Scraps Post!
I've been pretty stuck lately with writing, and I think my solution is finally just to scrap the 3 things I've been attempting to work on and admit that they're not interesting or developed enough, premise-wise, for me to continue. I just need to start fresh with something, maybe the sequel to mpreg fic that me and Sekrit talked about at Disney World, and in order to do that I have to let these 3 go, I think. So here are the scraps for those who are interested! I'll include a little summary of what would have happened.
(This was inspired by a similar story that I liked but had some issues with, so I sort of wanted to rewrite it. I think the reason I've had such a hard time returning to it, after writing this set up, is that it would be 20k or so of them just miserably suffering in a government holding facility, and I don't know how interested I ultimately am in writing all that out).
Stan didn't witness the incident at the arcade, but Kyle did. By the time Kyle showed up at Stan's door Stan had already gotten fifteen text messages, ten from Cartman alone.
CRAIG BLEW SOMEONE UP had been the first one.
It was a weird time for Stan and Kyle, and Stan's first thought was that Cartman was trying to play some kind of prank on him and Kyle was complicit. Cartman and Kyle had begun doing things together without Stan, sometimes even without Kenny tagging along.
"What?" Stan said when he saw Kyle standing on the front stoop. "What's all this bullshit Cartman is send--"
He was cut off by the force of Kyle's body landing hard against his, and he held his arms up in surrender while Kyle hugged him tight, his face hidden against Stan's chest.
"This kid," Kyle said, his voice pinched. "Died."
"What?" Stan touched the back of Kyle's head tentatively, his other hand sliding across Kyle's shoulders. They weren't exactly estranged, but it had been a long time since they'd hugged. Kyle clung hard, and Stan held him more tightly when he felt that he was shaking.
"At the arcade," Kyle said. "It's not a joke. Craig -- ah. His eyes."
"Come inside." Stan pulled Kyle into the house and brought him to the kitchen. Kyle let Stan guide him into a seat, his face white with shock while Stan poured him some milk. "Drink this," Stan said, not sure what else to do. Kyle drank.
"There was blood," Kyle said when he was halfway finished. He wiped off his milk mustache. "It was like an explosion. A person, exploding. Look." Kyle lifted up his leg so Stan could see the ankle of his pants. There was something dark and red dried there.
"Wait," Stan said. "Craig -- that eye thing--"
"I guess he thought it went away," Kyle said. "But he got in this argument with a younger kid over whose turn it was to play Rage Kill VI, and then--" Kyle lost his voice and put his hands over his face.
"Craig seriously blew someone up with his eyes?" Stan still wasn't sure he could believe this, but Kyle seemed legitimately shaken. "What did he do after?"
"Fainted," Kyle said.
"Did the police come?"
"I don't know. I ran."
"Does your mom know?" Stan asked. Kyle shook his head. Stan wanted to ask why Kyle had come to him instead of going home to his parents, but he didn't want Kyle to think he wasn't glad about that.
"Can we just watch TV or something?" Kyle asked. "I feel so fucked up."
"Sure," Stan said. He poured a refill of milk for Kyle and got him some stale Milanos. They headed for the living room couch, and Kyle sat unnecessarily close to Stan, like he had when they were kids. Stan turned on the TV and put an arm around him. "It's gonna be okay," he said, quietly. Kyle shook his head.
"I won't sleep for days," he said, but he ended up falling asleep with his head on Stan's shoulder, smelling like milk and cookies. Just keeping his arm around Kyle and turning down the volume on the TV made Stan feel big and important. When they were kids Kyle had often made him feel that way.
They were still kids: they were twelve. Stan didn't know enough to tell Kyle to talk to his parents about the fact that he'd witnessed a violent death. He helped Kyle scrub the blood off his jeans before he left.
"You can come back tomorrow," Stan said when they were on the front stoop, Stan's parents home from work and starting on dinner. "After school, if you want."
"Thanks," Kyle said, and he smiled.
Craig was not in school the next day. The kids in Stan's class were so antsy, whispering rumors, that their teacher finally had to address the issue.
"Mr. Tucker is not well," she said. "Let's leave it at that until we know more facts, please."
"Craig's on fucking death row," Cartman said at lunch. "Or strapped down to some scientist's table, getting dissected."
"Shut up," Kenny said. "I don't think he meant to do it."
"He looked real scared before he fainted," Butters said.
"Was everyone there but me?" Stan asked, feeling left out. He looked to Kyle, who was picking the crusts off his rye and tuna salad sandwich.
"I thought it was a trick at first," Kyle said. "Seemed like the kind of trick Craig would play."
"How the fuck would that be a trick, Kyle?" Cartman asked. "Craig just happened to know a kid who could explode and then put himself back together?"
"He really exploded?" Stan narrowed his eyes, trying to picture this. He'd heard that word thrown around a lot during the school day, and Kyle had used it the night before.
"Like, picture there's a bomb in someone's stomach and it goes off," Cartman said. "Like that."
"You saw the lasers come out of Craig's eyes?" Kenny said.
"You didn't?" Stan said. Kenny shook his head.
"I was playing Cruisin'."
"The only game Kenny can afford to play," Cartman said. It was an old machine that only cost fifty cents.
"I saw the lasers," Butters said. His eyes were wide but unfocused, and he was holding his turkey sandwich with both hands. "It was like somethin' out of Star Wars!"
"Do you want my sandwich?" Kyle asked, placing it near Stan's hand. "I can't eat if they're going to talk about this."
"What the fuck else are we going to talk about?" Cartman asked, his voice rising to a high pitched note of disbelief. "A guy blew up, Kyle! We saw it. You want to talk about the Broncos prospects or something? Fuck!"
"I'm going to the library," Kyle said, standing.
"Hang on," Stan said. He ate the rest of Kyle's sandwich in four bites. "I'm coming," he said, his mouth still full.
In the library, Stan walked behind Kyle as he wandered the shelves. Kyle touched the spines of books, seeming dazed.
"Did you tell your parents about what happened?" Stan asked, surprised that Kyle was in school today at all. Of course, it was South Park; they were all expected to deal with things like this.
"They were talking about it," Kyle said. "It was on the news. But I didn't tell them I was there."
"How come?"
Kyle shrugged. He came to the end of the Biology and Chemistry section and sat on the floor with his back to the wall. Stan sat beside him. The aisles were narrow so they were necessarily close, and Stan put his hand over Kyle's when Kyle touched his knee.
"What do you think happened to Craig?" Kyle asked.
"They're probably just treating him in the hospital," Stan said. "Eye surgery, maybe. And counseling, you know. For trauma." He dug his fingers in between Kyle's.
"I wish you had been there," Kyle said, almost whispering.
"Why?" Stan asked. He wished that, too, though he knew he wouldn't have been able to stop throwing up for at least twenty-four hours.
"Stuff doesn't seem real if you're not there," Kyle said. "Not that I want this to feel real. It's so fucking horrible. But you -- if it's bothering me this much, I want it to be bothering you, too. Is that dumb?"
"No," Stan said. "And it is bothering me. Are you gonna go to the kid's funeral?" His name had been on the news: Baxter Varnedoe. He was a fifth grader.
"I don't know," Kyle said. "Probably not."
They sat there for a while, the lunch period dwindling. Stan pulled down a book on mammals who live in rivers and they both slid their legs down so he could open it across their laps. The more pages Stan turned the closer Kyle's head came to resting on his shoulder, until finally it was there.
"I didn't sleep last night," Kyle said, as if to excuse himself for doing this.
"It's okay," Stan said. He turned his face into Kyle's curls for half a second, so glad that he hadn't been the one who'd pissed Craig off yesterday.
The bell rang, and they sprang up as if caught by a librarian. Stan started to reinsert the mammals book onto the shelf he'd pulled it from, but Kyle took it before he could.
"I'm going to check this out," Kyle said.
They had their next period together: American History. Kyle ignored the lesson, which never happened. He hid the mammals book in his binder and stared at it intently, turning a page every five minutes or so. Stan kept a careful watch out of the corner of his eye.
For the next week Kyle came home with Stan everyday after school. Cartman, who was obsessed with the gory details of the arcade incident and speculation about Craig's punishment, was forbidden from joining them. Kenny was usually busy with his girlfriend, an eighth grader named Cressida who allegedly put out, so it was usually just Stan and Kyle. They didn't talk much, just watched TV and touched each other aimlessly. Stan would toy with the hem of Kyle's shirt or Kyle would sneak two fingers into the pocket of Stan's jeans, both of them always keeping their eyes on the TV. Stan hoped he seemed cool while doing this, even bored, though it made his heart pound. It had been a long time since he'd thought of Kyle as someone who needed protecting. Kyle was taller than him now, just by an inch and a half, and he'd long ago become accustomed to fighting his own battles. But this wasn't a battle; it was like being in a hospital waiting room, tensely anticipating bad news.
News about Craig never came, except vague reports that he was being "treated" in Denver. Kyle's parents found out that he'd been at the arcade that day when he started waking up screaming with night terrors, and they had him see a counselor. Kyle was less morose after a few weeks of therapy, back to snapping at Cartman and grinning at Kenny's stupid jokes. He came over to Stan's house less often, and when he did he would sit out of touching range on the couch.
"What if Craig comes back next year," Cartman said one day when they were all walking home from school together, "Eyeless?"
"Then I'll kick your ass if you make fun of him," Kenny said. "It's not his fault his eyes had that -- thing."
"Maybe they'd give him some cool sunglasses like Cyclops had in X-Men," Stan said hurriedly, glancing at Kyle. He'd gone quiet, his mouth pinched.
"Poor old Craig," Butters said, knocking his fists together.
"Poor Craig?" Cartman scoffed. "Yeah, right. He's a deadly weapon. Don't feel sorry for him, feel sorry for his victims."
"It was only the one kid," Stan said. "On accident."
"As far as we know," Cartman said.
Stan and Kyle split from the group at the train tracks, Kenny heading toward his house and Cartman dragging Butters off on some secret mission. At Stan's house, Stan made the snack tray while Kyle watched: barbecue chips, cashews, and some canned pineapple chunks for their health.
"What if something really horrible happened to Craig?" Kyle said. "Like -- what if they really did dig out his eyes?"
"They?" Stan said.
"I don't know. The government?"
"They wouldn't do that to a kid," Stan said, his stomach twisting. "I'm sure Craig's okay. Do you want to go see his sister or something, to ask her?"
"No," Kyle said. "I'm afraid of that kid."
"Yeah, she's pretty surly."
"I'm sure he's okay," Kyle said, nodding to himself as they walked into the living room with the snack tray. "We would have heard about it if he wasn't."
"Exactly," Stan said.
They sat close, for snack sharing purposes. Kyle moved his leg over until it was pressed along the length of Stan's, thigh to ankle. The contact gave Stan a full body flush that was good and uncomfortable at the same time.
"Want the last one?" he asked, pinching the last piece of pineapple between his thumb and forefinger. Kyle opened his mouth and stuck out his tongue. Stan laughed, not sure if he was serious, then placed the pineapple gently on Kyle's tongue before he could puss out. Kyle closed his lips around it and grinned, chewing.
