle. That seems like basic ghost stuff.

“So animals can see you, cool. What else can you do?” Stan took his time to think about what to say, and then his expression changed.

“I can lift papers and leaves,”

Stan gave him a toothy smile like it was a great achievement for him. Kenny considers his new powers as sort of lame. Papers and leaves? People will only blame it on the wind. Then he stopped in his tracks. He just thought of the funniest thing.

“Yooo, does toilet paper count?”

“I guess so-” Stan replied, sheepishly.

Kenny’s eyes lit up with the confirmation and took out his hands from his pockets like he was about to share a eureka moment.

“Dude, imagine, you are haunting a bathroom and someone takes a shit and a toilet paper just flies out of nowhere,” Kenny wheezed at the idea. Stan gave him a disbelieving look.

“Imagine their faces!” Kenny laughed uncontrollably at this point.

“You can wipe their shit on their faces and the walls!” He was starting to run out of breath. Tears start to form in his eyes. It’s such a silly thing but imagining Stan carrying a piece of toilet paper with shit to scare people is so hilarious to think about.

“That’s disgusting, dude” Stan gave him a repulsive look.

“Nah, it’s funny,” Kenny said as he wiped a single tear from his eye.

“If I was a ghost I’d totally do that and probably lift girl's skirts to get that view if you know what I mean,” He wiggled his eyebrows.

They both laughed at that. It was like a normal conversation. And it's been a long time since Kenny laughed that hard. He misses this.

“You’re still the same, Kenny,” Stan chuckled.

Like a switch, he’s back to being tired and dull. Like his mood was spoiled. Dread starts to creep into him and the weight of everything that happened to him these past few years hit him like a truck. How can he still be the same person after everything happened? His dad is in prison, his brother might be dead in some ditch, his mom can’t do anything, Karen is starting to hate him, and being stuck with the person you killed just talking to you like everything is normal is just crazy. He's insane. Stan isn't real. Kenny tries to calm himself from breaking down in the middle of the street. The last thing he wants is people thinking he’s crazy and crying and getting dragged to a mental institute. That doesn’t seem bad, he can sleep all he wants. But no one would be there for Karen. He took a deep breath and steeled himself

“Hey,” He called out to him in seriousness.

“Yeah, dude? Everything alright?” Stan asked, concerned.

Of course, everything is not alright, you’re dead. Kenny wanted to reply but decided to just ask him the most obvious question.

“How come you don’t want me to tell the others about you? Like, I could pass them a message from you... Giving them closure or something,”

Stan stared at him. Piercing him with his blue eyes. His whole body shines when sunlight hits him. He looked ethereal and delicate. And if Kenny touches him, he would disappear. He’s transparent, he’s glowing, he’s dead, and it’s Kenny's fault. He can feel his heart sink to his stomach. He feels chills all over his body but ignores them in front of Stan. He doesn’t want him to know that he’s scared, that he’s terrified of him. After a few minutes, Stan spoke.

“There’s no point, they’ve moved on.” He shrugged.

There was silence before he continued.

“Let’s go home, Kenny,” Stan smiled before walking ahead of him.

Bullshit. Kenny thought. He wants to argue that people never moved on. He gets messages every day about Stan. They’re mostly death threats from friends or used to be friends, and it doesn’t get better. He sometimes wanted to end his life, but he couldn’t. Stan is always there. He’s like the embodiment of everything Kenny did wrong. Forever there to remind him to be a good son and to be a responsible adult. He’s Kenny’s poison.

 

The whole trip to his house was quiet. He was too tired for conversation and he was glad that Stan seems to understand that. Kenny immediately dropped his body on his bed and can feel the exhaustion from the whole week taking over. His body started to feel like lead. He glanced at Stan who was floating above him.

“Good night, Stan, see ya later,” He yawned.

Stan smiled at him. “Rest well, dude, see ya”

 

And with that, Kenny closed his eyes and hoped that Stan wouldn’t haunt his dreams too.

Notes:

Comments and Kudos are appreciated!

Chapter 2

Summary:

Kenny meets an old friend, and some things are needed to be said.

Notes:

This has been cooking in my drafts for a long while, and I decided to finish it after accidentally finding it again.

When Kenny woke up, Stan wasn’t there to greet him. It wasn’t unusual and Kenny didn’t think about it too much until he didn’t show up the day after either. He’s not worried. He’s actually pleased. Maybe his friend moved on to the afterlife and finally found peace. He didn’t have to be reminded of what he did, but then again, Stan was the only friend that talked to him even after his death.

The days dragged on, and Kenny never felt lonelier. He was on autopilot going to work and didn’t bother to pester Karen about school or converse with his coworkers. Sometimes he gets yelled at by his customers for being inattentive and clumsy.

Stan wouldn’t leave him for real without saying goodbye right? Could it be that he found someone else to help him find peace? Was Kenny useless to Stan all this time? I mean, he wouldn’t be with someone who killed him in the first place, right? These uneasy thoughts kept growing and worsening by the minute, and Kenny didn’t even realize he bumped Butters while he was walking home. He mumbled sorry and was about to walk ahead, but Butters grabbed his arm stopping him in his tracks.

“Hi, Kenny! I-it’s been a long time..umm, how are you?” Butters asked sheepishly. It caught Kenny off guard that Butters was talking to him. They used to be close, and even after Stan died, Butters kept hanging out with him. Of course, his parents weren’t pleased for their son to hang out with a guy like Kenny, but that didn’t stop Butters from finding the good in him, so Kenny was the one who cut off their friendship instead, and ignored him till Butters gave up with his quest of helping Kenny to “feel better”. He wanted to avoid this meeting with him, but somehow seeing someone talking to him after Stan left made his heart ache, and he craved social interaction.

“I’m uh.. Doing fine, can you please let go of my arm?” Butters didn’t even realize he was grabbing onto his arm that hard and he let him go.

“Oh geez! I’m sorry, Kenny! It’s just that I haven’t seen you in a long time and I couldn’t let the opportunity to talk to you slip by.. If umm you’re not busy, can we talk for a while?” Butters was putting his thumbs together, a mannerism that he never grew out of when he was nervous or shy. Kenny considered the invitation and surprisingly agreed to it quickly. He really was craving social interaction. Butters beamed in excitement but somehow didn't know how to start the conversation, so they walked in silence until Butters found a bench near the park. They both sat there and watched the kids leave the area, probably going home after a game of basketball.

Butters broke the silence first. “I’ve been doing well in school. My grades are not bad compared to last term and I got Kyle to thank for that. He’s been tutoring me ever since he saw that my grades were slipping.” Kenny knows that Butters is a smart guy, and he also knows that he was probably the one that might have caused Butters’ grades to drop when he started ignoring him.

“Did you know that he’s running for student body president? And he’s up against Wendy, which is a really tough decision to make. Oh! And Eric is running against them at the last minute after Kyle told him that he can’t lead any living thing in his life. Eric asked me to help his campaign after that, so I actually came from his house talking about how we’re gonna beat Kyle and Wendy,” Butters kept talking nonstop about everything that’s been happening in school, and it reminded him of when they were kids when Kenny was absent for a day and Butters would update him with the latest news in school.

Kenny didn’t want to stop Butters with his endless stories from school and the activities he does outside his home, but he can’t help but wonder about the reason for this conversation. Kenny coughed to get his attention, but Butters was eager to continue. He sighed and awkwardly patted his leg, and that finally caught his attention. “What is it? Do you agree that mayo is the superior condiment too? Cuz Eric said something else and I don’t even know what it is, and I darn hope it’s not related to that ‘goo’ thing back in 4th grade-”

“Why are you telling me this, Butters?” Kenny cut him off. Butters' expression shifts back to nervousness. Kenny just wants to get to the point and leave. Butters hesitated, and took a deep breath.“I thought you would want to know how our friends are doing in school..” That’s not something he expected, he didn’t reply, and Butters took it as a sign to continue speaking. “I know you don’t want to talk to me anymore and you don’t talk to anyone in school either, but deep down I know that they miss you, Ken, and geez, I know you miss them too.” Now Kenny was taken aback by this. Did he really miss his old friends? Of course, he did. But one of his friends is dead and everyone blamed and hated him for it. It was hard to believe that Butters would even suggest that they actually missed him.

“I really don’t care, Butters. I’m glad you’re doing well, but I have to go.” Butters stopped him from getting up and frantically thought of what to say. “I didn’t mean to piss you off, I just wanted you to know that we still care for you..” he paused, thinking carefully about what to say next. “I-It’s Stan’s birthday soon, so the guys were planning to do something for him and I asked if I could invite you.. well, they didn’t say anything, but silence means yes, right?”

Something finally clicked. Kenny didn’t even realize it was October soon. There’s a chance that Stan hasn’t left yet because he knows where Stan goes whenever his birthday is around the corner. He quickly got off to his feet ready to leave and confirm his theory, but Butters held on to him. Kenny controls the anger slowly boiling in him, “Butters, just let it go. There’s no way they would even look in my direction, and Kyle wouldn’t even let me leave the room until I’m dead,” Kenny considers it though, maybe he should go and let Kyle end his misery. Butters continued to defend the idea that they won’t and it would be like the “good old days”, and Kenny is not having any of that shit right now.

“You don’t get it, do you? Do you really think that they’ll just forget that Stan is dead? That I killed him?” Kenny scoffs. He hates how his voice started to sound shaky at the end.

“Now, Kenny, you don’t really mean that do you? I still don’t think you did it, Kenny. Remember what you told me when you came to my house? You-” Butters wasn’t able to finish that sentence because Kenny forcibly shook Butters’ hand off him, and he staggers to the side.

“Just fucking stop! If you do care for me you would just fucking shut the fuck up, Butters!”
Kenny’s voice roared through the empty park and immediately bolted away from Butters. He didn’t glance back. He doesn’t want to see the pained expression on his friend’s face.

He ran until his lungs burned and his legs hurt. He has something important to confirm first. He needs to be sure that Stan is there. He wants to know that Stan is still his friend. The sign to Stark’s Pond is visible, and his heart thrummed harder from his chest. He slowly walked toward the silhouette sitting on the bench overlooking the pond. With deep heaving breaths, he calmed himself and swallowed before calling out to the person in front of him.

“This is where you’ve been this entire time? Y-You could’ve at least told me, asshole”

Kenny isn’t even sure if it’s actually him. He was ready to apologize to the stranger, but the person looked back at him and gave a weary smile.

“Sorry, dude, I was just feeling out of it lately. Thought you needed a break since you’ve been tired a lot..” He paused in shock looking straight at him.

Kenny didn't even know he was holding back tears until they started falling from his face. He balled his hands into fists and let his tears flow out. It’s been too long since Stan saw Kenny be so vulnerable and open. He approached him slowly and when he was near him, Kenny heaved harder and sobbed loudly.

Kenny let everything sink in, his fucked up childhood, the cold hungry nights he spent alone, protecting his sister from the wicked world, receiving beatings from his parents, and wanting things he can’t afford. The list is endless with everything that made him feel like shit. The only thing that made his life worthwhile was his friends and his younger sister, and the worst thing is that he lost both of them too. And it’s all his fault. Not only was he mean to Butters, but he also wasn’t able to help Stan find peace. He’s a bad son, a terrible brother, and an awful friend.

Stan let him cry it all out. He stayed there silently comforting him like he’s been through the same thing. When Kenny felt like he gushed out all the water from his eyes, he looked at Stan, finally face to face after being gone for days.

“I’m sorry, Stan.. for everything,” Kenny’s voice was hoarse from the crying, but he didn’t care. He never apologized once when Stan appeared to him in that alleyway. He always thought it was stupid to apologize for a hallucination, but this moment felt too real. “I.. I should’ve died instead of you, it would’ve been better that way.” His tears start falling again, heck, he could even fill an entire pool with his tears at this point. But it was true, everything would’ve been better if he was gone.

Stan didn’t reply immediately. There was a silence that felt like it lasted for hours. Then he just gave Kenny a pained smile. “The difference between you and me, Kenny, is that deep down, you’re a good person. I’ve never met anyone who would give up themselves for the sake of others as you do. I sometimes wished I was like you, not caring about the world and holding on to what matters, and what matters now is you,” He held his gaze at Kenny. “This pain you’re feeling is something you overcome constantly. You make do with what you can and come back stronger every time. My death is just another fleeting agony in your life, don’t let that stop you from moving forward.”

Weirdly enough, Stan’s words were exactly something he needed to hear. He let Stan's words hang over his mind. "You're a good person" repeats over and over again, like a mantra. Stan, ghost or not, always thought of Kenny as a good person, despite what others say about what he did, be it true or not, he still considers him a good person. He chuckled at the absurdity of everything and closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Kenny decided that at that moment he was going to dedicate most of his time to getting Stan to the afterlife. He knows that this is what he needs to do. It might even be the greatest gift he can give to Stan.

“Okay, cut with this sappy crap” Kenny turned, and pocketed both his hands. He walked away slowly and Stan followed behind him.

“Hey! That’s not how you reply to someone trying to comfort you, dude!”

Kenny looked back at him and threw an accusing finger at Stan, “Says the one who left like a bitch without saying goodbye!” He's still pissed off about that. But he realized how lonely he was when he left. Unease crept again when Kenny imagines what it's going to be like when Stan will disappear for real. He shrugs off that thought.

“Didn’t know you missed me that much, I’m actually touched, Kenny” Stan said in a teasing tone.

It was like that when they left Stark’s Pond. Bantering quietly and laughing at each other's attempt to make shitty ghost jokes. “Okay, I’ll try to be like that ghost from that movie who creeps up on someone to make his presence known.” Kenny pondered a bit about what movie he was referring to and asked Stan curiously.

“You know, Jasper the creepy ghost? The one where he looks like a sperm with two eyes? God, I hated that fucking movie, man.”

Kenny erupted with laughter after hearing that and for some reason, he couldn't stop laughing. Stan started hovering frantically, getting pissed off at Kenny’s uncontrollable laughter begging for him to take this seriously.

