Part 3
In the morning - which really didn’t feel like morning considering Craig had been out there slamming himself against the door until a couple of hours before they got up - Stan did what he usually did and came downstairs to make coffee. He found Tweek sitting at the kitchen table with a mug, and for a second he made the not-invalid assumption that Tweek had gotten up and made coffee. “How’s the coffee?” Stan asked, rubbing his eyes and going into the fridge for the cream cheese.
“I don’t know,” Tweek admitted.
“Okay.” Stan grabbed a bagel from the pantry.
“I didn’t make any.”
“Oh.” Stan stuck his bagel in the bagel-slicer.
“I don’t know how.” This caught Stan’s attention.
“You don’t know how to make coffee?” he asked.
“No.”
“Do you drink coffee?” Stan asked, not realizing what a stupid question it was. Tweek nodded vigorously, enthusiastically even.
Finally, he cracked. “Will you please make me some? I need it,” he choked. “I’m really sorry! I don’t want to be a burden, you guys are so nice but I’m completely dependent and I’m going out of my mind.”
“Completely dependent on what?” Stan asked. Tweek just shrugged. He stuck his sliced bagel on a plate and grabbed the coffee beans from the refrigerator.
While the coffee mill did its job, Stan and Tweek stared at each other, no sound passing between them save for the unsettling grinding sound that Kyle unfailingly complained about whenever Stan made coffee with him in the room. Stan began to feel uncomfortable, and he awkwardly coughed and tightened the belt on his maroon robe. Tweek just twitched and clenched his muscles and tilted his head from side to side like he didn’t know where he was. As soon as the beans were done, Stan turned his back to Tweek, but every so often he turned around to see the blond man just staring at him, and it was really creeping him out. When half the pot was brewed, Stan poured two cups and thrust one into the hands of his waiting houseguest.
“Thanks,” Tweek said happily, but when he had taken a sip of coffee, he scowled.
“What?” Stan asked. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“Okay.”
“I like it stronger!” Tweek cried out. “Oh, Jesus, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to say that.”
Stan rolled his eyes, sniffed his mug of coffee, and took a sip. “Tweek, this coffee is so strong it would take the finish off of a credenza.”
“A what?”
“How could you possibly imbibe anything stronger than this?”
“I just like strong things,” Tweek explained in between sips. “Strong, forceful, bitter, unpleasant, stringent things.”
“I see.” Stan usually did not approve of eating things upstairs, but to get the hell away from Tweek, he made an exception. With his bagel in one hand and his mug of coffee in the other, he made a mad dash up to the bedroom.
“Kyle,” he panted, shutting the door with his ass. “I want that guy out of the house.”
“What are you talking about?” Kyle asked, sitting up.
“Tweek. He’s freaking me out. He’s gotta go.”
“What’d he do?”
“What’d he do?” Stan asked. “He doesn’t do anything, that’s the problem. He just sits there shaking like a chihuahua.”
Kyle yawned. “Oh well. What are you going to do about it?”
“Ask him to leave,” Stan suggested without hesitation.
“Where’s my coffee?” Kyle asked.
“Where? Oh, downstairs, still in the carafe.” Stan took a sip of coffee. “You don’t want any, though, it’s not strong enough.”
“Why didn’t you bring me some?”
“I had to use my second hand to carry my bagel,” Stan explained, almost pathetically.
“I see.” Kyle threw the covers off and walked over to where Stan was standing awkwardly.
“What are you doing?” he asked as Kyle deftly removed the mug from Stan’s hand and got back in bed.
“The problem,” Kyle said thoughtfully, drinking coffee and leaning back against his monstrous wall of pillows, “is that if we just tell Tweek to leave, we won’t have a bargaining chip. He needs to stay here until we sign a new lease.”
“Why do I feel like all of your plans involve absconding with something or hiding someone or some miserable kind of retribution?”
“I don’t know,” Kyle said with a shrug. “Maybe you’re developing a brain tumor. This coffee is horrible, though, Stan, it’s way too strong.”
“Whatever.” Stan took a bite of his bagel. “Hey. What are we going to do about Tweek tonight when we go to my parents’?”
“I don’t know.” Kyle shrugged. “Leave him here.”
~
When they came downstairs ready to open the shop for the day, Tweek was sitting on the living room floor with his head in his hands, staring down into a cup of coffee. For a moment Stan assumed that this mug was also empty, but when he saw them, Tweek snatched it up in his hands and some brown liquid sloshed over and rolled down the sides. He was about to scream something like, holy shit, man, watch out for the carpet, but given Kyle’s tendency to obsessively clean things, he just kept his mouth shut.
“Sorry,” Tweek squealed. “Drinking coffee in the living room is not allowed.” He said this like he was reading it off of a list of playground rules. Still holding his cup, he got on his knees and then to his feet, and it was immediately obvious that his fly was undone and his shirt was haphazardly buttoned. In fact, it was so egregiously messed up that the third button was in the fifth button hole, and Stan swore that some were even cross-buttoned in non-consecutive order.
“It’s okay,” Kyle said gently. “What’s wrong with your shirt?”
“Oh, Jesus,” he chirped again. “I can’t handle it!”
“Can’t handle what?” Stan asked.
“I can’t button a shirt! I can’t deal with things having to be in order! I didn’t mean to take coffee in the living room, I’m really sorry.”
“We don’t care,” Stan insisted.
“Yeah,” Kyle agreed. “Stan eats food in living room all the time and gets it everywhere like a disgusting pig.”
“You know, that’s really unnecessary,” Stan said, voice throbbing with pain.
“Here.” Kyle took the mug out of Tweek’s hands, and he made a baleful noise when this happened. Stan watched his eyes follow the cup all the way to the side table Kyle set it on, and then he watched Kyle very quietly undo all of Tweek’s buttons and then, audibly muttering breathy little curses, re-button the entire thing. This whole time Tweek stood there with his hands loosely around his neck, trembling like a Shaker filled with religious fervor.
“You are a 41-year-old man,” Kyle said softly, using what Stan kind of considered his fake-nice-but-condescending tone. “Why can’t you button a shirt?”
“I don’t know,” Tweek admitted. “It’s a lot of pressure!”
“Well, how do you get them buttoned at home?”
“Craig does it for me.”