"Thanks," he said.
"You're welcome." Stan licked the juice off his fingers. He nearly sent the whole snack tray flying when the front door opened, and Kyle laughed. It was just Stan's mom, asking for help with the groceries.
"Have you heard anything from Craig's mom?" Stan asked as he and Kyle helped her load the things she'd bought into the fridge. "About, you know," Stan said, glancing at Kyle. "What happened to him?"
"Kyle's mom called over there a few times," Sharon said. "She just got an answering machine. I think the Tuckers must be in Denver with Craig. Or maybe they're just too overwhelmed to talk to anyone yet. The whole thing's so strange and awful."
Stan walked Kyle down to the end of the driveway as the street lamps began to come on. He could still taste salt and pineapple on his tongue, and he knew Kyle's tongue would taste that way, too. He couldn't stop thinking about it.
"Will things ever feel normal again?" Kyle asked when they were standing near Stan's mailbox.
"I think sometimes they will, sometimes they won't," Stan said. It was like the darkness that closed over him sometimes, like suddenly life was carrying him around in a burlap sack, everything itchy and airless, and he couldn't even move except to struggle hopelessly until he'd exhausted himself. Bad things like that didn't go away, but they weren't always as bad as they sometimes got.
"I meant--" Kyle said, and he tugged his sleeves down over his hands, his shoulders lifting.
"What?" Stan said.
"I feel like someone's watching us," Kyle said.
They both looked up and down the street, which was dark except for the spots on the sidewalk that were illuminated by streetlight. When Stan looked back at Kyle his face was close and he looked very worried, like he was about to tell Stan they were both in danger. Instead, Kyle shut his eyes and jammed his lips against Stan's clumsily. It only lasted a few seconds, then Kyle was moaning and walking away.
"Hey," Stan said, grabbing him. He pulled Kyle back until their faces were pressed together again, noses touching. Stan grinned, and Kyle did, too, slowly, his eyes watering a little.
"My life flashed before my eyes that day," Kyle said. "I think? I don't know. Most of it was you."
Stan kissed him hard, not really sure how to do it but certain that he wanted a lot of this, very much, which seemed to translate to pressing hard against Kyle. Wendy had told him he was bad at this. He tried something fancy, licking Kyle's lips, and Kyle laughed, then licked back.
"You taste really-" Stan said, then he got too embarrassed to finish, though Kyle seemed to know what he was going to say: really good, so good. Kyle was beaming.
"Try it like this," he said, and they kissed again, more slowly and deliberately this time, trading little licks. Stan liked the feeling of holding Kyle's body against his even better than the kissing, and he was starting to get hard in his pants, his ears buzzing with the thrill of what they were doing. The porch light came on behind them and he cursed, turning.
"Your mom will see," Kyle said, whispering. He squirmed out of Stan's arms and adjusted his jeans. His face was pink, just a little.
"I love you," Stan said very seriously, too cold without Kyle pressed against him. Kyle threw his head back and laughed.
"Dude," he said. "Calm down. I'm not about to get on a plane and never return. But, I know," he said, more quietly, and he stepped forward again to peck Stan on the lips. "You're my boyfriend now," he said, whispering. "That's how this works, so don't try to get out of it."
"I'm not -- Kyle!" Stan groped for him when he moved away, but Kyle laughed and evaded his hands. "I wouldn't try to get out of it," Stan said.
"I know," Kyle said. "But I want to have very clearly defined terms. Okay?" He was backing away, into the middle of the dark street. Stan looked up and down the road to make sure no cars were coming.
"Okay," Stan said. "Watch where you're going."
He had this awful feeling that now, certainly, something bad would happen to Kyle.
Kyle made it home safely that night, and he sent Stan an email to confirm this: Here in my bedroom, in my pajamas. PS - this is a SECRET. Even from Kenny, ok?
Stan agreed to these terms.
Stan's life had never seemed so exciting. He felt sick to his stomach all the time, not just when Kyle was near, but it was a good kind of queasiness, like being upside down on a roller coaster. After school they walked home together as usual, made a snack tray, and sat on Stan's couch watching TV or doing homework. Even if Stan's parents weren't home yet their kisses felt sneaky and secret, and Stan figured he was improving, because he'd learned how to draw soft little noises out of Kyle while they kissed. In the middle of the night Stan would sometimes have to stuff his fist into his mouth to keep from laughing crazily with glee.
On Sunday he woke up with a burning need to buy Kyle a gift: his first present for Kyle as his boyfriend. He had five dollars and sixty-three cents. He dressed and walked to Wall-Mart, where everything seemed lame and unimpressive. He finally settled on a basketball but could only afford a mini one. It was red and black, and Stan had enough money leftover to buy Kyle a roll of Sweet Tarts. On the way over to Kyle's house he wondered if that would be his new nickname for Kyle, sweet tart, and if he would murmur this against Kyle's neck while they cuddled in front of the TV.
When he arrived at Kyle's house there were several vehicles parked out front: two black sedans with tinted windows and one local police car. Stan bolted for the front door and threw it open without knocking, something he hadn't done since he was eight. There were a lot of people gathered in the living room: Kyle's parents, three men in suits, a lady who was also in a suit, and a police officer Stan didn't recognize. Kyle was seated beside his mother on the sofa, looking frightened and hugging his elbows.
"Stanley!" Sheila said. "What are you doing?"
"I came to see Kyle," Stan said. He held up the basketball. The Sweet Tarts were in his coat pocket.
"Stanley?" one of the men said. He was mostly bald with some thin brown hair, tall and thin. "Stan Marsh?"
"They're here about Craig, dude," Kyle said. His voice was small, nakedly terrified. "About how we went to Peru with him."
"Come in, Stanley," the woman said. Stan didn't like her voice, or her smile. Both were too smooth and seemed practiced. "Get his parents," she said to one of the men, and he nodded.
Five minutes later, Randy and Sharon arrived at the Broflovski household. Stan was seated beside Kyle, but he was so frightened and confused that he wanted to spring up and run to his mother when she came in. The agents had been asking questions: Did Stan, Kyle, or any of their other friends experience changes to their physical abilities after or during their trip to Peru? Did they share food with Craig during the journey? Were they aware that he had maintained and concealed his powers?
"After what happened," the woman said, "I'm sure you can understand our concern."
"You think our boys are going to shoot lasers out their eyes?" Randy said.
"Oh, my God!" Sheila said.
"No, no," Stan said. "We didn't - Craig stood on this disc, okay? That's when his eyes started glowing."
"And there was a picture of him in the ruins!" Kyle said. "You can go there and see for yourselves!"
"We haven't been able to relocate this temple you boys described three years ago," the woman said. She had introduced herself to their parents as Greta Richter, and Stan was liking her less and less, increasingly creeped out by the silent men in suits who flanked her. "Frankly, it didn't seem very important until this incident. Mrs. Broflovski, I know it's hard to imagine that your son might have developed this - deformity, too, but what if he gets into an argument with your younger boy and unintentionally kills him?"
"No!" Kyle said. "I wouldn't - Mom!" He grabbed for Sheila's arm. "I don't have this thing, and neither does Stan!"
"Bubbeh," Sheila said, hugging him to her with one arm. "I - I think you're right, but why don't we let some doctors check you to make sure? Wouldn't that make you feel better?"
"You wouldn't want to hurt someone the way Craig did, right?" Gerald said.
"What kind of doctors?" Sharon asked. She was standing near the arm of the couch, beside Stan, reaching out to touch his head every few minutes.
"Specialists," Greta said, and she smiled. "Just to give you all peace of mind. The Tuckers are going through a complete nightmare, as you can imagine."
"Are they being held legally responsible?" Gerald asked.
"Baxter Varendoe's parents have filed a criminal suit, yes."
"Just how long would these tests take?" Sharon asked. "Craig has been gone for weeks." Her hand went to the back of Stan's head again, and she stroked his hair with her thumb. Normally he would push her away and accuse her of treating him like a baby, but he was glad for it at the moment.
"Well, Craig is a different case," Greta said. "Or so we hope. He's confirmed to have the disorder. We would just be making sure that your boys don't have it."
"What about Kenny and Cartman?" Kyle asked, and Stan elbowed him. "What?" Kyle said, frowning. "It's not fair - they were there, too!"
"We've already gotten signed releases from the McCormicks and Mrs. Cartman," Greta said. "They'll accompany you two to the testing facility. So it might end up being a fun adventure!" She pressed her hands together when she said so, and Stan leaned against Kyle, trying to warn him about something that he couldn't put his finger on. "You'll get to go on a special trip with your friends."
"I would need to study these releases," Gerald said.
"Yeah," Randy said. Stan rolled his eyes.
"We have them right here," Greta said, putting her hand out. One of the men went for a briefcase that was sitting on top of the Broflovskis' coffee table and took out a stack of papers, passing them to her. "Please review them now," Greta said as she handed them out to the parents. "Unfortunately, we have orders to keep your children under surveillance for security purposes until they're given the all clear by our doctors. This will just expedite the process."
"But I'm telling you," Kyle said. "We don't have this thing. Craig had lasers coming out of his eyes three years ago, when he stood on that thing, but we never have-"
"I'm glad to hear that you feel confident that you weren't affected," Greta said, giving Kyle a tight smile that made Stan go tense, his elbow sliding onto Kyle's thigh. "But I'm sure you can understand that we need to make absolutely certain that you're right, for the protection of your friends and family. You two seem very close." Her eyes darted from Kyle's to Stan's, then back. "How horrible would it be to inadvertently hurt your good friend Stan with a power that's been lying dormant in you since your trip to Peru?"
"What if you do discover that they have it?" Sheila asked. "What then?"
"We're working with the Tucker boy to determine a way to remove the ability," Greta said. "So he can go on to lead a normal life."
"How would you remove it?" Stan asked. His heart was slamming, and his mother's hand was still in his hair. He'd been having nightmares about Craig returning to school, eyeless, refusing to wear anything to cover the gaping holes in his head.
"That's what we're trying to determine," Greta said, and Stan was sorry he'd spoken. He didn't like having her attention focused on him. "How to help Craig."
Gerald read the releases, muttering to himself. He started frowning halfway through the first page and looked up at the start of the third.
"This isn't exactly asking for our permission," he said. "It's saying that we acknowledge that the government has the right to test our children for dangerous abilities."
"Mr. Broflovski," Greta said. "Like you, we really have no choice but to make sure your kids aren't on the precipice of unintentionally hurting someone the way the Tucker boy did. Think of how that would ruin their lives, and think of our position, trying to protect both these boys and the people they might hurt."
"How long will it take you to determine whether or not they have this eye thing?" Sharon asked.
"We don't know precisely," Greta said. "But our scientists have projected that the boys would only have to spend a few nights at our facility."
"A few nights!" Sheila said, and she grabbed for Kyle again. "Can we go with them?"
"I'm afraid not," Greta said. Stan glanced at the cop, the gun on his hip. He didn't look like someone from South Park, and he was wearing big aviator sunglasses though they were indoors.
