Chapter Text
“No way,” Kyle threw his history textbook into his locker and slammed it shut, giving his full hate-infused attention to his interlocutor. “I offered to help you study and you refused; this is not my problem.”
The larger boy’s upper lip twitched slightly as yet another strand of overgrown bangs dropped from his beanie to block his piercing eyes. Whatever had possessed Eric Cartman to bother him for help was beyond the realm of fathomability, but with begging hands and a brazenly demented smile plastered on his overweight face, Cartman was resolute in ruining Kyle’s afternoon.
“That’s because you kept talkin’ shit for hours ,'' Eric batted his eyes. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t need your help now.”
In all the years Kyle had been forced to be in the same school as Eric, he couldn’t understand why fate forced him to continue to associate with the chubby maggot. Yet here he was, still talking to this waste of 12 human years.
“All that shit , was U.S. history, Cartman; you know the same shit that’s going to be on the final tomorrow,” Kyle rolled his eyes at the sheer stupidity of the lazy slob. “How did you even make it to the seventh grade?”
Eric’s friendly facade vanished for a more agitated demeanor.
Kyle tried to move past the irritant only to be pushed back toward his locker, and not gently either.
While time had been good enough to give Kyle a slight height advantage over his adversary, it hadn’t done much for his strength. Eric could easily use his bulk to physically shove, hold, or choke Kyle at will; a point proven by experience. It seemed over the summer Kyle had managed zero physical growth outside of his unruly hair which he still kept contained under a very well-worn trapper hat.
“Listen, Kahl,” Eric spat, mispronouncing his name probably on purpose. “I’m not going to summer school because of some stupid final. You better help me.” At least he’d learned how to say school correctly, maybe there was hope for him yet, though Kyle doubted it.
“Why don’t you just throw a temper tantrum like you usually do,” Kyle straightened up trying not to show how much hitting the locker had hurt. “It’s always worked for you before.”
Eric stepped closer causing Kyle to press hard against the locker door to keep his distance. Eric had always been a bully; a psychopath who’d stop at no normal means to get what he wanted, but since coming to middle school Eric had really revved up his antagonistic game.
Kyle had suspected that Eric was trying to make up for the fact that he was still the fattest and possibly most undesirable kid in their grade, but even that didn’t act as a good enough excuse for Eric’s constant need for physical and mental torment. Maybe puberty was being unkind? Whatever the reason, Kyle found himself on the receiving end of that violence more than he cared for.
The abuse had gotten so bad in fact, Kyle had made it a point never to be alone with Eric too long without another one of their friends present. It was a good strategy except Eric didn’t seem to stick to it. Avoiding Eric wasn’t possible when the lard insisted on seeking Kyle out.
Sadly, fate thought it would be fricken hilarious to schedule Kyle and Eric together in the last class of the day: history. None of their other close friends shared the class with them. Well, there was Tolkien; the keyword being was.
“The school board is refusing to hear my complaints, remember, Kahl? It’s like you never listen to me. They haven’t allowed me near the board since the incident!”
Kyle couldn’t really remember what the incident had been. He’d been fortunate enough to not get dragged into that little escapade, but he knew somehow a chemical spill had happened resulting in three board members suffering severe burns.
“Then don’t bother them, go to the principal,” Kyle offered. “Tell him Miss Elderberry needs to give you an extension on the test.”
“Don’t you think I’ve already tried that, Kyle!?” Eric was getting madder. “I was told I’d have to take summer school if I fail the final. They’re seriously gonna make me do it and there’s no one to copy in class!”
“Maybe you should have thought of that before you gave Tolkien a concussion!” Kyle wasn’t trying to take a moral stand; recently Tolkien seemed to just roll over for Eric and that was his business to do, but the point of fact was not to incapacitate the only kid who let themselves be copied in class. “If you planned to copy off Tolkien for every test, you should probably not try to kill him.”
“Oh! Oh! So you’re saying it was my fault Tolkien slipped off the top step of the bleachers, is that it!?”