“It’s ‘Casper the friendly ghost’, dumbass,” Kenny replied, trying not to choke from the words with laughter. Stan was obviously embarrassed by his mistake, and if he was alive, he would’ve flushed red.

After giving it some thought, he did tell Stan that Casper does look like a sperm with two eyes, and he received an instant “I told you so!” from him. The walk home was long and he doesn’t know what awaits him when he arrives, but for now, he feels at ease with his friend by his side. For once, he appreciates the view of the sun setting from this mountain town. He doesn’t want this feeling to end.

Notes:

Thank you for your lovely comments and kudos! It means the world to me and it motivates me to write more (so don't hesitate to drop something in the comment section). I don't know if I should continue, but you can tell that there's plot building up slowly 👀. Life has been busy lately, so I'll do my best to update when I can!

Chapter 3

Summary:

Kenny meets more old friends and finally has a plan.

Notes:

Hello! I made minor changes from the first chapter to align with what's going to happen from now on. I changed the time after Stan's death from four months to three years.

Special thanks to shyper3AM and TurtleJawz for beta reading!

“Let’s start with what we know,”

Stan floats above Kenny peering over his shoulder and looking at the paper with two sections, the first named “What we know” and the other section “What we don’t know”, both are blank and yet to be written.

After yesterday’s emotional rollercoaster, Kenny discussed with Stan that he’s going to be serious about helping him from now on, even dropping a few jobs to give him more time to find ways to help him. They both agreed that maybe figuring out what happened that night might lead to answers they didn’t know before.

“Well, it’s been years that’s for sure” Three years to be exact. Kenny nodded to Stan’s statement and wrote it down in the “what we know” section. He also added ‘my fault’ then Stan quickly gave him the side-eye, to which Kenny immediately wrote ‘maybe’ enclosed in parenthesis.

“That’s pretty much it, dude” Stan shrugs.

A few minutes passed by, and all they did was stare at the piece of paper in silence. Kenny is fidgeting with his pen tapping it on the table, trying to make a rhythm, and Stan tries to move the paper with his ghost powers, and when it did, both were amazed and shouted in excitement to do it again. At this point, they are very distracted by the task at hand, and surprisingly, are having fun.

Kenny ignores the gnawing thought that he really does not know what exactly happened that day. He would rather watch the paper make small movements than think. He asked Stan when he first appeared to him about what happened and he just shook his head and never mentioned it again. One thing for sure is that they were both together that day, and only one person came out alive that night.

 

Kenny is in deep thought pulling out every memory that he can gather while the paper makes small movements and listens listlessly at Stan talking about other ghost powers that he can’t wait to have.

He remembered it was a shit day, and every shit day, he either smokes weed, drowns in alcohol, or fucks around. It was the highest and lowest point of his life when he doesn’t give a fuck about anything. His father deals with drugs and he ays him to sell them to his friends, which he obliges and indulges without his father knowing. His brother disappears from time to time, and he doesn’t really care, he threatens anyone who bullies his sister from school, and his mother still worked and did all the chores in the house. His life at that time was a flash and a blur. Fleeting memories that mix all together. He tries to reminisce about that day.

 

Kenny remembers that Cartman invited the gang to do something and Kenny was too high and was down to do anything without needing any details. Kyle, when it comes to Cartman’s ideas, objects and begs Stan to disagree, but Stan seems to be convinced of what Cartman is saying.

“Dude, I think they’re right. As long as we can do this once, and never again, then I’m down.” Stan replies nonchalantly and pockets both of his hands in his signature brown jacket.

“That’s what I’m talking about, my man!” Cartman cheers and reaches out to Stan for a high five, but Stan just moves away.

“Well, fuck you too, Stan”

Rejected, Cartman then moves to Kenny for a high five, and Kenny surprises him with a big ol hug instead. Cartman gave him a disgusted look. Kenny was amused by his reaction, telling him that he actually likes being hugged but is too afraid to admit it, but it sounded muffled and inaudible. Cartman cringes and shrugs him off.

“Ew, get off me, dude, I don’t want to get your gay germs on me, who knows where the fuck you’ve been crawling in,” Cartman shoves him off, and Kenny lets go and sways to the side and snickers at the comment. Kenny is immune to Cartman’s jokes and insults ever since he was a child, so he doesn’t really care. They all gave him a concerned look before they realized that this is just the usual Kenny behavior.

Kyle continued to argue with Cartman, and Kenny was reminded of the time when they were kids. A wave of nostalgia hits and he laughs like it was the funniest joke ever told. Then he saw that Stan was staring at him for a long time, and he found that hilarious too.

Then everything blurred. The words and the sounds, and the people were mixed up and turned into mush in his memory. It felt like a fever dream. And it hurts. It hurt a lot. He woke up the next day in a Hospital bed. He was confused, exhausted, and nauseous. He was then faced with news of Stan’s death.

Accusations were then fired at him and his life was filled with facing the law. It was days of investigations, interviews, and court hearings. And despite that his life was crumbling before his eyes, he was proven innocent. There were not enough pieces of evidence that proved it was him. And Just like that, he was free. Regardless of what the law thinks, his friends, particularly Kyle and anyone that loved Stan, still hold grudges against him. They all cut Kenny off from their lives and left him to rot in the consequences. Now he’s here, alive and barely kicking.

 

Kenny was shaken out of his trance about that day by Stan, the dead one, calling out his name.
“You okay, dude? I just made this paper do a 360 and you weren’t that excited,”

“Was just remembering what happened...” Kenny sighs and looks at Stan waiting for a reaction or at least something to say, but Stan ignores it and attempts to lift the paper again.

Stan’s indifference to the whole situation is slowly making him angry. The time when he finally decides to help him is when Stan starts uncooperating. It’s like he doesn’t even want to leave this place. Kenny does though, gosh he wish to be dead.

“Do you really not remember what happened?”

The question weighs heavy in the air. Kenny looked at him expectantly, but to his disappointment, Stan only shook his head. This was the same thing he did when he asked him this question. Simply shook his head and moved on. Maybe Stan is just a figment of his imagination, explaining why he doesn’t remember because Kenny doesn’t know either. He’s tired of getting angry. He doesn’t want to be angry. He sighs out his frustration.

“I.. I’m sorry, dude, I don’t remember anything.”

“I find that hard to believe,” Kenny immediately interjected.

“What do you mean by that?”

Kenny sighs and runs his hands through his blonde hair, “It’s just I-”

A loud ringtone cuts off Kenny’s sentence, and he checks his phone and sees that he’s late for his shift at Tweek Bros.

“Shit, I gotta go, dude. We can continue this later,”

He stood up from the table abruptly. Took the paper, folded it, and placed it in his pockets. There are only a few words written, but it will be filled soon enough. Kenny leaves a note for Karen about the food and where she can get money.

Stan floats patiently behind him and when everything is done, they both go outside and walk toward Tweek’s cafe. When they were almost there, Stan stopped in the air and put his hands in his pockets.

“I think I’ll go around and check some places again, I’ll meet you after your work-” He was about to leave when Kenny coughed to get his attention.

“You can stay.”

Stan was wide-eyed with that, “What? I thought you hated it when I stayed while you worked?”

Yes, Kenny did hate it, but he can’t risk Stan leaving him again. After yesterday’s confrontation, Kenny became more conscious around Stan. But secretly, he doesn’t want to be alone. He’s not ready to be alone yet.

“It’s fine, there’s not a lot of customers that come around this time anyway, except for the usual people”

“It’s gonna be annoying for you,”

“Yeah, but you could also annoy the customers,” Kenny smirks at him.

Stan’s face immediately shined bright at the idea and his whole aura changed into an excited mood. Of course, he would immediately change his mind in staying just to play some tricks on people with his ghost powers. During the first week of Stan appearing in his life, he was adamant about staying with Kenny every single hour that it became a hindrance to Kenny’s shifts, and often people would give him looks for talking at nothing. He looked crazy, but now Kenny doesn’t want to let him out of his sight.

They both arrive at the cafe and he opens the doors. They both see Tweek wearing the cafe's apron and talking to a customer from the counter. He strides in slowly, and Stan floats around the area hovering above customers’ tables listening to their conversation and probably plotting how to mess up their day. There are about five people in the cafe, it usually gets busy around this hour since it’s a Friday, but Kenny is pleased with the small number of people to attend to. After settling with the customer’s payment, Tweek immediately ushered Kenny in grabbing his arm in a panic to the break room.

“Whoa, calm down, dude, is something wrong?”

“Are you okay?” Tweek blurted out.

That’s not what he expected at all. Kenny thought it was another crazy conspiracy that he heard and he was about to warn him about the dangers of cheese or an apocalypse happening. Tweek has always been a thoughtful guy despite the fucked up shit he’s been through. He’s jittery but put him on stage and he’s a completely different person. Occasionally, he would consult with Kenny about his relationship problems, which is just Craig and him being pissed off at each other and Kenny either breaking them up physically (fighting in public) or intimately ( drunkenly making out in public). That was before though, after some altercations with Craig and his gang and being called “not fun” anymore, he tells Tweek that he doesn’t really want to be in the same room as them. Tweek understandingly complies and calls him ahead to not come or let him leave first when they arrive. I guess he feels empathetic for someone who also has gone through some shit.

“I’m fine, sorry for being late, got.. Uh, some stuff to do,”

“Oh no, it’s fine, you were out of it yesterday too, y-you sure you’re fine?”

When was he ever fine anyway? Lying just became part of his everyday life now.

“Yeah, I’m fine, thanks for asking,”

“Well, if you need anything I’m just here. Anyways, business is slow this time so it would be great if you could just clean around and help serve the customers as usual, I-I also got some leftovers for you to take home too,”

Thank God for Tweek. They weren’t that close before but he’s always thankful for the unexpected friendship that formed after everything that happened. After setting a few more instructions, they both went their separate ways. Kenny wore the cafe's apron and took a broom and started sweeping the place. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Stan intently looking at the woman’s coffee on the table trying his best to make the thing wiggle. His expression looks constipated and Kenny chuckled a little too loudly, and the people at the next table looked at him weirdly. He continued with cleaning and trying not to laugh at Stan’s attempt at being a menace.

As Kenny was cleaning the table after the customers left, the bell chimes to signal a new customer entering. He used to greet every person that enters with a smile and make small talk, but he hardly has the energy to do that, and people think it’s creepy, so now he minds his own business unless spoken to. He hears footsteps coming and halts right next to him. Kenny stops wiping the table to look at the person and heads face to face to Craig’s expressionless face.

“What are you doing here? I thought you left?” Craig asked him with a deep and rough tone. If they didn’t have any issues, Kenny might’ve thought that it was hot asking him like that, but now it sounds terrifying.

Kenny gulps thinking of what to reply. Maybe Tweek told him he stopped working here out of panic, and clearly, he wasn’t also informed that his boyfriend is coming in too.

At the same time, Stan hovers above Craig and does an examination of his body from head to toe. He was wearing a denim jacket over his blue usual sweater and a NASA pin and the pride flag pin hangs on the lapel of his denim Jacket. He was also wearing black jeans that fit quite nicely on him. After a general search of Craig, he stood close to Kenny and asked him if Craig would be terrified if he spilled coffee on him or pulled off his chullo hat.

“Don’t you fucking dare do that” Kenny immediately snapped at Stan, but with any normal person (not Kenny) this would look like he was getting pissed off at Craig, which also resulted in Craig getting pissed off too.

“You got a lot of nerve to say that, McCormick. Let’s not forget what you did,” Craig grabs the front of his shirt tight letting him get close to his face. Kenny pushes away the thought of how horny this makes him. Weirdly enough, Stan is panicking too. He gives ridiculous suggestions of him distracting Craig with levitating shit to scare him and the thought makes Kenny burst out in laughter. And to Craig, he looks like he’s mocking him or worse, just crazy.“You’re fucking sick,”

As Craig was about to raise his fists, a newcomer enters the cafe.

“You conformists are the bane of my existence, take your fight outside or I’ll curse your whole family,”

All of them stopped in their tracks as Henrietta stands in all her glory at the entrance wearing a beautiful black dress and a hand on her hip while the other hand holds her cigarette. She gives them a raised brow, a sign which means ‘fuck off’. Craig lets go of Kenny and shoves him hard. Kenny scolds himself once again for the inappropriate thoughts that come up.

Craig rolls his eyes at Henrietta and scoffs at Kenny like he’s the most disgusting person he ever met, and heads to the break room where Tweek is, probably oblivious to the whole thing. Stan, however, looks like he’s seen a ghost, ironic because he’s also a ghost.

“Thanks for that, Henri,” Kenny fixes himself in front of her.

“I thought you could defend yourself, prince charming, guess I was wrong about you.” She puffs a cloud of smoke in his direction as she walks toward him.

Henrietta was one of Kenny’s old flings and most of the unforgettable sexual experiences he did were with her. Unfortunately, they both agreed to end it before anyone catches actual feelings of love, which Henrietta is disgusted by. She did contact Kenny after what happened to Stan to check up on how he was doing, but he gave her a cold shoulder, and they haven’t talked since.

“Well, I was.. Waiting for the right opportunity, you know, get them where they least expect it,” Kenny tried to give his signature flirting smile but it looked strained and forced. Overall awkward. Stan grimaces and moves away from them and goes to the break room, probably to listen to Craig and Tweek's conversation instead of watching Kenny embarrass himself.

“Nice try. Can’t believe you let yourself get manhandled like that, then again, you like that, don’t you?” Henrietta smirks at him. Kenny gulps down, and the horny feelings are back again.

“I’m actually trying not to get into fights, trying to lay low and..uh.. live?” Kenny wants to facepalm and slap himself. The isolation from his friends definitely took a toll on his socialization skills.

There was silence between them and Henrietta gave him a once over as if she was examining him like how Stan was examining Craig before. Henrietta folds her hands and Kenny starts to sweat. It’s even more awkward that most of the people are gone and it’s just the two of them now.

