Chapter Text
“What? What’s so funny?”
Cartman is laughing uncontrollably behind his hand, failing miserably at covering it up. “Oh, nothing.” Continuing to laugh, he pokes Kenny in the back, who turns to pay attention to whatever it is Cartman is currently losing his mind over.
“Oh, weak, dude.”
Stan turns to look behind him, but finds nothing there, other than Kyle’s empty desk. He’s home sick today, and Stan is worried about him. He rarely ever misses school; Sheila won’t let him, and besides, he hates missing school. Stan’s chicken scratch is completely illegible and no way is Kyle taking notes from Cartman or Kenny, which leads to many hours spent translating handwriting that he can barely read himself, in Kyle’s room with the computer playing some game-play video for background noise. He looks forward to that later, but still needs to figure out what Cartman is up to this time.
“Cartman, you jackass,” Kenny says, smacking him on the shoulder.
“Ow! Kenny!” Cartman whines, high-pitched and annoying as ever.
“What?”
“You might wanna go look in the mirror,” Wendy chimes in.
Stan feels his face for any sign of permanent marker or something like that that Cartman could’ve pulled while he’d fallen asleep in eighth grade Social Studies for like… the third time this week. “What did you do?” Stan asks through gritted teeth, reaching his hands back into his hair, and that’s when he feels it.
“He put gum in your hair,” Kenny informs him, just a minute too late.
“You put gum in my-” Stan cuts himself off, clenching his jaw and raising his hand immediately.
“No, don't tell on me,” Cartman whines. “Hehhh.”
“I’m not,” Stan says tightly. “Teacher, may I please use the restroom?”
She nods her approval at him and he gets up, grabbing his phone from his backpack and heading down the hall to the B-pod bathrooms. The gum is somewhere on the back of his head, just out of his line of sight, but he can feel it just fine. Kyle would be losing his shit right now, at Cartman’s gross, spit-filled, sticky gum in his hair. Luckily, Cartman decided to torment Stan today in Kyle’s absence. It’s okay. He can take it.
“Fuck…” He tries pulling it out with his fingers, but this doesn’t work very well, just kind of, spreads the gum around and pulls at his scalp, which hurts, all things considered. He thinks he could cut it out, but then he’d have to go back and get scissors, and there’d be some sort of odd bald spot near the back of his neck for the next few months, and then he’ll be teased at school and by his family, if they even bothered to look at him every once in a while. He’s heard about putting peanut butter in it, but who just carries a jar of peanut butter to school?
He’s going to murder Cartman. That would be hypocritical, seeing as he’s always telling Kyle not to let Cartman get to him, but this is an entirely new can of worms. That was before Cartman decided to put chewed-up gum in his hair. Trying once more to get the gum out with his fingers, he sighs and just pulls his hat down over his head, so that it covers up the gum, and sees to getting through the rest of the day. He’ll ask Kyle for help later; he’ll know what to do. When he returns to class, Cartman is still snickering behind his fingers, and Wendy is attempting fruitlessly to get him to stop.
Kenny looks at Stan questioningly, You ok, dude?
Stan nods. “Fuck you, Cartman. Fuck you.”
He normally doesn’t indulge Cartman in even speaking to him when he gets like this, but dammit, it’s already been a rough week, and now he has to figure out how to get gum out of his hair on top of all the make-up work he already has.
The rest of the day slogs onward, and when the final bell rings, Stan and Kenny start their trek home together, though Stan has plans to go to Kyle’s house. He’s already collected all the missed homework in any classes they share.
“Good luck with the gum!” Cartman calls as Liane arrives to pick him up.
Stan flips him the bird over his shoulder. “Is it just me or is he being particularly asshole-y this week?” Stan asks.
“Nah, that’s just Cartman. I think he has to go to his cousin's house for the holidays though. He hates it there.” Stan remembers the year they all went, how many criminals and junkies were present. Even for someone like Cartman, that must be stressful.
“No excuse to put gum in my hair,” Stan offers a smile though he can still feel where it sticks to his head, hair, and hat, still trying to see the light in the situation. Maybe it’s a little funny, what he gets for sleeping in class. They reach the abandoned train tracks, and part ways, where Stan practically jogs the rest of the way to Kyle’s, not even bothering to ask his mom. She’ll know, if she even misses him.
Sheila opens the door. She smiles. “Stan! Here with Kyle’s homework?”
Stan nods, craning his neck around her to try and see where Kyle is. He hasn’t hit his growth spurt yet, only fourteen, she’s still quite a bit taller than him.
“He’s in his room, I can go bring him down for y-”
“No, that’s okay. I can go up. I have notes for him to copy down.” More in English than Social Studies, but she doesn’t need to know that.
“Well, okay. We don't want you to get sick. Let me find you a mask…” Sheila becomes extremely overprotective when Kyle so much as catches a cold, and carries various surgical masks for him and people around him to wear. Stan puts it on, but discards it in his pocket almost as soon as she’s out of sight, bolting up the stairs to Kyle’s room.
Not wanting to startle him, he knocks, and receiving no answer, cracks open the door.
