Nonsense About Romance
Chapter 12: Continuing To Act Like Fags, As Always
written by domolovesyou - illustrated by Noxicosis and SynnesaiLunch was a more frustrating affair the next day, since Stan and Kyle had come earlier and Cartman, Wendy, Butters and Kenny had been planning to talk about their plan during lunch, but obviously couldn’t with them around. It was only when Stan got up and he said he had to pee and Kyle said that he’d go with him (“What’re you, a bunch of fags?” said Cartman, to which Stan snickered and Kyle rolled his eyes) when they actually had the time.
“Seriously,” said Wendy, watching them. “You could’ve fooled me. Even if you didn’t tell me, I’d think that they were going out now.”
“That’s Stan and Kyle for you.” Kenny sighed, and then rested his elbows on the table. “So, do you have your plan all figured out?”
“Yup!” said Wendy brightly. “And even Cartman thinks it’ll work. Right Cartman?”
Cartman mumbled something which might’ve been in the affirmative. She had told him earlier this morning and he had to admit that it seemed pretty flawless. He couldn’t find anything to pick over that could cause a mishap.
“Okay,” said Wendy, pulling out a notebook from her backpack and placing it on the table. She flipped open to a page where there were a bunch of scribbled notes in her neat handwriting, which was somewhat of an oxymoron but that was the way Wendy was. “This is how the plan’s gonna work:
“So first, Kenny, you have Mr. Lu Kim third period, right? Well you have to throw something at his head but make it look like Kyle did it, and then Mr. Lu Kim will give Kyle detention and send him to the office. At the same time, Stan’s mom is going to pretend to have cancer so she’ll be sent to the hospital, where the hospital workers know she’s pretending, and Mr. Marsh’ll contact the school so then they’ll call Stan so he’ll be on his way to the office too. So they’ll run into each other and Kyle will get his form for his detention, and then Stan will probably tell him about his mom in the hospital and Kyle will want to go with him since he cares more about Stan than he cares about school, so he’ll cut and Stan’ll drive them to the hospital.
“During all that, Mrs. Broflovski will also be at a rally protesting the banning of closets, since Obama’s decided to make closets illegal, which is supposed to be symbolic of their gayness... Anyways, so she’ll be protesting while all of this is going on with some other actors—yeah, we’ll need actors for this—and Stan and Kyle will still be at the hospital. Mrs. Marsh’ll tell Stan that she’s fine despite that she’s a fake cancer patient, and will ask Stan and Kyle to get her some water. As they’re in the hallway getting the water—we’ll have to make sure that she gets a room in the right place for this, but—they’ll pass a TV set when just at that moment there’ll be a news report on Obama’s banning of closets and the protest rally, so they won’t suspect that shit’s just happening out of the blue.
“Then Mrs. Broflovski will burst into the hospital at that moment, leading the whole rally, and I guess the news reporters and Obama too if they want to come, and she’ll yell out something like how she and her family won’t take the ridiculous banning of closets and when she sees Kyle and Stan she’ll shove them into a closet—we’ll need to make sure that there’s one nearby too—out of protest, and then lock it and we’ll wait.”
Kenny stared at her.
“Wait for what?”
“Wait for them to confess their undying love for each other, of course!”
“Uh, Wendy?” said Butters hesitantly. “Doesn’t that seem a-a bit... too elaborate?”
Wendy tossed her bangs out of her face. “Of course it is. That’s why I’m so sure it’ll work. The best plans are elaborate.”
“But,” said Kenny. “How’re you gonna get everyone to do that? I mean, Mr. Lu Kim, their families, our teachers, the hospital workers, the news reporters—”
“It’s good, I got all the bribery and blackmail material.” Wendy patted her backpack, like she’d been talking about her schoolwork. “And with their parents, we just need to work on their hearts and make sure they really give in. I don’t think it’ll be a big problem.”
“Kyle’s mom—”
“—is a big fat bitch, yeah I know, Cartman,” said Wendy, rolling her eyes. “But that’s what I need you guys for. Kenny, you’ll tell their parents since you probably know them best and they probably like you best.”
“Got it,” said Kenny, not bothering to argue with her on that. Even though Cartman looked a little bit offended, he doubted Cartman could say anything against it. Just ten seconds ago he’d called Kyle’s mom a bitch.
“I’ll take care of any other extra people involved, like kids and strangers and stuff, since I’m good with people,” said Wendy professionally, flipping a page in her notebook. “Butters, would you mind telling all the school adults and the hospital workers? I think you seem really nice and polite, so they’ll probably be willing to listen to you.”
“Sure!” said Butters happily. “I’ll-I’ll work my magic on them!”