"Why can't we join them?" Sharon asked. "Since they're minors, it seems like we would have to."
"Even if you came, they'll need to be isolated during the testing period," Greta said. "It's just part of the process. We don't have accommodations for guests. Trust me, though. I've spent my whole career at the bureau looking after troubled children. They'll be very well taken care of."
"My son is not troubled," Sharon said. "He hasn't shown any signs of having this - thing. And you're not taking him anywhere without a warrant."
The police officer produced one. Gerald studied it and announced, glumly, that it was legit.
"This is for their safety, too," Greta said as Stan and Kyle were herded through one of the waiting cars. "We know your boys don't want to hurt anyone on purpose. We're helping them to put all of this behind them."
"You're gonna be okay, buddy," Randy said, bending down to hug Stan goodbye.
"Dad," Stan said, grabbing a handful of Randy's shirt. He was looking at his mother from over Randy's shoulder, wanting her to do something.
"Oh, bubbeh!" Sheila was sobbing, clinging to Kyle. "I'm sure you'll just fine! They just want to make certain."
"I would never hurt Ike," Kyle said, his lip quivering, eyes hard.
"We know that," Gerald said, easing him from Sheila grip to hug him goodbye. "And soon they'll know that, too, and you'll be back home."
"Come here," Sharon said when Randy released Stan. He ran to her the way he'd wanted to since she'd walked into Kyle's living room, throwing his arms around her. "It's okay," Sharon said when she felt him trembling. "Oh - baby. It's gonna be okay."
"I know," Stan said, holding on tight.
"Take care of each other," she said when she pulled back, looking at Stan very seriously.
"I will - we will."
His mother kissed his forehead, and Stan turned. Kyle was being ushered into the backseat of the second car, and Stan hurried to follow him in, forgetting to turn back and look at this parents until the door had been closed behind them. Kyle was clutching the basketball Stan had given him.
"Stan," he said, whispering.
"I know." Stan scooted over to him and took his hand. They stared at their parents through the dark window. Greta was talking to them, reassuring them. The cop stayed behind as Greta and the men headed for the black cars. She climbed up front with the driver.
"Are you boys okay?" she asked, turning to smile at them. "I know it's a little scary, but at least you're going together, right? And we'll meet up with your friends Kenny and Eric at the airport."
"The airport?" Kyle said. He squeezed Stan's hand hard like a warning, too late.
"That's right," Greta said. "Have you boys ever been to our nation's capital? That's where we're headed!"
She turned back toward the front without waiting to hear if they'd been there or not. The driver pulled away from the curb, and Stan and Kyle turned for a last look at their parents. Sheila was crying in Gerald's arms and Randy was trying to talk to the cop, who didn't seem very responsive. Sharon was standing at the end of the driveway with her hands tented over her mouth, watching them go.
At the end of the block the car took a left onto Jameson Avenue, and Stan heard a strange sound that he thought was a leaf blower at first. He jumped in his seat when he saw what it actually was: a metal plate rising from the partition between the back and front seats, sliding up toward the ceiling. Similar metal plates covered the windows and rose up behind them, boxing them in.
"What the fuck!" Kyle shouted. He had scrambled almost fully into Stan's lap, and he was looking around frantically, but all the light had vanished. Stan was whispering fuck, fuck, fuck, under his breath, wondering if they'd cut the oxygen off, too, though the same clean air seemed to be blowing from the vents on the back of the front seats.
"I'm sorry for the scary traveling accommodations, boys," Greta said, her voice coming from some unseen overhead intercom. "But, you understand - if the octal lasers are activated by distress, Agent Lawrence and I have to protect ourselves. I'm sure we'll all find out soon that it's unnecessary, but in the meantime - better to be safe than sorry, right? We know you don't want to hurt us."
"I don't like this," Kyle said, curling more deeply into Stan's arms. "Stan, I don't like this, something's wrong." The basketball was cradled between them like a pet they were trying to conceal.
"I know," Stan said. "But - they don't want to hurt us. Why would they want to hurt us?"
"Do you think they can hear us talking?" Kyle whispered.
"I don't know - here." Stan dug the Sweet Tarts out and tore at the wrapper while Kyle felt his hand in the darkness, trying to determine what he was holding. He sniffed the tube when Stan held it up toward his nose.
"Candy?" Kyle said, still whispering.
"Sweet Tarts," Stan said. "I know you don't like the yellow ones, but I can't see - if you get a yellow one, you can just push it into my mouth."
"Shhh," Kyle said.
Stan fed Kyle Sweet Tarts in the dark during the long drive toward the airport. It felt like they were back there for days, not sure what to say to comfort each other, just holding on tight and crunching candy between their teeth. If Kyle got any yellow ones he didn't complain.
Finally, the car stopped. Stan could hear planes taking off, but the sound seemed farther away than it usually was when he was in the parking lot of the Denver Airport.
"Alright, boys," Greta said, speaking to them for the first time since the metal guard plates had enclosed them. "I'm afraid, for your own safety and ours, we'll have to put you to sleep during the journey."
"To sleep?" Kyle said, his voice high-pitched and panicked. "What - what do you mean?"
She didn't answer, and the vents that were blowing cool air into the backseat hissed more powerfully. The air started to smell different. It wasn't bad or even strong, but hazy with something that wasn't oxygen.
"No, no," Kyle said, clawing at Stan's sweater. "I can't, I can't do this, I can't-"
"It's okay," Stan said, though the shake in his voice revealed that he didn't believe this. He cradled Kyle's head against his chest and pet his hair until his fingers were too tingly and loose to move properly.
Then he fell asleep, drunkenly wondering what would become of the little basketball that was hidden between them.
(That's the end of the draft - what happens next is that they are held by the government for years and experimented on until they begin to develop powers similar to those they pretended to have as children. How I was going to work controlling power tools into this, I don't know - maybe it expanded to machinery in general. Anyway, Kyle was depressed and therefore had a hard time unlocking his power to fly, but once he did they escaped, and Stan became a carpenter while Kyle kind of haunted around him sadly, and they were super codependent, the end.)
(I like the start of this a lot, but I kept getting tripped up on not having been to Burning Man and therefore fearing it would just turn into 'Stan and Kyle fuck in a tent in the desert,' which I guess is what I ultimately wanted to write about, and I wasn't that into the idea of them meeting in their 30s enough to really get into this one.)
A strung-out looking guy whose rather obvious playa name is 'Tweek' brings a sun burned ginger man into the tent on Wednesday, during Stan's third shift. It's about two o'clock in the afternoon, judging by the position of the sun. Even in the medical tent, clocks are generally frowned upon.
"I found him in the central camp!" Tweek says, shouting for some reason. "He -- he was babbling something about ice, ah -- I don't know, man, I think he's pretty fucked up!"
"It's probably sun stroke," Stan says, helping the other nurse on duty lift the ginger man onto one of the med beds. The other nurse is also a man, which is not unusual in this particular volunteer position. His playa name is 'Butters.' Stan didn't ask why and doesn't want to know.
"Here you go, buddy," Butters says, moving one of the tent's fans over to point it at the ginger man's bed. He's groggy but cognizant, blinking up at Stan while he applies a cool washcloth to his sweltering forehead.
"Do you know your name, dude?" Stan asks.
"Kyle," he says. He seems to resent the question, which is a good sign. He's lucid, just extremely overheated.
"Drink this," Butters says, reappearing with a sweating water bottle. Kyle moans, and Stan helps him sit up enough to drink.
"You can go," Stan says, turning to Tweek, who seems to be expecting some sort of reward or awaiting some sort of punishment. He's dancing near the tent entrance like he needs to take a piss. "Thanks for bringing him here. It was the right thing to do."
"Good luck!" Tweek shouts, and he darts out of the tent, back into the glaring, dusty sunlight.
"Are you here with friends?" Stan asks when they've managed to lower Kyle's body temperature to a safe level. Kyle isn't really dressed for the atmosphere out there, in either a practical or festive sense. He's wearing a baggy purple t-shirt with the sleeves ripped off, tiny white shorts that are pinching into the flesh on his sun-bloated thighs, and filthy red ballet flats.
"I came with my boyfriend," Kyle says. He motions for the water and drinks more. Butters has wandered off to tend to a sobbing young woman who puked all over the floor upon entering the tent. "What's that smell?" Kyle asks, wrinkling his bright red nose.
"Barf," Stan says. "I'll clean it up in a minute."
"God." Kyle moans and drapes his arm over his face. "This place is hell."
"You think so?"
This is Stan's fifth year attending, only his second of doing so sober and as a volunteer instead of part of his ex-wife's sizable camp. He used to spend the week of Burning Man in a blur of drugs, booze, random sex and the occasional puddle of puke. His playa name was 'Raven,' for reasons he can't recall. Now his marriage is over and so are his days of heavy drug use. He skipped a year after Wendy left him, but he missed something about this experience that wasn't entirely about getting shitfaced and being given permission to sleep with strangers who were usually men. Nursing the overwhelmed participants was a good experience last year, oddly peaceful despite the chaos all around them, and it's been good so far this year, too. He dips the cloth he's been using on Kyle's puffy face back into the bucket of ice water at his bedside and soothes it over his skin again. Kyle closes his eyes and sighs. He's really less of a ginger and more of a delicately colored redhead.
"Your first year?" Stan asks.
"Yes," Kyle says, mumbling. He keeps his eyes closed while Stan continues to dab at him, wanting him to cool down a little more before he breaks out the aloe. "It was a dare that I was an idiot to take on."
"Your boyfriend dared you to come?"
"Not in so many words, but he goes every year, and every year he implies that I not only wouldn't be able to handle it but that I'm not deeply spiritual enough to appreciate what goes on here." Kyle scoffs and opens his eyes, narrowing them at Stan. "What goes on here, as far as I can tell, is a disgusting, drug-addled, dust-filled orgy."
"That's not a totally unfair way to characterize it," Stan admits.
"You're an enthusiast, I presume?"
"Sorta," Stan says. "I see the downsides now, too. That's why I don't really, uh. I prefer to volunteer and help out."
"Are you a real doctor?"
"No. I'm a real nurse, though."
"Oh." Kyle tries to sit up, moans and drops back onto the pillow. "I haven't had anything to eat in twenty-four hours," he says. "I took something last night." He glances at Stan. "Am I allowed to tell you that?"
"Yeah, of course. No judgment here. What did you take?"
"I don't even know. They had some goofy ass name for it. Pixie dust? People were wearing wings. Cartman -- my boyfriend -- he was naked except for this fez that he ties under his fat fucking chin with a strap. It was very upsetting."
"It was probably just coke," Stan says, trying to picture this guy's fat, naked boyfriend in a fez. "The drug, I mean."
"We didn't snort it, though. I think I took pills. Jesus, I barely remember. I was pretty drunk by that point. I fled when somebody grabbed my ass. Cartman was off fucking someone else, what does he care. I've just been wandering around since then, in hell."