“Yeah! That’s what I’m saying! Because he didn’t slip, Cartman, you pushed him,” an accusatory finger was put in Eric’s face before Kyle could realize just how provoking his actions were. “He was gonna rat you and Kenny out for putting a stink bomb in the girl’s locker room, so you pushed him!”
“Shut up! I wouldn’t do that to Tolkien!”
“Yes, you did!” Kyle threw his hands up in indignation. “You stood over his body and laughed. You wanted to be a jerk to the girls’ volleyball team because none of them will date you and Tolkien ruined your revenge scheme.”
Eric wasn’t happy with that accusation. Kyle’s loose lips were about to cost him big. In a motion that seemed too quick for a child of such girth, Eric grabbed Kyle’s arms and slammed him against the lockers. Kyle bit his tongue to not cry out at the pain of his combination lock digging into his back.
“I don’t like any of them,” Eric’s voice was just above a threatening whisper. “I turned them down.”
“S-sorry, I was just,” Groveling? Kyle mentally slapped himself for letting Eric intimidate him again. “I’m just saying you pushed Tolkien off the bleachers for telling on you.”
“Yeah, ‘cause we were gonna see, like, every girls’ ass when they came running out of there,” Eric pressed him harder. “None of us guys were at the girl’s volleyball game for the game, Kyle!”
“Well, that would have included Tolkien’s girlfriend too, that’s why he told, and that’s when you pushed him.” Kyle sighed. “Whatever the reason, I can’t help you cheat on a test.”
“Help me? You think I want to copy you ?” Eric laughed. “I don’t want to copy you. That’d mean I’d have to sit near you in class. Hell no!”
Then why was he bothering Kyle about the test at all?!
Even though Eric seemed to lighten his mood, he tightened his hold. Kyle tried to shift the lock off his spine, but no amount of wiggling helped.
“You know where Miss Elderberry lives.”
“So, anybody could know that with a Google search,” Kyle pleaded, wanting nothing more but to be let go.
“True, but you’ve seen her car.” Eric smiled; his smile was never a healthy thing to behold. “She lives at The Lofts. Her car is parked somewhere out there. Which one is it?”
“What?” Kyle stopped his struggle to try to understand.
“Think about it. If Miss Elderberry can’t make it to class tomorrow she can’t give us the final exam. No test, no summer school.”
“So your plan is to wreck her car?” Kyle snorted. “That’s not how it works. She’d just take a bus to school, or they would get us a substitute.”
“Kahl, Kahl, Kahl,” Eric tsked. “You’re thinking too small. I’m not going to wreck her car. She is.”
“Huh?”
“If Miss Elderberry has an untimely ‘accident’ then we get the day off to hang with the grief counselors and they won’t give us tests in, like, any of our classes.”
“Dude?” Kyle couldn’t believe what he was hearing . . . oh wait, this was Eric Cartman, he could believe it. “Why do something that dramatic when you could just study for the stupid test? Hell, even if you have to retake the class this summer it’s only for two weeks; just do summer school!”
“Tell me what her car looks like, Kyle!”
Eric’s tantrum had finally caught the attention of other students, though Kyle wasn’t so naive as to think any of them would help him. Eric was going to beat him senseless and there’d be an eager audience ready to watch. Perfect.
Kyle tried to pull himself from Eric’s grasp just to be slammed against the locker door again. That time Kyle couldn’t hide a pained cry. Kyle gritted his teeth and braced himself for however many times Eric planned to smack his thin frame into the metal door.
As the lard pulled Kyle forward again a familiar voice halted Eric in his tracks.
“Knock it off, Cartman.” Stan was looming behind Eric, reaching around to take a firm grip of his bulging wrist.
Cartman immediately dropped his hold on Kyle, choosing to step back and let his mutual acquaintance stand between himself and the redhead. Stan stood with a newly found smug expression he’d adopted sometime at the start of seventh grade. Where Stan used to wait for Kyle and Eric to either sort out their differences or enter into a full-on fight, he recently was too eager to jump to Kyle’s defense. Of course, Stan never really had to throw hands.