“You know, Stan always says that he envies your confidence and the not giving a fuck attitude, but I don’t see that in you anymore. Well, I don’t blame you, society treats us like a bunch of crap, that’s why you gotta let loose so they don’t fucking get you,” She inhales another smoke from her cig.

Kenny’s breath was taken away by the very mention of Stan, but at the same time, he didn’t know they talked to each other. Stan wasn’t the type of guy to share his feelings with the goth kids.

“I didn’t know you talked to Stan,” Kenny asked incredulously.

She puffs out another smoke from her cigarette. “Well, he hangs out with us every Friday night and talks about anything that was bothering him, told us not to tell anyone, but that hardly matters now," she paused "Since he's gone and all."

The last part stung him. It felt like it was a jab at him because of his relation to Stan. Simultaneously, an idea erupted in his mind, if Stan won’t tell him how he feels then maybe he can get information from the goth kids.

Another awkward silence passes them again. Kenny coughs trying to get his shit together to ask her about Stan. “Yeah, yeah.. Umm, can I ask for a cig?” He curses himself. How come he can’t ask the right question? He tries to calm down. He never asked someone about Stan in a long time.

Henrietta gives him a quizzical look. She concludes that the topic of Stan was still a sore spot for Kenny, so she doesn’t question him further and gives him a cig and asks if he needs a lighter too, but he declines. Kenny flinches at the sounds of fallen things and shouting from the break room. Seems like things aren’t going well for Tweek and Craig too. Henrietta sees Kenny tapping his foot and his hands are shaking.

“You okay?” She asks him with genuine concern.

“Yeah, I’m fine, can I ask you something?” Kenny replied a little too quickly.

“Spit it out,”

He took a deep breath, “It’s about Stan-”

The door to the back rooms opened and the shriek of Tweek was heard disrupting their conversation. He was surprised at seeing Henrietta and yells at her about what she wants, she yells back ‘americano’, and Tweek angrily huffs and does her order. Good thing it’s closing time and it’s just them in the cafe. Tweek is mad, and it looks like Craig didn’t come out with him. It must’ve been another fight. Stan didn’t come out either.

“Geez, trouble in paradise. Relationships are just food for capitalism, fucking bastards, what were you asking again?” She huffs another smoke.

“I just want to talk about Stan,” He said softly, ignoring the shaking in his voice.

A surprised expression flashed on her face, then a few seconds passed by, and her expression immediately turned into a smirk as if she thought of something sinister.

“Meet me tomorrow morning at the back alley next to the school and we’ll talk, ”

Tweek calls out her name and gets her coffee and walks past Kenny blowing a cloud of smoke at his face.

“See you, Kenny,” she says in her sultry voice that Kenny loves and leaves the cafe.

Tweek immediately tells him after she leaves to close up shop. He tried to ask Tweek if everything with Craig was okay but he huffed and ignored him. Guess it was pretty serious. At the same time, Stan floats in with a pained expression telling him that it was a bad fight and Craig leaves through the exit in the break room. Kenny mumbles to tell him every detail of their fight when they head home. As they finished closing shop, Tweek gave his leftovers and extra pastries to Kenny and said their goodbyes. Kenny reminds him that Craig is an asshole and will be back with him anytime soon. Tweek just nods, clearly done with the mention of his name, and they went their separate ways.

On the way home, Stan supplies him with what he heard from the couple and it looked like it was just their guinea pig getting lost and Craig blaming Tweek, which Tweek counters by seeing Craig flirting with someone, which doesn’t make sense, but that’s why he hid their pet and then they were about to throw hands but stopped when some of the things from the shelves fell, and a random piece of tissue paper floating, spookingTweek. Then their fight turned into Craig comforting Tweek that ghosts aren’t real and he’s not being haunted, which is hilarious because, in a sense, they are. Then Tweek remembers they were fighting and then he left. Craig lingered a bit longer cleaning up the thrown objects before leaving, mumbling about how stupid Tweek is to think there could be anyone he could like other than him.

“Is it weird that I'm actually proud of you for pulling that stunt?”

Stan did a bow like how magicians are done with an act. “Thank you, it seems like my powers can fix relationships too”

They both chuckle at that, but Kenny is sure they will be back together and fucking each other by the end of the week.

“So what’s the plan tomorrow?”

“We’ll be meeting someone,”

“Who?”

“You’ll see,”

“Huh, okay then” Stan shrugs and changes the topic to the new game he heard the customers talking about.

Kenny doesn't want to tell him yet about what they were gonna do tomorrow and who to meet, in a way, he’s still mad at Stan for hiding this type of information from him. He’ll just have to see his reaction tomorrow.

Notes:

Phew, this took longer than I thought. Expect more slow chapters coming in because of exams.
Comments and Kudos are appreciated! We're in the long run now.

Chapter 4

Summary:

Kenny talks to his sister and meets the goth kids after.

Notes:

A new chapter, yay! Took too long but here we are.

Kenny’s dreams after the incident are mainly horror, infinite deaths, and Stan. He’s lucky if he doesn’t get to dream anything at all, only if he doesn’t sleep. Surprisingly, tonight was different. He’s a little excited and terrified about tomorrow’s meeting, but instead of moping around worrying about what will happen, he tries to fall asleep. His eyes are closed, and thoughts float aimlessly in his mind without a trace of dread and misery. He feels somehow at peace.

He drifts in the blankness of his thoughts. A white space. Do hours seem to pass or maybe a few minutes? Kenny ponders, then he thinks about a clock and a few seconds pass, he imagines living inside the clock. The time reads 2 AM. He sits on the hour hand and lets the echoes of ticking lull him to sleep, or he’s already sleeping?

A sudden loud crash reverberated in the walls that shook him to his core. Everything turned dark and it swallowed him whole in one fell swoop.

He wakes up with a start, heaving, and his heart beating loudly. He places his hand on his chest trying to gain composure, and when he finally calms, a crash is heard again. He clutches his sheets fearing that it might be an intruder and scans the room for a weapon. He stood up, grabbed a random figurine, and as he was about to dash out of his room, Stan casually passed through his walls with a worried expression.

Stan scratches his head, “Uh.. dude, it’s your sister, and you might wanna check out on her, she’s uh.. super drunk.”

At the first mention of his sister, Kenny drops his supposed weapon and rushes to the door. He quickly passes through Stan as he goes outside to see Karen slumping on the table and a bottle of beer in her right hand. She must’ve thrown or tripped on the chair while she was heading to the table. That explains the crashing in his dreams.

Kenny notices that she’s either crying or laughing. He stays for a few seconds observing her sister. He’s not sure if he should be mad and scold her or be extra gentle. She mumbles something and suddenly sits up, she spots Kenny standing a few paces in front of her.

At first, she looked surprised and teary-eyed at the sight of his older brother, but then something clicked in her to remember that she was supposed to hate Kenny. She snarls at him. She stood up, took a swig of her bottle of beer, and harshly placed it on the table with a bang.

Kenny continues to observe her. He’s being careful, he doesn't want to stress her out and might ignite a fuse that will wreck the whole place. Kenny’s impassiveness made Karen even angrier and she staggered toward him.

“Are you not gonna say anything?” Karen asked him and the smell of alcohol hit his face. Kenny is shocked by the thought of his sister drinking in the first place, and it takes a long time for him to process what to say. He’s even more in shock when Karen suddenly pushes him. “Will you just say something?” Another push comes again, “Just say something!”

“I don’t know what you want me to say,” Kenny says softly.

“Fucking anything!” Tears start falling down her cheeks. Kenny tries to comfort her by pulling her into a hug but she smacks away his hand.

“It’s always like this, you didn’t say anything when you’re sad, you didn’t say anything about S-Stan, you didn’t say anything when you dropped out, you didn’t fucking say anything at all and you just left me!” Her voice quivers as she utters those words with anger.

“Karen-”

“You’re not even angry at me for drinking, do you even care about me at all?”

That last part was the last straw, Kenny grabbed his sister and pulled her into a hug, and no matter how she struggled for Kenny to let her go, he just hugged her tighter until she calmed down and sobbed quietly on his shoulder. Kenny strokes her hair, “Karen, I-I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry for making you feel like this, I thought distancing myself would be better for the both of us, I-I didn’t want people to think that you’re associated with me”

“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard,” Karen replies and sniffles.

Kenny stopped hugging her and instead held her shoulders to look at her face, all puffy with tears and flushed with emotions. He smiled at her. Karen kept her gaze on her brother, “We’re family, we’re supposed to be there for each other, you told me that Kenny,”

Kenny hugged her again, “I know, I’m sorry for forgetting,”

“Just don’t forget this time,” Karen replies,

They kept hugging for a few minutes and Kenny asked her how she was able to get alcohol and told him it was given to her by someone because they said it would make her feel better, though she didn’t disclose who it was, Kenny will probably hunt down whoever gave it to her and give him a beating of a lifetime. “I would love to talk more, but I think I’m going to vomit,”

Kenny immediately ushered her to the bathroom and let her lean down the toilet to vomit out the toxins. He held her hair away from her face and patted her back in comforting strokes. As she regains herself, Kenny tells her that he’s going to get water. As he goes back to the kitchen, he sees Stan standing awkwardly to the side. For a moment he forgot that Stan existed.

“What’s gotten into you?” Kenny says as he grabs a glass and opens the fridge to get water.

“I think I just witnessed something I shouldn’t have,”

Kenny rolls his eyes at Stan, “Dude, you’re a fucking ghost, that hardly matters to you,” He pours the water into the glass and closes the fridge.

“Shit, dude”

Kenny sighs, “It’s fine, just.. don’t mention it again.” He leaves Stan behind and goes back to Karen slumping on the toilet bowl, exhausted from everything. She coaxes her to sit up and gurgle out the remains of her vomit and drink water. He miraculously also convinces her to brush her teeth even though her eyes are fluttering as sleep clings to her.

He carried her to her room and laid her down on her bed. He took off her shoes and gently tucked her in. She’s already fast asleep and probably dreaming now. Kenny thinks of how to convince her not to stop drinking until she’s older and probably will make himself the prime example not to. He really needs to talk to her about their whole situation and maybe he can tell her about Stan too. She might think that he’s crazy, but it’s better than staying quiet and lying, right? That’s at least what his sister deserves.

Before he goes back to his room, he grabs the unfinished bottle of beer on the kitchen table and drinks it down. Stan is still in the kitchen and sees Kenny down the whole bottle flawlessly and gives him a concerned look.

“Don’t give me that look, it’s been a while okay?”

“Sure, dude, I’m not judging” Of course, he doesn't. Stan was the alcoholic in their group, he probably wished he could drink one right now.

Kenny goes to his bed and flops down, he looks at the clock on his desk and sees that it’s 2 AM. Weird, he thought. Kenny debates whether to tell Stan that he’s going to tell Karen about seeing him as a ghost, but then again it would be funny to see his reaction. Kenny ignores the chill in the room and falls asleep quickly, while Stan gazes at the moon by his window.

Morning came and Kenny went out of his way to make breakfast early for Karen. While he busies himself, Stan keeps asking or making random conversations, not asking about what they’re gonna do for the rest of the day.

Karen emerges from her room and walks unsteadily to the bathroom. When she’s done, she sees her brother sitting at the kitchen table with pastries from Tweek Bros and cereal for two. Kenny smiles sheepishly at Karen and gestures for her to sit down. She awkwardly grabs the chair next to him and sits down.

“Do you remember what happened last night?” Kenny was the first one to end the silence.

Karen immediately flushed and covered her face with her hands. “I do, and I’m sorry for p-pushing you,” Kenny laughs and reassures her that he deserved it after everything. Silence befalls them again. Stan is just floating around trying not to look invasive in the conversation.

“I have something to tell you,” Kenny starts again.

Karen gives it a few seconds, avoiding making eye contact with his brother, “C-Can it wait until after breakfast?” Kenny smiles and nods to her. They both ate their breakfast, Karen eating a little too fast.

Stan floats beside him and asks if he should be here when they start having a heart-to-heart talk, and Kenny, instead of giving a nod or a wink for an answer, says out loud “Stay, I want you to be here”, and Karen quickly looks at his brother weirdly. Stan’s expression, however, was in utter shock, and Kenny can’t help but laugh a little louder. Karen stops eating and asks Kenny if he’s alright. Kenny runs his hand through his hair thinking of the right words to say. Stan just continues to float beside him telling him if he’s serious or crazy. He made it this far, might as well go all out.

“Karen, um.. If you’re wondering why I just randomly talk out of nowhere, it’s because Stan is a ghost and I can see him.” Stan facepalmed and groaned.

“Why are you reacting like that? I thought you would be proud of me?”

“This is not what I meant or even imagined for my reveal to go,” Stan groans again louder and pinches the bridge of his nose like he usually does when he was alive when something frustrates him.

Karen tries to think of what to say, her mouth opens to say something but immediately closes it. “I don’t think.. I-I think I’m still drunk,” She finally decides on being drunk or dreaming about this.

“I know it sounds insane, but believe me” Karen nodded slowly at Kenny.

Their conversation lasted about an hour with Kenny informing his sister about what happened from the start of Stan’s return. She thinks Kenny is crazy but has the heart to at least let his brother finish the story. Karen still doesn’t believe him and asks if Stan is a ghost and can see through stuff, then he can look under her bed and tell them what he sees. Karen knows that it’s the doll that Kenny gave her a few years ago, hidden under her bed as a sign of hatred towards his brother for neglecting her, but she might clean the doll up again after today. They still need to clear up some things, but she’s glad to be able to talk to her brother like this again.

Kenny narrates every time Stan says a word or what he’s doing, and after a few minutes, he came back and told Kenny what she hid under her bed, and Kenny was right.

