AN: This is for SekritOMG, to whom I owe a million stories and all my gratitude for helping me through my various neuroses about writing. The other half of this deal is Kyle dating a pedophile--I’m making this official so I can’t back out. Sekrit, you deserve better. Thank you so much for single-handedly slaughtering my writer’s block.

Warnings: Two-part story, I mean it this time. Squicky theme, references to rape, timeline jumps, hookers, ambiguity, a whole freaking generation of OCs with stupid-trendy names, HETEROSEXUALITY, and character bastardization. I tried to make everyone sympathetic in some capacity, but I probably didn’t succeed. Also, although my focal point is StanxKyle, this story manages to include very little of that. Waah! Secondary pairing of KennyxButters. This is too dialogue-heavy. I hope it’s readable.

(I apologize to the people I’ve neglected for so long--Cinvxten and BC3, I’m especially looking at you two, if you’re still floating around the fandom--and I will do my best to get back in touch. I’m so sorry; I was stressing out. And everyone, please check out all the amazing pieces of art in my profile! They are ten thousand times better then their source material; give them the love they deserve!)

NO ONE CARES FOODSTAMP YOU TALK TOO MUCH

Thanks, guys.

- - - - - - - - -

Plastic

- - - - - - - - -

The day Stan Marsh moved back to town, Craig Tucker--indomitable president of the South Park PTA--took a stick of chalk from the art room and drew an enormous half-circle in the street surrounding his house. “No one crosses this line from now on!” he shouted to the growing crowd, pointing out the cruelly wide berth. “Tell your kids to use the opposite sidewalk! Make them walk home in pairs! We can’t stop this sick fuck from living here, but we can minimize the opportunity he has to hurt any of our children!”

Inside, Stan had turned off the lights so his second-story bedroom would be dark from the ground. No one could see him. He could watch the honest reactions of parents as Officer Barbrady handed out copies of his file, doubtlessly printed from the online registry that sported a list of his offenses. Fathers grew thunderous with disgust. Mothers clasped their hands together and wept. Besides Craig, Stan could see only one familiar face in the crowd--Token Black--and Token winced away from the flyer before crumpling it into a tight ball and averting his head.

Stan himself did not look away; it would be too easy. This was the reception he deserved. He welcomed it, half-hoping they would stone him to death, knowing they wanted to--but wouldn’t.

Craig hands were still white with chalk. He stared at Stan’s house with dauntless hatred, all the force of fatherhood burning behind his eyes. “Why the fuck would you come back?” he yelled, his voice breaking. “No one wants you here, Marsh! You’re sick! You’re nothing!”

But South Park was a familiar place, a place with context and consequences. It was the only neighborhood where he could wear memory on his heart like a ball and chain. His probation officer had called him insane for moving back, not knowing that she was wrong in her suspicions, that the people closest to home were the safest. Stan couldn’t take back what he had done, but he could surround himself by reminders--young reminders, their tiny bodies soft and defenseless, solid, associable.

Stan would never harm a child he knew.

- - - - - - - - -

He was the last person with a right to make such an observation, but he couldn’t help feeling a small trickle of pride whenever the school let out down the street. Without a doubt, his class’ generation had spawned the most beautiful collection of progeny in South Park history. Of course, that did nothing to ease the guilt that came with his knowledge of these lovely creatures--within a week, just by listening to their chatter as they walked the wide loop around his house, he knew all of their names.

Clyde Donovan Jr. had his father’s laugh. Cadence and Lincoln Cotswald, the twins, were eleven. The Tweak boy, Townley or Trevor, was a wistful seven-year-old who yawned often and had sleepy junkie eyes. Devon Black was always with him. Bebe’s daughter wore red cowboy boots to school every Tuesday. Her son wore the same red cowboy boots on Wednesdays. Leading them all was Craig’s son, Rory Tucker, a nine-year-old force of nature who treated Stan’s house to both middle fingers every time he passed it. “He’ll kill you if you get too close,” Rory often announced, eloquently commanding. “Dad says to be careful! That man’s a few fries short of a Happy Meal!”

Stan was grateful to be the subject of even Rory’s more creative metaphors. After Craig’s failed petition to have him banned from community stores after school hours, they seemed harmless enough.

One bright Tuesday afternoon, as the kids walked their normal route home from school, Townley Tweak fell asleep standing up near the chain-link fence outside the baseball diamond. It was fascinating--he even appeared to be snoring. Devon lingered with him, clearly not sure what to do. As Stan watched them from his window down the street, a slender blond man in a gray sweatshirt approached and conversed with Devon briefly, making him laugh. They both glanced at Townley. Then the man handed Devon the six-pack of beers he’d been holding, rolled up his sleeves with mock grandeur, and gathered the sleeping boy into his arms.

Look at that, thought Stan, kidding himself. A trusted gentleman can literally pick a child up off the sidewalk, and no one bats an eyelash! That’s how it happens. I was trusted once, too.

The man carried Townley to the brown house near the cul-de-sac and rang the bell. This was a treat for Stan for two reasons: first, because Tweek himself answered the door with a little twitch of surprise, and second, with his window open, they were just in earshot.

“Found something that belongs to you,” said the man cheerfully.

Tweek gasped, reaching out to reclaim his son. “Oh, Jesus! He fell asleep again, didn’t he? I don’t know what to do anymore! Annie and I have talked about giving him coffee to help him stay awake during the day--”

The man broke in. “Yeah, don’t. That would be a bad idea.”

“Don’t worry, he’s just tired,” said Devon. “They don’t give us nap time anymore. They make us go outside and play stupid four-square.”

“Aah, there’s no worse fate than great outdoors,” Tweek said, calming as he stroked Townley’s curly hair. It was so surreal to see him as a father, let alone one with at least mild competence--the last time Stan had seen Tweek was when they were both twenty-five, at Stan’s Moving Away party, and Tweek had backed into his mailbox on his way out of the driveway and nearly hyperventilated during the fifteen-minute apology that followed. Tweek still seemed twitchy around the eyes, but his hands were stable as he reached to take the blond man’s hand. “How can I thank you?”

“Just keep on keepin’ on,” he said. “And stop by to catch a game with me sometime.”

“Yes, I’ll do that, promise,” said Tweek. He smiled at Devon. “Annie baked cookies. Do you want some?”

“Yeah!” Devon cheered, starting to push his way into the house.

“Wait, wait,” said the man in the gray sweatshirt, laughing. “You’re not going to drink all that beer yourself, are you?”

Briefly confused, Devon looked down, then relinquished the six-pack. “Oh! Oops! Sorry, Mr. McCormick.”

McCormick! Stan quickly sat up in the window seat, craning to get a good look at the blond. From his vantage point, he could only see a red trucker hat and faded blue jeans, but the man’s posture was a little too classy to be Stuart’s, a little too young. Stan pressed his nose to the glass, not daring to hope. A moment later, after saying goodbye to Tweek and tucking the beer back under his arm, Kenny McCormick turned around at the end of the driveway, spotted Stan in the window, and broke into a wide and unmistakable grin.