Kyle sighed dramatically, and grabbed Tweek’s pants by the fly. “Usually I’m doing this in reverse,” he said naughtily, giving Tweek a saucy grin.
“You’re freaking me out!” Tweek replied. “I don’t want to have sex with you! Let’s just be friends!”
Kyle rolled his eyes. “It’s a joke,” Stan explained. Kyle brushed his hands off, looking at Tweek’s crotch again.
“Now you’re all buttoned,” he said happily. “Anyway, we’re going to work now.”
“You’re leaving me?”
“Uh huh,” Stan confirmed, helping Kyle into his coat. “Have fun.”
“What am I supposed to do while you guys are gone?”
“Read a book?” Kyle suggested.
“No way, man! That’s a lot of pressure!”
“Well, not really,” Stan said. “What do you think we’re going to do, quiz you on it?”
Tweek just looked at them with enormous brown eyes.
“Oh wow,” Stan said. “Craig is really a bastard, isn’t he?”
“We’re late,” Kyle said, tugging Stan out the door. “Don’t do anything we wouldn’t do, Tweek.”
“What wouldn’t you guys do?” Tweek asked, but the door slammed in his face, and he never got an answer.
~
Work was uneventful, although Kyle seemed, well, snippier than usual - probably, Stan figured, because he missed sleeping in on Sundays. In the day-to-day operation of the store, he sat in the back, where he had a nice desk and an ergonomic chair (which didn’t match the vibe of the place at all), and did the numbers. But since he got all of this done during the week, he spent the majority of the day fidgeting on the couch, trying to talk himself out of taking up knitting.
At one point, he had the gall to say, “There’s really no point to me coming in on weekends, you know.”
“Really,” Stan replied, not particularly impressed.
“I mean, I get my work done during the week.”
“Uh huh.”
“So maybe I should stay home next weekend,” he concluded.
“You think there’s no point to being here, do you?”
“Not really,” Kyle reaffirmed.
“Not even just to keep me company?” Stan asked.
“Butters used to come in every Sunday by himself.”
“Actually, that’s not true,” Stan corrected. “He had his girlfriend here to hang out with.”
“It’s too bad you don’t have a girlfriend, Stan.”
“Why would I ever want a girlfriend when I have Kyle Broflovski?”
Kyle scoffed at this and started thinking about samplers.
~
When they got home, they found Tweek sitting on the floor, hands around his legs, knees against his chest. He seemed to be muttering to himself, and he kept flinching. “That poor man!” Kyle exclaimed in a stage whisper. “What’s wrong with him?”
“I don’t know,” Stan replied. “But you’d better figure it out before we have to be at my parents’ in an hour. Mom’s making ropa vieja,” he added.
“Me?” Kyle asked, completely ignoring the fact that he loved Sharon Marsh’s ropa vieja. “Why do I have to figure it out?”
“You’re just so good with people,” Stan claimed.
“Like hell I am! You’re the one who talks old ladies into buying moth-eaten lace tablecloths.”
“Oh, but that’s too easy. Talking to Tweek without smacking him across the face, now that’s hard.”
“You just don’t want to have sex with me ever again, do you? Because that’s what I’m getting from you lately, with this behavior.”
“Maybe I just resent that you’ve started trying to control me by withholding sex.”
“It’s the only thing that works,” Kyle hissed.
“Maybe you just need Viagra,” Stan suggested, swatting Kyle on the ass as he went upstairs; Kyle’s eyes followed him. “Good luck!” he called down from the landing. Kyle made a lewd gesture in retaliation.
Padding into the living room, Kyle sat down next to Tweek and said, “Hey.”
Tweek looked at him, with those enormous brown eyes Kyle resented so. “You guys were gone for so long,” he said in wonderment.
“Yeah, I know. A full work day. Who knew?”
“Craig brings me to work.”
“I’m not Craig.”
“I know!” Tweek cried, bursting into tears. His eyes began to redden. “He’s so intense, man. I can’t take it anymore!”
“All right,” Kyle said slowly. “You don’t have to take anything. You shouldn’t just let some guy boss you around because he wants to devote his life to talking to octogenarians about tea sets and crumbling old books.”
“He’s not just some guy,” Tweek sniffed. “He’s Craig.”
“Is he ever,” Kyle mumbled. Tweek wiped his nose, and he was forever shaking, and Kyle was beginning to feel weird about this, so he did what he knew to do, which was make pedantic conversation. “So, what’d you do today?” he asked brightly.
“Sat on the floor.”
“You know,” Kyle said very delicately, patting Tweek’s hand. “You’re a grown-up. You can leave the house by yourself. You can go anywhere you want.”
“Oh, Jesus, no. They’ll come get me.”
“Who is coming to get you, now?” Kyle was actually very interested in hearing the answer to this question. Tweek just shook his head.
“I see.” Kyle sighed, and stood up. He felt the sea foam-colored carpet - it was tacky, he could silently admit to himself, even if he would rather die than admit it to Stan - press into his kneecaps, and he briefly felt like perhaps he was becoming too old to sit on the floor at all. He could hear Stan’s voice in his head, chiding him, Aw, that’s ridiculous, you’re just a baby - baby meaning young, of course, not actually a baby, and for some reason this made Kyle incredibly sad.
“Right,” he said absently. Tweek was looking up at him, and he certainly didn’t look old - no, he actually looked like a baby. Kyle proffered a hand and helped up to his feet, and brushed off the front of his pants, where a million sea foam carpet fibers were now residing. “It’ll all be okay, Tweek,” he said warmly. “I swear to God, man.”
“How are you going to do that?” Tweek asked. “You’re not with the government, are you?”
“Uh, no.” Kyle straightened out his green button-down shirt, and pointlessly stroked at the creases. “I fix things,” he said with finality. “That’s what I do. We’re going to fix everything, man. I promise.”
Tweek said, “Okay,” and Kyle could swear Tweek knew he was speaking primarily to himself.
Stan was not pleased that Tweek was coming to dinner.
“I don’t see what’s the big deal,” Kyle said aimlessly, digging around in his sock drawer. He was slightly annoyed, mostly because he had been planning on getting rather dolled up for this occasion mistakenly believing that perhaps if he looked less haggard and more presentable, it might help things with Randy Marsh go over smoother. Stan very badly had wanted to tell him how stupid this was, that Kyle could be wearing a ball gown or a potato sack or a dinosaur costume, and it really wouldn’t matter. But Kyle was suffering under the delusion that maybe his most slimming turtleneck and ass-shaping pants might help. Sadly, because he’d spent the hour he’d been counting on to get ready downstairs with Tweek, now he just had to wear what he’d worn all day to sit around the store.
