Ship In A Bottle || South Park Pirate AU

Thirteen

In which unbreakable bonds begin to break.

"Kenny, move."

"Alright, I'm moving. I—Hey! I said I'm moving."

"Not that way. The other way."

"Where are you even trying to get to?" huffed Kenny. "I feel like you're just purposely walking me in circles here."

"I can assure you that I'm not." Kyle shot him an irritated glance. "Sickbay is cramped as it is without an extra lanky body taking up room."

"Lanky!" Kenny looked at Butters in outrage, and whined, "Butters, Kyle just called me lanky."

"Don't be rude, Kyle," said Butters firmly, looking up from his book on human anatomy. "His limb proportions are perfectly ordinary." He reached an arm out from the hammock and, like a Labrador to his master, Kenny bounded to his side, so that Butters could ruffle his golden hair.

Kenny beamed, then stuck his tongue out at Kyle. Kyle rolled his eyes and went back to cleaning his instruments. It was the morning after Kenny had been revived and already Kyle was getting sick of the sight of him. Butters was the perfect assistant: he was intuitive and obedient, and he spent most of the time out of the way. Kenny, on the other hand, seemed to have a talent for predicting precisely where you were about to be, and then planting himself there, all whilst complaining about his various aches and pains.

"I didn't mean to be rude," said Kyle. "I only meant that a place like this isn't designed to have another person living in it long term. You'll have to keep him somewhere else."

"But I don't want him out of my sight," said Butters.

"Because you'll miss me?" said Kenny hopefully.

"Because I don't trust you not to do something stupid again."

"Again? Again!" He put his hands on his hips. "What an accusation! I told you, I'm on the straight and narrow. Sensible behaviour from now on."

"Kenny, you tried to single-handedly lift a crate full of cannon balls not two hours ago. If that's how you act when I'm not watching, you'll never recover."

Kenny sighed, and slumped down on the examination table.

"Don't lie down like that," said Butters.

"What else am I supposed to do around here?" moaned Kenny. "No exercise, no lifting, no hanging upside down. That rules out just about everything available on a pirate ship."

"Just read a book, or something," said Kyle. "Anything that keeps you out of the way and in one place."

Kenny fell quiet, which Kyle would have been thankful for, were it not for Butters' glare that burnt the back of his neck. He turned to look at the pair. "What?"

"I, um—I can't read," said Kenny, and he looked almost embarrassed, which Kyle would never have thought was an emotion possible for Kenny to possess.

"That's not true!" said Butters, placing a reassuring hand on Kenny's shoulder. "You can read a little."

"My own name doesn't count," sulked Kenny. "Unless you have a book written entirely about someone else named Kenny." He looked at Kyle. "You don't, do you?"

"No."

"Oh, well." He shrugged. "Reading's boring anyway. There's never enough adventure in books. It's just a lot of people standing around talking."

"How would you know, if you've never read one?" said Kyle.

"Butters used to read to me." Kenny grinned at him. "Hey, remember that, Butters? Back at the manor house?"