“Marsh,” he called simply, with feeling.

“Dude,” said Stan. He managed a tentative wave. “Kenny--hi.”

Kenny checked for oncoming cars, then stepped off the sidewalk and began walking across the street to Stan’s house. He didn’t spare even a casual glance at the chalk line. He moved with a strange grace, sneakers light on the ground, unashamed of the fraying hems of his pants or the well-worn shapelessness of his hat (it had definitely been Stuart’s at one point; Stan could see the “SCOTCH” decal above the black brim). Stan rushed downstairs and opened the door just as Kenny leaned in to press the bell. They stared at each other for a long moment, studying.

“Man, you look like shit,” Kenny said finally, and pulled him into a tight hug.

Stan squeezed back as hard as he could. How long had it been since someone touched him without hostility? His own mother hadn’t held him like this once in the last ten years. “You haven’t gotten a day older,” Stan said, breathing in Kenny’s familiar scent of shaving gel and laundry detergent. “Fuck, I missed you! Where were you last week, when I moved in?”

“Manhattan,” said Kenny. “Can you believe it?”

“What was the occasion?”

“Just had to get away.” He remembered the six-pack. “Oh, here--grab one.”

Stan took a beer and urged Kenny further inside so he could shut the door behind him.

“It’s surreal,” Kenny said, exploring the house. “Isn’t this exactly the same layout of your old place? I thought you were closer to the train tracks, on Bonanza.”

“I was. My, uh, parents aren’t still living there, are they?”

Kenny paused halfway down the hallway, squarely meeting his gaze, as if suspecting a punchline. “They moved,” he said at last. He walked back into the living room and took a seat on the couch, gesturing for Stan to join him. Stan obliged. Kenny’s voice held all of the room’s sudden tension when he spoke next, uncharacteristically hesitant: “I…honestly thought at least Randy would keep in touch with you. I think I’m offended that he didn’t. Yeah…I’m really offended.”

“It is what it is,” Stan said, opening his beer. “They’re not wrong. Don’t forget that I’m the bad guy here.”

“No you’re not,” said Kenny.

“I mean, I’ve come to terms with--”

“No,” Kenny repeated, “you’re not.”

Stan gave up. He took a sip of his beer and stared straight ahead at the blank television set. His vision blurred, but he blinked hard until it cleared. The walls were too bare, he thought, examining the cracks in the drywall. What does one decorate with, without the fallback of photographs? Fancy light fixtures? Crayola crayon?

“Have you seen him recently?” he asked.

“Um.” Now Kenny subsided. He leaned back into the cushions and took off his cap, slicked back his hair, and replaced it. “Yeah, he’s fine,” he said eventually. “Just got a job as head librarian at the high school. Hammy’s in kindergarten now, so Wendy’s also got a little more time to herself--so of course she signed up to sew all the costumes for the spring pageant, cater the reception, and handle all the secretarial work for the PTA.”

Stan’s stomach clenched. “Another one lost to the light side of the force.”

“Don’t get me wrong; Craig’s an amazing parent. But he’s also a fucking dickhead.” Kenny straightened up, breaking into a cautious smile. “Hey, Wendy wants to meet you for coffee sometime soon. What should I tell her?”

His gaze dropped from the television to the floor. He couldn’t get lower. “Tell her she deserves better company.”

Kenny snorted. “Don’t be so melodramatic.”

“What would the kids think?”

“The kids?” Kenny said dryly. “Very little. Remember how old they are?”

He had a point. Madison and Sarah were eleven and nine, respectively. Hammy was barely five. His family had celebrated his birthday on April fourth, the same day that Stan got his release papers and stood weeping on the sidewalk for two hours before boarding a bus that took him nowhere. He’d considered calling, and almost immediately thought better of it. He purchased a road map instead. En route home in a Greyhound, he wondered if he was still Madison’s godfather, even though his heart already knew the answer: of course not. Wendy would have quietly asked Butters if he would accept the honor in lieu of Stan’s being “indisposed.” Or maybe her husband had proposed it for her, walking into the cupcake shop, his laugh easy and his hair the same color as those candy-apple counters--

“It’s all so fucking awkward,” Kenny said suddenly, dropping his unopened beer back into the box. He rolled over and hugged him again, this time even tighter. “You’re nothing like you used to be. You’re like a bomb site; I’ve got nothing for you. What can I do? Something. Anything.”

Stan’s hands clenched into fists. His anger startled even himself. “You can be mad at me, damn it. You can treat me like a person should treat an ex-con who moved down the street from an elementary school! Fucking Craig is more honest than you. I don’t want a friend, Kenny. I haven’t earned that privilege.”

Kenny pulled back as if he’d been struck, his fingers biting into Stan’s shoulders. “Tough shit,” he said, staring directly into his eyes. “You have one anyway.”

He shoved Stan hard against the couch as he stood up, brushing off the seat of his pants. This close, Stan could see the shadow of Stuart in him. He moved brusquely in anger, his body strong and lean, like a piece of wire cable. His gray sweatshirt was full of holes and his undershirt was greasy and calligraphic tattoos spelt conquests’ names across his muscled abdomen. He swiped the back of his hand over his mouth, his knuckles rasping against the dark beginnings of evening stubble.

“Here’s the truth,” Kenny said, pacing in front of him. “I want to be furious with you. I wish I could be shallow enough to write you off, because that would be easier, and I wouldn’t have to feel like a sick fucking bastard for wanting to see you. But I happen to like you. Nothing justifies what you did, but you paid for it.” He looked up sharply. “You’re not planning to do it again, are you?”

“No,” Stan said. “No.”

“Then don’t you dare tell me I should feel guilty! I’m a good person. I’m well within my rights to pursue a friendship with whoever I want! You got that?”

“Yes.”

“Yes. Yes, that’s fucking right, you do.”

They looked at each other for a long time, Stan sitting perfectly still, Kenny towering above him with his arms crossed in challenge. Kenny was the first to break, though it took him a good ten seconds. He awkwardly lowered his hands, palm up.

“Listen, Stan--shit, I can’t believe I just cited my morality as grounds for forcing myself back into your life. If you don’t want me here, I can just--”

“Please stay,” Stan pleaded, grabbing his sleeve.

Kenny jumped a little at the touch, looking down at his fist, which was turning white with strain. His scars stood out like latticework. Teeth marks, cuts, hints of torn ligaments, makeshift surgical procedures, homemade stitches and past fractures. Kenny took his abused fingers and cradled them in his own, slowly turning his hand over and over, studying the damage. “Jesus,” he whispered. “What did they do to you in there?”

“It’s kind of the point,” said Stan, his voice cracking.

“Oh, Stan,” Kenny said. “I fucking missed you.”

He had already promised himself that he wouldn’t cry in front of anyone--least of all Kenny McCormick, who didn’t need to feel sorry for anyone, not after he had beaten all odds by making it to seventeen without being incarcerated. He forced himself together with everything he had. Kenny sat back down and pulled him close again, as if trying to make up for the all the years when their contact had been limited to smiling from opposite sides of the glass. Stan let himself take that comfort. He didn’t deserve it, but he wanted it. God, he wanted it.