“Great. I’ll help you out with that.” Wendy smiled at him.
“What’m I gonna do, bitch?” Cartman interrupted.
“Oh yes, Cartman,” she said, as if she’d forgotten about him. “You probably have the most important job. You’re gonna have to tell the news anchors, the protesters, and most of all, Obama what this is all about. I have all the blackmail and bribery material if you need them.”
Cartman nodded. He would have said that he could probably dig shit up on them on his own, but knew that there wouldn’t be enough time to do it.
“Why’re you giving that responsibility to Cartman?” Kenny asked warily.
“Because,” Wendy said to him. “I know Cartman, and I know he’s fat and rude and everything—”
“Hey!”
“But he can be pretty damn persuasive if he wants to,” she said. “He’ll throw a tantrum and won’t let go. And if we need to resort to it, he’s definitely the best liar out of all of us. They wouldn’t believe you, Kenny, because of your appearance—no offense—and I don’t think Butters is the type to lie and no one believes me when I do. And if we need to do anything illegal, he’s probably best at that, too.”
“Wow.” Kenny’s eyes were wide. “You really want Stan and Kyle together, don’t you?”
“What can I say?” Wendy shrugged. “I’ve kind of always wanted to be a fag hag.”
Kenny laughed, but Cartman was beaming with pride at all that Wendy had just said. Did she really think that about him? Okay, she definitely did, but she’d said it in such a positive light. As if it all was a good thing.
“Oh no, Wendy, you just fed Cartman’s ego,” said Kenny, looking over at him. “You’ve created a monster.”
“Aye! Shut the fuck up!” Cartman said, but Wendy smiled at him.
“I hardly regret it,” she said, before getting up from the table and smoothing out her skirt. “Anyways, I should probably get back to my lunch table before my friends worry about me and think I’m turning into a guy, since I’m actually not skipping class today.”
“Wendy?” Butters suddenly asked, and all three of them looked at him. He looked startled at gaining such a response. “When... When’s this all happening?” he asked her.
“Oh, right.” Wendy put a finger to her chin. “Next Monday? That’ll give us three days to do what we need to do, and I think that’s plenty of time.”
“Okay,” said Butters, and Kenny and Cartman agreed.
Wendy beamed, and said, “Looking forward to it, you guys!” before leaving. Kenny was completely sure she was talking mostly to Cartman, even though she had said “you guys.” When she left, Butters glanced around.
“Hey, where did Stan and Kyle go?” he asked.
“Probably doing some faggy business together,” said Kenny, rolling his eyes. “Just wait, they’re gonna come back talking and laughing about something and won’t tell us what about because ‘we had to be there.’”
“God!” said Cartman suddenly, throwing down his burger. “Why do they have to be such goddamn fags?”
“Don’t complain, Cartman, you’re spending more time with Wendy this way,” Kenny teased.
Cartman grumbled something but didn’t say anything in protest to Kenny’s statement. Kenny was mostly amused at this, because he knew that Cartman knew that he was right.
The plan went underway after school. Wendy went with Butters to go talk to anyone who was in authority (Kenny had the faint feeling that she’d try to do most of the talking but wouldn’t sway anyone’s opinion, and then Butters would talk and that would really get their hearts going. Kenny wouldn’t blame them) and Cartman had gone home, surprisingly, to call the President of the United States. Kenny couldn’t quite go bother either Stan or Kyle’s families yet, because it was likely that both of them were at their respective houses and it wasn’t like he was going to tell their families the plan when they were right there.
Wendy and Butters reported the next day that they had gotten Mr. Lu Kim on the job but were still working with the other teachers—apparently Butters got into so many mishaps with his parents that somehow they were under the impression that Butters was a troublemaker, and in sophomore year Wendy had held a protest against fast food in their school cafeteria that led to a few injuries, a drowned kitten and a dead student (that had been Kenny, though, so it wasn’t like it was a big deal) and hadn’t won, so it left a bit of a stain on her reputation. But they were working on it, she said. Butters, at least, would win them over.
Meanwhile, Cartman had gotten Obama to agree in a jiffy. Kenny had expected that he’d have the hardest job, but he actually told Kenny the next day that, not only had he persuaded Obama, but he’d also gotten the people at the South Park News Station and some popular protest leaders to join in on the plan. He didn’t say how, exactly, but Kenny had suspicions that it had something to do with Wendy’s blackmailing material.
On Saturday, Kyle was at Hebrew School so Kenny decided to go over to the Broflovski’s and get the harder family over with. He knocked on Kyle’s front door, and Mr. Broflovski opened up.
“Oh, hey Kenny,” he said. “Kyle’s not home, but you can come in if you want.”
