Chapter Text
(5:09 AM) sbf kyle: Good morning
(5:09 AM) sbf kyle: Remember to brush your teeth.
Stan sat up straight and squinted at the bright screen in his hands, before he realized that in just forty minutes he would have to be dressed and standing at the bus stop in the blistering cold. It was 6:30 AM.
He got dressed, and of course, brushed his teeth.
-
Stan always had a hard time taking care of himself, especially when it came to brushing his teeth. When he was younger and Sharon had to pick up night shifts at another job, Randy was left to watch over him and Shelly- who obviously didn’t care if his four year-old son and seven year-old daughter brushed their teeth or not. Money was tight back in those days when they had two kids to support and were still paying off college debt, but now that Shelly was in college and most things were paid off, things were easier.
So it became habit for Stan to skip brushing his teeth entirely. It was never the first thing on his mind when he woke up or before he went to bed, but thankfully Kyle was around to help him with that. Stan was lucky, though. His teeth were slightly crooked, but not yellowed and rotting like they could be.
“Hey, dude,” Stan said once he got up to the bus stop. “Are you excited? I’m gonna miss you.”
Kyle smiled when he saw Stan approach, but when he spoke, his smile grew wider. “Yeah, I’m excited. You could’ve asked to come with me, you know. I don’t think your mom would care.”
Stan shook his head. “Do you know how many days I’ve missed?”
“...Okay. Maybe she would care.”
That day, Sheila was picking Kyle up early from school to go to a clinic in Colorado Springs that would (hopefully) put him on testosterone. After hitting puberty, there was no need for blockers. Kyle saw a therapist twice a month (unfortunately for Stan, that meant more time Kyle was away from him at school), who diagnosed him with dysphoria. It took a year to get in with the therapist, though, and another four months for the man to come to a diagnosis for Kyle (“ It’s bullshit !” Kyle had said after coming to Stan’s house after his third appointment), but things were slowly coming together. Stan hoped Kyle would actually be able to start today, though- he knew Kyle would be fuming if they made him wait another three months to return to the clinic.
“Told you. You gonna be okay with needles?” Stan asked, nudging Kyle in the arm. He watched Kenny trudge up the hill and wave at them. Stan waved back.
Nodding, Kyle turned to look at Kenny, and waved too. “I’ll be okay. I’ll figure it out.”
“Hey guys.” Kenny stood next to them. With that, the conversation about the clinic died down and another one picked up.
-
(8:43 PM) sbf kyle: Can you come over?
(8:43 PM) sbf kyle: Like, right now? Please?
(9:02 PM) sbf kyle: Dude?
Stan didn’t see the message until after 9 PM, but once he saw it, he slipped his shoes on and ran to Kyle’s house. He knew it wasn’t an emergency or anything, but he wanted to be there for whatever Kyle might’ve needed.
The front door was unlocked, so Stan let himself inside and went up to Kyle’s bedroom, only to find him sitting at his desk, his pants off, with a needle in his hand. Kyle’s head shot up as soon as he saw the door move. “I can’t do this. You need to help me.”
Stan closed the door and moved closer to Kyle, narrowing his eyes. “Are you sure you want me to do it for you? I don’t know anything about needles, dude.” His eyes trailed over Kyle’s thighs. It was a little weird to see him without pants on, even if he was wearing underwear- he was insecure and super careful about changing in front of people, but Kyle didn’t seem like he cared now.
“...You’re better at it than I am. I can’t even get the damn thing in.”
Crouching down, Stan took the needle from Kyle and looked into the body of the needle. “There’s too many air bubbles in this, you need to get them out.” He looked past the needle and saw a few small beads of blood on Kyle’s leg. “...How many times did you try to get it in?”
“Like, three?” He only managed to poke the surface on the outside of his thigh.
“You need a new needle. This one is probably dull.” Stan stood up and took another syringe from the pile, taking off the plastic and throwing it in the small trashcan that sat next to Kyle’s desk. “What do you mean you can’t do it? What part is bothering you?”
Kyle stared down at his bloody leg. “What if I, like, put it in, and then it hits muscle, or a nerve or something, and then it swells up… or what if- see? You’re better than me at this. You know more.”
“Did they tell you how to do an injection?”
“Yeah, they made me practice it. On an orange.” Kyle stared up at him.
Stan stared back, before smiling and setting the needle down. “Get the liquid into this one. I’ll be back, I’m getting you a rag.”
“What? Why?”
“For the blood on your leg?”
Kyle uncapped the syringe and pushed it into the rubber stopper. “Oh. That makes sense,” he said as Stan left, turning the syringe upside down and drawing liquid into it.