Kenny held him like that for hours.

- - - - - - - - -

They were building a new church at the edge of town. Most of the framework for the walls were up, a religious skeleton, rectangles of tape delineating where the pews would be nailed into the floor. Someone had stretched sheets of plastic around the building, protecting the construction from bad weather. Plastic everywhere. Curtains of it whistled lightly in the wind, grimy and translucent, refracting light at querulous angles. He walked inside. The smell of sawdust tickled his eyes, an undercurrent of something sweet and alcoholic.

“It’s going to be nice,” he said, imagining altars. “I like to think they’ll have candles and shit everywhere. They’re already saying it’ll be non-denominational, nothing as in-your-face as Catholicism.”

The voice came from no one. “Is it still going to be Christian?”

“Well…yeah.”

“Can you see why that’s a problem for me, Stanley?”

“Whatever, (His memory flickered). I never said I was gonna take you here after it was finished.”

“Sounds like your lousy kind of date.” A blur moved in front of him, walking lightly, something orange and green and capped with fire. Backpack on the ground. Papers without names. “It’s kind of creepy here, you know? There is so much untapped potential. Nothing here screams, ‘Penguins! Christ on a cross!’ No, this place could be a grocery store or a warehouse or a community center for line dancing lessons. It could be anything.”

We could be anything, he thinks, and follows the fire deeper into the site, where no one will hear them. The sheer majesty of that: We could be anything.

- - - - - - - - -

Stan woke up with his arms straight out, cold and crying, reaching for the empty space in his bed.

- - - - - - - - -

Hammy pedaled up the street on a big wheel, his tiny legs pumping furiously below the frayed hems of his hand-sewn overalls. He had tied a piece of fishing line to one of the handles and was using it to drag a decrepit white teddy bear behind him, which bounced merrily against the asphalt, faceless from blocks and blocks of abuse. He sang loudly and very much off-key. His red hair shone like a flame, vivid enough to make you weep for its beauty. The washed-out morning’s only claim to color. Stan watched him, disbelieving. He looked so much like--

Thirty years ago, he thought instead, that boy on the sidewalk might have been flanked by three friends, all of them obscured by hats and winter jackets. Was it impossible that Stan remembered that same length of sidewalk, the wind in his eyes, the cool smoothness of plastic under his ass? The big kids were so big and the little kids were so invisible. The world offered so much between Cartman and Kenny’s mailboxes. It was better because they had been sharing it.

Hammy was alone.

The neighborhood slept on as he raced down the white line in the center of the road, face bunched up in concentration. No one called for him. Thus, no one warned him about the upcoming manhole cover, either. Hammy hit it full speed and was knocked breathless onto the pavement, his front wheel careening aside. He tumbled down a few feet away from Stan’s chalk border, looked at his bleeding knee, and began to wail.

“Oh god,” said Stan, panicking. He pulled back his curtains and glanced up and down the street. No one appeared to have seen him.

Hammy also noticed the lack of attention and cried harder, thrashing around.

Stan paced back and forth in front of his window, rubbing the bridge of his nose. Did he have Kenny’s number? He could call Kenny. Yeah--he could call and wake up his vehicleless friend who worked seventy hours a week so he could run a few blocks over, put a kid on his big wheel, and then run back home. Even Kenny’s sense of humor was stretched pretty thin at six-thirty in the morning. Stan closed his eyes and tried his hardest to will Hammy away.

“Daddy!” Hammy screamed, as if in response. “Daddydaddydaddy!”

Stan moaned, giving up. “For fuck’s sake.”

He ran to his bathroom, rummaging around in the medicine cabinet for a box of Band-Aids. He tucked a few into his pocket and raced downstairs to wet a paper towel under the kitchen faucet. On his way outside, he stopped to change his shoes--the sandals looked shadier than the sneakers, he decided. It was only when his feet were secure in their new footwear that he flung open the door and walked cautiously toward Hammy, who was still weeping.

“Hi,” Stan called, holding up the Band-Aids and paper towel in peace. “I’m coming over to you, okay? I’m just going to look at your knee.”

Hammy clutched his leg, his face tear-streaked and bewildered. Why the fuck are you telling me this? his expression asked.

“Okay,” said Stan. “Okay, I’m walking towards you.”

“It huuuurts,” Hammy said suddenly, remembering himself. He began to sniffle again. “It huuuurts!”

Oh god, Stan could not have his neighbors waking up to see him leaning over a screaming child. Stan stopped tiptoeing and hastened to meet him, lingering on his side of the chalk circle. The boy’s leg was just out of reach. “You’ve got to scoot closer,” he said, glancing nervously from side to side. “You’re too far away.”

Hammy looked scandalized. “I’m injured! I can’t move!”

Stan was so stressed that his hands were shaking. He inched forward the tiniest bit so that the tips of his sneakers were on the line. He couldn’t bear to look the child in the eyes. Instead, he gingerly drew Hammy’s leg out by the heel, making sure not to touch any skin with his bare hands. He blotted at the scrape with the paper towel, brushing away the gravel. Hammy twitched.

“Ow!”

“Yeah, you banged it up pretty good,” said Stan. “Be a big boy, all right?”

“It hurts like a bitch,” Hammy said.

Stan gaped. “Well--that’s definitely a big boy word.”

“My sisters say it all the time. It’s not just for boys.” Hammy was finally calming; Stan could feel the intensity of his gaze, studying. Against his better judgment, Stan glanced up to look at him. His breath immediately caught in his throat.

“Oh,” he said softly. “You…you look just like your father.”

He did. There were a few variations, sure--the pale freckles on the bridge of his nose, a more feminine curvature of upper lip--but Stan knew those dark intelligent eyes, the critical line of his mouth, subtly arched brows that were half a shade darker than his auburn hair. This was a younger version of the face that had visited Stan during his difficult nights in solitary. Sometimes in the infirmary, even, when he was too doped up to stop the memories. For one disorienting moment, it was as if he were standing a quarter of a century earlier, and time had stood still for everyone but him. He was old and he needed a shave and his body had forgotten the beauty of riding a big wheel impossibly fast up a hill.

Then Hammy touched his face with a tiny hand, and the feeling was gone.

“You know my dad?” he asked.

Stan shook the gravel off the paper towel, then folded it backwards to find a clean section. “I used to,” Stan said, mopping up the last beads of blood. “We used to be very good friends.”

“What happened?”

Life happened. “Adult things. It was my fault.”

“Mom says it takes two to tango,” said Hammy.

“And your mom is a very wise woman,” Stan said. “But in this case, I’m the only bad guy.”

Hammy was quiet for a while, admiring his newly cleaned cut. When he looked back up at Stan, his eyes were thoughtful. “Well…you don’t look like a bad guy. It’s not like you have a beard or anything.”

