Work Text:
THESEUS:
You crouch in misery, I call you —
show your face to a friend.
There is no cloud so black
it could hide your misfortune.
Why do you wave me off?
You fear to pollute me?
I don’t care about that. I’ll share your bad luck —
I shared your good luck once,
when you brought me from the dead world back to life.
Hateful to me is a gratitude that grows old.
A friend who enjoys your prosperity
but refuses to sail with your grief.
Stand up. Uncover your poor head.
Look at me. This is nobility in a man:to bear what falls from the gods and not say No.
From: Herakles in Grief Lessons: Four Plays by Euripides.
Stan didn’t imagine that he’ll spend the entirety of Christmas Eve — or night, for that matter — scooping Cartman’s brain matter into a trash bag, but none can do.
“I’m surprised you two can handle this,” Wendy pipes up from where she’s crouching on the floor. Just like Stan and Kyle, she’s busy putting the remnants of Cartman’s head into the trash bag next to them, wearing a set of rubber gloves that reach all the way up to her elbows. The sleeves are a tad too wide around her arms, billowing with every movement. She’s put her black hair up into a bun so it wouldn’t get in her way, though some strands have already loosened again and are falling around her face.
She looks beautiful even like this, when she doesn’t even care about looking pretty, wearing an old sweater and her hands covered in brain and blood all the way up to her elbows. Stan has always found her to be so naturally effortless, no matter what. Ethereal in a way that makes his heart clench just looking at her. This right now really just drives the point home once and for all.
Kyle isn’t much different from it either; he’s wearing just as obnoxiously pink rubber gloves, but they fit his arms better. He’s put his curls up into a ponytail and Stan was never even aware of the fact that he needed Kyle to do just that, but now that he’s seen him like this, he’s thanking every God out there that he gets to see it. It accentuates his face even more, he thinks, really displaying his sharp jawline and the high cheekbones, his slender nose. His freckles are littering the entirety of his skin, sprinkled across every free space it seems, like stars in the night sky.
They’ve grown more mature. Stan shouldn’t be surprised about that, but he simply can’t help it. The only remnant he has of them is an old picture from the first day of high school. It’s buried under a heap of clothes in his wardrobe so that no one will ever find it and Stan tries not to look at it as much as he can, but nevertheless it is burned into his brain down to the very last detail.
Wendy had her hands wrapped around him, hugging him from the side, and Kyle was to his right, his arm placed across his shoulders. They were smiling into the camera so fucking brightly, not at all bothered by him and his inevitable need to ruin everything he touches. Maybe because Stan didn’t yet start destroying everything he held near and dear. Wendy still wore her infamous purple beret, though Kyle had already discarded the green ushanka by the end of that summer. He was lankier back then, all gangly limbs after his most recent growth spurt, and not at all yet fitting into his own body. Wendy, on the other hand, looked so much softer back then, her cheeks rounder with a rosy color dusting them.
She’s all grown up now. So is Kyle. So is Stan himself. Still, it left him reeling for a moment. After nine years of only ever seeing the same picture, frozen in time forever, the differences between their younger selves and their current selves are striking. Stan barely even recognizes himself in that picture, having long since outgrown the bleach-damaged hair and wearing it longer nowadays.
Both, Kyle and Wendy, look like they’ve fully grown into the people they were always meant to be. Kyle has become a lawyer, just like his dad. Just like he always wanted to. He told him about it when they got Wendy’s stuff out of the car and Stan couldn’t be more proud of him. Wendy became a whole crime scene investigator — Stan didn’t even know that was what she wanted. It’s a testimony of how horribly he failed especially her, and if he was younger, he’d beat himself up over it, but now, there is no use for those regrets anymore.
It’s something that Kenny had to teach him with sheer endless patience and it’s something that he still isn’t truly succeeding at. He does feel bad about it, about the person he used to be and how much he ruined during that time and he can imagine the forlorn, disappointed look in Wendy’s eyes when she thinks about that very same thing — he’s seen that expression so often, he remembers it more clearly than her dazzling smile and her bright laughter. But so far, if neither of the two has decided to comment on it, Stan won’t do it either.
He’s not going to be the one bringing it up. He can barely look them in the eye, how could he ever talk about these things without choking up immediately?
Wendy and Kyle have become such distinguished people, mature and smart and wise — they think about everything before they speak, before they act. On the other hand, Stan still feels immature and lost, drifting out at sea, no shoreline in sight. For miles and miles there’s just endless stretches of water all around him and the only thing he’s been able to cling to, ever since his two closest people let go of him, was Kenny.