“What’s the big deal?” Stan repeated, waving a shoehorn in Kyle’s face. “I’ll tell you what the big deal is. You want me to sit down and have a heart-to-heart talk about my sexuality with my father, and now we have to bring along a walking tornado alert. Well, that’s just super.”
Kyle grasped the shoehorn. “Well, we can’t leave him here!”
“I don’t see what the big deal is.”
“I don’t think he’s in any state to just sit at our house alone doing nothing! For one thing, we have to feed him. For another, he spends his entire life in emotional abandonment. We can’t perpetuate that. It’s cruel!”
Fumbling for the door knob, Stan turned around. “You want to know what cruel is?” he asked, before lowering his voice. “We haven’t had sex in three weeks. We’re about to become unemployed. You want me to majorly upset my family just so that you can feel a little more included, and yet you’ve never asked me how I feel about it.”
“Well,” Kyle sniffed, tossing aside the shoehorn and kicking the heels of his saddle shoes against the bed frame. “How do you feel about it?”
“Not so great,” Stan confessed. “I mean, he’s my dad.”
“Oh.” Kyle honestly felt somewhat stupid, and when Kyle felt stupid he generally compensated by becoming very angry, the swift machinations of his brain conceiving of ways in which Stan was being unforgivably priggish by suddenly manifesting these so-called ‘feelings’ of his while here Kyle was, being unjustly disregarded all these years. “I’ll be in the car,” he snapped, rising off the bed. “With Tweek,” he added, for extra punch.
~
Both Stan and Kyle shuddered at Sharon Marsh’s assertion that Stan was so like his father, which she kept repeating under her breath in agitation every time she laid her knife into a salad tomato. “This is so like him, bringing someone extra to dinner and not telling me.”
“I promise to never do it again if you just let it go,” Stan sighed from the other side of the counter. In truth he felt a bit ashamed - well, stupid, really - and he was having the hardest time not just crying out, It’s all Kyle’s fault, he’s in love with the little fucker, I wanted to leave him out of this. But Kyle was standing right next to him, grumbling and trying in vain to uncork the bargain-bin merlot they’d brought, a task Stan had delegated to him because he knew Kyle was absolutely hopeless at opening anything that wasn’t a screw-top. When Kyle broke the cork, which Stan expected within the next three minutes, he would send him out to the car to get the real wine. It was all part of his genius plan to buy him a few minutes to speak with his mother.
“It’s not merely rude,” Sharon continued, wiping her blade on a towel. “I thought you wanted to talk with your father. How is this conducive to that?”
“Didn’t say it was.”
“Oh no!” Kyle moaned, thrusting the corkscrew (with a lingering chunk of cork) into Stan’s clutches. “Godammit, why do you always buy this cheap-ass wine? You know the cork always breaks off!”
“Oops,” Stan said lamely. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”
“Well,” I can’t get this out.” Kyle put his hands on his hips. “What are we going to drink now?”
“I don’t know,” Stan lied. “You know what?” he added, fake-brightly. “I think I have some emergency wine in the trunk.” He pulled his car keys from his pocket and handed them to Kyle. “Why don’t you go get that?” Kyle acted fairly put-upon about it, but he grudgingly took the keys, and stomped out the back door.
“You know how they say everyone has some kind of learning disability?” Stan asked his pepper-slicing mother. “I think Kyle’s is the inability to open wine.”
Sharon just sighed and tossed some chopped peppers (all three colors) into the salad bowl. “You said you wanted a ‘private family moment,’ to tell your father how you feel about him.” She picked up a handful of mushrooms, and gestured to the backdoor with her knife. “Tweek was always a nice boy, but I didn’t even know you still spoke to him. Why are you bringing him along to dinner?”
“You know our landlord?” Sharon nodded. “They’re together. And Tweek left him. And for some reason he came to us. And Kyle wouldn’t let us just leave him at home.” Sharon just gave Stan a disbelieving look. “Well, what do you want from me?” he asked, exasperated.
“This is your problem, Stanley. You just go along with whatever everyone else says you should do. I swear, it’s so like your father.” She ate a slice of mushroom. “Assert some authority for once!”
“That’s easy for you to say!” Stan shot back. “You don’t know Kyle’s like when he gets angry!”
“I have a pretty good idea. I do speak to his mother on the phone every week.”
“Oh, that’s right. Is she refusing to have sex with you, too?”
Sharon chose to ignore this comment. “Your father is a very, mmm, particular man. Just because he doesn’t seem to understand one aspect of your relationship doesn’t mean he doesn’t see how close you are.”
“Well, if he doesn’t understand it soon, there won’t be any of that aspect left for him to grasp!”
“See, this is what I mean! You don’t always have to passively let him steer your relationship. You can just…” She thought for a moment. “Well, just crawl on top of him or something. He’s a man. He’s not made of concrete.”
“Oh, God.” Stan clutched his stomach. “I didn’t need that visual.”
“Well, this may all be irrelevant.” Sharon began dousing the salad in olive oil “As well as your father seems to be getting along with Tweek, I hardly see us having this conversation with him around.”
“I’ll talk to him after dinner,” Stan promised. Then he paused. “How do you know Tweek, anyway?”
Sharon scoffed. “He was in your class. We knew his parents, Stanley.”
“You did? Huh. I guess you did, although I haven’t seen them around for years.”
“Of course not,” Sharon said bitterly. “They’re both dead.”
“Oh.” Stan looked at his mother. “Sorry?”
She shrugged. “Doesn’t bother me. We weren’t that close.”
The back door flew open, and Stan grabbed the counter to brace himself. “Here is your emergency wine, your highness,” Kyle said sharply, setting it on the counter. “Are you going to make me open this one, too?”
“What? Kyle, don’t be ridiculous.” Stan caught his mother’s harsh glance, and he shrugged it off to press a kiss to the top of Kyle’s head. “Why don’t you go hang out with Tweek and my dad?”