Stan grabbed a wash rag from the closet in the hallway and came back, crouching down again and wiping Kyle’s leg. “You’re positive you want me to do it for you?” he asked once he set the bloodied rag down.
“...No,” Kyle admitted.
He could see all of the air bubbles from where he was sitting. “You need to get the air out first if you’re gonna do anything. I already told you that.”
“How?”
He can’t be this dumb, Stan thought to himself as he took the syringe in his hands. “You tap on it. Like this.” He tapped on the body, sending little air bubbles flying to the top. “Then you put the air back into the vial.” Is he pretending to not know how to do this?
Nodding, Kyle did as Stan said, and soon enough most of the air bubbles were gone. He sat there in his chair, syringe and vial in his hands, not saying anything.
“Are you going to do this yourself?”
“Uh. I don’t know,” Kyle said stupidly. “Wait. I have to wipe my leg off,” he mumbled, capping the syringe and ripping open an alcohol pad, rubbing it on the side of his leg. Stan stared at Kyle’s lightly freckled thighs. He was so overdramatic when he complained about his body- about his hips being too wide, or having too much meat on his legs, or having a chest in general, but Stan never really paid attention to stuff like that. It was Kyle’s face and hair he liked best. Sometimes his ass, but that was just teenage hormones talking. “Okay. I’m gonna do it,” Kyle announced to himself, holding the syringe sideways at his leg.
“I believe in you.”
Staring at the side of his leg, Kyle couldn’t decide on a place. “What if I hit something, Stan? What am I supposed to do then?”
“The needle is too short to hit anything major. If they told you to inject it into the fat in your leg, it won’t reach anything else, dude. See? I’ll do it for you if you want me to.”
“No. I’ll do it.” Kyle, after deciding on a place, pressed the needle to the side of his leg.
Stan shook his head. “I think I should do it. You’re not pushing it in fast enough, that’s why it hurts so much. That’s why it feels like it’s hitting muscle. I promise, it’s only puncturing your skin.”
“...Do it for me,” Kyle finally pleaded.
He took (for what felt like the millionth time) the syringe back from Kyle and wiped his leg off again. “You might wanna look away,” Stan advised as he held the syringe at a 45 degree angle and pushed it into Kyle’s leg.
“Ow,” Kyle whispered, tensing up and turning to look at Stan as he pushed on the plunger. Once all of the liquid was out of the syringe, Stan pulled the needle out of Kyle’s leg and set the needle back on the desk. He looked back down to see blood gushing out of his leg, and reached for the rag, but it was too late, because Kyle already had it. He pressed it to the outside of his thigh.
“See? That was easy. You had nothing to be scared of,” Stan said, smiling.
Kyle nodded, biting his lip as he pushed the two discarded needles into a sharps container with his free hand. “Thank you. Can you do it for me every time?”
“...Don’t you want to learn how to do it yourself? I’ll do it if you want me to, but like, how often?”
“Once a week. Today’s Friday, so that would be every Friday you’d have to help me,” Kyle told him, starting to straighten things up. First he put the two discarded needles into a sharps container. Kyle put the vial into a small cardboard box, before opening a desk drawer and putting it away, along with the other syringes, alcohol pads, the sharps container…
Stan watched him clean up, almost hypnotized by his movements. “I have football practice on Fridays.”
“Well- you know I go to them anyway. You can just come over to my house after football practice.”
“...What if I have a game that day, though?” Stan asked.
Kyle turned to look at him. “Big whoop. Do it in the morning.”
“Okay, fine. I’ll help you with it. So what is this supposed to do? I know you said your voice will get deeper, but, uh, what else?”
“Uh.. a lot of stuff, actually. I could get facial hair. I’ll be sweatier.” Kyle had everything put away, and threw the bloodied rag on his desk. He lowered his voice. “It’ll stop my, uh, period too. Hopefully,” he said quickly, reaching down to pull his shorts up.
Stan knew there were certain words Kyle didn’t like saying. Period was one of them. “That’s good,” he said, standing up from previously crouching on the floor. He wasn’t sure if anybody else could tell, but he always knew when Kyle was menstruating. He ate more, slept more, snapped at him more, generally spoke less, and wore a fuckton of cologne, only to mask the scent of blood. His body odor in general wasn’t too bad on its own. “I’m really happy for you, Ky.”
Once Kyle had his shorts on, he nodded. “Yeah, I think this is gonna help a lot. Hey, can you spend the night?”
“Oh, I thought we were gonna do that tomorrow?”
Kyle shrugged. “I missed you.”
“You were only out of town, for like-”
“Four hours. Yeah, I know, but you didn’t text me at all. All day. So you should make it up to me,” he grinned, taking Stan’s arm. “Go brush your teeth, then we can play video games and eat ice cream or something.”
Stan smiled back. Kyle knew him too well.