Stan unwrapped a Band-Aid and positioned it over Hammy’s scratch, pondering the simplicity of that logic. Of all people, you think that this boy’s father would have explained the flaws in such a philosophy. Bad guys had beards like good guys had capes. Both attributes were changeable, and neither was mutually exclusive. Anyone could exalt themselves in uncharacteristic displays of kindness--like bandaging a fallen child’s knee without murdering him. That was all it took to be a hero. That one fork in the road, the do or don’t. It was just as easy to be a monster instead.

“Go home, sweetie,” said Stan, hoisting him up by the armpits and setting him on his feet. Such a small human being; it made Stan want to cry. “Don’t tell anyone you spoke to me, okay? They’ll probably burn my house down or something.”

Hammy’s expression wavered. “Really? Why?”

“I’m a bad man,” Stan said. “I’ve done very, very bad things.”

“But I like you,” Hammy protested.

Stan turned around and began walking back to his house. “Go away.”

They thought an eight-foot cell was torture? He would’ve signed on for fifty more years if it meant he could avoid seeing hurt blossom in the kid’s eyes, as vivid as if he’d just been struck. That was the joke: the real prison was never the walls, it was the heart, and Stan was drowning in his. He left Hammy standing there, his knee still bleeding under the bandage, looking like his father The Good Guy.

Hammy waited for him for ten full minutes before slowly pedaling away.

- - - - - - - - -

“I wanted to put my arms around him and never let him go,” said Stan. “I didn’t want to hurt him, I just wanted to love him. Not like that.”

They were sitting at Stan’s bedroom window, watching the children walk home again. This was how Stan measured his life now, in the passage of small feet moving back and forth between two blocks, futile and circular. Anyone else would’ve called the cops at such hints of voyeurism. Kenny McCormick only pulled up a chair to join him, propping his feet up on the sill with a beer in hand.

“Oh, yeah, Hammy’s a great kid,” Kenny said. “The girls are just getting silly now, worrying about makeup and boys…ugh, you know the age. I mean, Hammy’s a little terror, but he’s still young enough to run downstairs naked during Wendy’s book club and get cookies instead of spankings. Fucker knows it, too. You’d gasp over that type of manipulation in an adult, but he’s only five, so he’s just being ‘precocious.’ That’s their word, ‘precocious.’ He’s already at a fifth grade reading level. Sheila had him tested when we visited them in Manhattan. She wanted some bragging rights, I think.”

“He looks just like him,” said Stan.

“Doesn’t he? It’s uncanny.”

Stan sat back to look at Kenny. He was wearing a white wifebeater and a greasy yellow bowling shirt that was about eight sizes too big for him. Cartman’s name was stitched on the pocket in red thread. Kenny allowed the inspection without acknowledging it, sipping at his beer, the intelligence in his eyes belying the trailer trash typicality of his wardrobe.

“Do you ever want children?” Stan asked.

Kenny smiled, rocking lightly back and forth in his chair. “Me, bring an innocent soul into all of this?” he asked, indicating the world before him with one wide sweep of the arm. “Sometimes I think that being a parent is the ultimate pretension. No one ever asks the kids; no one would even if they could, because they’d be too afraid of the answer. Imagine, for a second, abortion as the ultimate good. Couldn’t that be true, given the current state of our universe? What gives anyone the goddamn right?”

“I don’t know,” Stan admitted, resting his chin in his hands. “I don’t know.”

Lincoln Cotswald and Rory Tucker passed by on the pavement, laughing and shoving each other. When they neared the chalk circle, Rory flipped Stan’s house the bird. “Careful there, Stan Marsh’s elevator doesn’t go to the top floor,” he said, his voice faint in the distance.

“What the hell does that even mean?” said Lincoln.

Smiling despite himself, Stan wrote that new one down on the list below his calendar.

Kenny took another sip of his beer, really slurping, trying too hard to be casual. He only succeeded in making Stan look at him. Drawing the brim of his hat down over his eyes, Kenny smiled, pointing back down at the sidewalk. Bebe was welcoming her kids back into the house. She let her daughter in without incident, but stopped the boy, gasping over his footwear--it had been his turn with the cowboy boots, and they were caked in mud. He grumbled and wiped them perfunctorily on the welcome mat, then ducked under her arm, laughing. Bebe yelled after him and slammed the door.

“I’m no geneticist,” said Kenny, “but Bebe and Jason both come from solidly brown-eyed families. Fucking weird that their son picked up some recessive blue after ten generations. I won’t even get into his earlobes or freckles or dimples.”

“Oh god, Kenny,” Stan said quietly. “Does she--?”

“Of course she knows, but we haven’t talked about it. I think even Jason knows. It doesn’t matter; it’s okay with me. Any kid would be much better without knowing he’s a McCormick. Bad blood, you know?”

He said that last with a funny sort of accent, trying to play it off. Stan touched his arm and squeezed. Kenny let his hand rest there for a moment before shaking him away.

“So, to answer your question…yeah, I want kids,” he said. “But I’m not that selfish.”

They watched the last two children enter their houses, disappearing. The wind blew a little more chalk off the street. Craig would be out bright and early to redraw it, this time making it subtly wider. Kenny’s eyes were strange and distant as he stared past the horizon of their houses, and Stan drank deeply from his own can, not sure what to say.

“That’s why I’m fucking Butters now,” Kenny added.

Stan sprayed an entire mouthful of beer onto the window.

- - - - - - - - -

Stan spent Sunday evening cleaning his house and washing the beige sheets he’d ordered a week earlier from a catalogue. At the risk of looking like a serial killer, he’d pinned dropcloths over the windows to block out the light from the streetlamps. Although this type of arrangement was by no means uncommon, he didn’t want to give his neighborhood the ammunition--like alcoholism, prostitution was contextual, safer and more justified in the widowed hands of Kevin than it was against his own black record. He vacuumed the bedroom and sat on the couch in the darkness for an hour, trying to get his breathing under control.

At seven-thirty, someone knocked--three rapid taps; they had agreed on it last night. Stan buttoned his shirt and crossed the living room to open the door, taking a long moment to collect himself before twisting the knob.

Pip Pirrup had been facing backwards, gazing at the darkening sky. He spun around. His smile was both familiar and foreign. “Hello, love,” he said, reaching to shake his hand before remembering the cigarette between his middle and index fingers. “Oh--sorry.” He took a final drag before dropping it and grinding it out under the high heel of his boot, one knee sneaking out from his long coat to reveal torn purple nylons. He offered his hand again, and Stan took it slowly, stunned. His nail polish was chipped. Turquoise.

“Pip…hi,” he said, disoriented. “You…”

“Changed a bit, maybe,” said Pip comfortably. “So have you. That’s a lovely color, even though it makes your eyes look sad.”

He was wearing a gray shirt. “Thank you,” Stan said uncertainly.

Pip shifted his weight from foot to foot, smiled, and cleared his throat.

“Oh, god,” Stan said, stumbling backwards in his haste to vacate the doorway. “Sorry. Come in.”

The dignity with which Pip stepped inside indicated not only a certain level of professionalism, but an alarming degree of practice, as well. It was surreal. Stan shut the door and rushed to take his coat, a belted Salvation Army trench, the lining peach and suggestive. Underneath, Pip was wearing a white button-up shirt and tiny shorts. His legs were smooth, lovely. His hosiery glimmered in the beginnings of the moonlight as he walked.

