Nonsense About Romance
Chapter 3: Extracurricular Shit
written by domolovesyou - illustrated by Noxicosis and SynnesaiYeah, so Kyle had liked Stan for quite a while now. For a frustrating while. Every time Stan laughed, Kyle laughed, and every time Stan was in a bad mood, Kyle would feel himself feeling quite depressed as well. At first he thought they were just super best friend feelings, but then he realized they were super best friend feelings. As in, Big Gay Al super. (Emphasis on the “Gay.”)
It was kind of embarrassing, when he thought about it. Not embarrassing that he liked Stan, but that Stan was a dude and Kyle never knew that he was… that way. He wasn’t even, really. He’d actually thought he was asexual for his whole life (except for that Rebecca issue, and the teacher that Wendy had killed, but he was pretty sure that Kenny’s libido was contagious when they were in elementary school) on account that school and sports were more important to him. Until his revelations on how he felt about Stan.
He wished he didn’t have feelings.
There was no way that Stan could like him back, though, and he was talking to Kenny about this as they sat on the bleachers after school. (Stan had football practice, but he usually drove the three of them back. He would drive Cartman home too, without either asking, but Cartman usually had newspaper, which tended to end later.) Thankfully, the object of his affection and their conversation were too far away for Stan to hear them.
“Yes, yes, I get it, Kyle,” said Kenny, who indeed get it. “Stan probably likes girls and you wouldn’t have a chance with him but hot damn he does look fine in his football jersey and pants.”
“Dude,” said Kyle, though he couldn’t disagree. Stan did.
“What?” said Kenny, and then sighed. “See, all you guys have fun with your love lives. You have Stan, Stan probably has you,” he ignored Kyle’s glower, since Kenny suggested all the time that Kyle could have a chance with it was evident that he couldn’t, “and Cartman has somebody, I heard him talking about it with Stan today.”
“Oh, yeah. I remember that.” Cartman had looked all pissed off at lunch because he’d said that he wanted to tell Kyle something but then Stan interrupted and then he and Cartman had an argument and Stan mentioned something about “that girl” and Cartman had stormed out of the cafeteria, shouting, “YOU GODDAMN PUSSY-LICKING FAG!” (Which of course was a contradictory statement.)
Kenny sighed again. “I wish I had someone.”
“You have multiple someones.”
“But see? That’s the problem!” Kenny put his chin in his hands. “I either fuck girls who don’t want a relationship, or girls who ask me out don’t want to fuck. Why can’t I have a girl who wants a relationship and wants to fuck?”
“There are plenty of girls who want that,” provided Kyle.
“Yeah, but then those girls are all… I don’t want them.” Kenny looked at Kyle for a moment. “If I went for a dude though, there’s no doubt he’d want to fuck. Like you want to fuck Stan.”
“I don’t—”
“Oh right, you want him to fuck you.” Ignoring Kyle’s indignant look, Kenny continued, “And if he were romantic enough, he’ll want to stay in a relationship with me… I got it!” He snapped his fingers. “I should go for a romantic dude!”
“Don’t you think most gay guys will think you’re straight and playing them, though?”
“Why?”
“Well you always sleep with girls…”
“I could get with a guy, too. The relationship part won’t be any different.” Kenny shrugged. “The sex probably isn’t different, either. The hole’s just somewhere else.”
“Oh god.” Kyle put his head in his hands. “Kenny, why am I even talking to you.”
When football practice was over, Stan jogged over to Kenny and Kyle at the bleachers. He took off his helmet and grinned. “How’d I do?” he asked.
“Like we paid attention,” said Kyle.
“Yeah, we were too distracted by your ass,” joked Kenny, and then Kyle kicked him, making Kenny go, “Hey!”
“Kenny, you need a girlfriend,” said Stan, chuckling.
“You’re out of luck, because apparently he wants to get a boyfriend.”
“Not you Stan, don’t worry.” Kenny glanced at Kyle when he said this, but Kyle kicked him again, causing Kenny to fall to the bleacher floor.