Stan was intimidatingly taller than most boys in their grade and he was actually strong. He was fully capable of winning a fight if he wanted with the physique of a ninth-grader at age 12. And with another recent embrace of his darker side, Stan’s brooding goth aesthetic helped add to his intimidation factor. It wasn’t really fair how much Stan had grown, but Kyle guessed that was just how puberty worked.
In recent days, Stan was more than willing to use his height and muscle advantage to force Eric into submission on Kyle’s behalf, to which Kyle was secretly grateful; very, very secretly. Honestly, it would have been better to take a beating than to allow his best friend another opportunity to rescue him, but getting beat up didn’t feel all too pleasant and Kyle didn’t have the heart to tell Stan to stop.
“Thanks, dude.” Hopefully, Kyle could steer the argument with sound reason instead of brute strength; well, he would have if Eric wasn’t hell-bent on keeping things unnecessarily illogical.
“Getting your boyfriend to protect you again, Kahl!” Eric began making lewd gestures as he spoke. “Do you make him suck you off afterwards too?”
A few students in the hall giggled at the insult as Stan’s face flushed red. The whole school had already heard Eric make that joke a thousand times; why did their peers still laugh every time Eric implied Kyle and Stan were gay? Even if the two friends were, sexuality had nothing to do with the issue at hand. After years of hearing that tired harassment, it was an irrelevant triviality only meant to distract from the fact that Eric was crazy. But of course, their peers just drank it up.
“Shut up, Cartman,” Stan was staring daggers at Eric, his voice lowered. “Don’t talk to him like that.”
Kyle wanted to believe Stan was perfectly secure in their friendship and had the presence of mind to handle Eric’s dumb comments without getting sidetracked, but that didn’t seem to be the case much anymore. It was pretty clear Eric was using the insult to throw Stan’s concentration, and why wouldn’t he? If Kyle had noticed Stan’s overprotective attention toward himself, there was no way Eric hadn’t.
“So you don’t want a role reversal, Stan?” Eric raised his eyebrows suggestively while locking eyes with Kyle. “Guess he’s got a strong appetite for kosher food.”
The response to Eric’s smart mouth was swift.
Stan gripped Eric’s jacket and swung the lard hard against the lockers. Stan was seething at the comment. Eric was staring at Stan’s black-lined eyes like a frightened pig wiggling in the hands of a butcher. The small crowd formed tightly around the group of boys as the usual chants started.
“Fight! Fight!”
“I bet $10 Stan wins!”
“Stan’s totally gay!”
“Kill him already!”
Stan really wasn’t the middle schooler to pick a fight with but apparently, Eric wasn’t intelligent enough to know when to stop pushing buttons. While Kyle was fine with Eric getting a taste of his own medicine, it was always shocking to see Stan’s more aggressive side. This quick emotional response was also a fairly new trait in Stan. While the raven-haired boy had always been sensitive, he wasn’t usually this quick to react to his negative emotions.
“Aww,” a voice startled Kyle as a person came to stand beside him. “It’s really sweet how much Stan defends you.”
It was Butters. Naive little Butters. Possibly the only other boy in the school as weak as Kyle. Wearing an oversized blue sweater that draped over his hands, Butters gave a muffled clap as he watched. He was annoyingly happy, having too much fun watching a fight.
“Don’t say it like that, Butters,” Kyle slapped a hand to his face realizing what Stan’s display must have looked like to everyone else. “Stan and I aren’t a couple! We aren't ever getting together; that’s just stupid! Cartman’s just being an idiot again!”
Kyle tried to ignore as Butters cooed about how sweet it would be for Kyle to thank Stan with a kiss on the cheek and instead focused on the outburst of his best friend and the lard. Stan must have turned to watch Kyle at some point because they immediately locked eyes. The anger seemed to have vanished from Stan and was replaced with a distinguishable regret.