After Wendy’s comment, Kyle looks up, his green eyes focusing on her almost challengingly.
“Don’t jinx it,” he warns, although his voice sounds more miserable than anything. Indeed, he’s pretty pale around the nose, almost greenish, and there are beads of sweat accumulating around his temples. The sight makes Stan snort.
Unfortunately that makes both of them look his way and Stan’s heart stutters painfully in his ribcage before it resumes its beating twice as fast. A flare of heat rushes through his body and he looks back down at the mess in front of them while clearing his throat awkwardly. Shit he really isn’t prepared enough for both of them to be here and stare him down. He could barely stomach the idea of Wendy coming, but Kyle too? It feels like someone pushed him over and Stan just keeps falling, helplessly flailing his limbs as if that could make him regain his footing.
He scoops the next bits of brain up into his hands and ignores the way his stomach churns as the blood keeps dripping from his gloves in the process, while Kyle speaks up.
“Shouldn’t the one who made this mess at least help clean it up?” he asks a little sourly, clearly referring to Kenny and the fact that Wendy let him off in favor of getting cleaned up. God knows the guy needs that with all the blood splattered over him.
“Oh, cut him some slack, Kenny killed that fucker all on his own,” Stan quips immediately without even thinking about it. The second the words are all out and he receives nothing but silence in return, he winces, biting the inside of his cheek so hard he draws blood.
He’s gotten too used to Kenny in all these years. Now he’s talking without thinking first, trying to make jokes and comments that his best friend would laugh about. Kyle and Wendy not so much, though — they’ve always been more serious and reserved.
Stan truly doesn’t know how he ever managed to charm them enough to be part of his life in the first place, however short it may have been. They still wasted several years on him.
“I just mean—” he gives a chortled laugh, looking up at both of them in mild panic, his hands full of another load of Cartman’s brain. They’re still watching him, movements paused as if they want to make both their gazes heavier by focusing all of their attention on him. Stan wishes he could escape this. On second thought, Kenny really should be here, helping.
Replacing Stan.
“He’s already exhausted. You guys weren’t there when he snapped. You should’ve seen it, it was crazy. Nothing Cartman didn’t deserve, though. Fucking asshole, he had it coming. You weren’t even around for half of it. Did Marjorine tell you that he’s been cheating on her? Didn’t even try to be subtle with it either. He’s always been such an entitled piece of shit — whenever he came into the garage, the whole mood just dropped. God, he’s such an asshole, really—” He tries to occupy himself with cleaning Cartman’s brainmatter off the hardwood floor, frantically stuffing the handfuls he’s already picked up into the trash bag before he goes to gather more in the pool of blood in front of him. There is barely anything there anymore apart from the rest of his limp body. Still, Stan makes sure he catches even the last bits and pieces, just to avoid looking up a little while longer.
“Kenny did a whole number on him. It was kind of hot to watch, actually…” He snaps his head up, eyes wide when the realization of what he just said settles in his head.
Wendy and Kyle are already staring at him, eyebrows raised. Kyle’s mouth is open in what seems to be legit shock and Stan scrambles to explain himself.
“Not like— not the whole killing thing, you know? But you know— like the anger? He was so fucking angry. The determination, I guess. You’re similar like that— not murderous, just— yeah. He really went off on Cartman. Overexerted himself, he can’t even lift his arms properly anymore. He’s such an idiot sometimes. Love doesn’t make blind, it makes stupid.”
They’re still staring, silently, and Stan just keeps talking his head off, making it worse. He knows he does, but he can deal even less with the awkward silence that is sure to follow. His whole body feels like it’s about to go up in flames out of sheer embarrassment. He hopes to God it does and that it’s going to happen quickly. Then they won’t catch the huge flush that’s definitely covering the entirety of his face.
“I’ve noticed that,” Wendy replies then. Probably out of pity, but Stan feels relieved nevertheless, his shoulders dropping and a low breath rushing out of him at once. “He seems like he’s heavily dissociating. He barely even reacted to us arriving.”
“Yeah, he’s fucking out of it. I made this phenomenal joke about Jesus, fucker didn’t even get it. I had to explain it to him, imagine that.” He chuckles, though it carries no amusement or anything of the sorts. Kenny’s whole behavior was uncanny the last few minutes. Stan can’t blame him for it, God knows that killing someone must’ve taken a toll on him after all the heat of his anger finally died down. Still, he can’t really get it out of his head, Kenny’s distant, cold gaze, his expressionless face, the haunting silence that followed him around. Not even Marjorine managed to get through to him.