"I'm sorry someone grabbed you," Stan says, annoyed with this boyfriend for letting it happen. Kyle is clearly unprepared for everything about this experience, and the guy should have known that and protected him. "My friend Wendy runs a camp called the Ball Kickers. It's on the Holy strip at eight o'clock. Anyone who feels harassed by the aggressive male contingent can go there for amnesty."
"I'm not some damsel," Kyle says, frowning. "I knew about this contingent. I thought, you know. We've done some things, as a couple. He's into -- things. I thought I might be, too. I've always had this fantasy about a bunch of dirty men grabbing at me -- oh, Jesus, I'm still high."
"Here," Stan says, offering more water. Kyle drinks. His gulping noises are arousing. He's cute, despite the sun burn, or maybe his cuteness is enhanced by how raw he looks. "I'll get you some ointment," Stan says. "And you'll probably want some Ibprofen when you come down from -- whatever you're on."
"I think I'm mostly down," Kyle says, and he lies back on the bed. He's docile and surrendered as Stan applies burn ointment to his arms, shoulders, legs, and finally his face. He has nice eyelashes, a much prettier shade of red-orange than the sun burn, which is now shiny with ointment. "Can I just stay here for a minute?" Kyle asks, peering shyly up at Stan when the ointment has been applied. "I'm so tired."
"Of course you can stay," Stan says. "You had an incident. Staying is practically required. Will your boyfriend be worried, though?"
"Doubtful. He's probably passed out somewhere with his cock up an old hippie's ass. He actually hates hippies, you know. But he loves a good anarchistic society where he can pretend he's a tribal chief with free reign to fuck everybody he sees."
"It's not anarchy," Stan says, increasingly disturbed by the picture Kyle is painting of this guy. "There are rules. He can't fuck anybody without consent."
"Oh, I know that, and he knows that. I'm exaggerating, but you know what I mean. He's a businessman in real life. Not a particularly successful one. We dropped out of school together in our twenties, before the crash. We thought we were going to be rich forever. Sorry, I don't know why I'm telling you this."
"I'm interested," Stan says. "I used to come here to get blasted for a week, but after I dried out I realized that what I missed most was all the random stories you hear."
"Dried out?" Kyle peeks at him again, eyelashes fluttering.
"Uh, yeah. Well, not entirely. I still drink a little. But in moderation. I was getting pretty heavy into other stuff when my wife left me. Wendy, that friend I mentioned -- we used to be married."
"Weird," Kyle says. "I mean, that you're still friends."
"Nah, it's not that weird. We met at work. She's a doctor."
Butters brings lunch while Kyle is still resting, and Stan shares his food with Kyle. He has an appetite, which is definitely a good sign.
"You volunteers eat well!" Kyle says, stuffing grilled chicken into his mouth with his fingers. They're passing a grilled corn cob back and forth, trading bites. This is what Stan likes about being here, though it's often felt forced in the past, unless drugs were involved: the random, sudden closeness of a stranger.
"This is from Wendy's camp," Stan explains. "She sends me lunch. She's as unhinged as anybody here when she wants to be, but she runs a very smooth ship over there. You should check it out, seriously, if you don't want to go back to your boyfriend's place." Stan is staying with Wendy, between shifts, but that's neither here nor there. "Unless you want to leave?" he says.
Kyle shrugs. "I feel like that would be proving Cartman right about me," he says. "I want to conquer this experience somehow, even if I die trying."
"You don't have to die. Seriously, dude. I'm off shift in a couple of hours. Come over to Ball Kickers with me, let me show you around."
"Ball Kickers." Kyle raises a lip. "Are they lesbians?"
"Uh, some of them are. Wendy is bi, like me."
He didn't mean to announce that so clumsily. He feels his face heating as Kyle stares at him. Kyle's lips are all buttery from the corn, shiny like the rest of him.
"I'll take that Ibprofen now," Kyle says. "It's starting to hurt pretty bad."
Stan feels a bit badly for bringing Kyle back out into the sunlight, especially because there would be no point in applying sunscreen until the aloe soaks in a bit more. To shield him from burning further, Stan wraps him in a blanket and ferries him across the crowded playa as if he's an escaping refugee, Kyle hunched under Stan's arm and hiding behind a pair of gaudy sunglasses borrowed from Butters. He looks a bit like an insane jawa.
"I might puke," Kyle says as they draw close to Wendy's camp.
"That's okay," Stan says, though he's beginning to doubt whether Wendy will allow a strange man to shelter at Ball Kickers, and especially if he's puking as he approaches. She's always welcomed a few strays, but prefers to hold those spots for unprepared young women. Stan thinks of telling her that Kyle can share his space, but Stan's space is rather narrow, and this guy does have a boyfriend, technically.
Kyle makes it to Ball Kickers without retching, and he pauses to gaze up at the sculpture out front. It's a huge, circular structure with garish red padding inside and lots of gnarled pink and orange wires wrapped around it.
"It's a womb," Stan explains, wanting to hurry Kyle into the shade. "You can climb in it," he adds, though perhaps that's obvious, since a man and woman he doesn't recognize are presently sitting inside it. "Um. Wendy's girlfriend is pregnant, so she's exploring the, uh, many potential identities of the child she's carrying by allowing strangers to climb inside her -- womb. She's an artist."
"How gruesome," Kyle says, and he peeks at Stan. "Sorry. I feel like I don't get a lot of this art." He pronounced 'art' skeptically.
"Nah, it's okay. I mean, just. Maybe don't mention that outright. But I get that." Stan actually finds the womb sculpture rather distressing, which is not untypical of Bebe's art, or of Bebe herself.
"Are you the father?" Kyle asks.
"No. The father is a colleague of Wendy's, a doctor. His name is Craig. He looks a lot like the male equivalent of Wendy, but they claim that's not why they picked him." Stan was in fact very hurt that they hadn't asked him to donate sperm, and especially because they'd gone to Craig, one of Stan's bosses at the hospital. Craig is brilliant, certainly, and good looking, but Wendy and Bebe may eventually regret having a child with the 'complete asshole' gene that Craig might pass along.
Wendy notices them lurking and makes her way toward them, looking suspicious. Stan supposes he can't blame her, given that Kyle has a blanket wrapped around him and draped over his head, and the bedazzled sunglasses don't help. Wendy of course looks beautiful: the playa life always brings out her youthful side, and she's effortlessly outfitted in a flowing white blouse that is just see-through enough to show the color of her nipples. She's wearing no pants, just a black bikini bottom and hiking boots that are laced up her calves. Stan is vaguely aroused by the effect of her blouse as it billows against her skin in the hot wind. He still feels a yearning to rub his face in a pair of lovely little breasts like hers from time to time, though not hers specifically.
"I'm gonna let him crash in my space for a minute," Stan says, gesturing to Kyle with his thumb. He's already feeling that old guilt he would get when he half-remembered the male asses he'd plowed during Burning Man. Wendy always gave him permission to roam during the week-long event, and she certainly roamed herself, but Stan felt itchy with shame as he progressively realized how much he yearned to roam into the fields of male asses in their real life, too.
"What's the story?" Wendy asks, squinting at Kyle as if he's a ship in the distance. "You okay?"
"I'm sunburned," Kyle says. His voice wavers slightly; he'll certainly need more water as soon as they get inside. "Forgive the blanket. I had to improvise."
"He came to the medical tent," Stan says. He glances at Kyle, who is inscrutable behind the sunglasses and beneath the blanket. "There, um. There was a bit of a domestic situation, so. I thought we could help out."
"Take him inside before he melts in that thing," Wendy says. "Is that a wool blanket?"
"Feels like one," Kyle says, miserably.
"Stan, what -- why would you even have a wool blanket? Under what circumstances would a patient possibly need one, out here? Don't they even have proper Mylar blankets for emergencies where you'd need to get someone warm?"
"Well, yeah -- I think. Someone left this one there, okay, and I technically can't take reusable supplies off site--"
"Whatever, take him into the shade. Then come out and have a chat with us, please."
Stan's spirits dip at hearing 'us' as opposed to 'me.' He likes and admires Bebe in a lot of ways, but fears and resents her too much to enjoy her company. She stole his wife, after all. He brings Kyle into Ball Kickers, which is sparsely populated so far. It's a pleasant, interconnected little village of tents, all of them cooled by electric fans and piled with large, flat pillows. There are multiple water stations, some with fresh cucumber slices floating suspended in the cool water, which is kept replenished with ice, the one playa item available for purchase with actual money. Stan fetches Kyle a plastic tumbler and watches him drink from it as the blanket falls away. Kyle is drenched with sweat beneath it, and Stan is embarrassed to notice that Kyle's crotch now features a sizable sweat stain.
"I've got some stuff you could wear," Stan says when Kyle notices him staring and looks down at the stain. He curses.
"I knew I couldn't really fit into these shorts," he says. "Damn, look at my thighs. Look at me."
"You're just sweaty," Stan says. "C'mon, I'll, uh. We'll get you fixed up, and you can nap for a while."
"You're the first person I've encountered here who actually demonstrates the advertised generosity of spirit," Kyle says, and Stan notices the way he speaks for the second time.
"What do you do?" he asks, leading Kyle into the little side-tent Wendy set up for him. There's no fan, but he gets some airflow from the neighboring tent, where Bebe's artist friends Marble and Henrietta had loud, grunting sex last night.
"I manage a sushi bar," Kyle says, defeating Stan's theory that he's some kind of academic. "I'm not sure I should tell you which one, though it's not exactly reputable. Where did you say you're from?"
"Colorado."
"Oh, of course -- that makes you suited for this sort of outdoorsy thing, I'm sure. I'm from Nebraska. Well, not really - my parents were from New York, and I was born there. We moved for my dad's work when I was a kid. I'm sure you can imagine the quality of the average sushi bar in Nebraska. My life is a disaster, and I want you to know that, it seems, before I pass out in your tent."
"Man, no way. Your career doesn't define you. Neither does your relationship status, or your ability to avoid sunburn. Here--" Stan kneels down to dig through his bag. He pulls out a clean shirt and pair of boxers and passes them to Kyle. "You can change into those. I'll give you some privacy."
"Is this a barter-type situation?" Kyle asks, peering up at Stan with queasy uncertainty. "That is -- in accepting your generosity, am I therefore obligated to give you something in return? As in, your cock in my mouth, or--"
"Dude, no! It's really -- I just want to help you out. I know how rough it is to break up with someone during the Burn. Me and Wendy -- we called it quits out here, three years back."
"Oh." Kyle looks down at Stan's clothes, rubbing his thumbs over them. "Well, I wouldn't mind," he says, keeping his eyes down. "I mean. That was one thing that drew me to -- this. The idea of, uh. A primitive sexual economy. Only all the men were gross, until you."
"It's really not about economy for me," Stan says, starting to feel aroused nonetheless. "I mean, I wouldn't feel comfortable extorting sex in exchange for hospitality. So -- don't worry about it." He leaves then, feeling uncomfortable, and goes to find Bebe and Wendy, who are waiting near the womb.