“Ah, I knew the gentleman who used to live in this house,” he said, running his fingertips lightly over the walls. “I’m glad you stripped the paper; it was dreadful. Such beautiful paneling here. Why would someone want to cover it?”

“Guess he just didn’t want it to show,” Stan said.

“Maintaining architectural secrecy,” Pip said. “Perhaps. What a romantic idea.”

Plastic, thought Stan.

He finished hanging up Pip’s coat and turned around, resting his back against the closet door. He could not swallow past the obstruction in his throat. Pip glanced back at him with his soft contemplative eyes, then walked towards him with courteous leisure, as if afraid Stan would frighten.

“Sweetheart, you can ask me to leave,” he said. “I won’t be offended.”

“It’s not that, it’s just…I don’t know how to explain it.” Were there any words clumsy enough for this type of reunion? Stan doubted it. Yet there was a grace in this, too, the unspoken poetry of their mutual damage, the pretty line of Pip’s neck as he tilted his head to brush his hair back behind his ears. Nerves, though. Nerves in his fingertips, making him jumpy under his own skin. “It’s hard for me to reevaluate you sexually,” Stan managed, and was immediately humiliated by the implicit insult.

Pip took no offense. “That happens to people who attended elementary school with each other,” he agreed. He was close enough to touch Stan’s shirt, but he didn’t. “Perhaps I’m simply not attractive to you.”

“No, you’re magnificent,” said Stan.

“Too different, though?”

“Well--you know, real-life beautiful. You’re not eight years old. You’re rougher around the edges.”

“I do hope you like it rough,” Pip said, and slowly leaned in to kiss him, his tongue calm and probing between Stan’s teeth.

Stan surprised himself by kissing back. Despite the situation’s tension, he was painfully aroused, and Pip had certainly learned a trick or two since they’d last seen each other. Stan put one hand on his left buttock and squeezed. Pip pressed him harder against the wall and secured his thumbs in his belt loops, urging them together at the hip so he could rub one purple silken thigh between Stan’s legs. Stan gasped, riding the perilous wave of pleasure that followed.

“Upstairs,” he said raggedly. “Please.”

They held hands as they ascended, and Stan guided him around the corner on his arm, a parody of decorum. As soon as they were in his bedroom with its sheeted windows, Stan shoved him back against the wall. His mouth felt so coarse against Pip’s smooth skin. One of his hands was knotted around a fistful of gleaming hair. After a few feverish minutes, he pulled himself away.

“Clothes?” asked Pip, reaching to unbutton his own collar.

“Not your shirt,” Stan said quickly. “Just your pants and shoes--is that okay?”

“Okay,” said Pip. He bent over to untie his boots and toed them off, continuing with his tattered nylons at Stan’s nod. This was a more delicate procedure; each piece reached several inches past the knee, and he had to take a seat on the bed as he unrolled them one at a time, baring lush calves. He tossed the hose aside in a lavender whisper of silk. Stan stopped him before he unzipped his fly.

“Can I do that?”

Pip nodded his consent.

Stan hooked an arm under his knees and hoisted Pip’s legs onto the bed, then mounted the mattress himself, kicking his comforter down around the footboard. He jerked Pip’s shorts off his hips too roughly. Pip winced a little in surprise, waved off Stan’s apology, then obediently squirmed the rest of the way out of the clothing. Stan kissed him again. His hands were shaking. He drew back to remove his belt, struggling for a long time with his own zipper and the button on his boxers.

“Do you want me to help you?” asked Pip.

“No, no. I need to do this part.”

Pip’s eyebrows furrowed a little at the implication of a method. “What should I do, then?”

“Nothing,” said Stan, then paused, straddling his hips with one hand inside his underwear. “Wait--there’s maybe something. Could you…I was just…I don’t want to insult you or anything, because I’m not sure what kind of…like, the things you’re--”

“Just ask me, love,” said Pip. “I’ll do almost anything.”

Stan took a low breath and closed his eyes, gathering himself. “Can you pretend not to like it?” he said, very softly. “You don’t need to fight me, but just--don’t help. Lie there and act like you’re imagining that you’re somewhere else.”

Like that would be hard for a whore. No way Stan was more than a job to him. Pip seemed briefly puzzled, as if pondering the motives behind this request--he’d said he would do almost anything, and Stan had responded by asking him to nothing. It must’ve felt like a rejection. But Pip only touched his hand after he had pulled himself together, confused but compliant. “If you’ll allow us a control, please. Any word or phrase. You can choose.”

Both the lighting and the time of day were nearly perfect. The draperies allowed barely any illumination, and Pip was small and anonymous below him, sheets the color of sawdust. Stan ran one hand through his blond hair again. If only it were black. “‘Run away?’” Stan offered, almost inaudibly.

“‘Run away,’” Pip repeated, memorizing it.

“Thank you so much,” said Stan, and lowered himself onto him.

Even with Pip’s masterful lack of reciprocity, it was foreign. Stan shifted him around, spread his legs, tried to bolster himself with some sense of entitlement. He ran his tongue across Pip’s throat, urged his mouth open when they kissed. Pip had a condom ready for when he achieved an erection, but he was having problems--Pip helped him along with sneaky little strokes, extra writhing, light pushes on his shoulders in simulated fight.

“Take your time,” Pip kept saying. “Take your time, darling.”

But nothing was working.

Stan closed his hands around his small waist, trying not to let his breath hitch. Sweat rolled down his shoulders. He was becoming steadily more humiliated, and the sheets themselves were becoming vivid, alive, redolent with the smell of his father’s workshop. He could almost taste the burn of plywood. The mattress was retreating and Pip was changing under his arms, shrinking, turning into someone who had stared back at him for thirty-five years.

He knew those blue eyes. Plastic. A distant stench of mothballs and unwashed hair, wine and bad breath, ragged fingernails scraping maps into his thighs.

Someone was beside him, holding his hand.

Who was trembling?

“It’s okay,” Stan assured him, fighting for breath. “Don’t let go. Just--”

“Stanley--”

“I’m not going to leave you!”

Nails splintered in two-by-fours, moonlight barely peeking through uncalked cracks, the sound of plastic sheets rustling. Plastic everywhere. His whole life under lamination.

“Stanley!”

The weight was gone from him. He could take his freedom and flee with it, but he couldn’t leave, not with his fingers twined in someone else’s hand. Someone else was crying for him. Plastic and sweat and sawdust and--

“Oh, god…‘run away!’ Stanley, run away!”

With tremendous force, Stan yanked himself back. It was like breaking the surface of a dark mirror. He fell not onto concrete, but something soft and yielding--a bed. His bed. His comforter pillowed around him, mercifully blue, nothing of the church in its color or texture. He felt sweat standing in beads all over his body, was useless to do anything but gasp for breath. A second later, Pip flung himself on top of him, stroking the hair out of his face and pulling his eyelids back to look at his pupils.