Stan feels like he’s waiting for a crash to happen. He knows it will — Kenny’s inevitable fall from grace is bound to come, but he’s taking more time with it than he initially anticipated. He thought it would come crashing down when they were smoking on the porch, but Kenny kept his cool, he kept quiet so far.
He’s fighting to keep it at an arm’s length, but it’s bound to consume him. If it wouldn’t, he wouldn’t have started dissociating this heavily. He’s trying to escape it, tries to ignore it, but shit like this doesn’t leave. It doesn’t allow to be ignored forever. It’s going to catch up with him at the first moment when he lowers his guard, when he’s not focusing enough to fight it off. Stan knows how it goes, he’s been the victim of it more than once. Kenny should know it too, because he had to deal with him whenever it happened, but common sense and logic seem to have vanished in the face of tonight’s events.
Either way, Stan will be there when it happens. Whenever it happens.
“Kind of like when he was mute as a child, just… worse,” Kyle pitches in, throwing Stan a questioning look as if he’s waiting for his validation. His green eyes are open and inviting, warm in a way that makes Stan want to escape them, too. He doesn’t deserve this kindness, not really. Yet here Kyle is, acting like their fights, the end of their friendship, never happened — as if they’re still just two stupid, naïve boys in high school, attached at the hip.
He nods hastily. “Guess that’s to be expected after beating someone to a bloody pulp.”
This time it’s Wendy who snorts. “Yeah, I guess that’s a pretty common trauma response.”
“Why the hell anyone would get a trauma from killing Cartman of all people is beyond me, though,” Stan says with a scoff. He’s about to make another tasteless joke, but suddenly Kenny’s voice booms through the upper story of the house.
“Don’t fucking touch me!” he screams, loud enough for all of them to flinch and look towards the entrance of the living room before it breaks off into an agonizing wailing.
There it is. It finally caught him.
Stan’s stomach twists itself into knots within a fraction of a second and before any of them manage to say anything, he’s already pulling off his own gloves. “That’s my cue,” he says drily, dropping the pink gloves onto the hardwood floor and narrowly missing the drying blood in front of him. “I’ve been waiting for that to happen. It took him a little longer than what I thought, but alas — we can’t choose when the consequences of our actions come to bite us in the ass. I would know.” He chuckles softly as he gets to his feet and throws Wendy and Kyle one last look.
“I’ll handle him.” He salutes them with two fingers before he turns on his heels and rushes out of the room, not even bothering to wait for a response.
Kenny’s crying only seems to get worse, panicked and strained like he’s in pain, and Stan can’t stand hearing him like this. He sounds like a child, like he’s unable to stop the sobs that are echoing through the vast house. They tear out of him as if he’s trying to hold them in and yet utterly fails, cut short by flat inhales that sound like he’s barely even managing to work the air into his lungs. As if he’s being choked.
There’s a heavy feeling sitting on Stan’s chest just listening to those cries, spurring him on to be even faster. He takes two steps at the same time on the stairs, and meets Marjorine at the top.
“What happened?” he asks before he even fully reaches her.
Marjorine shakes her head, grabbing the railings like a lifeline. She’s holding onto them so tightly, her knuckles are turning white. Her whole expression is one of utter panic and tears are glistening in her eyes as she starts rambling, “I don’t know, I don’t know, he just— he wouldn’t let me touch him. I don’t know what to do, he just broke down—”
“It’s okay, it’s okay, Marj,” he says, trying to calm her down. As soon as he’s close enough, Stan grabs her shoulders, meeting her gaze steadily. It’s no surprise that she’s so distraught by this — she’s never seen Kenny anywhere close to this. Not even Stan has ever heard him cry like that. “I’ll take care of him.”
Gently, he moves her out of the way in order to get to the master bathroom where Kenny’s sobs are coming from.
He spots him as soon as he enters, crouched down low and pressed against a corner near the door, his hands up in his hair, grabbing fistfuls of it, and his head lowered. His whole body shakes from the force of his cries and Stan’s heart drops into the pits of his stomach.
Kenny looks so much like Karen in that single moment, it almost makes him nauseous.
She used to have the exact same pose whenever Stan came into her room to fetch her and leave the house during the really ugly fits Stuart threw. She would press her hands over her ears in an attempt to drown out the screaming and the sound of shattering beer bottles, but it would do little — she would still cry, helpless and scared, and her hands were always shaking when Stan took them into his own to tug her along, out of that house for the time being.