“Anyways,” said Stan, not bothered by this at all. “I’m going to go wash up and change, and then meet you back by my car.”
“Sounds good,” said Kyle, and then Stan nodded and ran towards the locker room doors.
“I’ll just lay down here on the ground, thanks!” Kenny called through his parka and the floor.
As he walked into the locker room, Stan was greeted by the other players giving him comments about his performance out on the field today, and thanked them modestly, ducking his head down and going over to his own locker. It wasn’t like compliments were unusual or anything, and his teammates were his friends and all, but he wasn’t as comfortable with them as he was with his other friends, and he tended to pick favorites when it came to people.
And as always, Kyle was his favorite. Stan felt his stomach leap at the thought of him. It hadn’t done that much until recently, but it felt like Stan was used to it since it seemed like it’d done that before. Only now was he feeling overly self-conscious, and only now were his insides jittery whenever he was around Kyle. He did his best not to make it obvious though. Mostly because he didn’t want Kyle to know.
He showered, still thinking of Kyle. His thoughts had been plagued with Kyle recently, ever since a little while ago the epiphany came to him one day and he just thought, “Oh, I like Kyle,” as if he’d just realized the sky was blue or the grass was green or that Mr. Slave had a serious issue with his anus. He wondered if he’d ever done anything in the past that would make him feel like he liked Kyle, or if Kyle had done something that had made Stan like him, but this liking-Kyle thing felt natural to him, like the blue sky and the green grass and Mr. Slave’s anus issue.
Turns out that when Stan had been younger, his puking problem had been his way of venting out his sexual frustration, albeit a bit weird since there was nothing attractive about upchucking. But now that he was older, his puking problems had stopped when he started masturbating, and as long as he did that on a regular basis, he wouldn’t have to puke whenever he liked someone again. Stan didn’t mind so much because it felt good, of course (though his stomach was still weak on roller coaster rides and roller coasters.)
He had the urge to jack off now, which was definitely not because he was thinking of Kyle (okay, it definitely was) and he was glad that he was in a single shower—though, he supposed, if he’d went into the group shower with the rest of the guys, he wouldn’t be thinking of Kyle thus not having the urge to jack off anyways. But he did what he had to do, and felt a little embarrassed fifteen minutes later when he came out to his car and saw the person he’d been thinking about when he had been coming into his hand.
“Hey,” said Kyle, smiling. “You look all freshened up and less jock-y now.”
“Shut up.” Kyle always called him a jock since he played football, though Kyle played basketball in the winter. “You’re a jock too.”
“I’m not a jock, but I get as much exercise as you two,” said Kenny, with a devilish grin.
“You are so nasty,” said Stan, getting into his car.
He started it up, and as usual Kyle sat in the front with him. Kenny didn’t complain this time, though, as he sprawled across the backseat and said something that sounded like “way more fucking comfortable than my bed” and was out in minutes.
“Do you know how he’s liking the porn?” Stan asked Kyle as he made their way out of the school’s parking lot.
Kyle rolled his eyes. “Oh, he’s definitely enjoying it. He tried to show me a page in math today, but then we had a quiz. I don’t even think he’s allowed to bring it to school.”
“Of course he isn’t,” scoffed Stan. “I thought you knew all the school rules.”
“Just because I’m smart doesn’t mean I know everything.”
“Really? I’ve always been under the impression that you do.”
“Why?”
“Well, for one, it might be because of your race—”
“Hey, don’t turn into Cartman and throw those stereotypes at me!”
“But Jews are smart, dude,” said Stan. “You’re like, the spitting image of one.”
“Excuse me—”
“I bet if you look up ‘Jew’ in the dictionary, it would have a picture of you in all your green ushanka glory.”
They stared at each other for a moment (well, it was more like Stan grinned ahead but kept his eyes on the road as Kyle stared at him), then both burst out laughing at the same time. Kenny grumbled in the back and threw one of the porno magazines he’d brought to school with him in front. It covered the windshield and Stan and Kyle shrieked as Stan tried to drive around, and they ended up crashing into a fire hydrant.
