Rating:

Teen

Category:

M/M

Fandom:

South Park

Relationship:

Stan/Kyle

Tags:

fluff, holidays, lowercase

Stats:

Posted on:

2013-01-01

Words:

2,749

kyle likes looking at the little stars above his head before he falls asleep. usually he sleeps on his side or sometimes facedown on his mattress, which is more comfortable (and when stan or kenny or even occasionally cartman come barging into his room in the mornings they find him like this and make fun of him for it) and yeah, it’s more comfortable. it takes longer for him to sleep with his back pressed straight to the mattress, staring up at his star-covered ceiling.

but sometimes it’s also the only option when some dumbass has forgotten his sleeping bag at home and it’s the nineteenth of december which means it’s already snowing like hell in colorado. kyle’s mom, hell, even kyle had offered stan to sleep on a blow up air mattress, or kyle sleep in the living room couch (if he was a few years younger ike wouldn’t have protested kyle sleeping in his room as he does now), but stan had insisted, had said, “nah, dude, i don’t mind sharing a bed with you.”

kyle doesn’t mind too much sharing a bed with stan either, because even though yeah, okay, he likes his best friend in that way, they’ve always acted the same around each other and stan has slept in his bed before, even though they’re fifteen now, not twelve. but he’s also looking at the stars on his ceiling and can hear stan’s breathing, a little bit shallow, a little bit forced, like stan is aware of every inhale and exhale.

“you ever think about breathing?” stan asks. “and then suddenly you’re afraid that you’ll forget to breathe?”

kyle clucks his lips and teeth. through his own blanket and stan’s blanket, and the comforter on top of them both, he can feel the sides of stan’s fingers. “i told you that that’s a common human phenomenon,” he says. “five months ago.”

stan chuckles. “oh yeah,” he says, “you did, i remember that. we were at the park, and cartman had just bought those race cars—”

“—and kenny accidentally drove one into cartman’s balls, yeah,” says kyle, and they both laugh.

he’s still staring at his glow in the dark stars. they’re kinda bright, but not too bright, which is good because he’ll need to sleep, soon. even though lying straight on his back plus having his best friend whispering dumb things in his ear isn’t going to help that.

“hey,” whispers stan, and kyle can sort of feel his warm breath against the shell of his ear, his cheek, his jaw. “remember when we put those stars up there?”

kyle remembers. they’d been eleven and butters had gotten them for kyle’s birthday even though at eleven years old, no one got anyone birthday presents anymore except for parents and super best friends. stan and kyle had laughed about it but had then said it was nice of butters to give him something, and took turns jumping on kyle’s mattress sticking them up until kyle’s parents had come to tell them to stop before they broke the floor. then they’d turned the light off and stan had asked, “how’s it look?” and kyle saw the dim outline of stan underneath the glow in the dark stars for the first time, then. had realized that, wow, he’s kind of beautiful, for the first time, then.

kyle had grown taller over those years and last spring had stuck the rest of the glow in the dark stars up without much effort.

“yeah,” he murmurs, and curses sleep for eventually taking him, in advance.

*

it’s winter break so no one’s worried about waking up early on monday, which is the twenty-second and stan comes over in an ugly christmas sweater. kyle’s face breaks into a grin and he says, “hey, i’ve been waiting for you to wear those things this year.”

“yeah, well,” says stan, and shrugs, and kyle knows that stan’s become more aware of how uncomfortable kyle is at this whole christmas thing every year. south park hasn’t changed a bit.

kyle doesn’t mind too much, actually.

“so you choose to rub it in my face now,” says kyle, and stan laughs, pushes past him to enter his house. kyle kicks his heel as he closes the door and stan just laughs some more.

“actually,” he says. “i was gonna go ice skating. ken’s sick but cartman’s coming, and—”

“is that your way of insisting for me to go?” says kyle, rolling his eyes.

“just stating facts.” stan beams, brighter than the first few candles on the menorah in the living room. “you know it’s not really hanukkah until we’ve made fun of cartman falling on ice at least ten times before the eighth day.”

“abraham bless,” says kyle, and then, “yeah, all right, fine, let’s go. i’ll go get my skates from upstairs.”

“and i’ll help myself to your refrigerator,” says stan, slipping into the kitchen.

kyle rolls his eyes again, but calls as he leaves, “there’s leftover pasta on the top shelf!”

*

cartman’s already at the ice skating rink, with a chocolate popsicle in hand. kyle says, “dude, it’s fucking freezing, why’re you eating that thing?” and cartman says, “shut up jew, i’ll do what i want.”

yeah, the past eight years of his life have felt like the same year over and over again.

mostly. except they’re all taller now, especially stan, who isn’t filled out completely—he leans kind of awkwardly sometimes, like when he asks girls out or asks kyle when they’re at shakey’s if he can steal half of kyle’s fries. but stan is tall and laughing as he skates across the ice, as kyle (still the slow one) is tying his shoes and cartman tries to crash into the other people on stark’s pond, popsicle still in hand.