Kenny looks like the perfect copy of her, though his cries sound so much worse, chopped off and breathless and the edge of a pain to them that tears Stan’s heart into shreds. It spurs him into action like nothing else. Before he can even think of what he’s doing, he’s already squatting in front of Kenny and grabbing the back of his neck. He doesn’t really know what to do, but skin contact always helped grounding Stan himself when he spiraled really badly, so he hopes it will do the same for Kenny.
“Kenny,” he says through the sounds of his sobs, “Ken, buddy, look at me.”
Sobbing, Kenny whips his head up to meet his gaze. He’s white as a sheet, as if he’s just seen a ghost. It makes his eyebags even more evident, but what really sends a painful pang through Stan’s chest are the tear streaks covering his cheeks. His skin is practically burning under Stan’s hand and there are still more tears rushing down his face.
“Stan!” he whimpers, his voice nasal and desperate. There’s a terror in his tone Stan hasn’t heard in a long time and when Kenny grabs the front of his sweater, trying to tug him even closer, he notices that he’s shaking like a leaf. He looks so young at that moment, so mortified by something beyond Stan’s comprehension, it makes him want to pull Kenny into the tightest hug he could possibly give him.
“You have to go,” he chokes out, his brown eyes wide and alight with fear. His hair is a mess, the dried blood caked onto the blond curls, causing them to hang messily into his face. He’s gripping Stan’s sweater with so much force, his hands are all white, shaking even harder than the rest of his body. “Take Karen and get out of here.”
If his whole posture before didn’t make it clear already, this order leaves no doubt that this breakdown isn’t about Cartman.
Stan already noticed it back in the living room, with Kenny swinging the bat into Eric’s head over and over again — he didn’t look like Karen back there, he looked like his father. He talked like him, too. All the mockery, his rhetorical questions, the threats; Stan has heard most of them before, spoken in a deeper, croaky voice, ruined beyond repair from years of smoking. He’s seen that very same expression of pure, bottomless rage before. That bone-chilling hatred that transformed into terrifying violence.
Watching Kenny smash Cartman’s head to a bloody pulp, Stan felt like he was back in the McCormick house. Now, it must’ve caught up with Kenny as well, if the way he’s talking is anything to go by.
Slowly, Stan shakes his head. “There’s no need,” he replies, trying to sound calm and collected, so that Kenny will realize there’s no imminent danger. “He’s not here anymore, Kenny.”
Stuart McCormick hasn’t been here in a long time. Five years, to be exact. He’s been rotting in some unmarked grave in Mt. Peaceful ever since he died of liver failure. That’s what that drinking of his got him eventually. Stan hopes everyday that it hurt. That it made the rest of his miserable life that much more agonizing. He hopes he knew there would be no funeral, that he knew no one would ever even think about missing someone as despicable of a human being as him.
Kenny doesn’t seem to realize, though. He tries to shake Stan as if to wake him up, his eyes wide and frantic, wet with tears and bloodshot.
“Yes, he is! He’s just around the corner—”
“He’s not here, he’s gone,” Stan repeats, cutting Kenny off in the middle of his sentence. The way he speaks, the raw fear that’s dripping from every single word, makes him nervous, his heart picking up speed.
“He’s not gone!” Kenny yells, interrupted by his own panicked cries. His shoulders are shaking with every sob and he can’t seem to breathe properly even with Stan trying to calm him down. If anything, it just seems to get worse by the second and when he speaks up again, his breaths sound strained, rattling, as if he’s choking. “He’s here and he’s gonna come in and kill both of us, Stan, you have to go!”
Stan flinches at the sudden sound of the floorboards creaking at the entrance to the bathroom. His heart stops entirely before it shoots up into his throat and, just for a single second, he believes Kenny. That panicked expression, it can’t just come from nothing — he really must be here, then, ready to kill them both this time.
He’s seen Stuart strangle Kenny before. Stan watched from the doorway to the living room how he wrapped both of his puffy hands around his son’s neck and squeezed as tightly as he could, spitting one slur after the other into his face. It made the veins stand out beneath his sickly yellow skin until Stan knocked him out with a beer bottle to the back of his head.
Stuart must be here to pay them back for that moment, to choke them both to death under his bulging hands.
Stan whips his head around, breath held, his whole body growing cold and fully expecting to be met with a pair of yellowish eyes full of anger, full of hate. He’s flooded with a wave of relief when he finds Marjorine instead, lingering by the doorway, unsure of what to do.