That made sense to Kyle as he crossed his arms disapprovingly at his best friend. Stan had always been the one to tell him not to overreact to what Eric said and now it seemed their roles had indeed reversed. It was dumb that Stan lashed out; especially considering it wasn’t going to get him what he really wanted.
Stan turned back to Eric; all the fire drained from his voice.
“Stop being an idiot, fatass.” Stan held onto Eric for just a second longer before heaving a sigh and stepping aside to face all his friends.
There was a disappointed groan from the spectators as they began to disperse. Finally, the dramatics were over and, hopefully, the real issues could be addressed.
“Aww shucks,” Butters snapped his fingers before jamming his hands in his pockets and muttering, “He better not go back to Wendy.”
“What were you two mad about this time?” Stan kept his stare on Eric, clearly avoiding looking at Kyle.
“He’s trying to make me fail!” If looks could kill, Kyle was sure Eric’s glare would have severed his head right then.
“No; I wouldn’t tell you what car Miss Elderberry drives.” Kyle spat, feeling his courage return now that Stan was present.
“Wait?” Stan pinched the bridge of his nose. “You’re both risking suspension over Miss E’s white Toyota Camry?”
“A-HA!” Eric laughed, backing away from the two and grabbing Butter’s sleeve, taking the blonde away with him. “Thank you so much, Stanley. I’ve got what I need!”
The lump marched victoriously down the hallway dragging a very unprepared Butters behind him; the crowds parted as they passed, not wanting anything to do with whatever chicanery Eric might be embarking on.
Kyle turned his focus to Stan as his best friend dropped his book bag to the ground and leaned against the lockers with an agitated expression. Stan still seemed a little tense tugging his depressingly black beanie down across his forehead; the action completely juvenile.
“Miss Elderberry drives a Prius.” Kyle corrected upon seeing Stan finally relax.
“Which is why I didn’t say that,” Stan didn’t sound concerned about Eric’s display at all. “If you’d just lie you wouldn’t have to put up with him so much.”
“He’s planning to do something to her car.”
Kyle turned in the direction of his history class when he felt Stan grab the back of his jacket and pull him back. Moments like this made Kyle really hate being the weakest among his friends.
“She is kind of a bitch,” Stan spoke so casually Kyle had to restrain his immediate frustration.
“So is Cartman, but we haven’t killed him; yet.”
“He’ll never find her car, don’t worry about it.” Stan laughed nervously, dropping his hold on Kyle and moving his gaze to the ground where he began kicking at the floor.
Maybe Stan didn’t take Eric’s threats seriously but time should have taught Stan better. Eric was always dangerous and any threat from him was serious. Stan just preferred the path of least resistance whenever he could get it. Either that or Stan was hoping he could get Kyle to drop it so the two of them could talk about other things.
Why did Stan have to act so lame lately?
“I happen to enjoy history class,” Kyle lamented. “She actually teaches stuff and I’ve learned a lot from her class. She doesn’t deserve whatever stupidity Cartman is planning.”
“Aww, got a crush?” Stan dared to look up from the floor to watch Kyle’s face; it was weird how bashful Stan suddenly seemed. “Sounds like you’re thinkin’ about older women.”
Kyle glared with a snort.
“I’m just playing,” Stan held his hands up in mock surrender. “Though, since we’re talking about playing . . ?”
Oh, not this conversation again.
“Stan, don’t.”
Kyle tried again to leave, but Stan wasn’t going to be deterred.
“No, no, wait.” Stan grabbed Kyle’s wrist, wrapping his pointer finger around the thin appendage to touch his thumb before clicking his teeth. “I mean, if you tried to bulk up a bit I bet you’d be able to fight Cartman back on your own. And you know what would make for great exercise?”
“I’m not LARPing with you guys anymore,” Kyle pulled himself from the boy but was annoyed to find Stan keeping pace with him as he moved toward his history class. “Besides that’s not the issue. I need to go warn Miss Elderberry-”
“You need to get out and do something other than studying for a change.”