Karen is still not convinced so Kenny converses with the air or Stan that he should do the paper trick, and that’s exactly what they did. Kenny gets a piece of paper and placed it on the table and then it suddenly floated above them. Karen says that it might be him blowing it up, so they moved away from the table and the paper still flew above on its own. At that moment, Karen felt like she was going to faint. So apparently his brother was right. Stan is a ghost and he can only see him.

Karen has had enough of everything and decides she needs to nap. He assures Kenny that she needs time to think about everything. Kenny lets her go to her room. Stan and Kenny are the only ones left again.

Kenny lets a breath out and stretches his arms over his head, “Now that’s taken care of, time to go and talk to another person,”

“I can’t believe we just did that,” Stan says incredulously

“I can’t even still believe you’re still here,”

Stan sighs, “Who are we meeting anyway?”

“You’ll know them when we get there,”

“Dude.”

Kenny prepares his things to bring, which is not a lot, just the pocketed cigarette from yesterday, his phone, and his wallet.

 

They walked toward the school and turned to the back alley next to it. They are both greeted by the goth kids, wearing all black, carrying an expression of despair, and smoking cigarettes. The whole gang is there and a new member. Although they are no longer “kids”, they’re still known as that and they don’t seem to be bothered by it. Stan’s expression is blank, but he can see that his brows start to furrow. Henrietta sees Kenny and smirks. Kenny is once again struck by her beauty. She threw her cigarette to the ground and stomped on it. She clicks her tongue and the whole group’s attention is on Kenny.

It’s like looking at a pack of black wolves. Two people are sitting down on the floor and the rest are leaning on the wall. Kenny gulps down the nervousness. He took out the cigarette from his pocket, the one that was given to him by Henrietta yesterday, and approached the group.

Stan looks even more nervous than he is and just floats silently behind Kenny. He might already know now why he’s here or why he chose to talk to these individuals.

“And here I thought, you were gonna ghost me again,” Henrietta says with her hands on her hips.

Weird choice of words, Kenny thought.

“Care to share your lighter?” Kenny waves his cigarette

“Kenny McCormick, as I live and breathe,” Michael says leaning on the wall of the alley. He’s grown even taller than the last time he saw him, still lanky, and his curly hair flops down on his forehead when he moves. He throws his lighter at him and Kenny catches it. He lit his cigarette and quickly puffed out smoke. At the same time, the group told Kenny what they think of his sudden appearance to them.

“Oh, I thought you killed yourself already,” Firkle says, the short stack has grown a bit but his appearance did not change. Still a baby face. He seems to be fidgeting with a butterfly knife too.

“Tch, still a poser I suppose,” Pete says as he puffs out a cloud of smoke. He no longer dons the red highlights, but instead has red-violet highlights that somehow match his appearance.

“You got weed?” The new goth kid asks who Pete says is Ethan because he scolded him for asking a stupid question since they’re all trying to cut off weed in their life, which Kenny finds unusual.

Their words are overwhelming and of course, out of pocket to say out of nowhere. The weirdest thing is that Stan is utterly quiet about everything.

Kenny puffs out another cloud of smoke before asking them, “First off, I don't have weed, second, all of you are still insufferable, third, I have something to ask you,” He directed the last part to Henrietta.

“You just know the right words, Ken” Henrietta smirks.

Kenny takes another deep breath, almost choking on the smoke, “Did Stan say anything to you before he died?”

The group looked at each other for a while and then looked at Henrietta as if waiting for her decision on what to say.

Henrietta cocks her head to the side, “Yes, he told us something about your outing before he left.”

“You probably forgot, but back in 4th grade, he had his goth phase when Miss Perfect rejected him, but in high school, he came back to us one day for some advice, and we continued to hang out ever since,” Michael said nonchalantly.

“He’d tell us a lot about what’s been bothering him, in the form of a depressing poem or song, or just ramblings. In return, he listens to our problems too.” Pete added.

 

“He was good company, you’d be surprised about what he said about you and your gang,” Firkle said as he played with his butterfly knife.

Kenny's jaw drops and his fingers get so sloppy that he drops his cigarette as well. So he told all of them about his problems and not his group of friends? He starts to shake and he looks at Stan. They made eye contact but Stan immediately looked away from him. He looked back to Henrietta and sighed out his shaky breath.

“W-What did he tell you?”

Henrietta smirks, “Now Kenny, this information is very valuable to us but we also think that it’s something not to be easily shared.”

“Not for free, of course,” Firkle says as he twists and turns the butterfly knife in his hands flawlessly.

“What? You want me to pay?” Kenny asked, a little annoyed. He definitely does not have the money to give them, unless it’s five dollars which he has on right now.

“Pssh, you think we really care about money?” Pete scoffs at him.

Kenny resists the urge to roll his eyes at them. Of course, they don’t.

“Money is just a piece of paper that gives the government control all over us, ”

Before they rant more about capitalism, Kenny asks what exactly they want from him

“I want you to steal something for us,” Henrietta says in a tone as if she’s a mafia boss.

“Specifically our Necronomicon,” Michael says as he stomps down his finished cigarette.

“The what now?” This day just keeps giving Kenny surprises.

“Clyde stole it from Firkle out of a dumb dare and we’ve been trying to get it from him ever since,”

“Bitch conformist,” Michael replies as he gets another stick of cigarette from his pocket. Kenny wonders if any of them already have lung cancer.

“I will skin him when I catch him and burn him,” Firkle says as he makes a stabbing gesture with his butterfly knife.

Ethan then suggests letting his ego and insecurity be his downfall and they both chuckled at that.

Kenny makes a gesture with his hands to get their attention, “Wait, wait, so you want me to steal it back, and then you’ll tell me what Stan said?”

“The Necronomicon is important to us as Stan is important to you, it’s a fair trade,” Henrietta shrugs.

“Stan is a real person, it’s completely different!” Kenny argues back, starting to feel frustrated.

“We probably know him more than you. Do you want to know what he said or not?” Henrietta replied, raising one brow at him, which is also another sign of “this is the only deal you get”.

Kenny gives up. “Fuck, fine.” The Goth kids all looked at each other in triumph. Kenny asked them why they hadn't stolen it back themselves, and they all replied that they tried but couldn’t get past the jock brigade. They also reasoned out that Kenny is an expert thief. They either said that to persuade him more or they know how quick Kenny’s hands are. They probably learned about the last one from Henrietta.

Kenny continues to remind himself that he made it this far and this might be the only way he can get information about Stan when the man himself is so silent about it. The whole time Stan is just silently behind him listening intently to their conversation. They will have to talk about this soon to clear up the tension between them. He’ll just have to be patient and get this over with.

Notes:

Kudos and comments are appreciated thank you!
Things will start to get even spicier in the next chapters.

Chapter 5

Summary:

Kenny does some things to get the Necronomicon and makes a little oopsie, especially when he meets people on the way.

Notes:

Woah! A new chapter? I apologize, for the lack of updates, a lot has happened, but I never forgot about this fic!
I've got more planned for this story, but college has been kicking my ass! :D
Anyway, here you go!

“Okay, let me get this straight.” Kenny pinches the bridge of his nose, hoping to stop the growing headache to comprehend this situation.

“I’m going to steal your book-”

“The Necronomicon.” The Goth kids interjected.

“The Necronomicon from Clyde’s house, which is tucked inside the closet of his room, and I should go in tomorrow cuz he’ll be staying at Tolkien’s house for ‘Bro night’?”

The Goth kids all nodded in unison. Kenny asked again how they got this information because he still couldn’t believe they couldn’t get the book themselves.

“It’s easier for us if someone did the stealing.”

Fair enough. Kenny took a deep sigh mentally preparing himself, he might need to go around and scope his house to see his possible entrances and exits for this plan to be foolproof. It is a good thing that Kenny had experienced breaking into people's houses, most of which he learned from Cartman when they were kids.

He told the group he would do his best to get it back. Before he leaves, Henrietta comes up to him and tells him good luck and that they will be waiting for him in this alley the next day at the same time. At the last second, she was about to say something to him but decided not to, and patted his shoulder and went back to her group. He looked back at them and waved goodbye. When he looked away, he was face to face with the ghostly appearance of Stan, glistening from the sun.

“I can explain-”
When Kenny heard that, he immediately walked right through him, heading toward Clyde’s house.
“You don’t have to, you’re either going to lie to me or make a lame-ass excuse like all the other times I’ve asked for an explanation,” Kenny said as he continued to walk forward.

“What I said is the truth, Kenny. I don’t remember anything that happened when I died. I-I did hang out with the goth kids, but anything that involves how I died, I don’t remember.”

Kenny stopped in his tracks. Stan sounded defeated but also genuine. He might be lying again. Or not. Regardless if he tells the truth, he already promised the goth kids that he will do it. They leave it at that and continue their way to Clyde’s house conversing about the heist to be successful. As Clyde’s house comes into view they see someone already at the door talking to Clyde. This might be a bad time after all, he was about to turn back home when he saw that Clyde was talking to Butters, and just at the back of his house, he saw Cartman getting inside through the window.

“What the heck is Cartman doing there?” Stan said.
“Something stupid..” Kenny was about to add another word until the cogs in his brain started turning, this might be the perfect chance for them to get into Clyde’s house. He can act like they caught Cartman breaking inside and act like a hero for capturing Cartman stealing or whatever Cartman is planning, and in return, he gets the Necronomicon as a reward! It sounds like a foolproof plan in Kenny’s head, but Kenny is not intelligent for plans like these, he’s just a dreamer.

Kenny slows his pace puts on his hood to hide his face and places his hands in his pockets to avoid attention to him. He veers to the back away from the area where Butters and Clyde can see him. He sneakily approaches the back of the house and can hear that Butters is talking or more like campaigning for Cartman as a student body President and talking about their plans for change in school, and hilariously enough, Clyde is paying attention. Well, it’s mostly just Butters asking Clyde what he wants in school and granting that when Cartman is elected. Stan was just following him throughout and told him he was gonna check on what’s Cartman up to, so he floated up into the ceiling unto the second floor.

Kenny climbed through the window and didn't make a sound as he was inside. Seems like no one except Clyde is in the house. He went up the stairs carefully, and when he was up the stairs, he heard Cartman’s giggling in Clyde’s room.

“Holy shit, this is such a good fucking blackmail,” Cartman’s laughter echoed through the walls.
Kenny peers into the room and sees Cartman sitting on the floor in front of Clyde's closet holding a shoebox that seems to be filled with a bunch of dildos and strap-ons and images of Clyde getting pegged by Bebe wearing a plethora of costumes in different positions.

“Fuck, Clyde is such a dweeb,” Cartman snickers as he looked at the pictures and takes a photo on his phone.

Kenny was too stunned to speak and sees Stan just floating above him with a concerned look at the whole thing. Cartman doesn't notice that Kenny is there, that is until he sees the Necronomicon beside Cartman, it seems like he also took it out while he was rummaging through Clyde’s closet. Kenny gasped when he saw the book, and that’s when Cartman turned around and saw him.

“Kenny?! What the fuck dude! What are you doing here?” Cartman whispered loudly,
“What are you doing here?” Kenny returned the question with the same aggression. “Blackmailing Clyde to win his vote duh,” Cartman continues to take pictures of Clyde’s kinky pics, not wasting time on his plan.

“Butters is literally doing that outside and it’s working, Clyde doesn’t have the capacity to actually care about politics, just what he wants,” Kenny reasons to him.

“Butters is just a distraction, and Pshh, you think I don’t know that? This is more than just that, Clyde is a quarterback on the football team, he’s got a podcast with a lot of followers, he’s got contacts outside of school, and his girlfriend is like Regina George fucking up the girls, and it looks like she’s fucking him in the ass too,” He replies holding up a picture of Bebe straddling Clyde, Cartman chuckles, “This is a good one,” and takes a picture of it. He looks back at Kenny and waves his phone at him, “Imagine all the influence he’ll do on his friends to vote for me when I blackmail him, no longer the perfect jock boy, but just a whiny bitch in heat, to a woman too,” he laughs.

“This is ridiculous,” He hears Stan commenting on the situation and covers his face.
Kenny kept looking at the Necronomicon the whole time while Cartman was talking, thinking he should grab the book and dash out. Cartman notices this and picks it up.
“You know, you didn’t reply when I asked you why you’re here, but I guess I don’t have to,” He raises the Necronomicon at his face, opening the book and flipping through the pages. “What? Did the Goth turds tell you that you need this to talk to Stan or something?” Cartman said in a mocking tone.

Despite Cartman being the only person to treat him like a normal after the incident, he never fails to get on Kenny’s nerves. He would always try to calm himself and avoid hurting Cartman since he would always flip the situation against him. He’s cunning, manipulative, and just pure evil, but he’s also the smartest guy in the wrong areas. Kenny often wonders why they even remained friends. But for some reason, this comment about Stan was the last straw in Kenny’s conscience.

“Oh Kenny, this won’t bring him back-” Cartman was cut off when Kenny lunged at him grabbing the book out of his hands, but Cartman pulled harder.

“Give it to me!” Kenny shouted, no longer whispering.

“How will I know you won’t snitch on me? Bitch!”

It escalated to them wrestling on Clyde’s floor, grunting and twisting around each other. Kenny is slender compared to Cartman who is just pudgy and way heavier than him, which makes it harder for Kenny to put him in a headlock or hold him down in general. He can hear Stan telling him that Clyde has caught on to the commotion in his room and that Butters is trying his best to hold him off, but Butters can’t even block the quarterback. When Clyde is finally in the room, Cartman finally lets go of Kenny and the Necronomicon.

“What the fuck? Cartman? Kenny? What the fuck are you doing in my room!”

In an instant, Kenny took his chance to grab the Necronomicon and jump out of Clyde’s window without missing a beat. He landed on his foot, not as gracefully as he thought, and felt a strain blooming in his ankle. Adrenaline still kicking in, he limps his way away from the house and lets the situation unfold behind him. As he was leaving he could hear Cartman blackmailing Clyde.