“Oh, there’s a conversation I want to be stuck in the middle of.” Kyle pushed Stan away, but he left the room anyhow. He could be going anywhere, Stan figured, as he was vaguely familiar with the Marsh household, having spent much of his time there, mostly in his underwear, mostly in high school.
“Do you think you can talk to his mom for me?” Stan asked in a whisper.
“Stan, if you guys are having problems,” Sharon whispered back, “Maybe you should try counseling.”
“No, we’re fine. It’s just the … you know, the bedroom. Oh God, why am I telling my 68-year-old mother this?”
“I’m not sure either,” she replied. “And I can’t help you anyway. Sheila and I don’t talk about you boys.”
“Really?” Stan asked unsurely.
“Yes. What, do you think we would still be friends if I got on the phone every week and said, ‘Hi, Sheila, can you talk to your son? Apparently he’s suffering from some kind of erectile dysfunction and Stan is being kind of a baby about it.’ I mean, really, Stanley. Be a man and make some decisions for once.”
“Oh, be a man, that’s easy for you to say,” Stan sniffed, hurt.
Sharon handed him the salad bowl. “Dinner’s ready,” she said in her normal volume. “Put this on the table.” He very much wanted to begin asserting his authority and say, ‘Bitch, you put it on the table,’ but Stan just sighed, and did what his mother told him.
~
After dinner, Stan took his father aside, but he was predictably unable to get a word in. “There’s something really off about that guy,” Randy said suspiciously. “You don’t think he’s on drugs, do you?”
“I don’t even want to know,” Stan admitted.
“Why’s he staying with you again?”
“Oh. Um, he and his boyfriend are having a fight.”
“His boyfriend?”
“Yeah, Dad. His boyfriend.”
“He’s gay?”
Stan’s ear picked up, and he smiled like an idiot, from ear to ear. “Is he ever!” he said joyously.
“Who’s his boyfriend?” Randy asked.
“It’s Craig.”
“Isn’t that the guy…”
“Yeah, he’s the guy who owns the space we rent for the store.”
“Oh.” Stan kept looking at his father with a big, silly grin, hoping beyond hope that his father was going to make the connection. He glanced sideways briefly to see Kyle glaring at him from the kitchen, where he was helping Sharon with the dishes. Stan pursed his lips together and blew Kyle a kiss; Kyle rolled his eyes, but Stan could tell that he was smiling, too. Everything was going great, everything was going awesome, and then…
“So, uh … why’s he staying with you?”
“Oh.” Stan’s smile shrunk a bit. “I told you, he and Craig aren’t getting along.”
“I know, you said that,” Randy clarified. “I mean, why’s he want to stay with you guys?”
“I guess … well, he said he kind of looked up to Kyle and me, and how we get along so well, and how he wished he and Craig were more like that.” Stan shrugged. “I guess he’s just looking for a same-sex relationship he can admire.” Stan felt this was a somewhat haughty, or at least pompous assessment, but he was trying to make a point here.
“Doesn’t he have any male friends he can look up to?”
“I don’t think Craig really gives him the chance to have a lot of friends.”
Randy put a hand on Stan’s shoulder. “I’m proud of you, son,” he said kindly. “Taking that man in is such a kind thing to do.”
“Dad, don’t you ever think there’s something queer about my relationship with Kyle?”
“Well, of course,” Randy shrugged. “But look, it’s the 21st century. I’m willing to accept that two men might want to live together in a completely non-gay way.”
“But Dad-”
“No, Stan, I’m a tolerant man. If you want to wait to get married and live with your friend and take in homosexuals who are having relationship issues, I’m cool with it. One day, when you have children, I can only hope you’ll be as understanding a father as I was.”
“You don’t understand nearly half of what you think you do,” Stan grumbled.
“And I’m just so glad you’re finally using that guest room,” Randy concluded.
~
Kyle was bristling with anger when he got in the car. “Well, that went awesome,” he spat bitterly, making sure to slam the door with extra emphasis. “What a solid ending to a lovely week.”
“Oh no,” Tweek moaned. “What did I do now?”
“Oh, honey,” Kyle cooed, turning around the face the houseguest in the backseat. “You didn’t do anything.”
“I didn’t?”
“Oh, no. It’s not your fault Stan’s father thinks I’m just living with him because I can’t afford my own place.”
“He thinks that?” Tweek asked. “Why would he think that?”
“Because he sucks,” Stan breathed, eyes on the road.
“Because Stan is too big of a pussy to tell his dad he’s a big fat homo who likes antiquing and Dynasty and Tom of Finland.”
Tweek’s voice perked up. “You do? I love Tom of Finland.”
“I don’t like Tom of Finland,” Stan scoffed. “Kyle’s just being a bitch.”
“Oh, I’m just being a bitch, but if you went into coma tomorrow and I wanted to keep you in a permanent vegetative state for 50 years, Randy Marsh would be like, nuh-uh, and pull the plug.”
“That’s horrible!” Tweek gasped.
“I know,” Kyle sighed.
“Why would you keep someone alive like that? It’s barely living!”
“He’s just being dramatic,” Stan said calmly.
“Like hell I am,” Kyle snapped.
“Craig wants to be shot in the face the moment he turns 50,” Tweek announced.
Stan whistled appreciatively. “Who knew Craig was so hardcore?”
“Wait a minute,” Kyle drawled, slapping his hand over Stan’s mouth. “We only have to wait nine years, and then we can just pick up our lease from the county? Oh, happy day.”
“I don’t think so,” Stan gasped when Kyle removed his hand. “Tweek would probably inherit it.”
“I already own it,” Tweek said, but nobody heard him.
“Yes, of course,” Kyle said bitterly. “I forgot that Craig’s parents probably know Tweek is their son’s boyfriend and wouldn’t fuck around with his inheritance.”
“I already own the store,” Tweek repeated.
“My father would not deny you any inheritance, Kyle!” Stan shouted. “That’s just absurd. He knows how much you mean to me.”
“Oh good, so when you do die, after your father pulls the plug under my nose, I can have my measly 18,000 dollars, and endure another 20 years of, ‘Why would Stan leave his money to his roommate?’ ” Kyle concluded his lame Randy Marsh impression. “But at least he knows we’re super-close roommates.”
“Why aren’t you guys listening to me?” Tweek cried. “I already own the store! It’s in my name! I already own it!”
Stan violently braked and the car squeezed to a stop, while Kyle got on his knees and peered at Tweek over the street. “You what?” he whispered.