“dude, are you still having trouble with your skates?” stan asks as he glides by, probably on his—eighth circle, kyle thinks, although he hasn’t been counting; it’s a rough estimate, as stan’s a generally average sped skater and with about twelve other people around, and the pond having the circumference of less than maybe a third of the average skating rink—

“you’re doing that thinking thing again,” stan calls; he’s on the other side of the pond now.

cartman snorts. “yeah, like he has a brain. i bet under all that fro is more fro, dude.”

kyle frowns and adjusts his hat self-consciously. “i have higher grades than you,” he says petulantly. “also, you can’t have hair inside your head. hair is dead skin cells.”

“whatever,” says cartman, and licks his popsicle again. he looks at it for a second. “i’m tired of eating,” he says, and then waits until a couple passes him by before tossing it to the ground. the couple slips and the girl bangs her head horribly against the ice. cartman laughs.

stan looks like he’s trying not to smile and kyle stifles a snort too. he looks back to his shoelaces and can’t quite remember where he’d been in tying. “uh, dude,” he says. “could you help me with this?”

“faggy,” cartman remarks as stan skates over to him, but they both ignore him.

“remind me why we still hang out with him again?” kyle mutters from the corner of his mouth as cartman goes over to his fallen popsicle, observes it, and resumes licking it.

“because generally when you start hanging out with someone in this town you don’t stop?” stan suggests, and kyle laughs.

“true,” he says, and doesn’t think he’d have it any other way, with stan and his ugly christmas sweaters always around.

*

hanukkah ends on the twenty-fourth. stan comes to kyle’s house with an unoffensive snowman wrapping paper-wrapped gift, so kyle’s mom doesn’t scream anything other than, “bubbe, stan’s here! and he got you a gift!” to the living room.

kyle sets down his laptop and grins at stan in the doorway. stan looks wonderful as always, snow dusting his hat and his jacket, and says, “wanna go up to your room?”

“hold on, i gotta finish watering my crops,” says kyle, going back to grab his laptop, and he hears stan let out a resigned sigh from behind him. still, stan’s smiling so he probably doesn’t mind too terribly; sometimes kyle sees a little “stan has liked your activity on farmville!” notification so.

he brings his laptop with him, actually, watering his crops on his way up and his mother calls after him, “don’t play while you’re walking, honey!” kyle shouts back, “i’m not playing,” but stan, ahead of him, says, “yes you are.”

“farming is not a game, stan,” says kyle. “there are real people, on real farms, who do real work and have rows and rows of crops they plant to sell at markets—”

“yeah, well you’re not one of those farmers, are you?” stan throws a little grin over his shoulder and kyle wonders when he got so confident. maybe that time when kyle had helped him out with his science fair project in middle school and stan had won and was brimming with happiness while kyle stood at his side, proud of his best friend. yeah, maybe then.

“anyways,” says stan, flopping down to sit on his bed, facing him. “happy hanukkah.”

“er, thanks,” says kyle, taking the present and setting it down on his desk. “you usually don’t get me hanukkah presents, though…”

“yeah, i know,” says stan, like he’s happy about this, too. kyle wonders if it’s another mutilated bonsai-palm tree. (for the science project, kyle had suggested something combined with his elephant instead, but stan had said that he didn’t want to do something potentially harmful to another living, animate object, ‘especially an animal.’ kyle had delicately not brought up the veal episode.)

kyle mentally shakes himself from his memories and stan encourages, “open it.”

“uh,” says kyle. “it’s not like, a. a dumb prank or anything.”

“who do you think i am, kenny? or worse, cartman?” says stan, then frowns. “wait, would cartman be worse than kenny?”

“well, on a certain level, he could be… he would be.”

“yeah, cartman has that whole sadistic thing, but kenny and his…”

“and remember that time with the hot cafeteria lady on the swingset? and the helium balloons?”

“oh, dude, don’t remind me. but then again, when it comes to you, cartman’s a little bit—”

“yeah,” kyle finishes, and they both laugh. stan remembers that there’s a gift to be opened though, and looks pointedly to it again.

“i want you to open it,” he says. “c’mon, i promise it’s not dumb.”

“okay, if you say so,” says kyle, and then opens it.

it’s a little fuzzy notebook, nothing special, and stan says, “go on, read it.” kyle reads the first page and when he’s done his eyebrows are a little bit scrunched and confused and he looks up at his best friend and says,

“… you write songs?”

“yeah, well.” stan chuckles and stares at his fingers, twisting them in his lap. “it’s kinda why i wrote that it’s a secret,” he says, gesturing to the notebook. “i didn’t want to, ah. tell anyone.”