(That's it - what happens next is that Kyle of course convinces Stan to let him service him in exchange for shelter/food, and they both get really into it and have a good time. Cartman shows up and makes some noise but ultimately Kyle ends up with Stan and they like, leave together, something. Oh, and there was an element of Stan hallucinating dead friend Kenny.)
(This was inspired by a similar story that I liked but had some issues with, so I sort of wanted to rewrite it. I think the reason I've had such a hard time returning to it, after writing this set up, is that it would be 20k or so of them just miserably suffering in a government holding facility, and I don't know how interested I ultimately am in writing all that out).
Stan didn't witness the incident at the arcade, but Kyle did. By the time Kyle showed up at Stan's door Stan had already gotten fifteen text messages, ten from Cartman alone.
CRAIG BLEW SOMEONE UP had been the first one.
It was a weird time for Stan and Kyle, and Stan's first thought was that Cartman was trying to play some kind of prank on him and Kyle was complicit. Cartman and Kyle had begun doing things together without Stan, sometimes even without Kenny tagging along.
"What?" Stan said when he saw Kyle standing on the front stoop. "What's all this bullshit Cartman is send--"
He was cut off by the force of Kyle's body landing hard against his, and he held his arms up in surrender while Kyle hugged him tight, his face hidden against Stan's chest.
"This kid," Kyle said, his voice pinched. "Died."
"What?" Stan touched the back of Kyle's head tentatively, his other hand sliding across Kyle's shoulders. They weren't exactly estranged, but it had been a long time since they'd hugged. Kyle clung hard, and Stan held him more tightly when he felt that he was shaking.
"At the arcade," Kyle said. "It's not a joke. Craig -- ah. His eyes."
"Come inside." Stan pulled Kyle into the house and brought him to the kitchen. Kyle let Stan guide him into a seat, his face white with shock while Stan poured him some milk. "Drink this," Stan said, not sure what else to do. Kyle drank.
"There was blood," Kyle said when he was halfway finished. He wiped off his milk mustache. "It was like an explosion. A person, exploding. Look." Kyle lifted up his leg so Stan could see the ankle of his pants. There was something dark and red dried there.
"Wait," Stan said. "Craig -- that eye thing--"
"I guess he thought it went away," Kyle said. "But he got in this argument with a younger kid over whose turn it was to play Rage Kill VI, and then--" Kyle lost his voice and put his hands over his face.
"Craig seriously blew someone up with his eyes?" Stan still wasn't sure he could believe this, but Kyle seemed legitimately shaken. "What did he do after?"
"Fainted," Kyle said.
"Did the police come?"
"I don't know. I ran."
"Does your mom know?" Stan asked. Kyle shook his head. Stan wanted to ask why Kyle had come to him instead of going home to his parents, but he didn't want Kyle to think he wasn't glad about that.
"Can we just watch TV or something?" Kyle asked. "I feel so fucked up."
"Sure," Stan said. He poured a refill of milk for Kyle and got him some stale Milanos. They headed for the living room couch, and Kyle sat unnecessarily close to Stan, like he had when they were kids. Stan turned on the TV and put an arm around him. "It's gonna be okay," he said, quietly. Kyle shook his head.
"I won't sleep for days," he said, but he ended up falling asleep with his head on Stan's shoulder, smelling like milk and cookies. Just keeping his arm around Kyle and turning down the volume on the TV made Stan feel big and important. When they were kids Kyle had often made him feel that way.
They were still kids: they were twelve. Stan didn't know enough to tell Kyle to talk to his parents about the fact that he'd witnessed a violent death. He helped Kyle scrub the blood off his jeans before he left.
"You can come back tomorrow," Stan said when they were on the front stoop, Stan's parents home from work and starting on dinner. "After school, if you want."
"Thanks," Kyle said, and he smiled.
Craig was not in school the next day. The kids in Stan's class were so antsy, whispering rumors, that their teacher finally had to address the issue.
"Mr. Tucker is not well," she said. "Let's leave it at that until we know more facts, please."
"Craig's on fucking death row," Cartman said at lunch. "Or strapped down to some scientist's table, getting dissected."
"Shut up," Kenny said. "I don't think he meant to do it."
"He looked real scared before he fainted," Butters said.
"Was everyone there but me?" Stan asked, feeling left out. He looked to Kyle, who was picking the crusts off his rye and tuna salad sandwich.
"I thought it was a trick at first," Kyle said. "Seemed like the kind of trick Craig would play."
"How the fuck would that be a trick, Kyle?" Cartman asked. "Craig just happened to know a kid who could explode and then put himself back together?"
"He really exploded?" Stan narrowed his eyes, trying to picture this. He'd heard that word thrown around a lot during the school day, and Kyle had used it the night before.
"Like, picture there's a bomb in someone's stomach and it goes off," Cartman said. "Like that."
"You saw the lasers come out of Craig's eyes?" Kenny said.
"You didn't?" Stan said. Kenny shook his head.
"I was playing Cruisin'."
"The only game Kenny can afford to play," Cartman said. It was an old machine that only cost fifty cents.
"I saw the lasers," Butters said. His eyes were wide but unfocused, and he was holding his turkey sandwich with both hands. "It was like somethin' out of Star Wars!"
"Do you want my sandwich?" Kyle asked, placing it near Stan's hand. "I can't eat if they're going to talk about this."
"What the fuck else are we going to talk about?" Cartman asked, his voice rising to a high pitched note of disbelief. "A guy blew up, Kyle! We saw it. You want to talk about the Broncos prospects or something? Fuck!"
"I'm going to the library," Kyle said, standing.
"Hang on," Stan said. He ate the rest of Kyle's sandwich in four bites. "I'm coming," he said, his mouth still full.
In the library, Stan walked behind Kyle as he wandered the shelves. Kyle touched the spines of books, seeming dazed.
"Did you tell your parents about what happened?" Stan asked, surprised that Kyle was in school today at all. Of course, it was South Park; they were all expected to deal with things like this.
"They were talking about it," Kyle said. "It was on the news. But I didn't tell them I was there."
"How come?"
Kyle shrugged. He came to the end of the Biology and Chemistry section and sat on the floor with his back to the wall. Stan sat beside him. The aisles were narrow so they were necessarily close, and Stan put his hand over Kyle's when Kyle touched his knee.
"What do you think happened to Craig?" Kyle asked.
"They're probably just treating him in the hospital," Stan said. "Eye surgery, maybe. And counseling, you know. For trauma." He dug his fingers in between Kyle's.
"I wish you had been there," Kyle said, almost whispering.
"Why?" Stan asked. He wished that, too, though he knew he wouldn't have been able to stop throwing up for at least twenty-four hours.
"Stuff doesn't seem real if you're not there," Kyle said. "Not that I want this to feel real. It's so fucking horrible. But you -- if it's bothering me this much, I want it to be bothering you, too. Is that dumb?"
"No," Stan said. "And it is bothering me. Are you gonna go to the kid's funeral?" His name had been on the news: Baxter Varnedoe. He was a fifth grader.
"I don't know," Kyle said. "Probably not."
They sat there for a while, the lunch period dwindling. Stan pulled down a book on mammals who live in rivers and they both slid their legs down so he could open it across their laps. The more pages Stan turned the closer Kyle's head came to resting on his shoulder, until finally it was there.
"I didn't sleep last night," Kyle said, as if to excuse himself for doing this.
"It's okay," Stan said. He turned his face into Kyle's curls for half a second, so glad that he hadn't been the one who'd pissed Craig off yesterday.
The bell rang, and they sprang up as if caught by a librarian. Stan started to reinsert the mammals book onto the shelf he'd pulled it from, but Kyle took it before he could.
"I'm going to check this out," Kyle said.
They had their next period together: American History. Kyle ignored the lesson, which never happened. He hid the mammals book in his binder and stared at it intently, turning a page every five minutes or so. Stan kept a careful watch out of the corner of his eye.
For the next week Kyle came home with Stan everyday after school. Cartman, who was obsessed with the gory details of the arcade incident and speculation about Craig's punishment, was forbidden from joining them. Kenny was usually busy with his girlfriend, an eighth grader named Cressida who allegedly put out, so it was usually just Stan and Kyle. They didn't talk much, just watched TV and touched each other aimlessly. Stan would toy with the hem of Kyle's shirt or Kyle would sneak two fingers into the pocket of Stan's jeans, both of them always keeping their eyes on the TV. Stan hoped he seemed cool while doing this, even bored, though it made his heart pound. It had been a long time since he'd thought of Kyle as someone who needed protecting. Kyle was taller than him now, just by an inch and a half, and he'd long ago become accustomed to fighting his own battles. But this wasn't a battle; it was like being in a hospital waiting room, tensely anticipating bad news.
News about Craig never came, except vague reports that he was being "treated" in Denver. Kyle's parents found out that he'd been at the arcade that day when he started waking up screaming with night terrors, and they had him see a counselor. Kyle was less morose after a few weeks of therapy, back to snapping at Cartman and grinning at Kenny's stupid jokes. He came over to Stan's house less often, and when he did he would sit out of touching range on the couch.
"What if Craig comes back next year," Cartman said one day when they were all walking home from school together, "Eyeless?"
"Then I'll kick your ass if you make fun of him," Kenny said. "It's not his fault his eyes had that -- thing."
"Maybe they'd give him some cool sunglasses like Cyclops had in X-Men," Stan said hurriedly, glancing at Kyle. He'd gone quiet, his mouth pinched.
"Poor old Craig," Butters said, knocking his fists together.
"Poor Craig?" Cartman scoffed. "Yeah, right. He's a deadly weapon. Don't feel sorry for him, feel sorry for his victims."
"It was only the one kid," Stan said. "On accident."
"As far as we know," Cartman said.
Stan and Kyle split from the group at the train tracks, Kenny heading toward his house and Cartman dragging Butters off on some secret mission. At Stan's house, Stan made the snack tray while Kyle watched: barbecue chips, cashews, and some canned pineapple chunks for their health.
"What if something really horrible happened to Craig?" Kyle said. "Like -- what if they really did dig out his eyes?"
"They?" Stan said.
"I don't know. The government?"
"They wouldn't do that to a kid," Stan said, his stomach twisting. "I'm sure Craig's okay. Do you want to go see his sister or something, to ask her?"
"No," Kyle said. "I'm afraid of that kid."
"Yeah, she's pretty surly."
"I'm sure he's okay," Kyle said, nodding to himself as they walked into the living room with the snack tray. "We would have heard about it if he wasn't."
"Exactly," Stan said.
They sat close, for snack sharing purposes. Kyle moved his leg over until it was pressed along the length of Stan's, thigh to ankle. The contact gave Stan a full body flush that was good and uncomfortable at the same time.
"Want the last one?" he asked, pinching the last piece of pineapple between his thumb and forefinger. Kyle opened his mouth and stuck out his tongue. Stan laughed, not sure if he was serious, then placed the pineapple gently on Kyle's tongue before he could puss out. Kyle closed his lips around it and grinned, chewing.
"Thanks," he said.
"You're welcome." Stan licked the juice off his fingers. He nearly sent the whole snack tray flying when the front door opened, and Kyle laughed. It was just Stan's mom, asking for help with the groceries.