“Craig doesn’t own your store, I own your store. Craig just runs it. It’s mine,” Tweek explained. “Oh god, don’t hate me!”
Continued here.
“I don’t know,” Tweek admitted.
“Okay.” Stan grabbed a bagel from the pantry.
“I didn’t make any.”
“Oh.” Stan stuck his bagel in the bagel-slicer.
“I don’t know how.” This caught Stan’s attention.
“You don’t know how to make coffee?” he asked.
“No.”
“Do you drink coffee?” Stan asked, not realizing what a stupid question it was. Tweek nodded vigorously, enthusiastically even.
Finally, he cracked. “Will you please make me some? I need it,” he choked. “I’m really sorry! I don’t want to be a burden, you guys are so nice but I’m completely dependent and I’m going out of my mind.”
“Completely dependent on what?” Stan asked. Tweek just shrugged. He stuck his sliced bagel on a plate and grabbed the coffee beans from the refrigerator.
While the coffee mill did its job, Stan and Tweek stared at each other, no sound passing between them save for the unsettling grinding sound that Kyle unfailingly complained about whenever Stan made coffee with him in the room. Stan began to feel uncomfortable, and he awkwardly coughed and tightened the belt on his maroon robe. Tweek just twitched and clenched his muscles and tilted his head from side to side like he didn’t know where he was. As soon as the beans were done, Stan turned his back to Tweek, but every so often he turned around to see the blond man just staring at him, and it was really creeping him out. When half the pot was brewed, Stan poured two cups and thrust one into the hands of his waiting houseguest.
“Thanks,” Tweek said happily, but when he had taken a sip of coffee, he scowled.
“What?” Stan asked. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“Okay.”
“I like it stronger!” Tweek cried out. “Oh, Jesus, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to say that.”
Stan rolled his eyes, sniffed his mug of coffee, and took a sip. “Tweek, this coffee is so strong it would take the finish off of a credenza.”
“A what?”
“How could you possibly imbibe anything stronger than this?”
“I just like strong things,” Tweek explained in between sips. “Strong, forceful, bitter, unpleasant, stringent things.”
“I see.” Stan usually did not approve of eating things upstairs, but to get the hell away from Tweek, he made an exception. With his bagel in one hand and his mug of coffee in the other, he made a mad dash up to the bedroom.
“Kyle,” he panted, shutting the door with his ass. “I want that guy out of the house.”
“What are you talking about?” Kyle asked, sitting up.
“Tweek. He’s freaking me out. He’s gotta go.”
“What’d he do?”
“What’d he do?” Stan asked. “He doesn’t do anything, that’s the problem. He just sits there shaking like a chihuahua.”
Kyle yawned. “Oh well. What are you going to do about it?”
“Ask him to leave,” Stan suggested without hesitation.
“Where’s my coffee?” Kyle asked.
“Where? Oh, downstairs, still in the carafe.” Stan took a sip of coffee. “You don’t want any, though, it’s not strong enough.”
“Why didn’t you bring me some?”
“I had to use my second hand to carry my bagel,” Stan explained, almost pathetically.
“I see.” Kyle threw the covers off and walked over to where Stan was standing awkwardly.
“What are you doing?” he asked as Kyle deftly removed the mug from Stan’s hand and got back in bed.
“The problem,” Kyle said thoughtfully, drinking coffee and leaning back against his monstrous wall of pillows, “is that if we just tell Tweek to leave, we won’t have a bargaining chip. He needs to stay here until we sign a new lease.”
“Why do I feel like all of your plans involve absconding with something or hiding someone or some miserable kind of retribution?”
“I don’t know,” Kyle said with a shrug. “Maybe you’re developing a brain tumor. This coffee is horrible, though, Stan, it’s way too strong.”
“Whatever.” Stan took a bite of his bagel. “Hey. What are we going to do about Tweek tonight when we go to my parents’?”
“I don’t know.” Kyle shrugged. “Leave him here.”
~
When they came downstairs ready to open the shop for the day, Tweek was sitting on the living room floor with his head in his hands, staring down into a cup of coffee. For a moment Stan assumed that this mug was also empty, but when he saw them, Tweek snatched it up in his hands and some brown liquid sloshed over and rolled down the sides. He was about to scream something like, holy shit, man, watch out for the carpet, but given Kyle’s tendency to obsessively clean things, he just kept his mouth shut.
“Sorry,” Tweek squealed. “Drinking coffee in the living room is not allowed.” He said this like he was reading it off of a list of playground rules. Still holding his cup, he got on his knees and then to his feet, and it was immediately obvious that his fly was undone and his shirt was haphazardly buttoned. In fact, it was so egregiously messed up that the third button was in the fifth button hole, and Stan swore that some were even cross-buttoned in non-consecutive order.
“It’s okay,” Kyle said gently. “What’s wrong with your shirt?”
“Oh, Jesus,” he chirped again. “I can’t handle it!”
“Can’t handle what?” Stan asked.
“I can’t button a shirt! I can’t deal with things having to be in order! I didn’t mean to take coffee in the living room, I’m really sorry.”
“We don’t care,” Stan insisted.
“Yeah,” Kyle agreed. “Stan eats food in living room all the time and gets it everywhere like a disgusting pig.”
“You know, that’s really unnecessary,” Stan said, voice throbbing with pain.
“Here.” Kyle took the mug out of Tweek’s hands, and he made a baleful noise when this happened. Stan watched his eyes follow the cup all the way to the side table Kyle set it on, and then he watched Kyle very quietly undo all of Tweek’s buttons and then, audibly muttering breathy little curses, re-button the entire thing. This whole time Tweek stood there with his hands loosely around his neck, trembling like a Shaker filled with religious fervor.
“You are a 41-year-old man,” Kyle said softly, using what Stan kind of considered his fake-nice-but-condescending tone. “Why can’t you button a shirt?”
“I don’t know,” Tweek admitted. “It’s a lot of pressure!”
“Well, how do you get them buttoned at home?”
“Craig does it for me.”
Kyle sighed dramatically, and grabbed Tweek’s pants by the fly. “Usually I’m doing this in reverse,” he said naughtily, giving Tweek a saucy grin.
“You’re freaking me out!” Tweek replied. “I don’t want to have sex with you! Let’s just be friends!”