She stares back at Stan with eyes just as wide, an expression that seems like she feels ashamed of being caught there. It’s the first time that entire night she looks somewhat scared, too, like she’s fearing for Kenny.
Stan looks back to the other man and grabs his face with both hands. He leans in, trying to make Kenny focus on his eyes and nothing else. “You’re not in that house anymore, Ken. He’s dead. You never have to see him again,” he says, and although it’s meant for Kenny, part of him also needs to hear it for himself.
Stuart is dead. He turned back to dirt just like his useless God intended, and he’ll never come back. If that same God is good for anything at all, and not just punishing silence, he made sure that Stuart won’t ever even see a glimpse of paradise.
But Kenny rips himself out of Stan’s touch by shaking his head violently, crying even harder. He sounds like he’s about to choke on his sobs, wheezing as he holds onto the sweater so tightly, Stan fears he might tear it at some point.
“No, no, you don’t get it, he’s here, Stan!” he cries, barely able to breathe and still shaking his head vehemently. “He’s here, he’s about to come in here, you need to leave—”
“You seriously think your old man can afford this bathroom, dude?!” he replies, cutting Kenny off. It’s definitely not the best thing to say to someone who’s so clearly panicking, but Stan speaks without thinking, on pure instinct. It’s the only thing he knows to say that might get Kenny to pause for just a moment. That might not be a lot, but it’s a start to help him calm down instead of working himself up more and more.
It seems to do the job, because Kenny’s cries come to a hiccuping halt and he blinks up at Stan confusedly, jaw slack. Without wasting any more time, Stan decides to continue. “Look at all this, man,” he says with a chuckle. He lifts a hand to make a gesture showing off the bathroom, “Does this look like anything your dad could pay for, let alone live in without ruining it?”
Kenny lets out a wheezing breath, but he isn’t sobbing anymore. He begins to look around instead, following Stan’s advice and taking in the luxurious bathroom they’re in. His eyes are still wet with tears, but they’ve momentarily lost the panic, and instead are full of wonder and confusion, as if he truly wasn’t aware of the place he’s in right now.
“I mean, do you see that faucet?” Stan tries, pointing to the sink behind him. Kenny follows his gaze easily, soft brown eyes tentative and shy in a way that makes Stan want to hug him forever; Kenny is so young. Twenty-five is barely past the age of majority. Right now, he doesn’t even look twenty-one. He looks like a boy, and isn’t he precisely that? Just a boy who didn’t deserve any of what happened to him.
Kenny didn’t deserve his family, his emotionally absent mother and his alcoholic father. He didn’t deserve to grow up in a house that was falling apart all around him. He didn’t deserve to be condemned before he even had the chance to change anything about his fate.
Stan wishes he could’ve protected him. He knows he had no chances himself, he knows he had neither the time, nor the power, nor the money or the energy to do so, being the same age as him and growing up in a similarly ruined household, and yet he can’t help but feel guilty for not being able to do more.
Out of all of them, Kenny has always been the one who would’ve deserved to be happy, always selflessly trying to put everyone’s needs above his own. He’s always kept his softness despite all the hardship he was given.
Stan feels his smile crumble around the corners as tears begin to sting in his eyes. Kenny is still holding onto his sweater and his breath is coming in hiccuping little bursts, but it’s slowly calming down as he stares at all the things Stan points him to, trying to distract himself from the painful knot in his chest.
The faucet is, truly, an ugly thing, but it looks like you could open it and there’d be liquid gold flowing rather than plain water. It stands tall and slim beneath the wide mirror on the wall, the golden metal curved at the top to make sure the water lands in the designated glass bowl. Stan doesn’t even want to go near the damned thing out of fear he might knock against it and cause a crack in the bowl.
Even Kenny, with his panic-stricken mind must know that a thing like that wouldn’t last a damn day around Stuart — and that’s to say he could afford it.
The area around the sink is littered with countless bottles and tubes; porcelain soap dishes and perfume flasks are arrayed next to what looks like hand and facial creams and expensive looking serums. Stan doesn’t know what half of them do, but he doesn’t have to.
“All that shit by the sink is the entirety of your mom’s paycheck,” he grins, “And something up there is the reason for that sweet, flowery smell, I’m sure. Not like your dad could ever relate, he made your house smell like a whole fucking brewery if the decay of that old shack didn’t override it.”
Kenny’s grip in his sweater slowly loosens as he stares at the various products lining the back of the sink. His breathing begins to even out, although it still sounds rather flat, as if he just finished a sprint. At least he’s no longer hyperventilating, though that quickly changes again as soon as Stan gently pries Kenny’s hands away from his sweater in order to turn around.