When the wind in his lungs catches up to him, Kenny finds a bench and sits down trying to calm himself. After a few deep breaths, his heartbeat slows down, and looks at the book in his hands. At least he got what he wanted. He starts to overthink that this encounter with Cartman and Clyde will backfire fast and more shit will happen that he’s not prepared for. For another minute, he forgot about Stan, he jolted up and looked around him to see any signs of a ghostly friend. Panic starts to set in until he looks back at the bench and saw Stan sitting down.

“Geez, calm down dude, it looks like you saw a ghost, hehe, get it?”

Kenny gave him a terrified look. Has he been here the whole time and didn’t notice? Or did he just manifest himself? He was too tired to think about the whole thing so he took a deep breath and sat down beside him.

“I stayed behind a bit when you dashed out, u looked like Batman jumping out of that window,”
Funny enough, Kenny remembered when he was Mysterion when he was a kid, having a reflex similar to Batman. “Cartman told him he won’t tell anyone about uhh.. the pegging if he tells everyone he knows to vote for him and to make an episode in his podcast with him campaigning for his presidency in school.” There was a pause.

“Of course Clyde agreed immediately, even crying while begging him to not spread the pictures,” another pause, “Don’t worry, Cartman also said to not tell anyone that you were there in the room.”

That caught Kenny’s attention immediately, he thought he would drag his name to Clyde and get a beating the next day. That seems so not like him to protect Kenny like that, did he feel sorry for him? Sorry for making comments like that about Stan?

“Huh, weird.” was Kenny’s reply.

“Well, at least we got the book, I can hit up Henrietta and tell her I can bring this tomorrow instead,”

“I think that can wait, you can rest the whole day tomorrow,”

That doesn’t sound so bad. So that’s what he did, he went home limping, Karen was home and surprised him with dinner, which was just cereal. She noticed he was limping so she bandaged him up without asking any questions as to how he got it. However, she would ask about how Stan was doing, mostly in a strained voice, still trying to accept that Stan is a ghost and not some weird coping mechanism for him. It was fun conversing with her and with Stan joining in too. It felt mundane and normal. It was also the first time she ever cared for him like that since they were children. It made his mood better. Everything ended when he crashed into his bed ready to pass out, and the image of Stan staring at him and saying “Goodnight, dude,” and closing his eyes to dream town.

Notes:

Kudos and comments are appreciated!

Chapter 6

Summary:

Kenny works at Tweek Bros and had a fun conversation

Notes:

Hello! This is a long one, but I enjoyed writing it.

Kenny is driving on a cold winter night on a forest road. The stars were shining brightly in the clear sky. Tall pine trees were towering over the car as he drove, and they looked like huge dark spikes ahead. No music was playing nor the radio on, just the calm silence of the night and the blinking red of the clock on the Dashboard reading 2 AM. It was calming and peaceful, he stretched his hands on the steering wheel. He doesn’t feel sleepy, he feels more energized than ever before.

For the first time in his life, Kenny feels free. He sees the empty road as a sign to speed up some more. He sees the skies being littered with falling stars and his amazement grows. He rolled the front door window and pushed his head out. He’s never seen something so beautiful in his life. It’s like he can see the galaxies so sharp and clear, no need for a telescope. He howls at the night, with one hand at the wheel and the other reaching the stars. He doesn’t feel intoxicated. He feels like he’s falling in love with the world. He feels alive.

After a few minutes of marveling at the stars, he ducks his head back inside the car, both hands on the steering wheel. A sense of comfort passes him. He takes deep breaths and presses on the gas pedal. A sudden rustle of movement grabbed his attention beside him.

“Where are we going, Ken?”

Kenny’s heart sank immediately at Stan’s voice. He does not dare look at him. His grip on the steering wheel grew tighter that his knuckles became white, his breath became ragged, and his vision began to blur, but he never let go of the gas pedal, he sped through the night.

“Can you slow down for a bit?”

He starts to breathe heavily, his heart racing so fast, and he can feel the tears pricking his eyes. He didn’t listen but sped up instead.

“Dude, slow down,”

Everything hurts. It hurts so much. He wants to vomit. He wants to scream. He wants to let go, but something is holding him down. He sped up some more. Tears are now falling out of his eyes, he can’t see the road anymore. It’s dark and the only thing he can distinguish is Stan’s voice telling him to slow down, asking him where they are going, and what’s going on.

The volume gets louder every time he asks which sounds like a sharp static banging at his eardrums. He can’t take it anymore. He can’t control himself. He shouts back without looking at Stan, “I’M SORRY! I’M SO SORRY!” He sobs as he drives throwing back apologies every time Stan speaks. For a second he thought it worked because Stan stopped asking questions, and he can feel his fingers again. He lets go of the gas pedal and the car starts to slow down. Tears are still falling down his eyes.

Silence fills the car.

“Look at me, Kenny”

It surprised him to obey, he slowly turned his head to look at him.

Like a snap of a finger, he wakes up. He was drenched in sweat and tears. He jolts up from his bed, wincing at his ankle as he stands abruptly forgetting the sprain from jumping off Clyde’s window. He looks around the room and notices that it is the same as how he left it. Messy. He wasn’t driving. It was just a dream. He sighs a shaky breath.

He wills himself to focus on what is important. He looks over at the Necronomicon on the floor. He realizes he’s going to meet the Goth kids tomorrow to get more information about Stan. As the thought of Stan enters his mind, a sharp pain hits him in the chest. Supposedly he’s going to get the book today since Clyde has his “bro night” going on but thanks to yesterday, and surprisingly with Cartman’s help, he’s ahead of schedule. Knowing that Cartman blackmailed Clyde, Kenny is sure that this “bro night” will just be Clyde talking about voting for Cartman in the elections. So he’s got free time today until he remembers he’s got work to do.
He heads out of his room to the kitchen to see that Karen has left a note on the fridge. “Going out with Tricia to do stuff, will be back tonight. Food is cereal. Take care, Ken,” To do stuff? Kenny can think of a lot of different “stuff” they could be doing, and he hopes it’s not the bad kind. Tricia is Craig’s little sister and they’ve been friends since they were kids, so it’s probably not that bad. He can always ask her when she comes back home.

As he finishes his breakfast of cereal, that’s when Stan shows up passes through the walls, and sits right in front of him. Kenny was taken aback when he first saw him, remembering his dream, but he was starting to forget the details of what happened. He decided to greet stan first.

“How’s your morning, Stan?”

“Pretty chill, went for a ‘stroll’ and South Park looks busy as always.”

“Hm, the usual then,” He hadn't looked at him directly when he came, he continued to stuff his mouth with cereal.

“Found out it’s October now too” He looks back at Kenny with still eyes. Ah, how could he forget? It was October soon. His birthday. In a few weeks. Kenny remembers that he disappeared for a bit and it made Kenny worried so much.

They’ve held eye contact for a while until Kenny picks up his bowl of empty cereal in the sink to wash it. “Do you want to do something for your birthday?” It’s better to be direct about it than beating around the bush, Kenny thinks.

“Hmm, I wanna visit my grave”

That’s normal, of course, “Do you want me to bring you something, or uhh bring it to the grave?”

“Flowers and a letter, make it extra cheesy,” Stan immediately replied.
Kenny was surprised by the response, he whips his head around and sees Stan with a cheeky grin. Then he raises his eyebrows with a snicker. “Okay, fine.” He accepted the offer so easily. Of course, he can’t say no, it would be disrespectful, especially to the dead, and it’s been so long since he visited Stan’s grave. The last time he went there it was the day of his burial, his family and friends pushed him away. He had to wait behind the cemetery for everyone to leave until nighttime to visit his grave. “Our beloved son, brother, friend. Your smile, love & heart will be missed forever. Your Memory Lives On” was inscribed on the plaque. Tears were not present, just the void and silence of the night. He went home and couldn’t sleep.

 

Their morning ended with the agreement that he’s gonna do those things but the flowers would be picked up from the side of the road since he couldn’t afford the nicer ones and the letter would be written on the back of a receipt or a tissue paper with shit on it. That was mostly just for teasing Stan and they both laughed about it.

 

One great thing about Kenny’s decision these past few weeks is laying off work he had that was killing him 24/7 after deciding to help Stan find peace. First of all, it took them by surprise to see him suddenly quit. His reason was mainly due to poor health and that he had something important to deal with that required his attention. Surprisingly, they were considerate enough to allow it since they did notice how it affected Kenny, like seeing his health slowly deteriorate. It was hard for his coworkers to see him go, especially the friendship they bonded over hating work, but they knew this decision was for the best. They all wished him good luck in whatever he needed to do.

However, the only work he allowed himself to do was working at Tweek Bros. He realized that his mission required being close to most of his old friends or classmates, so Tweek Bros was the place to gather information since he noticed that’s where most of them hang out.

Kenny told Tweek beforehand that he could do full-time work with him but Tweek told him he could come earlier if he wanted to, but decided to keep his usual shift at 3 PM - 9 PM, and also gave him free liberties to skip a day off as long as he has valid reasons, either way he’s very lenient with Kenny’s decisions. It might be just out of pity, but Kenny appreciates it. At the end of the day, the pay is alright and he gets leftover baked goods after it, so he couldn’t be ever more grateful.

He told Stan that he was going to work at Tweek Bros the whole afternoon. Kenny asked him if he wanted to do some spy work by watching over Clyde if he ratted him out to his friends and even spy over their “bro night” to get some interesting information from them.

“I’m down to do that, you sure you don’t want to sneak in as well? It could be fun, you could cut off their electricity and I could do some supernatural shit to scare them off,”

“The point is to spy on them to get intel, not terrify them, besides, they can’t see you and they can see me, Clyde will probably kill me at first sight, and my ankle is kinda fucked” Kenny replied walking with a slight limp in the direction of Tweek Bros.

“It would be funny tho, like see them be scared, you can pay back what they did to you,”

He looked at Stan when he said that, he was holding a calm yet serious expression as he said it in a way where he was going to punish them and let Kenny see that they deserved to suffer. But what kind of punishment will he bring to them by floating a piece of paper? He remembered the time when he encountered Craig and the bullshit he did with his supernatural powers, he chuckled at the memory.

“Yeah, it would be hilarious to see what kind of shit you’ll pull at them,”

They both smiled at each other. The conversation ended there, and when they pulled up at the back end of Tweek Bros, they stood in front of the door with an awkward silence in between them.

The real reason that Kenny suggested to Stan to go and spy on Clyde was not entirely for intel, but because the nightmare he had still haunted him, and wanted to be away from Stan until he forgot about it.

“You sure you don’t want me to uh..” he coughs and corrects himself, “You don’t want to come with me?”

“Dude, we’re already at Tweek Bros, besides-” Kenny hears a loud clatter through the door and a loud shriek from the man himself. “It’s been a while and Tweek needs help.” He shrugs.

Stan took this as a sign that Kenny probably wants to be alone for today, so he nods at him. “Sure, dude, I’ll see you later and tell you what information I find, and maybe some spooky shenanigans along the way.” He winked at him and waved goodbye.

“Not too spooky I hope,” Kenny says under his breath.

He watched Stan leave his periphery and did a big sigh and opened the door. The first thing he saw was flour everywhere, on the floor, the tables, and even on Tweek. Tweek was on all fours wiping the floor while one hand of his was massaging his lower back. It seemed like Tweek failed to put the flour back on the shelf and instead slipped and fell dropping the flour everywhere.

He didn't notice that Kenny came in and continued to just grumpily clean off the floor with murmured curses about how his back hurt thanks to Craig making him bend in different ways that the normal body could not.

Kenny walked slowly so as to not catch Tweek’s attention and made a beeline toward his locker. He opened it, cringed at the tiniest creak, peeked over his shoulder, and saw that Tweek was still focused on wiping one area aggressively while he cursed about Craig and getting him back at him.

Kenny put on the cafe’s apron and when he closed the locker, it made a loud clang. Tweek quickly stood up in his direction and immediately regretted it. He screamed and crumbled back to the floor. Kenny rushes over to him aids him to stand up and pulls out the chair for him to sit.

“So sorry I scared you like that, man, I thought you needed the space and you were really into uhh cleaning the floor,” Kenny said sheepishly,

Tweek just puts his hands on his face, “Aghh! Please tell me you d-didn’t hear any of that?” He twitches in his seat.

“Heard what? That you did gymnastics in bed with Craig all night? Sounds fun, honestly,” Tweek looks up at Kenny and sees him with a stupid grin on his face.

“Ugh, no point in hiding, I’m gonna kill him when I see him!” he scrunches up his hair.

“I don’t blame you. I bet it was mindblowing though,” Kenny snickers,

Tweek rolled his eyes, “Pssh, if it weren’t for that dick of his I-I would’ve killed him,”

“Oh, so you did fuck? I thought it was just gymnastics,” I'mTweek gave him the look of ‘I’m gonna fire you if you don’t shut up’ look. Kenny stopped with the jokes and helped clean up the area, or mostly he did it alone while Tweek tidied himself and went back out to the counter to handle orders.

When everything was done, he headed up front to help Tweek with the customers. It was a mundane afternoon. Not a lot of people came by. No sign of old friends either, not even Henrietta, who he was expecting to drop by. It was a slow run.

The free time was spent mostly with Tweek and Kenny catching up with what they’ve been doing these past few days. Kenny, is obviously, lying about being busy with other stuff and not preoccupied with his dead friend. On the other hand, Tweek surprised him with information about Cartman, saying that he’s been campaigning around town door-to-door with Butters. Word got around that Kyle might be joining to run against him too just to prove a point. People don’t usually care about the student body elections but having Cartman, Kyle, and even Wendy made it entertaining to look forward to it. Seems like a Cartman and Kyle thing to do competing with each other, like how it has always been since they were children.

“Who are you voting for though?” Kenny asks,

“Wendy. I lost trust in Cartman and Kyle a long time ago, heck your whole friend group was shit, except for you, you’re one of the good ones, Ken,” Tweek said while sipping his coffee directly from his thermos. They hadn’t talked about his friends or used to be friends before. Tweek was the kind of guy to just let it go if it made someone anxious, he knew how it felt, but something tugged at Kenny that made him curious.