“I happen to have some of the highest grades because I study, Stan. Something you should take more seriously if you don’t want to end up with Cartman in summer school.” Kyle spat, realizing he was getting angrier than the conversation really called for.
“Hey, we studied all weekend like you wanted. I’ve survived most of final’s week, only got tomorrow left to go.”
“No, you just hung out and watched me study,” Kyle moaned quietly to himself before addressing Stan again. “You got kicked off the football team because your grades were too low, Stan.” Kyle knew he was aiming low, but this conversation really needed to end. “News flash: You’re built for the team; you could still get back on it. You should study to learn, not just to hang out at my house.”
Stan suppressed a glare clearly trying to remain sympathetic.
“No see, this is that thing you say I’m always doing: you’re projecting, Kyle.” Stan fumed a bit, giving Kyle pause to roll his eyes. “You didn’t make the basketball team so you're drowning your pain in textbooks and then getting mad at me ‘cause I decided I don’t really care about grades or sports.”
If it were Kyle, he wouldn’t have admitted that with such pride, but Stan seemed to take it as a personal point of pride that he’d given up on two worthy endeavors.
“You used to love roleplaying games; we were a great team!” Stan’s smile made Kyle’s heart sink.
It was the fact they were so good that Kyle had to quit. While Kyle could easily blame a hundred other things for his reluctance to play with his friend, the truth was Stan was blurring the line between fantasy and reality too much.
“Whatever, Stan,” Kyle didn’t feel like fighting about that; there was no winning without getting emotionally compromised. “Drop out of football, drop out of school if you want, but I’m not gonna run around goofing off all the time, okay.”
“Dude, having fun is supposed to be part of life. You’re more than a nerd; unless you like getting your ass kicked. What is this, the third time this week?”
“Thanks for reminding me,” Kyle’s face fell. “I get it, I’m pathetic but no one said you had to play my knight in shining armor in real life, Stan.”
Stan paused for a moment, obviously not processing Kyle’s words the way they were intended.
“I don’t want to play games where I’m too weak and slow to keep up with everyone anyway.” Kyle picked up his pace. “If you haven’t noticed, I haven’t really grown much lately.”
“I-I don’t mind helping you, Kyle,” Stan was back at his side in a heartbeat. “Like you say a lot of self-righteous stuff and it pisses people off,” Stan smirked down at Kyle. “It’s kinda cute, but it’s gonna be the death of you one day.”
Kyle glared back up at his friend who was taking full advantage of the height difference; looming entirely too close to him without care of how intimidating it might appear. Stan was giving him such a foreign look Kyle assumed it had to be mockery.
“Stop making fun of how short I am!”
Kyle felt the heat of his anger flush his cheeks, which seemed to be the response Stan wanted. The taller boy straightened up with that smugness again as they approached the history classroom.
“Come on, I just want to spend more time with my super best friend.”
How could Kyle say no to those words? Easy, he was going to set his eyes dead ahead and just ignore Stan from there on out.
“We hardly have any classes together, your lunch period is different from mine, and we’re not even in the same after-school stuff.”
Kyle wasn’t going to answer that. It was a trap; it was always a guilt trip when Stan didn’t think he could reason Kyle into things he didn’t want to do.
“Come on, dude, we didn’t get time to hang out this summer since I spent so much time with Wendy; well, now I can make it up to you during the break!”
Miss Elderberry’s door was mere feet away. Stan was just going to have to take silence for an answer.
“And it’s the only thing all our old friends still do together. It’s tradition,” Stan suddenly rushed to open the door for Kyle. “Tomorrow you’re going LARPing with me.”
Kyle just glared forward trying to pretend Stan wasn’t forcing Friday plans on him.
“Please,” Stan’s pitiful expression gave Kyle pause; this was his best friend, regardless of how things had changed.
“I’ll think about it.” Kyle caved, moving forward to focus on Miss Elderberry as Stan pumped a fist in the air as he left.