"Have you heard anything from Craig's mom?" Stan asked as he and Kyle helped her load the things she'd bought into the fridge. "About, you know," Stan said, glancing at Kyle. "What happened to him?"
"Kyle's mom called over there a few times," Sharon said. "She just got an answering machine. I think the Tuckers must be in Denver with Craig. Or maybe they're just too overwhelmed to talk to anyone yet. The whole thing's so strange and awful."
Stan walked Kyle down to the end of the driveway as the street lamps began to come on. He could still taste salt and pineapple on his tongue, and he knew Kyle's tongue would taste that way, too. He couldn't stop thinking about it.
"Will things ever feel normal again?" Kyle asked when they were standing near Stan's mailbox.
"I think sometimes they will, sometimes they won't," Stan said. It was like the darkness that closed over him sometimes, like suddenly life was carrying him around in a burlap sack, everything itchy and airless, and he couldn't even move except to struggle hopelessly until he'd exhausted himself. Bad things like that didn't go away, but they weren't always as bad as they sometimes got.
"I meant--" Kyle said, and he tugged his sleeves down over his hands, his shoulders lifting.
"What?" Stan said.
"I feel like someone's watching us," Kyle said.
They both looked up and down the street, which was dark except for the spots on the sidewalk that were illuminated by streetlight. When Stan looked back at Kyle his face was close and he looked very worried, like he was about to tell Stan they were both in danger. Instead, Kyle shut his eyes and jammed his lips against Stan's clumsily. It only lasted a few seconds, then Kyle was moaning and walking away.
"Hey," Stan said, grabbing him. He pulled Kyle back until their faces were pressed together again, noses touching. Stan grinned, and Kyle did, too, slowly, his eyes watering a little.
"My life flashed before my eyes that day," Kyle said. "I think? I don't know. Most of it was you."
Stan kissed him hard, not really sure how to do it but certain that he wanted a lot of this, very much, which seemed to translate to pressing hard against Kyle. Wendy had told him he was bad at this. He tried something fancy, licking Kyle's lips, and Kyle laughed, then licked back.
"You taste really-" Stan said, then he got too embarrassed to finish, though Kyle seemed to know what he was going to say: really good, so good. Kyle was beaming.
"Try it like this," he said, and they kissed again, more slowly and deliberately this time, trading little licks. Stan liked the feeling of holding Kyle's body against his even better than the kissing, and he was starting to get hard in his pants, his ears buzzing with the thrill of what they were doing. The porch light came on behind them and he cursed, turning.
"Your mom will see," Kyle said, whispering. He squirmed out of Stan's arms and adjusted his jeans. His face was pink, just a little.
"I love you," Stan said very seriously, too cold without Kyle pressed against him. Kyle threw his head back and laughed.
"Dude," he said. "Calm down. I'm not about to get on a plane and never return. But, I know," he said, more quietly, and he stepped forward again to peck Stan on the lips. "You're my boyfriend now," he said, whispering. "That's how this works, so don't try to get out of it."
"I'm not -- Kyle!" Stan groped for him when he moved away, but Kyle laughed and evaded his hands. "I wouldn't try to get out of it," Stan said.
"I know," Kyle said. "But I want to have very clearly defined terms. Okay?" He was backing away, into the middle of the dark street. Stan looked up and down the road to make sure no cars were coming.
"Okay," Stan said. "Watch where you're going."
He had this awful feeling that now, certainly, something bad would happen to Kyle.
Kyle made it home safely that night, and he sent Stan an email to confirm this: Here in my bedroom, in my pajamas. PS - this is a SECRET. Even from Kenny, ok?
Stan agreed to these terms.
Stan's life had never seemed so exciting. He felt sick to his stomach all the time, not just when Kyle was near, but it was a good kind of queasiness, like being upside down on a roller coaster. After school they walked home together as usual, made a snack tray, and sat on Stan's couch watching TV or doing homework. Even if Stan's parents weren't home yet their kisses felt sneaky and secret, and Stan figured he was improving, because he'd learned how to draw soft little noises out of Kyle while they kissed. In the middle of the night Stan would sometimes have to stuff his fist into his mouth to keep from laughing crazily with glee.
On Sunday he woke up with a burning need to buy Kyle a gift: his first present for Kyle as his boyfriend. He had five dollars and sixty-three cents. He dressed and walked to Wall-Mart, where everything seemed lame and unimpressive. He finally settled on a basketball but could only afford a mini one. It was red and black, and Stan had enough money leftover to buy Kyle a roll of Sweet Tarts. On the way over to Kyle's house he wondered if that would be his new nickname for Kyle, sweet tart, and if he would murmur this against Kyle's neck while they cuddled in front of the TV.
When he arrived at Kyle's house there were several vehicles parked out front: two black sedans with tinted windows and one local police car. Stan bolted for the front door and threw it open without knocking, something he hadn't done since he was eight. There were a lot of people gathered in the living room: Kyle's parents, three men in suits, a lady who was also in a suit, and a police officer Stan didn't recognize. Kyle was seated beside his mother on the sofa, looking frightened and hugging his elbows.
"Stanley!" Sheila said. "What are you doing?"
"I came to see Kyle," Stan said. He held up the basketball. The Sweet Tarts were in his coat pocket.
"Stanley?" one of the men said. He was mostly bald with some thin brown hair, tall and thin. "Stan Marsh?"
"They're here about Craig, dude," Kyle said. His voice was small, nakedly terrified. "About how we went to Peru with him."
"Come in, Stanley," the woman said. Stan didn't like her voice, or her smile. Both were too smooth and seemed practiced. "Get his parents," she said to one of the men, and he nodded.
Five minutes later, Randy and Sharon arrived at the Broflovski household. Stan was seated beside Kyle, but he was so frightened and confused that he wanted to spring up and run to his mother when she came in. The agents had been asking questions: Did Stan, Kyle, or any of their other friends experience changes to their physical abilities after or during their trip to Peru? Did they share food with Craig during the journey? Were they aware that he had maintained and concealed his powers?
"After what happened," the woman said, "I'm sure you can understand our concern."
"You think our boys are going to shoot lasers out their eyes?" Randy said.
"Oh, my God!" Sheila said.
"No, no," Stan said. "We didn't - Craig stood on this disc, okay? That's when his eyes started glowing."
"And there was a picture of him in the ruins!" Kyle said. "You can go there and see for yourselves!"
"We haven't been able to relocate this temple you boys described three years ago," the woman said. She had introduced herself to their parents as Greta Richter, and Stan was liking her less and less, increasingly creeped out by the silent men in suits who flanked her. "Frankly, it didn't seem very important until this incident. Mrs. Broflovski, I know it's hard to imagine that your son might have developed this - deformity, too, but what if he gets into an argument with your younger boy and unintentionally kills him?"
"No!" Kyle said. "I wouldn't - Mom!" He grabbed for Sheila's arm. "I don't have this thing, and neither does Stan!"
"Bubbeh," Sheila said, hugging him to her with one arm. "I - I think you're right, but why don't we let some doctors check you to make sure? Wouldn't that make you feel better?"
"You wouldn't want to hurt someone the way Craig did, right?" Gerald said.
"What kind of doctors?" Sharon asked. She was standing near the arm of the couch, beside Stan, reaching out to touch his head every few minutes.
"Specialists," Greta said, and she smiled. "Just to give you all peace of mind. The Tuckers are going through a complete nightmare, as you can imagine."
"Are they being held legally responsible?" Gerald asked.
"Baxter Varendoe's parents have filed a criminal suit, yes."
"Just how long would these tests take?" Sharon asked. "Craig has been gone for weeks." Her hand went to the back of Stan's head again, and she stroked his hair with her thumb. Normally he would push her away and accuse her of treating him like a baby, but he was glad for it at the moment.
"Well, Craig is a different case," Greta said. "Or so we hope. He's confirmed to have the disorder. We would just be making sure that your boys don't have it."
"What about Kenny and Cartman?" Kyle asked, and Stan elbowed him. "What?" Kyle said, frowning. "It's not fair - they were there, too!"
"We've already gotten signed releases from the McCormicks and Mrs. Cartman," Greta said. "They'll accompany you two to the testing facility. So it might end up being a fun adventure!" She pressed her hands together when she said so, and Stan leaned against Kyle, trying to warn him about something that he couldn't put his finger on. "You'll get to go on a special trip with your friends."
"I would need to study these releases," Gerald said.
"Yeah," Randy said. Stan rolled his eyes.
"We have them right here," Greta said, putting her hand out. One of the men went for a briefcase that was sitting on top of the Broflovskis' coffee table and took out a stack of papers, passing them to her. "Please review them now," Greta said as she handed them out to the parents. "Unfortunately, we have orders to keep your children under surveillance for security purposes until they're given the all clear by our doctors. This will just expedite the process."
"But I'm telling you," Kyle said. "We don't have this thing. Craig had lasers coming out of his eyes three years ago, when he stood on that thing, but we never have-"
"I'm glad to hear that you feel confident that you weren't affected," Greta said, giving Kyle a tight smile that made Stan go tense, his elbow sliding onto Kyle's thigh. "But I'm sure you can understand that we need to make absolutely certain that you're right, for the protection of your friends and family. You two seem very close." Her eyes darted from Kyle's to Stan's, then back. "How horrible would it be to inadvertently hurt your good friend Stan with a power that's been lying dormant in you since your trip to Peru?"
"What if you do discover that they have it?" Sheila asked. "What then?"
"We're working with the Tucker boy to determine a way to remove the ability," Greta said. "So he can go on to lead a normal life."
"How would you remove it?" Stan asked. His heart was slamming, and his mother's hand was still in his hair. He'd been having nightmares about Craig returning to school, eyeless, refusing to wear anything to cover the gaping holes in his head.
"That's what we're trying to determine," Greta said, and Stan was sorry he'd spoken. He didn't like having her attention focused on him. "How to help Craig."
Gerald read the releases, muttering to himself. He started frowning halfway through the first page and looked up at the start of the third.
"This isn't exactly asking for our permission," he said. "It's saying that we acknowledge that the government has the right to test our children for dangerous abilities."
"Mr. Broflovski," Greta said. "Like you, we really have no choice but to make sure your kids aren't on the precipice of unintentionally hurting someone the way the Tucker boy did. Think of how that would ruin their lives, and think of our position, trying to protect both these boys and the people they might hurt."
"How long will it take you to determine whether or not they have this eye thing?" Sharon asked.
"We don't know precisely," Greta said. "But our scientists have projected that the boys would only have to spend a few nights at our facility."
"A few nights!" Sheila said, and she grabbed for Kyle again. "Can we go with them?"
"I'm afraid not," Greta said. Stan glanced at the cop, the gun on his hip. He didn't look like someone from South Park, and he was wearing big aviator sunglasses though they were indoors.
"Why can't we join them?" Sharon asked. "Since they're minors, it seems like we would have to."