His breathing speeds up once more within a split second, and he hastily grabs Stan’s wrist to pull him back. “No, no—” he chokes out, his tone desperate and wet.
Stan turns back around without thinking. “Hey, hey, I’m not going anywhere,” he says immediately, trying to put as much softness into his voice as possible. Kenny stares up at him panting and with a round of fresh tears glistening in his eyes. They’re wide, frightened like those of a little child after they’ve had a nightmare. His grip on Stan’s wrist is almost painful, his nails digging into the skin until it stings, but Stan doesn’t try to loosen it or pull away.
Back when they still lived together and slept in the same bed, there were many times Stan had trouble sleeping through the night — sleeping at all, really. — plagued by dreams of Shelly and his mom, the burning farm, his own deadbeat father being just as much of an asshole as Kenny’s, and he would wake from the slightest sounds and movements. Whenever Kenny would wake up to go to the bathroom or drink a glass of water, Stan would wake up to him leaving the bed.
He still remembers the way ice cold fright sank its claws into his whole body at the sight of Kenny’s dark silhouette leaving, night after night after night. How he scrambled to go after him, pleas not to abandon him as well already sat on the tip of his tongue, but his voice would always, always, give out within the first two words he spoke and his body froze, still in the bed, never able to really go after Kenny. Always at his mercy, instead.
Every time Stan feared that he wouldn’t listen, that he’d go, disappear into the darkness never to return. That he would leave Stan like his sister did, like his mom did, like his father, Wendy and Kyle did.
But, Kenny heard him every single time, even if Stan didn’t manage to utter a single word, nothing but a desperate, wrangled sound coming over his lips. He would stop and turn around within a heartbeat and kneel back onto the edge of the mattress, one hand already reaching out to brush through Stan’s hair or cup his face, endlessly tender, mumbling how “I’m not leaving, I’ll be right back, just a minute.”
Stan wonders if Kenny felt the same back then as he does now. If it felt like he was being choked faced with Stan’s panicked expression. If he wanted to wipe his tears away just like Stan wants to do right now.
He meets Kenny’s terrified gaze, his heart clenching impossibly tight, and slowly turns his hand in his grip, until he’s able to wrap it around Kenny’s wrist in turn.
“I’m not leaving,” he repeats, his voice nothing but a whisper.
Maybe Stan was wrong. Perhaps they’re both just two drowning boys, desperately clinging to each other as if that could replace the safe shores.
But even if that’s the case, he refuses to let go of Kenny. He’d rather be tugged along to the bottom of the sea by him, or act as some sort of ring he could wear to keep himself afloat, than abandon him in favor of reaching land himself.
Under Kenny’s watchful eyes, he turns around once more without letting go, and grabs one of the small black towels that are hung up on the rack by the sink.
“Here, feel that,” he says, offering it to Kenny. “You wish you ever had something as soft as that to dry your hands with, come on dude.”
Kenny takes the towel into his free hand, his gaze dropping down to it as soon as he feels the texture under his fingertips. Stan watches him inspect it, how he runs his thumb over it carefully, how it bunches up in his hand as he makes a fist around it, seemingly fascinated by its softness.
“You’re not in that house anymore, Ken,” he repeats, low and gentle, and his whole body seems to relax in pure relief as soon as Kenny finally nods.
He takes a shuddering inhale, clenching and unclenching his fist around the towel rhythmically it seems. He’s not looking at Stan any longer, but he nods again, tentatively and barely there at first, until the movement grows bigger and steadier. He takes another, deep inhale and brings the towel to his chest. Letting go of Stan’s wrist, he makes sure to press the towel close, pulling it up until he’s able to halfway bury his face in it.
This time, there’s no sound accompanying the tears streaming down his face. Kenny barely even moves apart from his shaking shoulders, his head held low and eyes open, unblinking, their gaze lost somewhere in the space between his own body and Stan’s. He keeps clutching the towel like a lifeline throughout it all and although he’s still crying, Stan deems the situation somewhat stable again.
“I’ll help you clean up, alright?” he asks and, again, Kenny merely nods, rather than say anything at all.
Stan turns to Marjorine who’s still watching at the door. Her expression is one of utter helplessness, her eyes wet with unshed tears. When she meets Stan’s gaze, she has to press a hand against her mouth in order not to sob out loud and the sight of it makes a new wave of tears burn in his own eyes.