“Thanks,” said Kenny, stepping in. “I wasn’t looking for Kyle, actually, I was wondering if I could talk to you and your wife.”
“Us? Really?” said Mr. Broflovski. “Well okay, I’ll go get Sheila.”
He went upstairs, and Kenny wandered into the living room where he saw Ike watching reruns of Terrance and Phillip. “Hey little dude,” said Kenny, sitting down next to him.
“I’m not little,” Ike said. “But hey.”
“You are to me,” said Kenny, joining him in watching TV.
“Let’s look for treasure, Terrence!” said Phillip.
“Let’s!” said Terrence.
“Hey,” said Kenny suddenly. “Want to be let in on a secret?”
Ike muted the TV and turned to him, beady little eyes glinting. “Tell me,” he said, without any shame.
Five minutes later had Ike laughing like no other, after Kenny had told him the plan. “Really?” he said, wiping his eyes of tears and sitting back up. “That’s what’s going to happen? You know, I’d say that it’s ridiculous but I can actually see Mom doing that.”
“Yeah,” said Kenny. “Wouldn’t be surprised if she forgets that this is all for show.”
“But seriously? Kyle and Stan like each other and they don’t know about it?” Ike frowned suddenly. “But I thought...”
“You thought what?”
He shrugged. “I dunno, just seemed like Stan’s been over more lately or Kyle’s been going to his house more. And there was that time when I saw Kyle shirtless and Stan on his bed.”
“Doesn’t mean they have something going on, dude,” said Kenny, just as Mr. and Mrs. Broflovski came down the stairs.
“Well it’s nice to see you, Kenny!” said Mrs. Broflovski, coming over to him and giving him an unexpected hug. He supposed mothers were just like that. “What is it that you wanted?”
“I don’t know any other way to say this, Mrs. Broflovski, so I’m just going to be frank,” said Kenny, getting up from the couch. “Your son is gay.”
Mrs. Broflovski stared at him.
“My little Kyle’s gay?”
“Well it’s not that hard to believe,” Ike piped up, but his parents ignored him.
“Well,” said Mrs. Broflovski. “I suppose it’s a bit of a disappointment, since I’d been expecting grandchildren... you better not be gay, Ike!” she said to her second son.
Ike jumped back and put his hands out. “You don’t need to worry about that from me, Mom, I like girls all the way.”
“Guys are pretty nice too,” Kenny said to him, and then turned to Kyle’s parents again. “Yeah, anyways, that’s actually not the point... It’s more like he’s gay, and he likes Stan, and Stan likes him back and neither of them know. So we have this whole plan to get them together, and you guys are kind of involved...”
Mrs. Broflovski’s face softened, which was also unexpected. “Oh, sweetie,” she said, putting a hand on Kenny’s shoulder. “It’s so nice of you to do this for Kyle’s happiness. And I want him to be happy too, even if it’s with another man.”
“It’s Stan, though, so it’s an even better man,” said Mr. Broflovski positively.
“Hush, dear. Anyway, I’ll be happy to do whatever you need me to do in your little plan, as long as it doesn’t involve anything illegal...”
Kenny was about to tell them the whole thing, but then Ike jumped in and said, “Kenny, do you need to tell Stan’s family about this too?”
“Yeah?” said Kenny, raising his eyebrows at him.
“Then I’ll tell them the plan for you, since you already told me,” said Ike, nodding toward his parents. “And you should probably get going to Stan’s house, since he and Kyle are probably going to come back from playing paintball soon.”
“No, sweetie, Kyle’s at Hebrew school, remember?” said Mrs. Broflovski.
Ike looked guilty, like he’d said something he hadn’t meant to say. “Uh...”
As Kenny left the house, he was sure he heard Kyle’s mom shout, “WHATWHATWHAT? KYLE’S SKIPPING HEBREW SCHOOL?”
Stan’s family provided the same ease as Kyle’s did, though it was less unexpected. In fact, when Kenny told them that Stan liked Kyle, Mrs. Marsh stuck out her hand to Mr. Marsh and said, “Fifty bucks, Randy.”
“Fine,” Mr. Marsh grumbled, stuffing his hands in his pockets and searching for his wallet. “Don’t even know how you knew, since Stan’s never showed any signs of being gay...”
“Mother’s intuition,” said Mrs. Marsh proudly, before turning back to Kenny and saying, “So what can we do to help?”
So that had gone okay. Kenny went back home with his hands in his pockets, feeling a bit proud of himself. The job had been easier than anyone would have anticipated, but he’d done it well and in time.
He was thinking of taking a detour to see if he could hang out with Butters today when suddenly a truck came speeding down the road. It hit him just as he crossed the street.
And Kenny died.