"Even if you came, they'll need to be isolated during the testing period," Greta said. "It's just part of the process. We don't have accommodations for guests. Trust me, though. I've spent my whole career at the bureau looking after troubled children. They'll be very well taken care of."
"My son is not troubled," Sharon said. "He hasn't shown any signs of having this - thing. And you're not taking him anywhere without a warrant."
The police officer produced one. Gerald studied it and announced, glumly, that it was legit.
"This is for their safety, too," Greta said as Stan and Kyle were herded through one of the waiting cars. "We know your boys don't want to hurt anyone on purpose. We're helping them to put all of this behind them."
"You're gonna be okay, buddy," Randy said, bending down to hug Stan goodbye.
"Dad," Stan said, grabbing a handful of Randy's shirt. He was looking at his mother from over Randy's shoulder, wanting her to do something.
"Oh, bubbeh!" Sheila was sobbing, clinging to Kyle. "I'm sure you'll just fine! They just want to make certain."
"I would never hurt Ike," Kyle said, his lip quivering, eyes hard.
"We know that," Gerald said, easing him from Sheila grip to hug him goodbye. "And soon they'll know that, too, and you'll be back home."
"Come here," Sharon said when Randy released Stan. He ran to her the way he'd wanted to since she'd walked into Kyle's living room, throwing his arms around her. "It's okay," Sharon said when she felt him trembling. "Oh - baby. It's gonna be okay."
"I know," Stan said, holding on tight.
"Take care of each other," she said when she pulled back, looking at Stan very seriously.
"I will - we will."
His mother kissed his forehead, and Stan turned. Kyle was being ushered into the backseat of the second car, and Stan hurried to follow him in, forgetting to turn back and look at this parents until the door had been closed behind them. Kyle was clutching the basketball Stan had given him.
"Stan," he said, whispering.
"I know." Stan scooted over to him and took his hand. They stared at their parents through the dark window. Greta was talking to them, reassuring them. The cop stayed behind as Greta and the men headed for the black cars. She climbed up front with the driver.
"Are you boys okay?" she asked, turning to smile at them. "I know it's a little scary, but at least you're going together, right? And we'll meet up with your friends Kenny and Eric at the airport."
"The airport?" Kyle said. He squeezed Stan's hand hard like a warning, too late.
"That's right," Greta said. "Have you boys ever been to our nation's capital? That's where we're headed!"
She turned back toward the front without waiting to hear if they'd been there or not. The driver pulled away from the curb, and Stan and Kyle turned for a last look at their parents. Sheila was crying in Gerald's arms and Randy was trying to talk to the cop, who didn't seem very responsive. Sharon was standing at the end of the driveway with her hands tented over her mouth, watching them go.
At the end of the block the car took a left onto Jameson Avenue, and Stan heard a strange sound that he thought was a leaf blower at first. He jumped in his seat when he saw what it actually was: a metal plate rising from the partition between the back and front seats, sliding up toward the ceiling. Similar metal plates covered the windows and rose up behind them, boxing them in.
"What the fuck!" Kyle shouted. He had scrambled almost fully into Stan's lap, and he was looking around frantically, but all the light had vanished. Stan was whispering fuck, fuck, fuck, under his breath, wondering if they'd cut the oxygen off, too, though the same clean air seemed to be blowing from the vents on the back of the front seats.
"I'm sorry for the scary traveling accommodations, boys," Greta said, her voice coming from some unseen overhead intercom. "But, you understand - if the octal lasers are activated by distress, Agent Lawrence and I have to protect ourselves. I'm sure we'll all find out soon that it's unnecessary, but in the meantime - better to be safe than sorry, right? We know you don't want to hurt us."
"I don't like this," Kyle said, curling more deeply into Stan's arms. "Stan, I don't like this, something's wrong." The basketball was cradled between them like a pet they were trying to conceal.
"I know," Stan said. "But - they don't want to hurt us. Why would they want to hurt us?"
"Do you think they can hear us talking?" Kyle whispered.
"I don't know - here." Stan dug the Sweet Tarts out and tore at the wrapper while Kyle felt his hand in the darkness, trying to determine what he was holding. He sniffed the tube when Stan held it up toward his nose.
"Candy?" Kyle said, still whispering.
"Sweet Tarts," Stan said. "I know you don't like the yellow ones, but I can't see - if you get a yellow one, you can just push it into my mouth."
"Shhh," Kyle said.
Stan fed Kyle Sweet Tarts in the dark during the long drive toward the airport. It felt like they were back there for days, not sure what to say to comfort each other, just holding on tight and crunching candy between their teeth. If Kyle got any yellow ones he didn't complain.
Finally, the car stopped. Stan could hear planes taking off, but the sound seemed farther away than it usually was when he was in the parking lot of the Denver Airport.
"Alright, boys," Greta said, speaking to them for the first time since the metal guard plates had enclosed them. "I'm afraid, for your own safety and ours, we'll have to put you to sleep during the journey."
"To sleep?" Kyle said, his voice high-pitched and panicked. "What - what do you mean?"
She didn't answer, and the vents that were blowing cool air into the backseat hissed more powerfully. The air started to smell different. It wasn't bad or even strong, but hazy with something that wasn't oxygen.
"No, no," Kyle said, clawing at Stan's sweater. "I can't, I can't do this, I can't-"
"It's okay," Stan said, though the shake in his voice revealed that he didn't believe this. He cradled Kyle's head against his chest and pet his hair until his fingers were too tingly and loose to move properly.
Then he fell asleep, drunkenly wondering what would become of the little basketball that was hidden between them.
(That's the end of the draft - what happens next is that they are held by the government for years and experimented on until they begin to develop powers similar to those they pretended to have as children. How I was going to work controlling power tools into this, I don't know - maybe it expanded to machinery in general. Anyway, Kyle was depressed and therefore had a hard time unlocking his power to fly, but once he did they escaped, and Stan became a carpenter while Kyle kind of haunted around him sadly, and they were super codependent, the end.)
(I like the start of this a lot, but I kept getting tripped up on not having been to Burning Man and therefore fearing it would just turn into 'Stan and Kyle fuck in a tent in the desert,' which I guess is what I ultimately wanted to write about, and I wasn't that into the idea of them meeting in their 30s enough to really get into this one.)
A strung-out looking guy whose rather obvious playa name is 'Tweek' brings a sun burned ginger man into the tent on Wednesday, during Stan's third shift. It's about two o'clock in the afternoon, judging by the position of the sun. Even in the medical tent, clocks are generally frowned upon.
"I found him in the central camp!" Tweek says, shouting for some reason. "He -- he was babbling something about ice, ah -- I don't know, man, I think he's pretty fucked up!"
"It's probably sun stroke," Stan says, helping the other nurse on duty lift the ginger man onto one of the med beds. The other nurse is also a man, which is not unusual in this particular volunteer position. His playa name is 'Butters.' Stan didn't ask why and doesn't want to know.
"Here you go, buddy," Butters says, moving one of the tent's fans over to point it at the ginger man's bed. He's groggy but cognizant, blinking up at Stan while he applies a cool washcloth to his sweltering forehead.
"Do you know your name, dude?" Stan asks.
"Kyle," he says. He seems to resent the question, which is a good sign. He's lucid, just extremely overheated.
"Drink this," Butters says, reappearing with a sweating water bottle. Kyle moans, and Stan helps him sit up enough to drink.
"You can go," Stan says, turning to Tweek, who seems to be expecting some sort of reward or awaiting some sort of punishment. He's dancing near the tent entrance like he needs to take a piss. "Thanks for bringing him here. It was the right thing to do."
"Good luck!" Tweek shouts, and he darts out of the tent, back into the glaring, dusty sunlight.
"Are you here with friends?" Stan asks when they've managed to lower Kyle's body temperature to a safe level. Kyle isn't really dressed for the atmosphere out there, in either a practical or festive sense. He's wearing a baggy purple t-shirt with the sleeves ripped off, tiny white shorts that are pinching into the flesh on his sun-bloated thighs, and filthy red ballet flats.
"I came with my boyfriend," Kyle says. He motions for the water and drinks more. Butters has wandered off to tend to a sobbing young woman who puked all over the floor upon entering the tent. "What's that smell?" Kyle asks, wrinkling his bright red nose.
"Barf," Stan says. "I'll clean it up in a minute."
"God." Kyle moans and drapes his arm over his face. "This place is hell."
"You think so?"
This is Stan's fifth year attending, only his second of doing so sober and as a volunteer instead of part of his ex-wife's sizable camp. He used to spend the week of Burning Man in a blur of drugs, booze, random sex and the occasional puddle of puke. His playa name was 'Raven,' for reasons he can't recall. Now his marriage is over and so are his days of heavy drug use. He skipped a year after Wendy left him, but he missed something about this experience that wasn't entirely about getting shitfaced and being given permission to sleep with strangers who were usually men. Nursing the overwhelmed participants was a good experience last year, oddly peaceful despite the chaos all around them, and it's been good so far this year, too. He dips the cloth he's been using on Kyle's puffy face back into the bucket of ice water at his bedside and soothes it over his skin again. Kyle closes his eyes and sighs. He's really less of a ginger and more of a delicately colored redhead.
"Your first year?" Stan asks.
"Yes," Kyle says, mumbling. He keeps his eyes closed while Stan continues to dab at him, wanting him to cool down a little more before he breaks out the aloe. "It was a dare that I was an idiot to take on."
"Your boyfriend dared you to come?"
"Not in so many words, but he goes every year, and every year he implies that I not only wouldn't be able to handle it but that I'm not deeply spiritual enough to appreciate what goes on here." Kyle scoffs and opens his eyes, narrowing them at Stan. "What goes on here, as far as I can tell, is a disgusting, drug-addled, dust-filled orgy."
"That's not a totally unfair way to characterize it," Stan admits.
"You're an enthusiast, I presume?"
"Sorta," Stan says. "I see the downsides now, too. That's why I don't really, uh. I prefer to volunteer and help out."
"Are you a real doctor?"
"No. I'm a real nurse, though."
"Oh." Kyle tries to sit up, moans and drops back onto the pillow. "I haven't had anything to eat in twenty-four hours," he says. "I took something last night." He glances at Stan. "Am I allowed to tell you that?"
"Yeah, of course. No judgment here. What did you take?"
"I don't even know. They had some goofy ass name for it. Pixie dust? People were wearing wings. Cartman -- my boyfriend -- he was naked except for this fez that he ties under his fat fucking chin with a strap. It was very upsetting."
"It was probably just coke," Stan says, trying to picture this guy's fat, naked boyfriend in a fez. "The drug, I mean."
"We didn't snort it, though. I think I took pills. Jesus, I barely remember. I was pretty drunk by that point. I fled when somebody grabbed my ass. Cartman was off fucking someone else, what does he care. I've just been wandering around since then, in hell."
"I'm sorry someone grabbed you," Stan says, annoyed with this boyfriend for letting it happen. Kyle is clearly unprepared for everything about this experience, and the guy should have known that and protected him. "My friend Wendy runs a camp called the Ball Kickers. It's on the Holy strip at eight o'clock. Anyone who feels harassed by the aggressive male contingent can go there for amnesty."