Kyle rolled his eyes. “It’s a joke,” Stan explained. Kyle brushed his hands off, looking at Tweek’s crotch again.
“Now you’re all buttoned,” he said happily. “Anyway, we’re going to work now.”
“You’re leaving me?”
“Uh huh,” Stan confirmed, helping Kyle into his coat. “Have fun.”
“What am I supposed to do while you guys are gone?”
“Read a book?” Kyle suggested.
“No way, man! That’s a lot of pressure!”
“Well, not really,” Stan said. “What do you think we’re going to do, quiz you on it?”
Tweek just looked at them with enormous brown eyes.
“Oh wow,” Stan said. “Craig is really a bastard, isn’t he?”
“We’re late,” Kyle said, tugging Stan out the door. “Don’t do anything we wouldn’t do, Tweek.”
“What wouldn’t you guys do?” Tweek asked, but the door slammed in his face, and he never got an answer.
~
Work was uneventful, although Kyle seemed, well, snippier than usual - probably, Stan figured, because he missed sleeping in on Sundays. In the day-to-day operation of the store, he sat in the back, where he had a nice desk and an ergonomic chair (which didn’t match the vibe of the place at all), and did the numbers. But since he got all of this done during the week, he spent the majority of the day fidgeting on the couch, trying to talk himself out of taking up knitting.
At one point, he had the gall to say, “There’s really no point to me coming in on weekends, you know.”
“Really,” Stan replied, not particularly impressed.
“I mean, I get my work done during the week.”
“Uh huh.”
“So maybe I should stay home next weekend,” he concluded.
“You think there’s no point to being here, do you?”
“Not really,” Kyle reaffirmed.
“Not even just to keep me company?” Stan asked.
“Butters used to come in every Sunday by himself.”
“Actually, that’s not true,” Stan corrected. “He had his girlfriend here to hang out with.”
“It’s too bad you don’t have a girlfriend, Stan.”
“Why would I ever want a girlfriend when I have Kyle Broflovski?”
Kyle scoffed at this and started thinking about samplers.
~
When they got home, they found Tweek sitting on the floor, hands around his legs, knees against his chest. He seemed to be muttering to himself, and he kept flinching. “That poor man!” Kyle exclaimed in a stage whisper. “What’s wrong with him?”
“I don’t know,” Stan replied. “But you’d better figure it out before we have to be at my parents’ in an hour. Mom’s making ropa vieja,” he added.
“Me?” Kyle asked, completely ignoring the fact that he loved Sharon Marsh’s ropa vieja. “Why do I have to figure it out?”
“You’re just so good with people,” Stan claimed.
“Like hell I am! You’re the one who talks old ladies into buying moth-eaten lace tablecloths.”
“Oh, but that’s too easy. Talking to Tweek without smacking him across the face, now that’s hard.”
“You just don’t want to have sex with me ever again, do you? Because that’s what I’m getting from you lately, with this behavior.”
“Maybe I just resent that you’ve started trying to control me by withholding sex.”
“It’s the only thing that works,” Kyle hissed.
“Maybe you just need Viagra,” Stan suggested, swatting Kyle on the ass as he went upstairs; Kyle’s eyes followed him. “Good luck!” he called down from the landing. Kyle made a lewd gesture in retaliation.
Padding into the living room, Kyle sat down next to Tweek and said, “Hey.”
Tweek looked at him, with those enormous brown eyes Kyle resented so. “You guys were gone for so long,” he said in wonderment.
“Yeah, I know. A full work day. Who knew?”
“Craig brings me to work.”
“I’m not Craig.”
“I know!” Tweek cried, bursting into tears. His eyes began to redden. “He’s so intense, man. I can’t take it anymore!”
“All right,” Kyle said slowly. “You don’t have to take anything. You shouldn’t just let some guy boss you around because he wants to devote his life to talking to octogenarians about tea sets and crumbling old books.”
“He’s not just some guy,” Tweek sniffed. “He’s Craig.”
“Is he ever,” Kyle mumbled. Tweek wiped his nose, and he was forever shaking, and Kyle was beginning to feel weird about this, so he did what he knew to do, which was make pedantic conversation. “So, what’d you do today?” he asked brightly.
“Sat on the floor.”
“You know,” Kyle said very delicately, patting Tweek’s hand. “You’re a grown-up. You can leave the house by yourself. You can go anywhere you want.”
“Oh, Jesus, no. They’ll come get me.”
“Who is coming to get you, now?” Kyle was actually very interested in hearing the answer to this question. Tweek just shook his head.
“I see.” Kyle sighed, and stood up. He felt the sea foam-colored carpet - it was tacky, he could silently admit to himself, even if he would rather die than admit it to Stan - press into his kneecaps, and he briefly felt like perhaps he was becoming too old to sit on the floor at all. He could hear Stan’s voice in his head, chiding him, Aw, that’s ridiculous, you’re just a baby - baby meaning young, of course, not actually a baby, and for some reason this made Kyle incredibly sad.
“Right,” he said absently. Tweek was looking up at him, and he certainly didn’t look old - no, he actually looked like a baby. Kyle proffered a hand and helped up to his feet, and brushed off the front of his pants, where a million sea foam carpet fibers were now residing. “It’ll all be okay, Tweek,” he said warmly. “I swear to God, man.”
“How are you going to do that?” Tweek asked. “You’re not with the government, are you?”
“Uh, no.” Kyle straightened out his green button-down shirt, and pointlessly stroked at the creases. “I fix things,” he said with finality. “That’s what I do. We’re going to fix everything, man. I promise.”
Tweek said, “Okay,” and Kyle could swear Tweek knew he was speaking primarily to himself.
Stan was not pleased that Tweek was coming to dinner.
“I don’t see what’s the big deal,” Kyle said aimlessly, digging around in his sock drawer. He was slightly annoyed, mostly because he had been planning on getting rather dolled up for this occasion mistakenly believing that perhaps if he looked less haggard and more presentable, it might help things with Randy Marsh go over smoother. Stan very badly had wanted to tell him how stupid this was, that Kyle could be wearing a ball gown or a potato sack or a dinosaur costume, and it really wouldn’t matter. But Kyle was suffering under the delusion that maybe his most slimming turtleneck and ass-shaping pants might help. Sadly, because he’d spent the hour he’d been counting on to get ready downstairs with Tweek, now he just had to wear what he’d worn all day to sit around the store.