“Awh,” escapes Stan’s lips upon seeing him. He looks awful, wrapped tightly in blankets and only the shock of bright red hair letting him know Kyle’s still there. His breathing is uneasy, congested, and tissues litter the bed and the basket beside it, cough drop wrappers and Nyquil also on the nightstand. “Kyle?”
Stan walks over to him, and places a hand on Kyle’s leg, shaking lightly. Groaning, Kyle stretches out and sniffles lightly, which quickly turns to a sneeze.
"Stan?” He grins, despite his sickness.
“Kyle.” Stan can’t hide his joy at seeing him, especially after the day he’s had. Though, Kyle’s must have been worse. “I brought your homework, though you might not be ready to do it ‘til tomorrow…”
“No, no, it’s okay, I can do it.”
“You sure? You look awful…” Stan begins to feel guilty about his other problem, the gum in his hair, though he knows Kyle would want to help him. He’s sicker than he thought.
“It looks worse than it is. Trust me, I’m-” he sneezes “-okay. Mostly a head and sinus thing. No fever, my mom just keeps the house frigid. You know how she is.” Stan does, and has spent many movie nights huddling for warmth, not that he would ever admit that to anyone other than Kyle. It’s like their secret thing.
“Okay, you might have trouble reading my handwriting, though.” Stan takes out his notebook, and Kyle retrieves his from the backpack at the bottom of his bed. Stan hands him a pencil and he begins to copy things down, pausing every now and again to decipher a word.
“So, how was your day?” He sniffles. “What did I miss?”
Quite a lot, Stan thinks. “Well, Cartman put gum in my hair.”
“He did what!” Kyle yells, abruptly louder for the calm of the house and the caliber of his sickness. “I’m going to kill that motherf-”
“Sh! It’s okay, it’s okay. I tried to get it out, but I couldn’t figure it out… I thought maybe you would know what to do…” Stan trails off, feeling sheepish now that he expected Kyle to just suddenly be his savior.
“No, no, it’s okay. Let me think. Did you look it up? You’ve heard about peanut butter, I’ll assume you didn’t try it at school.” Kyle runs a hand through his hair, distressed. He grabs his laptop from his backpack and types hurriedly, clicking through websites. “It says we could try peanut butter, vegetable oil, or vinegar. I think we have those.” Kyle starts getting up to go get them, becomes dizzy, and has to wait for it to pass.
“It’s okay, I can get them,” Stan says, pushing him back down again and turning to leave the room. He hurries down the stairs and starts searching the kitchen. Finding olive oil first, he heads back upstairs to Kyle’s room to find him standing by the door, wrapped in a blanket, with his ushanka on and looking adorable. Stan shakes his head to clear his thoughts, and the two head for the bathroom.
“Thank you,” Stan says sincerely, as Kyle pulls his hat off and opens the cap on the olive oil. First finding a pair of blue surgical gloves, Kyle begins rubbing the olive oil together on his hands.
“Of course,” Kyle replies. “I’m sorry he did this. He’s a fucking asshole.”
“That’s right.” Kyle turns around to sneeze again, and Stan feels a pang of guilt in his heart. “You sure you’re well enough to help me?”
“I’m well. Sure. Shush.”
Stan laughs and stares at their reflections in the mirror, Kyle with red curls peeking out from his green hat, nose red from rubbing it and eyes bloodshot with sickness, sleepiness, all of the above. Stan looks equally as tired if that’s even possible, it’s hard to be in eighth grade, completing homework, and parents separating and then getting back together every other weekend.
“It’s a little gross,” Stan says, surprised Kyle is conquering this fear of all-Cartman related things just to help him with his hair.
“It’s okay.” Kyle rubs the olive oil together into his hair calmly, and begins to extract the gum from Stan’s hair. As he cards through the strands, he pulls and twists them, trying to find all the pieces of gum, but it feels… incredibly good. Stan has to suppress a sigh here and there, and to his horror, feels a heat pooling in his stomach and the blood rushing downward. He bites his lip, praying that it’ll be over soon and at the same time not wanting this to end. It takes a sticky, slippery while, but eventually, all the gum is gone, and Stan’s head feels oily and smooth.
“Thank you,” Stan says softly, again.
“You’re welcome. You can wash your hair in the sink, or, do you want me to do it?”
“Oh, it’s okay. I can do it when I get home.” As much as Stan would love for Kyle to wash his hair, he’s embarrassed at his minor hard-on that Kyle washing his hair would only make worse. And he’d rather watch a movie instead. After they finish their homework, of course.
Stan puts his hat back on, and though Kyle protests at first, not wanting to get Stan sick, they eventually lay in bed together with some new horror film on, during which Kyle falls asleep sitting up, leaning against the headboard. Stan feels guilty again, but mostly sweet on Kyle, attempting to lean him over, lay him down, but not wanting to disturb him. When Stan opens his eyes again, it’s night, and he has two missed calls from his mother and a slew of texts from his dad. Kyle is breathing congestedly, lying on his side now. Stan collects his things, and pulls the blankets up over Kyle.
“Thank you.” Closing the door quietly, he leaves, with a small smile on his face.