Last Summer - South Park [Style]

THIRTEEN [molière]

It really annoys me how Wattpad counts every single time I've opened a chapter as a review as a read. So now it looks like 800 people have clicked on it and never voted even though 80% of those reads came from me excessively reworking the chapters before publishing lol.

2019

When he wakes up the first thing Stan notices is that everything is wet. His face, his clothes, his hair. He opens his eyes, slowly getting up. Stan is outside again, but this time he is not at the basketball field. In front of him dark pine trees are stretching themselves into the sky, like tired giants. Behind him is a fence. The fence is the border of the school grounds. Behind the fence is a street and behind that more trees. How and why did he get here? Stan is freezing. His clothes are dense because of the wet grass. How long has he been lying here? The sleep walking is getting out of control. Maybe he should find something to take against it. Stan starts to walk back and soon the basketball field comes into his view. And then the memories start kicking in. The strip club. Kyle. The storage room. They had sex. Fuck. Stan checks if he is still holding the hair pin. He took it in his hand when going to bed to see if it would travel with him just like it had came out of the dream. It's not there. He should have checked the grass. He jogs back and starts to search, hoping the pin could sparkle in the light of the faintly rising sun but he can't find anything. After fifteen minutes he gives up. Okay back to the having sex part. Wow. He can still hear Kyle's moans. Best sex ever. It had felt so real. If it was for him he'd go right back to bed, repeating last night. After some walking Stan finally reaches the dorms. When he is in his room he checks his phone. 6:15am. So no time for sleeping left. That is fine, he is wide awake anyway so Stan decides to take a long hot shower instead. He enters the bathroom and takes off his clothes. Before he gets into the shower his eyes glide over the mirror and- Wait. He freezes. Then he gets dizzy and Stan has to kneel down so that he doesn't pass out. He tries to get his breathing back under control while his brain starts to go crazy like an overheating battery. How is this possible? What does this mean? What actually happened last night? When his legs feel normal again, he slowly gets up, grabbing the edges of the sink just to make sure. He leans closer to get a better view of the mess. Hickeys. And a lot of them. His throat and chest are full of reddish brown love bites. And now Stan realizes that what had happened was not a dream. It was real. He was there, in Chicago, in the strip club. Kyle was there. They were both older than now. They had sex. Real sex. If someone had given him hickeys as a prank he would have woken up. Unless he got drugged. But who'd do such a thing? No he must have travelled through time or something. But how? Last time he checked time travelling was not a thing. It's not possible. So how can he explain this? He can't. It doesn't make sense. But the thought that possibly he did actually sleep with Kyle, the real Kyle who actually wanted it, not some dream projection, makes his heart beat faster. Stan gets under the shower and lets the warm water wash away the cold wetness of the forest. He stays there until his skin starts to get wrinkly. When he walks back into the room, with a towel around his hips and clean hair, Kenny is already awake, typing something on his phones. He looks up smiling but then his smile fades quickly. Shit. "You do have a girlfriend." "No I don't!" Kenny gets up and walks towards him, Stan backs away. "Right, you just fell, huh? Dude, do you think I don't know what hickeys look like? Why are you making a secret out of it? Just stop lying!" Stan doesn't know what to say. I travelled through time and had sex with Kyle who is also a stripper? Yeah, not an option. "I don't have a girlfriend. I...I can't explain it to you okay? You have to trust me." "What do you mean you can't explain it?" "Please Ken, I just can't. I'm not lying to you, I swear!" Kenny doesn't say anything for a second and then makes an irate sound. "You're fucking weird."