“but you’re telling me,” says kyle.

“yeah,” says stan. “’cause i trust you, and everything, and, y’know. i usually don’t keep secrets from you and i don’t want to.”

“stan,” kyle says, because even though it’s a little book probably filled with bad teenage angst phrases and things hipsters wished they didn’t appreciate, it’s still probably the most meaningful thing stan could get him. that kyle could receive.

“last day of hanukkah and all,” stan says awkwardly. “and i figured, y’know, why not. ’cause i. ’cause,” and he breaks off and mumbles something that sounds oddly like, “’cause i kinda like you.”

stan sounds like he’s nine years old again and kyle’s instincts immediately go to reach for the trash can, in case stan might puke. but he doesn’t, just stares at his fingers as if waiting kyle’s response.

kyle clears his throat, fighting a grin from his face. “uh,” he says. “i didn’t catch that.”

stan enunciates this time, quietly.

“i like you, dude.”

“you like-like me?” says kyle, and stan reaches over from sitting on kyle’s bed to whack him.

“shut up!”

“you are five, i don’t know why i keep you around,” says kyle. stan opens his mouth, like he’s about to say something, but then kyle continues, “but i think it’s maybe because i like you too.”

a smile cracks onto stan’s face. it’s like sunlight, between curtains and a window frame. “you do?” he says. “you like-like me?” and kyle says, “aw, dude,” and tackles stan onto his bed and they roll around a bit (as much as they can) before kyle is sitting on stan’s stomach, either side of him.

“i think hanukkah may be better than christmas if they’re like this,” he says.

“i do what i have to do for my favorite,” says stan, holding onto kyle’s forearms.

“don’t pick favorites, it’s rude,” says kyle, but he kisses stan on the nose and stan laughs and they wrestle on kyle’s bed again.

*

well christmas is as nice as hanukkah because at noon the next day kyle shows up at stan’s house with the rest of his family and kyle’s mom says, “i think we won’t mind eating a christmas dinner this one time to celebrate our sons finally getting together,” and stan’s dad squawks, “WHAT?” and the entire dinner is filled with, “but stan, you didn’t— i thought you— you and that little testaburger girl— what?” and shelly is saying to ike, “pay up, squirt.”

“what did you guys bet on?” kyle asks indignantly across the table. his fingers are linked in stan’s and he’s fighting the urge to bury his head into the shoulder of stan’s christmas sweater, which is brown with little reindeer on it. it’s really ugly.

“i thought kenny would go for you first,” ike confesses cheerily, grabbing some corn. “pass the pot roast, please,” he says to stan’s mom.

“no problem, dear,” she says, as both stan and kyle screech, “what?”

meanwhile, as randy continues to sputter at stan, sharon says, “well, you can’t be too surprised, dear. that one video game had them right.”

“but you guys were totally destined to be fags in the end,” says shelly.

“yeah.” ike nods enthusiastically. “also,” he adds to shelly, “stan made the first move, so you have to pay me five bucks too.”

shelly looks disgruntled as she hands the money over.

“how do you even know that?” says kyle.

ike smirks. “i have ears everywhere,” he says.

kyle makes a mental note to check the inside of his lamp when he gets home.

he and stan finish their dinners before the others, and stan asks politely, “mom, can we go upstairs?” sharon looks reluctant, but stan rolls his eyes and says, “we’re alone in each other’s rooms all the time.”

ike giggles. even shelly looks like she’s trying not to laugh.

“that doesn’t exactly help,” says ike.

“shut up,” kyle snaps (and ignores his mother’s scolding.) “don’t worry mrs. marsh, we won’t do anything. i won’t let him,” and stan nudges him with his elbow. they’re not holding hands anymore, although their wrists keep bumping.

sharon sighs. “all right,” she says, and ike calls after them, “don’t break the mattress!” they hear the distinct sound of randy spluttering out his eggnog as they go upstairs.

“you really won’t let me?” says stan, when they get into his room, and kyle lightly pushes him back as stan tries to approach.

“of course not, i’m the responsible one in this relationship,” he says. he sits on the floor by the foot of stan’s bed and stan plops right next to him, ruffling kyle’s hair down toward his face.

“you’re the pretty one,” he says.

kyle crinkles his nose. “no, you’re the pretty one,” he says, because stan is, with his brown sweater and dark hair and pinkish, slightly warm cheeks. kyle can feel them from here.

“okay,” stan agrees, and he leans in and presses his mouth against kyle’s. kyle laughs, their teeth clumsily bumping together as he tries to shake the bouncing red curls from his face, and stan says, “no, keep them there,” and kyle says, “you’re so destructive, jerk.” stan tries to kiss him again, lips bumping into teeth and teeth bumping into lips again, and kyle laughs because it doesn’t work at all, and stan laughs too, smelling and tasting like pine and eggnog and cinnamon.