"I'm not some damsel," Kyle says, frowning. "I knew about this contingent. I thought, you know. We've done some things, as a couple. He's into -- things. I thought I might be, too. I've always had this fantasy about a bunch of dirty men grabbing at me -- oh, Jesus, I'm still high."
"Here," Stan says, offering more water. Kyle drinks. His gulping noises are arousing. He's cute, despite the sun burn, or maybe his cuteness is enhanced by how raw he looks. "I'll get you some ointment," Stan says. "And you'll probably want some Ibprofen when you come down from -- whatever you're on."
"I think I'm mostly down," Kyle says, and he lies back on the bed. He's docile and surrendered as Stan applies burn ointment to his arms, shoulders, legs, and finally his face. He has nice eyelashes, a much prettier shade of red-orange than the sun burn, which is now shiny with ointment. "Can I just stay here for a minute?" Kyle asks, peering shyly up at Stan when the ointment has been applied. "I'm so tired."
"Of course you can stay," Stan says. "You had an incident. Staying is practically required. Will your boyfriend be worried, though?"
"Doubtful. He's probably passed out somewhere with his cock up an old hippie's ass. He actually hates hippies, you know. But he loves a good anarchistic society where he can pretend he's a tribal chief with free reign to fuck everybody he sees."
"It's not anarchy," Stan says, increasingly disturbed by the picture Kyle is painting of this guy. "There are rules. He can't fuck anybody without consent."
"Oh, I know that, and he knows that. I'm exaggerating, but you know what I mean. He's a businessman in real life. Not a particularly successful one. We dropped out of school together in our twenties, before the crash. We thought we were going to be rich forever. Sorry, I don't know why I'm telling you this."
"I'm interested," Stan says. "I used to come here to get blasted for a week, but after I dried out I realized that what I missed most was all the random stories you hear."
"Dried out?" Kyle peeks at him again, eyelashes fluttering.
"Uh, yeah. Well, not entirely. I still drink a little. But in moderation. I was getting pretty heavy into other stuff when my wife left me. Wendy, that friend I mentioned -- we used to be married."
"Weird," Kyle says. "I mean, that you're still friends."
"Nah, it's not that weird. We met at work. She's a doctor."
Butters brings lunch while Kyle is still resting, and Stan shares his food with Kyle. He has an appetite, which is definitely a good sign.
"You volunteers eat well!" Kyle says, stuffing grilled chicken into his mouth with his fingers. They're passing a grilled corn cob back and forth, trading bites. This is what Stan likes about being here, though it's often felt forced in the past, unless drugs were involved: the random, sudden closeness of a stranger.
"This is from Wendy's camp," Stan explains. "She sends me lunch. She's as unhinged as anybody here when she wants to be, but she runs a very smooth ship over there. You should check it out, seriously, if you don't want to go back to your boyfriend's place." Stan is staying with Wendy, between shifts, but that's neither here nor there. "Unless you want to leave?" he says.
Kyle shrugs. "I feel like that would be proving Cartman right about me," he says. "I want to conquer this experience somehow, even if I die trying."
"You don't have to die. Seriously, dude. I'm off shift in a couple of hours. Come over to Ball Kickers with me, let me show you around."
"Ball Kickers." Kyle raises a lip. "Are they lesbians?"
"Uh, some of them are. Wendy is bi, like me."
He didn't mean to announce that so clumsily. He feels his face heating as Kyle stares at him. Kyle's lips are all buttery from the corn, shiny like the rest of him.
"I'll take that Ibprofen now," Kyle says. "It's starting to hurt pretty bad."
Stan feels a bit badly for bringing Kyle back out into the sunlight, especially because there would be no point in applying sunscreen until the aloe soaks in a bit more. To shield him from burning further, Stan wraps him in a blanket and ferries him across the crowded playa as if he's an escaping refugee, Kyle hunched under Stan's arm and hiding behind a pair of gaudy sunglasses borrowed from Butters. He looks a bit like an insane jawa.
"I might puke," Kyle says as they draw close to Wendy's camp.
"That's okay," Stan says, though he's beginning to doubt whether Wendy will allow a strange man to shelter at Ball Kickers, and especially if he's puking as he approaches. She's always welcomed a few strays, but prefers to hold those spots for unprepared young women. Stan thinks of telling her that Kyle can share his space, but Stan's space is rather narrow, and this guy does have a boyfriend, technically.
Kyle makes it to Ball Kickers without retching, and he pauses to gaze up at the sculpture out front. It's a huge, circular structure with garish red padding inside and lots of gnarled pink and orange wires wrapped around it.
"It's a womb," Stan explains, wanting to hurry Kyle into the shade. "You can climb in it," he adds, though perhaps that's obvious, since a man and woman he doesn't recognize are presently sitting inside it. "Um. Wendy's girlfriend is pregnant, so she's exploring the, uh, many potential identities of the child she's carrying by allowing strangers to climb inside her -- womb. She's an artist."
"How gruesome," Kyle says, and he peeks at Stan. "Sorry. I feel like I don't get a lot of this art." He pronounced 'art' skeptically.
"Nah, it's okay. I mean, just. Maybe don't mention that outright. But I get that." Stan actually finds the womb sculpture rather distressing, which is not untypical of Bebe's art, or of Bebe herself.
"Are you the father?" Kyle asks.
"No. The father is a colleague of Wendy's, a doctor. His name is Craig. He looks a lot like the male equivalent of Wendy, but they claim that's not why they picked him." Stan was in fact very hurt that they hadn't asked him to donate sperm, and especially because they'd gone to Craig, one of Stan's bosses at the hospital. Craig is brilliant, certainly, and good looking, but Wendy and Bebe may eventually regret having a child with the 'complete asshole' gene that Craig might pass along.
Wendy notices them lurking and makes her way toward them, looking suspicious. Stan supposes he can't blame her, given that Kyle has a blanket wrapped around him and draped over his head, and the bedazzled sunglasses don't help. Wendy of course looks beautiful: the playa life always brings out her youthful side, and she's effortlessly outfitted in a flowing white blouse that is just see-through enough to show the color of her nipples. She's wearing no pants, just a black bikini bottom and hiking boots that are laced up her calves. Stan is vaguely aroused by the effect of her blouse as it billows against her skin in the hot wind. He still feels a yearning to rub his face in a pair of lovely little breasts like hers from time to time, though not hers specifically.
"I'm gonna let him crash in my space for a minute," Stan says, gesturing to Kyle with his thumb. He's already feeling that old guilt he would get when he half-remembered the male asses he'd plowed during Burning Man. Wendy always gave him permission to roam during the week-long event, and she certainly roamed herself, but Stan felt itchy with shame as he progressively realized how much he yearned to roam into the fields of male asses in their real life, too.
"What's the story?" Wendy asks, squinting at Kyle as if he's a ship in the distance. "You okay?"
"I'm sunburned," Kyle says. His voice wavers slightly; he'll certainly need more water as soon as they get inside. "Forgive the blanket. I had to improvise."
"He came to the medical tent," Stan says. He glances at Kyle, who is inscrutable behind the sunglasses and beneath the blanket. "There, um. There was a bit of a domestic situation, so. I thought we could help out."
"Take him inside before he melts in that thing," Wendy says. "Is that a wool blanket?"
"Feels like one," Kyle says, miserably.
"Stan, what -- why would you even have a wool blanket? Under what circumstances would a patient possibly need one, out here? Don't they even have proper Mylar blankets for emergencies where you'd need to get someone warm?"
"Well, yeah -- I think. Someone left this one there, okay, and I technically can't take reusable supplies off site--"
"Whatever, take him into the shade. Then come out and have a chat with us, please."
Stan's spirits dip at hearing 'us' as opposed to 'me.' He likes and admires Bebe in a lot of ways, but fears and resents her too much to enjoy her company. She stole his wife, after all. He brings Kyle into Ball Kickers, which is sparsely populated so far. It's a pleasant, interconnected little village of tents, all of them cooled by electric fans and piled with large, flat pillows. There are multiple water stations, some with fresh cucumber slices floating suspended in the cool water, which is kept replenished with ice, the one playa item available for purchase with actual money. Stan fetches Kyle a plastic tumbler and watches him drink from it as the blanket falls away. Kyle is drenched with sweat beneath it, and Stan is embarrassed to notice that Kyle's crotch now features a sizable sweat stain.
"I've got some stuff you could wear," Stan says when Kyle notices him staring and looks down at the stain. He curses.
"I knew I couldn't really fit into these shorts," he says. "Damn, look at my thighs. Look at me."
"You're just sweaty," Stan says. "C'mon, I'll, uh. We'll get you fixed up, and you can nap for a while."
"You're the first person I've encountered here who actually demonstrates the advertised generosity of spirit," Kyle says, and Stan notices the way he speaks for the second time.
"What do you do?" he asks, leading Kyle into the little side-tent Wendy set up for him. There's no fan, but he gets some airflow from the neighboring tent, where Bebe's artist friends Marble and Henrietta had loud, grunting sex last night.
"I manage a sushi bar," Kyle says, defeating Stan's theory that he's some kind of academic. "I'm not sure I should tell you which one, though it's not exactly reputable. Where did you say you're from?"
"Colorado."
"Oh, of course -- that makes you suited for this sort of outdoorsy thing, I'm sure. I'm from Nebraska. Well, not really - my parents were from New York, and I was born there. We moved for my dad's work when I was a kid. I'm sure you can imagine the quality of the average sushi bar in Nebraska. My life is a disaster, and I want you to know that, it seems, before I pass out in your tent."
"Man, no way. Your career doesn't define you. Neither does your relationship status, or your ability to avoid sunburn. Here--" Stan kneels down to dig through his bag. He pulls out a clean shirt and pair of boxers and passes them to Kyle. "You can change into those. I'll give you some privacy."
"Is this a barter-type situation?" Kyle asks, peering up at Stan with queasy uncertainty. "That is -- in accepting your generosity, am I therefore obligated to give you something in return? As in, your cock in my mouth, or--"
"Dude, no! It's really -- I just want to help you out. I know how rough it is to break up with someone during the Burn. Me and Wendy -- we called it quits out here, three years back."
"Oh." Kyle looks down at Stan's clothes, rubbing his thumbs over them. "Well, I wouldn't mind," he says, keeping his eyes down. "I mean. That was one thing that drew me to -- this. The idea of, uh. A primitive sexual economy. Only all the men were gross, until you."
"It's really not about economy for me," Stan says, starting to feel aroused nonetheless. "I mean, I wouldn't feel comfortable extorting sex in exchange for hospitality. So -- don't worry about it." He leaves then, feeling uncomfortable, and goes to find Bebe and Wendy, who are waiting near the womb.
(That's it - what happens next is that Kyle of course convinces Stan to let him service him in exchange for shelter/food, and they both get really into it and have a good time. Cartman shows up and makes some noise but ultimately Kyle ends up with Stan and they like, leave together, something. Oh, and there was an element of Stan hallucinating dead friend Kenny.)