“I’ve got him,” he mumbles. He wants the words to sound steadfast and confident, but his voice comes out cracked and hoarse, nothing but a whisper.
Marjorine’s eyes flicker back to Kenny; there’s so much love in them, she regards him with so much warmth, so much softness, even in this very moment, when there is nothing pretty about any of them. Ultimately, she nods silently as well, and without another word or action, she whirls around and rushes out of the bathroom and the bedroom entirely. Stan can hear her footsteps down the stairs and how Wendy and Kyle acknowledge her, saying her name out loud.
He thinks he can hear Marjorine’s sob as well, but he can’t care about that right now, not with Kenny still being an absolute mess.
He gets up from the bathroom floor as swiftly as he can with his knees hurting from kneeling on the cold tiles so long and makes his way over to the sink. Marjorine has left an array of cotton pads and gauzes there, together with a bottle of disinfectant.
The cotton pads are too small to really be helpful with the amount of blood that’s sticking all over Kenny, but they will have to do until the other man is able to take a shower.
Stan wets a few pads thoroughly with the disinfectant and gets to work on Kenny’s hands first. They definitely look the worst with blood splatters smeared across the back of them. The thicker, dried parts are already flaking off his skin by now, revealing the irritated red skin beneath blisters that have already burst open. Scraps of skin hang around them, and Kenny’s palms are just as bloody as the back of his hands, if not more. Stan wonders whether all of it is Cartman’s or if some of it is Kenny’s, too.
While he cleans his hands, gently coaxing him to hold out one and then the other, Kenny doesn’t react to the sting of the disinfectant, nor the countless pads that turn from white to red and land on the tiled floor next to them. Stan feels as though he’s just smearing the blood further across Kenny’s skin with how little each cotton pad actually does. Even after he’s finished and wrapped his hands up in clean white bandages, he still thinks they show a reddish tint, as if he didn’t manage to really clean off the last bits of blood yet.
Kenny’s hair is an entirely different matter to begin with. The blood is speckled all over it, matting entire strands of it together at times. Stan tries his best to pick tiny bits and pieces of what must be leftovers of Cartman’s brain out of the mix, but there isn’t much to be done about the blood itself that would help getting rid of it without a proper shower. Eventually, he settles on giving Kenny his hat and hiding his hair beneath it as he pushes his bangs under the wool with meticulous care.
When Stan moves on to his face, gently tilting his head up so he can properly clean all the blood from his skin, Kenny watches him quietly. His sobs have died down for the most part and his breathing has finally evened out except for a few, occasional shudders. His eyes are puffy and red and on any other day Stan would’ve probably laughed at the miserable sight Kenny makes like that, because he’s never one to present himself like this, but right now it just makes himself feel miserable as well.
His gaze is piercing for some reason, the brown in his eyes harsh now. He doesn’t watch Stan work but is simply focused on his face instead. It’s quiet between them apart from their breaths until Stan, finished with the task, gets up to throw away the used cotton pads and Kenny suddenly speaks up.
“I saw myself in the mirror and freaked out,” he mumbles, his voice still raw and somewhat monotone.
There's something in the cadence with which he says it that gives Stan a sinking feeling in his stomach. Apprehensive, almost, gauging Stan’s reaction, his response. It sounds eerily similar to how he approached Cartman tonight and asked about the roses.
Stan has his back turned to him, busies himself with throwing away the cotton pads (even the fucking trashcan looks fancy in here). He gives Kenny a weak chuckle in response, but he knows himself that it sounds flat and humorless.
“Scared of your own reflection, McCormick?” he teases, but Kenny doesn’t bite.
“You don’t get it. I’m the man in the house.”
“No, you’re not,” Stan replies without missing a beat. He turns around and leans against the sink, meeting Kenny’s eyes. He looks like he’s on the verge of crying once more, brows furrowed and lips pressed into a thin line. He also looks like he doesn’t believe Stan for one second.
“You said so yourself,” he whispers hoarsely.
The words come like a blow. As if Kenny just hit Stan with the bat instead of Cartman. His stomach drops in one swift go, his heart following along, and the floor is pulled from under his feet. For a moment, all he can do is stare at Kenny, unable to procure an answer without sounding like a liar. Finally, the puzzle pieces shift into place and he understands the cause of this entire breakdown.
It wasn’t Cartman. It wasn’t even killing Cartman. It was Stan.
“That’s Stuart’s legacy right there.”
He feels nauseous just thinking about it, that it was something he said that messed Kenny up like this. Had him drop to his knees and sob uncontrollably, gasping for air, thinking he was back in a place where he did nothing but suffer.