(Oh, and Kenny died. But we don’t talk about that.)
The main reason Cartman liked school was what he had after it. Which was the school’s newspaper (the Hooker). He hadn’t wanted to do it initially—he thought it was for pussies who didn’t know what real journalism was—but when he heard that Wendy Testaburger was going to be in the club, he signed up immediately.
They were an awful duo—read: they were an excellent team when it came to leading and co-leading the club and always came out with incredible articles, but between all that, there was a lot of arguing and fighting and stress. A lot of the newspaper members said that sometimes, the result just wasn’t worth it.
Wendy had been made Editor-In-Chief, and Cartman had been made Second to Editor-In-Chief, which had made him furious because girls couldn’t be leaders. Girls wouldn’t boss him around. The day a woman bossed Eric Cartman around was the day Justin Bieber got a voice like Kanye West’s.
It was that Wendy was in charge of him that fueled most of their arguments this year. Mostly because their conversations after school often went like this:
“Cartman, go help Red with the layout for the next issue.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“I refuse to.”
“Why?”
“I refuse to take orders from a gil.”
“What? Are you serious? Are you gonna pull this misogynist crap on me again? Do you see me as only a girl?”
“Oh, sorry. I refuse to take orders from a queefin’ ball-sucking hippie who’s a whore and a girl.”
“Eric Cartman, you are the most worthless, horrible, rudest, racist, useless person ever on this entire planet! I can’t believe that you’d actually say that to me!”
“Suck it, ho, I’m sayin’ it to you.”
“You can go die in a fire!”
“As long as I don’t have to take orders from you, I’m coo’ with that.”
“Ugh, I cannot believe you, you fat son of a bitch.”
“Hey, don’t call me fat!”
“You’re fucking fat Cartman! Face it! You know you’re fat, just stop pulling this shit on me!”
“No, you stop pulling this shit on me! How can you expect me to do something that you tell me when I am a man and you are a WOMAN?”
That was usually when someone usually came in to break the argument up, or to tell them that they should be doing something more productive, or that they were being really loud and inappropriate so could they please shut up. Then both of them would yell at this third person at the same time and that third person would go off trembling and maybe crying a little bit.
Afterwards, they’d be a bit more civil to each other since they got their daily shouting match out of the way. They got along quite well after the club meetings, actually, because then they weren’t cooped up in a room together and Cartman wouldn’t feel as pressured, like he usually did, which was pretty much the same amount of pressure Tweek felt twenty-four seven.
“So do you think you can figure out the layout tonight? Red says she has too much homework today,” said Wendy.
“That bitch was lying, she’s probably screwing her boyfriend or something,” said Cartman.
“Hey, don’t be mean, she’s my friend!” said Wendy. Then, after a moment’s pause, “Yeah, you’re probably right.”
“See? I’m always right,” said Cartman proudly.
“No, you’re just a dickhead who’s too honest for his own good.”
Cartman blinked at her. “Was that supposed to be a compliment?”
He was sure his eyes failed him for a moment, but it looked like Wendy blushed. “No!” she said. “I said that you’re a dickhead. Should I say that you’re deaf, too?”
“If I’m deaf, then you’re blind. That way, both of us are physically inept.”
“… I don’t understand your logic behind that, but okay,” said Wendy. “So anyways, do the layout tonight?”
“Only because that ho Red’s not doing it,” said Cartman.
“Don’t be mean,” scolded Wendy; but she was smiling. “Sounds good then. See you tomorrow, Cartman!”
Cartman watched as she walked off to her group of friends who were waiting for her in the hallway. He realized that he was smiling himself when he walked out to the front of the school, where his mom was waiting for him in her car.
“Good day, sweetie?” she asked him as he climbed in.
“Just put some bitches in their places,” he answered, thinking of how much he liked Wendy.