“Stan! Stanley!” Pip was flushed and frenzied. “Please be okay! Can you speak?”

Stan opened his mouth, sandpapery dry. He only managed to croak.

Pip leapt from the bed, still naked from the waist down, and began pawing through his clothes. He was looking for his cell phone. “Oh god, oh god,” he chanted, finally finding it in his shorts pocket. There was a tinny chiming noise as he turned it on, fumbling in his effort to dial. “Hold on, Stanley--I’ll call an ambulance--”

“No,” Stan managed, forcing the words out. They burned. “I’m fine. I’m fine.”

Pip whirled on him. He was nearly weeping. “Stanley, you’re okay! What happened?”

“I don’t know,” Stan said. His tears were a twenty-year work-in-progress; they were ready to pour from him, unbidden and irrepressible. “I’m so mixed up. I just…I have no idea what’s…”

There was a graceless thump as Pip climbed back onto the bed beside him and wrapped his arms around his shoulders, squeezing hard, without inhibitions. He was making quiet soothing noises even as he himself shook. “Just keep breathing,” he said, kissing his cheek. His mouth was stable and platonic; he was crying, too. “I’m here for you, love, get it all out. You’ll feel saner afterwards, I promise.”

Saner. That was the magic word. Saner was something for men who had never been murdered in churches with their best friends beside them. Stan melted into Pip’s arms, trying not to rationalize what it meant when a prostitute was a welcome comfort.

When he tried to pull away an hour later, Pip held onto him. “It’s okay,” he said, by way of consolation. “I’m not charging or anything.”

What a world.

- - - - - - - - -

Cherry On Top was a tiny shop across the street from the New Age store, its décor walking an innocent line between kid-friendly charm and inadvertent sex appeal. The tip jar was uncomfortably phallic. The muffins graced the display case in curvaceous pairs, nippled with almonds. Even the menu was full of double entendres--after getting his blush under control, Stan managed to order a ‘Creamy Delight,’ which turned out to be an eight-inch pastry filled with white cream. It was even served in a translucent purple wrapper. Stan unsheathed it gingerly, pulling off the confectionary contraceptive with the tips of his fingers.

“This looks beautiful,” he said, trying not to stare at Kenny, who was grinning at him and wiggling his eyebrows. “Really, the whole store is just--um--perfect. You must be proud.”

“Gee, I’m glad you like it,” said Butters, beaming. “Ken said he thinks it attracts bad people.”

“What I said was that it’s full of dicks,” said Kenny.

“But--aw, I just don’t know what you mean by that.” Butters knelt at the counter, restocking the display with round brownies that were labeled as ‘Yummy Nut Balls.’ Unbeknownst to him, he was treating them to an excellent view of his generous backside. “All my customers are old classmates. I mean, Stan’s not a dick, is he?”

Kenny’s smile widened. “Oh, no, babe. There’s not a bit of dick in him.”

Stan had the penis pastry halfway into his mouth and was forced to put it down again, coughing.

“Yeah, he’s real sweet.” Butters stood up to meet Stan’s gaze, eyes solemn. The years had matured him. His face was rounder, and he had gained some weight that he wore beautifully, looking more himself in curves than he had in the angular leanness of his youth. He had become tender while everyone else had grown crueler. Whenever he moved, he roused a soft dust of flour from his hands and apron, charming as a spell. “I sure missed you, Stan.”

Stan felt his heart swell. He wasn’t sure which part of the sentiment was more moving: the fact that Butters had said it of his own volition, or that he sounded like he meant it. “I really appreciate that, Butters. It’s good to be home.” A truth and a lie.

Butters took two fresh muffin tins out of the oven and began to empty them onto the counter with practiced efficiency. “So how did it go with Pip last night?”

Kenny winced and put his face in his hands.

“You…know about Pip?” Stan asked, immediately uncomfortable again.

“Well, course I do. Kenny said you wanted some private instruction, and Pip’s the best knitter I know. He made me some gloves two years ago that I still wear.”

Knitting lessons. That was the most convincing thing Kenny could thing of? Good to know he had some awareness of discretion, even as he was blabbing about Stan’s personal life to Butters in bed. Stan kicked Kenny as hard as he could in the shin without being obvious. Kenny lurched off his barstool, his eyes watering as he forced a smile for Stan.

“Well, it’s not like I had Pip’s number tattooed on my ass or anything,” he said through gritted teeth. “Unlike you--and occasionally Damien--I never require his services.”

“I didn’t know Damien liked to knit,” said Butters.

“Thanks for asking, Butters, it went extremely well,” said Stan, trying to rush the conversation along. Unfortunately, he managed a sort of snappy glibness that made it very clear to Kenny that his rendezvous with Pip had gone exactly the opposite. Kenny raised his eyebrows, but Butters seemed satisfied with his reply.

“And have you seen Wendy?”

“Not yet,” Stan said.

“Well, you’re always welcome to come here when you meet up,” said Butters. “She brings the kids around once or twice a month to spoil them when they’re getting good grades. Abraham got a check-minus in deportment last week because he was being too pushy during playtime, but I gave him a Danish anyway. It’s good to be assertive, don’t you think?”

“At least to a certain extent,” Kenny said, stealing a muffin. “I’ll have to kill you if you encourage another Rory Tucker.”

“Rory’s okay,” said Stan uneasily.

Kenny snorted. “Magnanimous of you to defend him, but he’s an officious little shit. Gets it from his father. Fucking Craig.” He took a bite of the muffin, paused, and swallowed. “Butters…these are amazing. Did you do something different? New special ingredient?”

Butters leaned forward so they could brush noses. “Love, love, love!”

“Love that’ll go straight to my thighs,” Kenny said, but kissed him anyway, making Butters laugh. He sensed Stan’s awkwardness and sat back in his chair, one friendly hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry, man, I’m not trying to make you feel like the third wheel. I just usually don’t get to see him when he’s working.” He lowered his voice to a stage whisper. “It’s kind of turning me on.”

“Golly, it’s just baking,” said Butters. Now he was sort of jerking off a pastry piping bag to get it unclogged; it swelled suggestively in his hands.

“I know, quickest way to a man’s heart,” Kenny said, watching him with open longing. “Second quickest way to his crotch.”

“What’s the first quickest?” asked Stan.

Kenny winked. “Getting me fresh beers when the game’s on.”

“We’re a progressive couple,” Butters said to Stan.

“Kind of. I mean, he still has to wait until the game ends.” Kenny gave Butters one final cheeky smile, took a long sip of coffee, and cleared his throat. “See, the problem with the familial archetype is that it’s too out of context now. What was normal fifty years ago is freakish by today’s standards. Butters and I are an average couple! Craig’s the fucking weirdo. Like, who does the father-mother-son-daughter thing? Dog-cat-white-picket-fence? Two cars? Proper union sans shotgun wedding? It’s terrifying.”

“Wendy is normal and nice,” said Butters.

“I’m telling you, there’s no such thing as a functional family. You gotta watch the ones who don’t fly their freak flags. I fear for the children and their latent Tuckeresque proclivities. ”

Butters smiled. “Aw, there’s nothing of Rory in Hammy.”