“I did not,” he says eventually. Stan tries to keep his face blank and his tone even as he speaks, because he knows Kenny — any kind of shift in his voice or expression will make him believe that over whatever Stan will say. He’s stubborn like that, always giving someone’s body language more weight than their words. Unsurprising for someone who refused to speak more than necessary throughout most of his childhood; Kenny knows how to read people without them saying a single word, so he will trust his own instincts more than someone’s words. Those can always lie, but it’s much more difficult to force your body to play the part.
The only exception to that rule is probably Marjorine with how long he refrained from confessing, always insisting that it was pointless and that they were friends and whatnot. That, or Kenny was actually blind towards the way she literally gravitated towards him.
“That’s not what I meant and you know that,” Stan asserts for good measure, but Kenny simply shakes his head with an angry-sounding scoff, refusing to listen.
Stan sinks back to his knees in front of Kenny without hesitation, grabbing his shoulder. “You know that, Kenny,” he repeats, more firmly now, “I said that’s his legacy, not that you’re him. I said that’s what he taught you to be, that’s what you could’ve been, if you weren’t so much better than him.”
“Yeah, I’m so much better than him after smashing someone’s head into a bloody pulp,” Kenny laughs bitterly as he looks to the side, avoiding Stan’s eyes.
“How long did it take for you to snap like that?! He’s been married to Marjorine for four years now. He’s been treating you like some worthless piece of shit for even longer! Stuart would’ve killed him on the night of the engagement out of pure jealousy — and he would’ve blamed Marjorine for letting the engagement happen in the first place.”
“That doesn’t take away from the fact that I still killed him!”
“Don’t fucking act like none of us knows how hard you’re trying!” Stan snaps back, “Your dad taught you nothing but rage and hatred, and yet all you ever try to be is soft! And you are. Out of everyone, you would have had every goddamn right to turn out just as bitter and hateful, but all of us can see that you’re so much better than Stuart, just by trying not to be like him.”
Kenny stares at him almost a little surprised, like he didn’t expect Stan to actually hold his ground so firmly, but waited for him to agree instead. He inhales sharply when Stan gives his shoulder a squeeze.
“You’re not him,” he repeats insistently. “You’ll never be him. You know better, Kenny.”
He can pinpoint the exact moment at which Kenny’s eyes turn glassy once more. His breath hitches entirely and his whole body tenses up, but before Stan could see any fresh tears break free, Kenny is already moving. With a soft, pained noise at the back of his throat, he wraps his arms around Stan’s waist and pulls him into a bone-crushing hug.
Stan reciprocates it without hesitation, allowing Kenny to bury his face against his shoulder while he cries. It almost hurts with how tight he’s holding onto him, his fingers digging into Stan’s shoulder blades, but just like before, Stan doesn’t comment on it. He lets Kenny stay in his embrace for as long as he wants and needs. Minutes pass without either of them moving a single centimeter, while Kenny is drenching Stan’s sweater with his tears and Stan brushes his hand over his head slowly, like he remembers his mother always doing it for him when he was little.
He doesn’t know how long it takes until Kenny eventually lets go of him, sniffling softly. His eyes are red once more, but it’s still nowhere near as bad as it was before.
“Feeling better?” Stan asks, to which the other man nods, finally starting to get to his feet again. Picking up the black towel Stan gave him before, he makes his way over to the sink and turns the faucet on. Stan watches quietly as he splashes a few handfuls of water into his face, gasping at the cold temperature of it, before he dries his face on the towel with a groan.
“You’re right, I wish I could dry myself with something as soft as this,” he mutters into the fabric.
Stan barks out a laugh. “Told you this shit is too expensive to even know of your existence.”
Kenny hangs the towel back onto the rack, then turns around to face Stan. His eyes are still red, and there are pink splotches sitting on his cheeks as further evidence of his crying. He looks so young, still, but Stan knows it will vanish as soon as they step out of this bathroom and go back to the others downstairs. He’ll pull himself together as if putting on a mask, locking the terrified little kid away in the deepest, darkest corner of his soul before anyone other than Stan or Marjorine gets to catch a glimpse of that version of himself.
Stan knows Kenny is already on it when he nods towards the open door of the bathroom and beckons Stan to tag along, shoulders pulled back and back straight. His head held high, despite his lashes being all wet and clumped together and his voice sounding raspier than ever. He’s not fooling anyone tonight.
“Let's finish what I started.”
But Stan will pretend for him, because that’s what Kenny would do for him.