“What about Stan? You trust him too?”

Silence. Tweek was thinking hard to choose the right words to say, instead, he sighed, drank his coffee, and looked directly at Kenny, “Like I said, e-except for you,”

This did not satisfy Kenny's curiosity, this also looked like the first time a conversation like this happened. What other chance can he get without making it awkward about Stan? Tweek is not unaware of him being the cause of his death. “It’s alright, I kinda want to know what you think of him,”

Another silence, he hesitates for a moment then decides to close his thermos and put it on the counter like he planned to have this conversation at one point. The two of them just sat next to each other behind the counter at an empty cafe, a perfect time to talk about this, without anyone, and without the ghost of Stan lurking behind him.

“When you guys were all together," Tweek begins, "It would just mean trouble. You were always up to no good and even made me fight Craig in fourth grade. We both ended up in the hospital with bad injuries and we both swore to hate you guys for manipulating us to do that, but I couldn't be mad now since that’s how our relationship started, ” Tweek seems to smile fondly at that thought, and blushed when he saw Kenny smirking at him,

“Agh, anyways! Y-Years passed and we all grew up, everyone noticed how you guys had slowly drifted apart. Cartman with Butters, Kyle with David, and sometimes with Wendy, Stan hangs with us since he’s part of the football team with Craig, but I did see him with the Goth kids at one point,” That piqued his curiosity even more. So the Goth kid's affiliation with Stan was deeper than he thought.

“And you had your own thing going on of course,”

That thing where Kenny was at his all-time low having no grasp of his reality and just surviving day to day with alcohol and drugs, coping with how his family was falling apart as well as he was failing in school. He doesn’t remember if he noticed his friends were drifting away, he was asleep in a ditch somewhere. He does remember jumping from different friend groups and partying with them having a wild time, and even some of those moments were with Craig’s gang. He nodded to Tweek for him to continue.

“Craig and Stan used to be close and would often talk to each other during practice. Mostly how he can’t get a hold of Wendy anymore and that it terrifies him to lose her, how hard it was to live with his dad after his parents got d-divorced, and how Kyle was acting strangely around him. Their conversations would always revolve around that, but suddenly, Stan became so closed off towards him, or anyone on the team. He skipped practice, didn’t talk to Craig anymore, and would only come to competitions. He’s angry one time, then unresponsive, next he would be fine with deep bags under his eyes, then back to being an asshole reeking of alcohol.”

Kenny remembers that Stan had a big alcohol issue back then, aside from that, he did know that Stan’s family has been in the dumps as well. Kenny didn’t know it was that bad. The ghost of Stan he hangs out with now is completely different from when he was alive. As if the problems he carried when he was alive were no longer present, only the truth behind his death can set him free.

“One day, during practice, Craig noticed that Stan kept looking at his bag the whole time. He wasn’t listening to the coach and kept glancing at it. Even on the field, his mind is elsewhere. When they hit the showers, Craig waited for everyone to leave, he knew that Stan was always the last one to go in. When the locker room was empty, he saw Stan’s bag and quickly opened it, he thought it was probably drugs explaining the mood swings, but..”

Tweek looked uncomfortable to continue, Kenny saw Tweek’s fingers start to shake. Kenny can’t help his heart beat faster. He clenches his palm around his knees for purchase. He can feel the bouncing of Tweek’s leg on the floor.

“W-what did he see, Tweek?” Kenny hears his voice break,

Tweek gulps, “H-he saw a g-gun,”

Kenny’s eyes widened. That sinking feeling came back again. An unexplainable dread washes over him. His mind was running on fumes to know what happened, to find out every detail, and to know everything. This was the first time he was ever talked about what was going on with Stan since he died 3 years ago. Everyone avoided him or would just attack him without giving him any clue or any idea what happened or what was going on around him when he wasn’t himself. He quickly grabbed Tweek by the shoulders. Face close to each other. The sudden reaction made Tweek screech.

“What happened next? What did he do? Did Stan do something?” Kenny demanded,

“NGH! I don’t know! Craig told me he left after that and then the next day Stan quit the team and didn't show up for weeks!!”

Kenny was shaking Tweek at this point and he could feel Tweek trying to remove his hands on his shoulders but Kenny’s grip grew tighter.

“What else do you know?!” Kenny breathes hard against him.

“I don’t know! I only know he d-died the next month!”

Kenny stops shaking him and drops his hands from Tweek’s shoulders. His face drops. He almost forgot. He died because of him. That’s the only truth he knows.

“AGH, Dude my fucking back!” He sees Tweek wincing and realization strikes him,

“Oh, I-I’m so sorry, Tweek, I didn’t mean to-”

“It’s fine Kenny, I get it,” Tweek massages his shoulders. No one uttered a word.

A cold shiver runs down his spine. ‘You’re one of the good ones’, echoes in his head. Was that a lie? Another pity from Tweek? He doesn’t know what to feel. He doesn’t get it. For a moment, he let time pass. They sat there for a few minutes in silence, until a customer opened the door and they went to do their job. They didn’t speak of it like it didn’t happen. The conversation repeated in his mind and his body was on autopilot serving customers. Surely, something was going on with Stan before he died. But What bothered Kenny the most was that he wasn’t there for his friend when he needed him. He can’t do anything about it. He’s too late.

Notes:

The problem of not updating for years is realizing how inconsistent you are in updating your chapters. That or you don't keep notes of them. I keep notes in my head which is a bad idea. So here are some changes I made in the previous chapters and key points after many events!

1. It's been three years since Stan died and close to a month now since he's Kenny's ghostly friend.
2. Kenny no longer works at other establishments due to focusing on helping Stan, but still works at Tweek Bros.
3. Carol, Kenny's mom, is not with them but works in the city and sends money to Kenny every month.
4. Kenny has the Necronomicon and will deliver it to the goth kids the next day for an exchange of information about Stan.
6. Clyde likes getting pegged.
7. There's an election going on.

Chapter 7

Summary:

Kenny realizes what's important and locks in. Stan discovers something he can do that might be good or bad in the future.

Notes:

I'm back with my inconsistent updates. It was fun writing this since it shows Kenny's growth from the past. I may have overlooked some stuff so I'd appreciate some callouts about it.

Kenny must be doing this whole investigation wrong because he just keeps getting more questions than answers. He recalls "what we know” and “what we don’t know." The list of ‘What we know’ definitely grew with Stan hanging out with the goth kids and sharing his secrets with them, and that Stan was struggling this whole time even carrying a gun with him, for whatever purpose it was. Kenny doesn’t want to state the obvious.

Kenny did a lot of shitty things three years ago, but it was fine! His life was already fucked up, to begin with, so it was fine to get high, get drunk, and service people to get money. He already knew from the beginning that he had no future. Living in poverty and having parents who don’t pull their weight off the gutter was not a perfect place for a child to grow up, and it was fitting for Kenny to fall rock bottom with them too. But he never expected Stan to be like that. Maybe Kenny was too focused on his own shitty life; he didn’t notice that his friend was struggling too.

Kenny may be reckless, but he cares for the people who make his life a bit bearable. One of the moments that he remembered experiencing genuine happiness was when he was with his friends, mainly Stan, Kyle, and Cartman.

He tried to think about other stuff to keep his mind off what happened, but his conversation with Tweek made his thoughts go back to Stan making his walk back home gloomy. It’s a different kind of sorrow that he felt for a while. It used to be the self-deprecating kind, but now he just feels sad for Stan and how lonely it must have been for him.

 

He reached his house and opened the door to see Karen setting up dinner.

“Oh, perfect timing,” Karen said as she pulled out two plates.
His eyes immediately settled on the bucket of KFC Fried Chicken.

“Woah, where did you get that?” His tone has a hint of excitement.

“Well, Tricia and I bought it, and we couldn’t finish it all. She didn't want the rest, so she just gave it to me. There’s still one drumstick, one thigh, and one wing left.”

 

Kenny’s glad that her sister has a friend that she can trust, and it honestly warms his heart how their relationship has changed ever since they were both honest with each other. It makes Kenny think that his sister always wanted to reconnect with him, and this small act of eating together is a good start to mending their relationship. The thought made him smile.

Karen saw it immediately and was flustered. After a few seconds, she returned the smile. Then they both sat down and started eating.
It was a bit awkward eating across each other, but damn, the fried chicken tasted so good. It’s been a while since Kenny tasted it.

They spent the whole time just eating in silence, savoring every bite. Now he remembers why it’s his favorite. A painful memory popped up as he recalled that one time when Cartman just ate all the fried chicken, and it made Kenny cry for hours. Speaking about friends, a question came to his mind that he wanted his sister’s opinion on.
Perfect timing, as they were about to finish the meal too.

“What do you do when you just find out your friend was severely depressed before and you have no idea about it?”

He heard Karen cough up the chicken she was chewing and stood up to get a glass of water to drown it out. “That came out of nowhere. Is this about Stan? Is he here with us? I totally forgot about him for a sec.”

She sat back down, facing her brother. She seemed done with eating since she sensed this was going to be a serious talk regarding the “ghost friend” situation and tried not to think that her brother was crazy a thousand times again and be the support he needed this time.

“Yeah, it’s about him, and don’t worry, he’s not coming back tonight; he’s spying out Clyde’s place.”

“Oh, is it the bro-night thing they have? Tricia told me about that, they have this get-together every week. They change houses to hang out in too. She told me that they stayed at Craig’s house, and all she could hear was some random boy talk, and it was unbearable. Why is Stan there? ”

Kenny didn't want to disclose everything to her, so he just replied that it was to get information that might be useful to their investigation. Karen didn’t seem convinced one bit, but she didn’t want to pry into it. She decided to move on to the question that Kenny started.

“So, I’m guessing you found out about Stan being depressed, and it made you feel bad for not doing anything about it?

That was a direct hit, Kenny took a few seconds to reply, “It made me realize how terrible of a friend I was.”

Having heard that made Karen irritated. “You weren’t just a terrible friend; you were a terrible person too, a completely different person-” Her voice started to rise, but she stopped herself. There’s no point in getting mad anymore. This is a new start for them as siblings, and she didn’t want to ruin it by bringing up the past.

"I know, I still regret how I acted before. I’m sorry about that.” Kenny gave her an apologetic look. Her brother seemed genuine. She decided to trust him. Again.

“No, it’s alright,” she sighed. She took her time to recollect her thoughts and took a deep breath.

“If I found out my friend was struggling with something, I would do my best to support them in any way I can, and my main priority is making sure that they wouldn’t hurt themselves, making sure they take care of themselves, and being there with them. But in your case, since... Stan is a ghost, and nothing can be done, so it’s best to be honest with him about this new realization you have. I think he would appreciate it.”

Kenny let his sister’s words absorb in his head. He thinks that it is better to be upfront with Stan instead of getting mad at him all the time. It’s not his fault that things became the way they did. It’s beyond his control. And whatever discovery he finds about his friend, he should just be there for him. He regrets how he treated Stan even when he was a ghost—the constant scolding and harsh words he would throw at him. But he also realizes, step by step, he’s trying to be more accommodating and accepting about it.

Karen noticed how deep in thought her brother was, so she slowly cleaned up the table and the plates. It took a while for Kenny to realize that everything was cleaned up.

Before Karen went to her room, she looked at Kenny still at the table, and said, “You’ll figure it out, Ken. Goodnight.” With that, she closed her room, and Kenny was alone. It was a tiring day with a lot of thoughts swirling around.

He headed to his room, took off his parka, and slumped directly into his bed. The exhaustion kicked in, and before he shuts his eyes, he thinks of Stan, hoping that at least he’s having fun spying out at Clyde’s house.

 

“YO DUDE, WAKE UP,”

Kenny bolted upright. His body was still groggy, but the urgency of the voice made his soul wake up immediately. He saw Stan right up his face, beaming with excitement. It seemed like something interesting happened back at Clyde’s place.

“You would not believe what just happened last night.”

Kenny rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. “What happened?”

Stan smiled and sat down cross-legged in front of him. Kenny was taken aback since it looked like he was sitting on his legs, but he didn’t feel anything. He was so close to his face. It made Kenny feel uncomfortable to be staring at him for a long time while he talked.

“First, he ratted you out coming to his room, but Cartman told him not to tell anyone else. But we all know that Clyde can’t keep his mouth shut, and he also didn’t know the reason why you came there, so he assumed you stole money from him.”

Kenny cringed at the statement. Of course, that was what he first thought of, but Cartman told him not to tell anyone else that he was there. Is Cartman protecting him? It seemed unlikely for him to do that.

“He didn’t tell them about his whole peg thing, but then Tolkien asked why Cartman was there, which was the perfect segue about campaigning for his presidency. Craig, Tweek, and Jimmy seemed convinced, but Tolkien wouldn’t budge.”

“That’s cool, I guess? ” Kenny does not give a shit about this whole election thing. But he feels like this might affect the cliques around school, and it will turn into a whole tragedy in the long run since Cartman is involved.

“Did you find out anything relating to you? ”

Kenny saw Stan’s face dip for a bit and looked down, hesitating to say it.

“Uhh, I found out that Kyle and Wendy have been hanging out a lot and they were speculating that they’re dating.”

Kenny’s eyes widen in shock. Kyle and Wendy? That’s out of touch. Kenny does not believe it one bit. Clyde is dumb enough to speculate things and derail them into gossip, and it’s always far from the truth.

“That’s the dumbest thing I’ve heard.”

Stan perked up when he heard that. “I know, right! Even Craig and Tweek disagree, and they say it’s just them plotting to win against Cartman. They also said that it was unlikely to happen since Wendy was my girlfriend and, uh, Kyle was my best friend, so it didn’t make sense at all.”

Stan sounded hurt when he said that, but he continued, “They then talked about, uh, me for a while, thinking about how I would react to it.. it was a lot. They just continued about uh the past and I kinda blanked out for a bit," His tone sounded somber and regretful.