“How do you know?”

“Because, well, that’s something that starts with the parents. Wendy’s a good mom, and Hammy’s father isn’t Craig; it’s--”

Kenny nearly choked in his haste to interrupt. “Oh my god, show Stan the cupcakes you made yesterday!” he exclaimed, rapping his hands on the counter. “You know, the town ones? The ones where--”

“Oh yeah!” said Butters, glowing with excitement. “Wait right there, Stan!”

Butters tugged off his apron. He bumped into the counter in his haste, stumbled, then disappeared into the backroom with the door swinging behind him. Kenny craned forward in his chair for a glimpse of his ass.

“That boy is the rarest of creatures,” he said fondly, when Butters was out of earshot. “A purely sexual being without any idea of his own stimulus--you should see how he writhes when he sleeps. It’s maddening.”

Stan fiddled with his menu, trying not to look at his leaking pastry. “You don’t need to keep doing that, you know.”

Kenny paused. “What?”

“Skirting around the subject. Cutting people off whenever they try to say his name.”

Kenny was quiet for a while, and Stan steadied himself for an argument. But Kenny only pursed his lips and swiveled in his barstool, folding his arms.

“Sorry,” he said finally. “I thought it would be best for you.”

“Why?”

“Because--Stan--he doesn’t want to see you.”

I know, Stan tried to say. He did know. They had fallen out years before his incarceration. Oh, they called each other Super Best Friends well into college, but their relationship had become one of great distance and greater acting…after all, even Cartman had figured it out. Stan had come to terms with it by the time he was fourteen. Now, faced with the task of vocalizing that acceptance, he could not force words out over the tightness in his chest.

“I’m so fucking sorry,” Kenny whispered. “I tried to convince him, but he couldn’t say your name, either. It’s not that he doesn’t still care, he just--”

“He doesn’t!” Stan smacked the counter with both hands. His palms stung against the red Formica. “He doesn’t care! Why should he? We both had the same chance and I fell apart while he flourished. I never asked to see him; I don’t want to see him. I refuse to fuck him up. I ruin everything I touch, I should’ve stayed away. People want me away.”

“You don’t ruin--” Kenny began, but shut up as Butters burst back through the swinging door, effectively proving Stan’s point.

“Here they are!” Butters exclaimed. He was carrying a tray of gorgeous cupcakes, which he set in front of Stan. “Tell me what you see.”

It took him a moment to clear his vision, and another few seconds for him to actually focus. He got it immediately after his eyes had steadied. Twenty or so cakes in frilled paper, each decorated with different colors and candies, their schemes unmistakable. One with Annie’s curly blond tresses mimicked in swirls of lemon frosting. Another with messy chocolate hair and two toothpick crutches, very handi-capable. Even Pip had a place on the edge of the tray, a beautiful cake in plain paper, sitting purposefully apart from the rest of the dessert residents.

“Wow,” said Stan, honestly stunned. “Wow.”

“I was going to show these to everyone, but then I started worrying people would get offended,” said Butters. “I didn’t mean nothing by them, honest! See, this is Token,” he held up a brown cake, “but I only used chocolate because he was extra sweet, I swear. That’s not bad of me, is it? I wasn’t trying to hurt any feelings.”

“Oh god, I still love Craig’s,” said Kenny, laughing, pointing to a stunted vanilla cupcake with an ornate overcompensation of frosting.

Butters flushed. “I was running out of batter!”

“Because you wasted it all on Cartman’s! God, what did you bake that in, a fucking flower pot?”

But Stan wasn’t looking there. His eyes were drawn to the cake in the center of the batch. He could tell that Butters had started with white frosting and dyed it specially, because that red was too perfect, ruddier than raspberry and darker than cherry. It was the only one with such true color, color that spoke of actual life outside of the pastry shop. That existed for normal people, didn’t it?

Kenny quieted when he saw where Stan was looking.

“What was really judgmental of me was the fillings,” Butters continued, rummaging for a plate. “I can’t believe I had the nerve to assume what was inside of people! That’s why I can’t show these around. But you’re here now, Stan, so it’s only right that you get yours. As long as you don’t mind the morbidity of, um, eating yourself.”

Despite his emotional tumult, Stan snorted a little at ‘eating yourself.’ Kenny allowed himself a smile only after he saw Stan’s.

“Good man,” he said, very quietly.

Stan stared at the cupcake Butters slid towards him, outwardly bare, plain white with only thin layers of blue frosting to hide places where it had crumbled. Butters watched him nervously. The man could cater a thousand wedding receptions without a single flaw; he knew that Stan realized the cracks were intentional. Stan picked it up and hesitated, feeling sad for no reason at all.

“What were yours?” he asked them, stalling.

“Mine tasted like beer and had orange frosting on top,” said Kenny.

“Kenny made mine,” said Butters. “It had orange frosting, too.”

“Filling,” Kenny clarified, and winked. “My orange frosting filling.”

Stan laughed. It felt good. Then he bit carefully into the cupcake, and was startled to taste melting sugar on his tongue--Butters had filled it with confetti sprinkles. Heart-shaped confetti sprinkles. They tumbled out in a waterfall when he withdrew it from his mouth, a truly ridiculous amount that informed Stan that there had never been a space inside the sad little cake that wasn’t occupied by something bright. It was the cheesy type of thing that he would’ve taken as pointless sentimentalism as a teenager. Now he could only smile at Butters with helpless gratitude, barely able to repress his urge to hug him.

“Gee whiz, I was so worried I wasn’t going to see you smile,” Butters said. The delight in his face was completely unfeigned. He tenderly touched Stan’s hand; Stan surprised himself by letting him. “Good to have you back, Stan. Let’s try to keep you this way.”

“Thanks, Butters,” Stan said. “You’re amazing.”

Butters paused to show that he appreciated the compliment, then smiled and gestured towards the storage room. “If I were amazing, I wouldn’t have put off my call to Francis for so long. His hippie friend from Boulder is turning twenty-one. I’m going to bake him something to take to the party.”

“I didn’t know you made pot cakes,” said Kenny.

“Ha, ha,” said Butters. “I’ll need to be on the phone soon.”

“We should take off now, anyway.” Kenny leaned over the counter to kiss him again, nearly impaling himself on a frosting knife in an attempt to cop one last feel. “Don’t get too tempted by your own baking, okay?” he said, hands shamelessly planted on Butters’ ass. “I’ve got something delicious for you at home, too.”

“I’ll save some room,” Butters promised, completely missing the innuendo, as always. He pushed Kenny playfully away. “You fellas behave yourselves. Oh, and Stan?”

“Yeah?” said Stan, halfway to the exit.

“You’ve got a lot of heart. Really.”

Stan didn’t have time to respond. A bell chirped on the door as Butters vanished into the storage room, trailing a soft mist of flour.