“What’s the big deal?” Stan repeated, waving a shoehorn in Kyle’s face. “I’ll tell you what the big deal is. You want me to sit down and have a heart-to-heart talk about my sexuality with my father, and now we have to bring along a walking tornado alert. Well, that’s just super.”
Kyle grasped the shoehorn. “Well, we can’t leave him here!”
“I don’t see what the big deal is.”
“I don’t think he’s in any state to just sit at our house alone doing nothing! For one thing, we have to feed him. For another, he spends his entire life in emotional abandonment. We can’t perpetuate that. It’s cruel!”
Fumbling for the door knob, Stan turned around. “You want to know what cruel is?” he asked, before lowering his voice. “We haven’t had sex in three weeks. We’re about to become unemployed. You want me to majorly upset my family just so that you can feel a little more included, and yet you’ve never asked me how I feel about it.”
“Well,” Kyle sniffed, tossing aside the shoehorn and kicking the heels of his saddle shoes against the bed frame. “How do you feel about it?”
“Not so great,” Stan confessed. “I mean, he’s my dad.”
“Oh.” Kyle honestly felt somewhat stupid, and when Kyle felt stupid he generally compensated by becoming very angry, the swift machinations of his brain conceiving of ways in which Stan was being unforgivably priggish by suddenly manifesting these so-called ‘feelings’ of his while here Kyle was, being unjustly disregarded all these years. “I’ll be in the car,” he snapped, rising off the bed. “With Tweek,” he added, for extra punch.
~
Both Stan and Kyle shuddered at Sharon Marsh’s assertion that Stan was so like his father, which she kept repeating under her breath in agitation every time she laid her knife into a salad tomato. “This is so like him, bringing someone extra to dinner and not telling me.”
“I promise to never do it again if you just let it go,” Stan sighed from the other side of the counter. In truth he felt a bit ashamed - well, stupid, really - and he was having the hardest time not just crying out, It’s all Kyle’s fault, he’s in love with the little fucker, I wanted to leave him out of this. But Kyle was standing right next to him, grumbling and trying in vain to uncork the bargain-bin merlot they’d brought, a task Stan had delegated to him because he knew Kyle was absolutely hopeless at opening anything that wasn’t a screw-top. When Kyle broke the cork, which Stan expected within the next three minutes, he would send him out to the car to get the real wine. It was all part of his genius plan to buy him a few minutes to speak with his mother.
“It’s not merely rude,” Sharon continued, wiping her blade on a towel. “I thought you wanted to talk with your father. How is this conducive to that?”
“Didn’t say it was.”
“Oh no!” Kyle moaned, thrusting the corkscrew (with a lingering chunk of cork) into Stan’s clutches. “Godammit, why do you always buy this cheap-ass wine? You know the cork always breaks off!”
“Oops,” Stan said lamely. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”
“Well,” I can’t get this out.” Kyle put his hands on his hips. “What are we going to drink now?”
“I don’t know,” Stan lied. “You know what?” he added, fake-brightly. “I think I have some emergency wine in the trunk.” He pulled his car keys from his pocket and handed them to Kyle. “Why don’t you go get that?” Kyle acted fairly put-upon about it, but he grudgingly took the keys, and stomped out the back door.
“You know how they say everyone has some kind of learning disability?” Stan asked his pepper-slicing mother. “I think Kyle’s is the inability to open wine.”
Sharon just sighed and tossed some chopped peppers (all three colors) into the salad bowl. “You said you wanted a ‘private family moment,’ to tell your father how you feel about him.” She picked up a handful of mushrooms, and gestured to the backdoor with her knife. “Tweek was always a nice boy, but I didn’t even know you still spoke to him. Why are you bringing him along to dinner?”
“You know our landlord?” Sharon nodded. “They’re together. And Tweek left him. And for some reason he came to us. And Kyle wouldn’t let us just leave him at home.” Sharon just gave Stan a disbelieving look. “Well, what do you want from me?” he asked, exasperated.
“This is your problem, Stanley. You just go along with whatever everyone else says you should do. I swear, it’s so like your father.” She ate a slice of mushroom. “Assert some authority for once!”
“That’s easy for you to say!” Stan shot back. “You don’t know Kyle’s like when he gets angry!”
“I have a pretty good idea. I do speak to his mother on the phone every week.”
“Oh, that’s right. Is she refusing to have sex with you, too?”
Sharon chose to ignore this comment. “Your father is a very, mmm, particular man. Just because he doesn’t seem to understand one aspect of your relationship doesn’t mean he doesn’t see how close you are.”
“Well, if he doesn’t understand it soon, there won’t be any of that aspect left for him to grasp!”
“See, this is what I mean! You don’t always have to passively let him steer your relationship. You can just…” She thought for a moment. “Well, just crawl on top of him or something. He’s a man. He’s not made of concrete.”
“Oh, God.” Stan clutched his stomach. “I didn’t need that visual.”
“Well, this may all be irrelevant.” Sharon began dousing the salad in olive oil “As well as your father seems to be getting along with Tweek, I hardly see us having this conversation with him around.”
“I’ll talk to him after dinner,” Stan promised. Then he paused. “How do you know Tweek, anyway?”
Sharon scoffed. “He was in your class. We knew his parents, Stanley.”
“You did? Huh. I guess you did, although I haven’t seen them around for years.”
“Of course not,” Sharon said bitterly. “They’re both dead.”
“Oh.” Stan looked at his mother. “Sorry?”
She shrugged. “Doesn’t bother me. We weren’t that close.”
The back door flew open, and Stan grabbed the counter to brace himself. “Here is your emergency wine, your highness,” Kyle said sharply, setting it on the counter. “Are you going to make me open this one, too?”
“What? Kyle, don’t be ridiculous.” Stan caught his mother’s harsh glance, and he shrugged it off to press a kiss to the top of Kyle’s head. “Why don’t you go hang out with Tweek and my dad?”
“Oh, there’s a conversation I want to be stuck in the middle of.” Kyle pushed Stan away, but he left the room anyhow. He could be going anywhere, Stan figured, as he was vaguely familiar with the Marsh household, having spent much of his time there, mostly in his underwear, mostly in high school.
“Do you think you can talk to his mom for me?” Stan asked in a whisper.