He said Tweek was there, did he also hear Tweek tell the guys that they talked about Stan carrying the gun? If he did, Stan would’ve mentioned it, or he could be hiding it. Either way, Kenny still plans to talk to him about it anyway, but this is not the right time to talk about it.

“Hey, dude,” Kenny called out to him. “It’s fine, you don’t have to say it if you don’t want to. Stuff was in the past. Anyways, I don’t think this was what you wanted to talk about that made you so excited to share.”

"Oh, right.” He looked back at him with a smile and excitement.

“It’s actually related to it. When they started talking shit about me, I got mad and started throwing stuff at them, pulling out books, breaking glass, and Oh! I turned the lights off! I just felt this strong pull of energy from me, Like, dude, it was crazy! It felt like it was straight out of a horror movie, and they were scared shitless! It was hilarious, dude. I wish you could see their faces.”

The whole time when Stan talked about scaring them, it made Kenny’s bones chill. It was off-putting that Stan would do this instead of like a funny prank. He tried to make his face look amazed, but deep down, he was worried about the extent of Stan’s ability.

“Tweek fainted and Craig was carrying him as they scrambled to leave the house, but I got there first and slammed the door shut! Then I drove them to a corner, and they were shaking! Or maybe it was because they were drinking and high, but it didn’t matter! I felt great and just stood there in front of them. At one point, I stopped. I let my presence disappear. And I just observed them.”

What the fuck? Kenny never expected Stan’s powers to go this far; he thought it was only for shits and giggles and harmless tricks, but he didn’t take into consideration that it could terrify people, which is dumb that he didn’t think of it since Stan is a ghost after all which he is capable to do things like scare people. Kenny noticed that his powers would work when Stan felt something like when he was happy lifting paper or when he was having fun playing around back at the cafe. But when he was mad he was able to manipulate light and break glass. It seemed that his abilities were tied to his emotions. The stronger the emotions are, the stronger his powers become.

“They tried their best to tidy up the place but couldn’t finish the whole thing because I would mess it off again, which was funny. They gave up, went to bed, and passed out immediately. Except for Craig, who was staring up at the ceiling as if he could see me watching over them.”

That made Kenny's heart drop to his stomach. What if they can see him? That would be good then. Kenny wouldn't be the only one to see a dear friend who died years ago. But deep down, he doesn't want to share Stan.

“Did you call out to him? ”

“Oh, no. I just smiled, and then he went to sleep.”

Kenny made a weird face; he didn’t know how to react to that, so he chose to be honest.
“That’s creepy as hell, dude. Why did you come back in the morning, though? ”

“Ah, it’s because I tidied up the place before I left. I felt bad for trashing Clyde’s house, so I spent the rest of the night arranging stuff. I couldn't do much with the broken glass, so I just put them outside.”

Kenny understands why he would do that, but probably another reason was that when they woke up, they would think that everything was just a bad dream. Clever and manipulative.

“I guess that’s really cool, but I think you should stop scaring people with that..it, uh, might hurt people.” It definitely will not end well for the people that he will be involved with this.

“Yeah, man, I get it. I don’t want that either. It’s pretty cool, though,” Stan quickly responded and said with a smug face.

Kenny appreciates the reassurance. They didn't push through with the topic or it will lead to another argument which will just ruin the start of the day. Stan probably realized that he should be careful with his strength, but he might need to keep an eye out for Stan if something else happens. He remembered that he needed to talk to Stan about what Tweek said, but it seemed like an awkward time to talk about it now after what he just revealed.

Then Kenny remembered that today he had to return the Necronomicon to Henrietta. Damn, another day of figuring stuff out about Stan. He got up from his bed, slightly surprised at how his legs just passed through Stan as he was sitting in front of him.

“Well, today is another big day,” he said, picking up the Necronomicon on his desk and holding it up toward Stan. “Since it’s time to return this and maybe find more stuff about you,”

Stan stood up from the bed and looked at Kenny. He probably thought that Kenny would be disappointed in him again for lying about what he had done in the past like how he never mentioned that he hung out with the Goth kids before. But Kenny remembered what Karen told him last night. He took a deep sigh.

“Dude, I’m sorry about getting mad at you for not telling me about whatever shit you were going through, it’s in the past, and I want to solve this with you. So it’s fine. We’re both figuring this out together anyway.”

Stan was shocked to see him react this way. He expected that Kenny would change his mood again and be closed off. Despite not having a corporeal body, this response makes Stan feel warm inside.

“Nah, it’s alright, Kenny, let’s do this.”

Notes:

This fic ain't dead yet! Just busy with life, I might update another chapter soon cuz the next one is a big chapter. Especially, since it's going to reveal more about Stan.

Chapter 8

Summary:

A good day out with friends and a bad night of truth.

Notes:

Trigger warning: half of the chapter deals with a sensitive topic that might be alarming to some, so proceed with caution.

Kenny sent a quick text to Henrietta that he had the Necronomicon, and asked when they should meet up, he immediately got a reply from her saying “Good. Meet me at my house at 6 PM.” He checked the time on his phone and it was still early, 9 AM. They had 9 hours left. He groaned thinking about the waiting time. He replied with a thumbs up to Henrietta and made another quick text to Tweek to ask if he could come early to work. It took a few minutes for Tweek to reply and he only said that he closed the cafe for the day since he wasn’t feeling well. He looked at Stan with suspicion, who was just floating above him the whole time looking at his phone,  that he might be the one to cause this since he gave them a hard night after all. Stan saw his expression and caught on to what he was thinking.

“Okay, my bad, but it was funny”, He shrugged and chuckled.

Kenny rolled his eyes at his statement and dismissed it,  “Alright, since we still have a lot of time before we head over to Henrietta’s place and I don’t have work today, what do you want to do?”

That was a risky question because Stan might choose something stupid like scare more people with his abilities or do dumb shit involving the supernatural, but Kenny doesn’t know what to do while he waited for what might be the most important meeting in his life. He’s going to find out more about Stan now, and the fact that the Goth kids kept it a secret for so long must be serious. Deep down, Kenny was very anxious and antsy about what awaited him in a couple of hours.

"Hmm, hear me out-” Stan said with great enthusiasm but was cut off,

“Please, don’t involve me in terrorizing people, I’m down for some silly shenanigans but I draw the line at scaring people till they’re sick,”

“Oh come on, I wasn’t even planning on suggesting that, dude!” Stan crossed his arms, “I admit, I did go a lil overboard with them last night -Hey! Stop giving me that look!” He pointed at him accusingly,

Kenny raised his hands to protest, “Nah, man, sure, I get it. I’ll stop bringing it up so often, just no more violent stuff,”

Stan crossed his heart and raised his hand, “I promise I won’t go overboard, just lifting paper in the wind with a smear of shit to their face,”

“Eww, that’s gross, dude!” Kenny said with disgust on his face,

“You found it funny the first time!” Stan exclaimed

Before he knew it, they were laughing. Kenny felt warm and the anxiety disappeared. They kept teasing each other for a while, and there were moments when Stan was about to hit him after throwing a jab at him but stopped halfway through since it would just be weird for his fist to just pass through Kenny’s head, so Stan instead rubbed the back of his neck.

“Okay, I’ve decided," Stan said while putting his hands together.  "let’s just roam around town. Go to an arcade or the park. Or anywhere, just casual hanging out, like we used to do.”

“That’s not-” That’s not what he expected at all.  He thought it was going to be something else like visiting his grave or going to the lake and just talking about something. How does hanging out like normal with a ghost even work? But the way Stan said it made him want to agree instead of questioning him about it. He said it in a way that he’d been wanting to ask him to hang out. 

In a quick moment, Kenny realized, he had never spent time with Stan just the two of them when he was alive. Of course, there were moments in Fourth grade where they played video games together but there was always the presence of Cartman and Kyle. Often they would separate in pairs with him staying with Cartman and Stan with Kyle.

A deep fondness struck Kenny, he always wanted to hang out with Stan when they were kids. He thought that he and Stan weren’t compatible and just accepted that fact. 

“S-sure, man, I’m down for that,” Kenny said with a bit of embarrassment at the realization of wanting to spend time with him.

“Cool, let’s head out then,” They both smiled at each other and Kenny started to prepare for the day ahead. 

Kenny told Stan to wait for a bit since he’ll need to take a bath first, when he opened the door, he sees Karen eavesdropping on the other side.

“Sorry! I didn’t mean to! I just heard laughing..” She sheepishly moved to the side, flustered from getting caught.

He heard Stan telling him to give Karen a hello, and they exchanged pleasantries with Kenny being a messenger. Before Kenny goes to the bathroom and Stan just floats around the McCormick household, Karen told him that he hasn’t heard him laugh in a long time and apologized for eavesdropping on their conversation.  She also told him to enjoy his time and that she would study in her room all day.

After a much-needed bath and a cereal meal, Kenny dried his hair, put on a white shirt, and wore his signature orange parka. He gestured to Stan that he was ready to leave. Both said their goodbyes to Karen and then they were off.

 

It was a bit awkward at first walking around town, but they were able to shake it off just casually throwing random topics anywhere. Kenny didn’t feel the shame he used to when people looked at him crazy when he looked like he was talking to himself. In his mind, he’s walking with his friend to the park.

The park was full of kids playing basketball, and others were at the playground.

The two of them found an empty bench to sit on. What did they expect going to the park anyway? There really wasn't much to do since there were people around, so they spent 30 minutes looking at kids playing basketball discussing tactics, and putting bets on their winning team. Kenny remembered that Stan is an athlete so of course he knew shit about sports.

While they were in a heated argument about how the kid fouled, one kid failed to receive the ball, and it flew outside the court rolling directly to Kenny’s feet.

Stan gave him an evil grin.

“Why don’t you try to show em how it’s done, Kenny?”

“Oh hell, no,” 

“Come on, do a quick half-court shot and I’ll assist you,” Stan gave him a thumbs up

Kenny kept saying no to Stan while he tried to convince him how cool it would be when a stranger showed them a cool trick.

“Hey, mister! Can you throw that back please!”  The kids started calling out to him.

Reacting to the shouts, Kenny stood up from the bench and picked up the ball.

“I know you want to do it,” Stan said in a teasing tone. Deep down, Kenny does want to test it out. For once he wanted to look cool in front of the kids instead of being looked at like a crackhead.

He took a deep breath and strutted toward the court holding the ball, “You should say ‘I’ll do you one better,’ and then shoot,” Stan whispered toward him then floated away close to the basketball ring with a grin and two thumbs up.

It sounded like a great idea but now that he was in the court with a bunch of kids who looked at him weirdly, it finally dawned on him how he was an idiot. But he couldn’t back out now, he dug his grave when he picked up the ball and walked up towards them.

“I’ll do you one better,” he managed to croak. Kenny took a deep breath, did a 360-degree jump, and threw the ball directly to the ring.

Everyone in the park was shocked to witness what just happened, their eyes followed the ball. Surprisingly, the ball was completely off course to the ring and the kids were ready to throw insults at this weird guy who watched them play, steal the ball, take a shot, and fail miserably. But to Kenny’s eyes, he sees Stan jump and reach for it with both hands and dunk it right into the ring. 

There was a moment of silence. There were no claps. No awe or amazement. Then a kid broke the silence, “You’re a piece of shit, mister.” The rest of the kids decided to join in on kicking Kenny out of the court. He did hear one kid say it was cool, but there was a sarcastic undertone behind it.  Kenny felt embarrassment to his core and heard Stan holler with laughter.

He left the scene ducking his head down as Stan laughed at the whole interaction.   

 

There were still a couple of hours left before they headed to Henrietta’s house. While they were chatting, the arcade came into view, and they both looked at each other with excitement and went inside. 

Kenny and Stan stepped into the neon-lit arcade, beeping machines and excited chatter are heard all over. The smell of popcorn and the faint hint of cotton candy filled the air, making the place feel like a portal to another world.

“This place never ceases to amaze me!" Stan exclaimed, eyes wide with amazement. "I haven't been to an arcade in years."

Kenny grinned, it’s been a long time since he stepped into the arcade too especially when you made fond memories here before things went to shit.  "I know, right? It's like stepping back in time. Which game should we try first?"

Stan glanced around, his eyes landing on a classic Pac-Man machine. "How about some Pac-Man to start? A little warm-up before we hit the big games." 

It’s not like Stan can actually play the game, so Kenny assumes that he’ll be the one playing while he watched. After getting their tokens to start playing, Stan swiftly took the token right off Kenny's hand and placed it inside the machine. It caught Kenny off guard to see Stan effortlessly take it and play as if he were physically right there. 

Kenny shook his mind off the shock and reminded himself that this was just a normal day of hanging out and nothing was out of the ordinary. He placed the token on the other Pac-Man machine and started playing too. Both started a competition to see who had the highest score and surprisingly, both were tied. 

They then proceeded to play other games such as Skee-ball, Whac-A-Mole, and even claw machines. No one bothered them since they were busy with their games and with their friends. Kenny does have that appeal of drifting in the background.

Hours passed and they both garnered a decent amount of tickets that could be worth more than just a candy but not enough to win them the big prizes. They were hunched down getting the tickets from the basketball machine after having another argument about what happened in the court on who could shoot the most hoops

While they were busy pulling out and counting the tickets, they heard footsteps and a loud voice approaching them. “Since you’re criticizing me how I throw the ball, why don’t you prove how good you are, Kahl? Come on, come on,-”  came the all too familiar whiny voice.

“Alright already! Get the fuck off me!” replied another familiar voice, but this time, dread came over Kenny. 

When Kenny felt the two presence near him, he looked up to see Cartman and his hand over Kyle’s shoulders as they rounded the corner toward them.