- - - - - - - - -

Walking back out into the grayness of South Park was harder than Stan thought it would be. Back to this, he thought, still holding onto his heart-filled cupcake, its color stabilizing in the town’s gloom. One more block and he’d be back in his chalk cage, Craig’s normalcy raging at the margins. He’d balked at the idea of going to the cupcake shop that morning. Now he wanted to live in that beautiful world, Danishes for bad deportment, a place so universally sweet that it didn’t even turn out ex-cons without giving them handfuls of sprinkles.

Kenny stepped onto the sidewalk beside him and took a deep breath. “Mmm,” he said. “And I’d almost forgotten the glorious smell of cow shit.”

Stan turned to him. He tried to smile, but his cheer felt suddenly artificial.

“Yeah, it sucks leaving, doesn’t it?” Kenny agreed, reading his expression. “That’s why I don’t go in as often as I should. Besides the fact that watching Butters bake gives me a huge boner. Wanna feel?”

“I believe you,” said Stan. He hesitated. “Kenny--Butters is an exceptional person. I don’t know why I didn’t see it before.”

“Because we were fucked up kids. I didn’t know, either. At least we know now.”

Neither of them wanted to move. A car drove by, someone Stan didn’t know, two children in the backseat. Stan tried to imagine meeting up with Wendy on this same street. He hadn’t seen her yet, even at the school, but he knew how she would look now--older, smarter, stronger, and more tired. Like everyone else who didn’t live in Cherry On Top.

“So how did it really go with Pip last night?” Kenny asked. “Have fun ‘knitting?’”

Stan laughed without humor. “I went impotent, had a flashback, gave him a heart attack, then sobbed into his arms for an hour before we both calmed down enough to have a heartfelt discussion over tea. Which I made myself, because he was still shaking. He didn’t even let me pay him. ”

Kenny started a reply three times before he settled on a suitable one. “So…did you tell him?”

“Yeah.”

“And he didn’t chop off your dick or anything?”

“Well, by then I had it back in my pants,” said Stan, and that was the right thing to say, because Kenny grinned and hugged him around the shoulders.

“That’s what it’s all about. You find out who your real friends are after you fuck up, and not a moment before. You think you did something unforgivable--maybe you did--but that doesn’t mean the whole world’s got you pegged. It’s more complicated than that. If they don’t hear you out, then they don’t deserve to know you.”

“I know who you’re talking about.”

“Yeah, I know you know,” said Kenny with defiance, then braced himself to say it: “I’m talking about Kyle.”

Kyle. Kyle.

Just hearing it hurt; Stan had to process it in pieces. Kyle Broflovski. Married to Wendy Testaburger two years into college. Proud parent of three--Madison, Sarah, and Abraham “Hammy” Broflovski. Recently got a job as head librarian at the local high school. Stan and Kyle had been together when the church tried to swallow them whole, but Kyle had climbed back out and forged a future for himself amid the debris. Stan had moved away and gotten arrested and spent the next decade fighting for a life that he no longer deserved. There was a difference between Kyle and the PTA. Kyle had been holding his hand when it happened.

“That’s different,” Stan said. Kenny saw that he was choking up and tried to comfort him, but Stan pulled back, feeling the previous night’s flashback tension fighting for control in his shoulders. “We went through the same thing!”

“What’s your point?” asked Kenny.

“He didn’t fuck up like I did. He’s not a waste of space.”

“No, he’s a waste of family.”

Stan closed a hand around Kenny’s collar and backed him into the wall before his mind had time to catch up. “You son of a bitch! Take that back!”

Kenny’s jaw was set in defiance. “I will not. Get the fuck off me, Stan. You don’t even know him anymore. I do.”

His eyes stung. What was he doing? This was the only friend he had, a friend who’d know better than Stan would. Stan released him, dropping his arm down to his side. He’d held onto the cupcake with his other hand. He stared at it as Kenny fixed his shirt and began to speak softly, already having forgiven Stan’s transgression.

“Kyle took me to Manhattan with him,” he said. “I should’ve known something was off just by the way he packed his suitcase--arranged by color and size, backwards in layers. Underwear, pants, shirts, jackets, winter coats for emergencies. He had everything printed on a goddamn schedule. Even with Hammy, we were never more than a minute off track. And after we’d reached Sheila and Gerald’s, Kyle never stopped smiling. He was perfect. Not one a word against Sheila’s lectures on how poorly he and Wendy were raising the kids. He tries hard here, of course, but he’s had slip-ups of humanity--it was only seeing him with his parents that made me realize what’s wrong with him. Kyle is nothing, Stan. Kyle is playing a part. He’s been playing it ever since he made the basketball team in sixth grade. He’s no better than you. He’s only better at pretending he’s over it.”

“You’re wrong,” Stan said. “You’re fucking wrong!”

“Am I?”

“Coping is not the same thing as being emotionally catatonic! Give him some credit! You’re looking for breaks in him that don’t exist because you care, but you’re also a cynic. You have to be. You dealt with our wreckage then, Kenny, and you just never forgot how to be the babysitter.”

Stan hadn’t meant to hurt him, but Kenny had once been eleven, too, and the pain that flickered across his face was unmistakable. Kenny swallowed hard, then held up his hands. “Okay,” he said quietly. “So maybe you’re right about me, Stan.”

“Maybe I am.”

“But you’re not right about Butters.”

Stan stared at him. “What does he have to do with anything? What do you mean?”

Kenny finally straightened up against the wall. “Butters wasn’t our friend back then, but he’s an important part of the town now,” he said. “He doesn’t know Kyle well. He’s completely impartial. But I was there when he baked those cupcakes, and I know exactly what’s in them.”

Stan didn’t see where this was going.

“Tell me what’s in Kyle’s,” Kenny said.

“No clue,” said Stan. “Chocolate syrup. Raspberry jam. A million fucking dollars.”

Kenny shook his head. “Nothing.”

Stan felt a sudden weight in his chest. “Nothing?”

“It’s empty,” said Kenny, “because Butters had no idea what to put in it, what Kyle Broflovski could possibly be holding in his soul. I’ve been Kyle’s friend since kindergarten. I couldn’t think of anything, either.”

Silence reigned for a long time. No, thought Stan. That wasn’t fair. In no one’s misguided estimation should Stan Marsh be worth more than Kyle Broflovski.

Kenny was looking away towards the street. “I was hoping that you would fix each other when you came back. You were always meant to operate as a pair--the best friends. And you should’ve been more. When you were paroled, I figured it was a second chance for everyone…but I didn’t count on you having exalted him like this, or Craig being--Craig. You can still make this right; it’s just going to have to start with you two. I’m so sorry. Stan, I wanted it to be easier, I really did. I just…forgot for a second that this is real life.”

Such an easy mistake to make. Stan stood at the curb and stared again at South Park--a town that was filled with people he had known all his life, nothing like a tray of cupcakes--and wondered why he was farther away from Kyle here than he had ever been in prison.

- - - - - - - - -

End of part one

- - - - - - - - -

I don’t think I’ve ever managed a story that gives any good answers in the first chapter, but this one’s not as cloak-and-dagger, is it? Thank you for reading. Please feel free to give me criticism. I want to get better.