“Stan, if you guys are having problems,” Sharon whispered back, “Maybe you should try counseling.”
“No, we’re fine. It’s just the … you know, the bedroom. Oh God, why am I telling my 68-year-old mother this?”
“I’m not sure either,” she replied. “And I can’t help you anyway. Sheila and I don’t talk about you boys.”
“Really?” Stan asked unsurely.
“Yes. What, do you think we would still be friends if I got on the phone every week and said, ‘Hi, Sheila, can you talk to your son? Apparently he’s suffering from some kind of erectile dysfunction and Stan is being kind of a baby about it.’ I mean, really, Stanley. Be a man and make some decisions for once.”
“Oh, be a man, that’s easy for you to say,” Stan sniffed, hurt.
Sharon handed him the salad bowl. “Dinner’s ready,” she said in her normal volume. “Put this on the table.” He very much wanted to begin asserting his authority and say, ‘Bitch, you put it on the table,’ but Stan just sighed, and did what his mother told him.
~
After dinner, Stan took his father aside, but he was predictably unable to get a word in. “There’s something really off about that guy,” Randy said suspiciously. “You don’t think he’s on drugs, do you?”
“I don’t even want to know,” Stan admitted.
“Why’s he staying with you again?”
“Oh. Um, he and his boyfriend are having a fight.”
“His boyfriend?”
“Yeah, Dad. His boyfriend.”
“He’s gay?”
Stan’s ear picked up, and he smiled like an idiot, from ear to ear. “Is he ever!” he said joyously.
“Who’s his boyfriend?” Randy asked.
“It’s Craig.”
“Isn’t that the guy…”
“Yeah, he’s the guy who owns the space we rent for the store.”
“Oh.” Stan kept looking at his father with a big, silly grin, hoping beyond hope that his father was going to make the connection. He glanced sideways briefly to see Kyle glaring at him from the kitchen, where he was helping Sharon with the dishes. Stan pursed his lips together and blew Kyle a kiss; Kyle rolled his eyes, but Stan could tell that he was smiling, too. Everything was going great, everything was going awesome, and then…
“So, uh … why’s he staying with you?”
“Oh.” Stan’s smile shrunk a bit. “I told you, he and Craig aren’t getting along.”
“I know, you said that,” Randy clarified. “I mean, why’s he want to stay with you guys?”
“I guess … well, he said he kind of looked up to Kyle and me, and how we get along so well, and how he wished he and Craig were more like that.” Stan shrugged. “I guess he’s just looking for a same-sex relationship he can admire.” Stan felt this was a somewhat haughty, or at least pompous assessment, but he was trying to make a point here.
“Doesn’t he have any male friends he can look up to?”
“I don’t think Craig really gives him the chance to have a lot of friends.”
Randy put a hand on Stan’s shoulder. “I’m proud of you, son,” he said kindly. “Taking that man in is such a kind thing to do.”
“Dad, don’t you ever think there’s something queer about my relationship with Kyle?”
“Well, of course,” Randy shrugged. “But look, it’s the 21st century. I’m willing to accept that two men might want to live together in a completely non-gay way.”
“But Dad-”
“No, Stan, I’m a tolerant man. If you want to wait to get married and live with your friend and take in homosexuals who are having relationship issues, I’m cool with it. One day, when you have children, I can only hope you’ll be as understanding a father as I was.”
“You don’t understand nearly half of what you think you do,” Stan grumbled.
“And I’m just so glad you’re finally using that guest room,” Randy concluded.
~
Kyle was bristling with anger when he got in the car. “Well, that went awesome,” he spat bitterly, making sure to slam the door with extra emphasis. “What a solid ending to a lovely week.”
“Oh no,” Tweek moaned. “What did I do now?”
“Oh, honey,” Kyle cooed, turning around the face the houseguest in the backseat. “You didn’t do anything.”
“I didn’t?”
“Oh, no. It’s not your fault Stan’s father thinks I’m just living with him because I can’t afford my own place.”
“He thinks that?” Tweek asked. “Why would he think that?”
“Because he sucks,” Stan breathed, eyes on the road.
“Because Stan is too big of a pussy to tell his dad he’s a big fat homo who likes antiquing and Dynasty and Tom of Finland.”
Tweek’s voice perked up. “You do? I love Tom of Finland.”
“I don’t like Tom of Finland,” Stan scoffed. “Kyle’s just being a bitch.”
“Oh, I’m just being a bitch, but if you went into coma tomorrow and I wanted to keep you in a permanent vegetative state for 50 years, Randy Marsh would be like, nuh-uh, and pull the plug.”
“That’s horrible!” Tweek gasped.
“I know,” Kyle sighed.
“Why would you keep someone alive like that? It’s barely living!”
“He’s just being dramatic,” Stan said calmly.
“Like hell I am,” Kyle snapped.
“Craig wants to be shot in the face the moment he turns 50,” Tweek announced.
Stan whistled appreciatively. “Who knew Craig was so hardcore?”
“Wait a minute,” Kyle drawled, slapping his hand over Stan’s mouth. “We only have to wait nine years, and then we can just pick up our lease from the county? Oh, happy day.”
“I don’t think so,” Stan gasped when Kyle removed his hand. “Tweek would probably inherit it.”
“I already own it,” Tweek said, but nobody heard him.
“Yes, of course,” Kyle said bitterly. “I forgot that Craig’s parents probably know Tweek is their son’s boyfriend and wouldn’t fuck around with his inheritance.”
“I already own the store,” Tweek repeated.
“My father would not deny you any inheritance, Kyle!” Stan shouted. “That’s just absurd. He knows how much you mean to me.”
“Oh good, so when you do die, after your father pulls the plug under my nose, I can have my measly 18,000 dollars, and endure another 20 years of, ‘Why would Stan leave his money to his roommate?’ ” Kyle concluded his lame Randy Marsh impression. “But at least he knows we’re super-close roommates.”
“Why aren’t you guys listening to me?” Tweek cried. “I already own the store! It’s in my name! I already own it!”
Stan violently braked and the car squeezed to a stop, while Kyle got on his knees and peered at Tweek over the street. “You what?” he whispered.
“Craig doesn’t own your store, I own your store. Craig just runs it. It’s mine,” Tweek explained. “Oh god, don’t hate me!”
Continued here.