He’s been used to seeing Cartman a lot lately but seeing Kyle? His heart immediately sank to his stomach and it was so hard to breathe all of a sudden. Kenny hasn’t seen Kyle this close in months. Kyle was still taller than all of them, a head taller than Cartman. He seemed to just keep getting taller with a slender body frame. He stopped wearing his green ushanka and now lets his red curls loose above his head. He wore a green hoodie and black sneakers while Cartman wore a sweater and grinned wildly at Kyle. It was unnerving seeing his two friends being so close when all Kenny remembered how they fought so often.

Kenny was once again taken off of his trance when he saw Stan move forward toward them. When Cartman and Kyle finally noticed Kenny, he stood up from crouching and clenched the tickets he got from the machine in his hand. Kyle’s eyes immediately locked on Kenny and Cartman was looking at them curiously waiting for the scene to unfold.

For a moment, time seemed to stand still. The room’s chatter faded into the background as painful memories resurfaced. Kyle’s expression mirrored Kenny’s—a mix of surprise and unease, but Kyle’s turned to hatred so quickly.

It would’ve been a different scene if the person right in front of Kenny was alive. Now it’s evident based on Kyle’s expression that he can’t see Stan at all. 

The silence was so deafening that Cartman had to break it. He let go of  Kyle’s shoulder and with a smug look, Cartman approached Kenny and passed through Stan’s body. "Kenny!" He said, his tone fake acting like they're best buds.

Cartman draped his arm over Kenny tightly, slightly shaking him, his eyes no longer locking with Kyle’s but laser-focused on Stan’s back wondering what his reaction is. "I didn't expect to see you here," Cartman said to him.

Kenny still didn’t reply to Cartman. “Kenny, Kyle told me that he’s really good at basketball, but we both know that those days are over,” He laughed coaxing at Kenny to agree with him. 

Kenny saw Kyle clenched his fits. “I’m leaving,” He turned and left them. Just uttered two words and left.  

Stan didn’t do anything,  his back turned to Kenny, facing where Kyle once stood.

“Damn, so much for a heart-warming reunion. I had a hunch that I’ll be seeing you more often now Kenny, I didn't expect today though,” His grip on his shoulder grew tighter.

He leaned closer to Kenny’s ear, “You’re planning something don’t you?” Chills ran down Kenny’s back. With all his might, he pushed Cartman away from him.

“What do you want?” Kenny replied with a look of fury behind his eyes.

Cartman raised his hands as if to calm him down. “Shouldn't I be the one asking you that? I mean, you were hiding for a long time and now you’re out and about, even sneaking into Clyde’s house and stealing the goth kid’s book, like, what’s that about?” He chuckled.

Cartman placed his hand on his hips, “Don’t worry, I won’t get a straight answer from you, I eventually find out anyway. Just a reminder, he’s not coming back, Kenny, move on,”

Cartman approached Kenny giving him a pat on the shoulder. “I better race back to that redhead, he gets antsy when I’m not around,” he laughed again. It was starting to get annoying.

He walked away from him and passed through Stan again, but before he was going to make a turn away from Kenny, he stopped in his tracks and looked back at him. 

“Oh, Kyle is planning on holding a small gathering at Stan’s grave for his birthday. You should come.” He waved goodbye and left. 

After the interaction, the air seems to flow back into Kenny’s lungs. It was quick, but it felt like it lasted way longer. 

Stan was still standing looking toward where they left. Kenny had to call out to him twice till he gazed back at him. His face held a vacant expression but after looking at Kenny it turned into a face full of remorse and adding a smile to it made him look pitiful.

“I almost forgot that I was dead back there,” Stan chuckled and rubbed the back of his neck. “It never occurred to me that everyone looked different now, that’s growing up for ya,” Stan released a big sigh and raised his head high as if to stop tears from rolling down his face, but he immediately looked back at Kenny with a smile. No tears.

He put his two hands together again, “Alright, I think it’s time we head to Henrietta’s place,”

Kenny was taken aback but nodded along instead, “Yeah, let’s go”

It was hard to process what happened but it’s not something they need to dwell on since the important thing right now is whatever the Goth kids have to say about Stan.

The sun sets slowly engulfing the world in darkness. Kenny sent a text to Henrietta that he was coming over and she replied with a thumbs up. They reached in front of her doorstep, but before they could ring the doorbell, Kenny asked Stan if he should reveal the whole situation where Stan is a ghost and only Kenny can see him, 

“I think it’s in our best interest if we don’t tell them, they might not tell the truth if I’m here,” which made sense in Kenny’s head, so he agreed to keep everything a secret.

He pressed on the doorbell and an argument can be heard across the door, Kenny assumed it must be her mom and she was scolding her if she invited in a crackhead again. The yelling continued until a loud bang was heard like closing a door too hard, and in a moment, Henrietta opened the front door.

Kenny was immediately flustered to see her in comfortable clothes, just a plain black sweater over some black sweatpants. She had some minimal makeup on. Kenny guesses that it was one of those lazy days where she spent most of her time in her bed. Kenny always admired her in whatever she wore but there’s something so intimate about someone when they are in their comfy clothes. They just look very cuddly. 

“Sorry about that, my mom gets anxious when I bring people around, but don’t worry I told her that you were coming and she hid back in her room,”

Kenny used to have a close relationship with Henrietta’s family since they used to go out before, it must have been hard to face him after the issue with Stan’s death but she still had the heart to let him inside their house without facing each other.

“You got the book?” Henrietta demanded.

Kenny pulled out the Necronomicon out of his Parka showing it to her. She grabbed it from him and flipped through the pages just to make sure. There were some dents made, probably due to the mishandling of Clyde, but other than that it was still intact. Henrietta gave a satisfying look, “Good, come inside,” she gestured for Kenny to go inside.

They walked upstairs with Stan floating along behind them. When they reached her room, Kenny’s nose was bombarded with cigarette smells, and a burning of incense and candles lit on the floor. The room he used to visit was upgraded with more metal band posters, a bookshelf filled with dark-colored books, and a bunch of skulls and cryptid art on her walls. 

Kenny just stood there taking it all in and didn’t even notice Henrietta’s presence right in front of him. She was way too close that he thought she was about to get kissed, but it ended quickly when she closed the door behind him. “You forgot to close the door,” She gave him a smirk, and Kenny blushed, meanwhile Stan looked at them in disgust.

“Alright, since you’ve made your part of the deal, it’s time I do mine,” She put back the Necronomicon inside her drawer next to her bed and got a notebook inside the drawer as well. She gestured for Kenny to sit on the floor and he obeyed.

She sat in front of him, the notebook on her lap. Kenny realized that they were surrounded by candles that formed into a circle. He tried not to dwell on it too much. While they were just staring at each other, Stan was just right above them observing how this will go.

“So uh, are we waiting for the other goth kids?”

“Nah, I told them not to come, it's better when it's just the two of us” She casually replied as she flipped over the notebook she was holding. It looked crumpled and the color of the cover looked faded.

She finished scanning the notebook and closed it, holding it up in front of Kenny, “Do you recognize this notebook?” She asked him, 

“No, no I don’t,” He replied, curiosity and concern filled him

“This belonged to Stan, and he would write all the poems, songs, or even just straight-up random thoughts in it, it felt more like a diary though,”

Kenny’s eyes widened in shock and his heart raced once again, he was speechless and Henrietta noticed his reaction and continued.

“A few years ago, we used to my friends and I met up every Thursday night to just write our thoughts and share them, be it the cruelty of humans, the violence, the injustice, and even heartbreak. It’s a way for us to vent our feelings, you may call it cringe but it helped us.” She once again opened Stan’s notebook and looked through the pages. Kenny can see the sadness in her eyes.

“If you remembered, Stan stopped hanging out with us in the fourth grade, but he suddenly appeared on my doorstep 3 years ago and wanted to hang out, it was during those nights when we would write. At first, I was hesitant since Stan completely changed, he’s your typical jock, but at that time, he had that desperate look that he needed someone to talk to. So I let him in and the others were skeptical too but accepted him right after he wrote one of the saddest shit ever,”

At this moment, Kenny stole a glance at Stan who was still floating above them looking at Henrietta, Kenny was confused as to why he didn't move over to glance at what she was reading in his notebook. He couldn’t see his face but he remained completely still. Kenny looked back at Henrietta who was distracted a bit on the page she was on.

“He then told us not to tell anyone that he hung out with us, and considering what he was going through, we respected it. We acted like we didn’t know each other in school but at night we would comfort him while he was drunk on his ass sobbing his heart out or just not talking the whole time and just sitting there. He wouldn’t tell us anything specific, but would just mention that his parents were terrible, he couldn’t get hold of his relationships, and how his ‘friends’ don’t get  him at all,” 

She closed the notebook placed it on her lap again, and faced Kenny with utmost seriousness, “He would always talk about Kyle and they would fight all the time. It’s obvious since they even show it in school. You might not have noticed it, Ken, but something was going on between them. Stan would also mention how Wendy would pressure him to get his act together and his parent’s divorce would push him to his limits. He wouldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep, and forced himself to act like he was fine but within these walls, he would break down in front of us, pouring his heart out in this notebook.”

Chills ran down Kenny’s spine and the room started to feel colder, and in his periphery, he saw the flickering of the flame on the candles surrounding them. 

“We couldn’t do much but comfort him and encourage him to talk it out with you guys, but he would just ignore it. Then one day, he came here with a smile on his face saying that he was going on a camping trip with you, Kyle, and Cartman out in the woods. He said that you took your dad’s car so you can drive them out,”

A memory flashed before Kenny’s eyes, the dream he had. The car. Stan. 2 AM. Cartman invited them to hang out after he told them that he could drive.

He remembered that his father taught him early on how to drive to do errands in his dad’s beat-up car. Even without a license. He was at the age where their parents would dump all the work on him to earn for the family. What did happen to the car?  He only remembered a long time in the hospital, a long time facing the law, his father in prison, his mother left to work, and his brother gone. He was dissociating all through it and taking whatever it was said to him as the truth. He killed Stan. He killed his friend. He lived through it. He lived with that truth for three years. And it might be true after all.

“He was excited to hang out with his friends, but the next day.. he died,” He can hear Henrietta sniffle, he didn’t expect to see her in this state. She was someone who has a strong personality and accepted the harsh truth without faltering, but he can see that Stan was a close friend to Henrietta too. 

Guilt erupted within Kenny, he knew how this would just be a dead end. Nothing changed.

“It’s all my fault,” he heard himself mumble, he looked down at his palms and closed his fists tightly.

“I don’t think that you did it, Ken,” Henrietta interjected,

Kenny’s eyes already filled with tears, “You don’t have to make me feel better-”

Henrietta quickly cut him off, “No, Kenny, cuz it doesn’t make sense that you did it at all,”

Kenny remained in silence, and looked back at her, both of them had tears rolling down their faces as they reminisced about the death of their friend.

“Don’t you get it, Kenny? They didn't find a body, that’s why no evidence pointed towards you, you weren’t charged with murder and neither were those guys, but they kept on insisting it was you, don’t you find it suspicious?”

Kenny felt like he was gonna vomit. The cold became unbearable and he started to shake. Tears stopped falling and were replaced by shock, his head started to hurt as he tried to recall the past. How did he land in the hospital? Did they fight? Did he crash the car? It was too long ago he forgot. He wanted to forget.

The room whirled around him, a dizzying blur of shadows and pain. He crumpled to the floor, clutching his chest as searing agony consumed him. Breathing felt impossible, the cold seeping into his bones. The candle's flickering light faded to darkness. He felt Henrietta’s touch telling him to breathe but he couldn’t.

He remembered that Stan was still there. His vision was blurry but he tried to look for him. He saw him floating above him. Stan looked like he was covered in black smoke. He reached his hand out to him. 

But just as the world spun into darkness, he managed to whisper his name before collapsing into unconsciousness.

 

Kenny woke up in an unfamiliar place. His head still throbbed a bit and his throat was dry. His body felt weak and sore. He closed and opened his eyes to check if he could asses the place more clearly. Then it hit him like a truck. 

He remembered that he was at Henrietta’s place and they talked about Stan. The thought of Stan immediately sent a shock through him and he got up from Henrietta’s bed and instantly regretted it as a wave of nausea hit him. 

He looked around and couldn’t find Henrietta anywhere. He looked over at the desk next to her bed and saw a glass of water and a note saying that she was sleeping outside in the living room while he rested and to call her if he woke up. 

He took the glass and drank it down. He called for Stan next but no movement or reaction happened. He convinced himself that he might be away to take a break or just roaming around. He saw the notebook on top of the desk. He took it and sat up on Henrietta’s bed.

He hesitated about opening it. Kenny spent a few minutes looking at it. He glanced over the clock and it read 2 AM.

Kenny tried to remain calm. He wanted to know what Stan was writing in this notebook. He wanted to understand what his friend was going through. He opened the notebook on a random page, saw a poem, and read it. 

“I feel unheard, yet I haven't said a thing.

I feel the winter blues but it is still spring.

Time and time again, the world seems shit

But this time, the truth hurts to learn and admit.

 

Everything rots. My relationships, my brain.

Everything sucks. The exciting, the mundane.

Everything makes no sense, or I'm just insane.

Everything's shit. My stupid life and name.

 

My friends start to drift away, out of reach.

School seems pointless, what else is there to teach?

My family fell apart, but did I belong?

I feel so useless, and I'm scared I'm not wrong.

 

But I stay anyway. Even if it hurts.

The world's terrible, it can't get any worse.

If everything's fine, why is nothing fun?

If words were bullets, where can I find the-”

 

He couldn’t finish reading it, and quickly closed the notebook and placed it back on top of the desk.

Kenny sat with his face buried in his hands, questioning everything that had unfolded. The dead weight of the truth loomed over him, while the fear of the unknown pressed forward.

Notes:

The poem at the end was written by a dear friend of mine named @TurtleJawz on Twitter! Go check him out!
I let him watch clips of "You're getting old" and "Ass Burgers" hence the word shit thrown in twice.

We're now close to the final arc of the fic and it's bullshit all the way down here.
Just two more main events to look forward to, that is the birthday party and the election.

Once again, your comments and kudos are greatly appreciated!