The day is a slow one and more than ever Stan is not able to look at Kyle, he doesn't even want to hear his voice. How can he look at the boy who he apparently did actually sleep with if Kyle can't remember? If he wasn't actually there? Or maybe he was there as well and only acts like he doesn't know shit to mess with Stan's brain? And then there's also this burning desire of touching him, kissing him. But he can't. He just can't. "For this project you will research a French artist who you will then present in front of the class. Find out what impact they had on their country but also internationally. 50% of the presentation has to be held in French. You have the rest of the lesson to find a partner and choose an artist." Stan looks over to Kenny. He doesn't think that Kenny is mad, he's probably disappointed and confused. Stan wishes he could just tell him everything and hear what he has to say about it. But he probably wouldn't believe him and think he's either insane or just coming up with excuses. His friend looks back at him, wiggling his eyebrows. Why is he doing that? Stan is about to mouth a confused 'what' when he hears a voice next to him. "Hey Stan, let's be partners." He turns around and stares into Kyle's face. What the hell? "Why do you want to be partners with me?" Kyle pulls up the chair from the table next to him and sits down. "Because as far as I've noticed in the last few days, you...how can I say this in a nice way? Your French sucks. And if I was you, I wouldn't team up with Kenny because he still doesn't know the difference between fromage and pompage. So I'm your best option. And I don't want to do it with any of those idiots because I'll end up doing all the work on my own." He points to his friends. Stan doesn't know what to say. On one hand yes, of course he wants to spend time with Kyle but things are already complicated enough. How is he supposed to handle two completely different friendships with the same person? "I..." He looks over to Kenny but the blonde has already walked over to Craig. Fuck. "Okay yeah, why not." "Cool. Do you have an idea who you want to talk about?" God, his smile. It will take all of Stan's strength to act normal. "I'm not really into French culture, so I don't know anyone." He shrugs his shoulders apologetically. Kyle thinks for a bit, then his eyes lighten up. "Molière? He wrote 'The Hypochondriac'." Stan has never heard of either of those. Hypowhat? "What's it about?" Hippocrates? Hippopotamus? "It's a play about a man being obessed with doctor's and being sick. His doctor gives him pills he doesn't need to make quick money because all of the man's illnesses are in his head, they are imaginary. He thinks they are real, he wants them to be but they're not." Stan feels his heart starting to beat faster. Is there subtext he is missing? Is Kyle talking about his nightly dreams? Telling him they aren't real? But how would Kyle know about them? "And then there is some drama with his daughter and his wife. It isn't the greatest play ever but I don't know, the concept of being convinced of something being real when it's all just in your head fascinates me." Stan wishes he would stop talking, stop making him doubt his own sanity again. No, he was actually there, in Chicago. His hickeys are real. Where else could they have come from? He isn't sure about that one dream where he was in D.C. and Kyle- No, he doesn't want to finish that thought. Stan doesn't know if that one was real as well but last night did happen. "So, what do you think?" Kyle's voice pulls him out of his thoughts. Stan looks into his face, tries to find any sign of him being there as well, in the strip club, but Kyle looks completely normal. Okay but what does normal even mean with this boy? What if stripper Kyle is normal? What if cocaine Kyle is normal? What if no Kyle is normal and he is just in his head? And what about last summer's Kyle? Wasn't he normal as well? But how can all of these Kyle's be normal if they are all different? "Stan? Everything okay?" This Kyle looks worried, his thick eyebrows are furrowed and he puts a hand on Stan's shoulder. "You suddenly went really pale. Do you not feel okay?" "I-" His heart is racing and only now he feels how dry his throat really is. "I feel a bit dizzy." "Oh, then you should lie down or else you could pass out." Kyle raises his hand and calls the teacher who quickly comes over. "Stan seems to have some sort of circulatory problem. I'll bring him to the nurse real quick if that is okay." The teacher looks through her thickly framed glasses and pulls a worried face as well. "Yes, of course. He should probably drink something." Kyle helps Stan up and supports him by grabbing his arm. "Can you walk? We'll have to climb some stairs." "I can, thank you."

The nurse's room contains a camp bed on which Stan is lying now, a few chairs and a desk with a computer on it. The nurse, who gave him some water and told him to lie down, is currently in a call, sitting at her desk. Kyle sits next to Stan. "You should go back to class. I'm fine." Kyle rolls his eyes. "We're supposed to work on our project together and since my partner decided to get sick, there is no reason for me to be in class so I'd rather keep you company. Unless you don't want me to of course." "No, I...that's not what I meant. Thank you." Kyle smiles slightly. "No problem." The nurse ends her call, gets up and walks over. "It's probably nothing serious, just some fainting. Did you eat lunch today?" "Yes, Ma'am." How could he ever say no to lasagna? "How much did you drink?" "I usually drink quiet a lot. A liter and a half?" "And you're not sick? Maybe had a cold a few days ago?" Stan shakes his head. "Do you feel stressed a lot recently?" Seriously? Stressed is an understatement. "Uhm...I've had some troubles sleeping lately. Nothing serious, I just...I don't know." The nurse scribbles something onto a piece of paper. "Stress could definitely be a factor. And you're new here, right? To a lot of students changing schools can be tough. You should try to take it easy for the next few days. But if this happens again, let me know. Sign this form and give it to your teachers. You're excused for the rest of the day." Stan takes the paper and the pen and puts his signature on it. Then he slowly gets up, Kyle giving him support again, and with a final 'Get well soon' from the nurse, they leave the room. "I'll bring you to your room and then give the note to the teacher." "Thank you, Kyle." "No problem, dude." They walk in silence. Stan doesn't know if he should start a conversation. He feels a bit embarrassed about the fact that Kyle has to help him. He doesn't like to look vulnerable in front of other's. It might be a bit of a macho thing but Stan prefers to keep such stuff to himself. The red head clears his throat. "So that is where those came from?" He points at the hickeys and Stan can feel the blood rush into his cheeks. "When you said you had troubles sleeping I guess you meant that you snuck out last night to meet up with some hot chick." Kyle smiles slightly. It seems a bit forced. "No, no. I didn't. I...it's complicated." "Who else did this to your throat then?" You, you fucking idiot. "Kenny?" Pffft. "What? No. Why would Kenny...no it wasn't him. I don't want to talk about it." "Okay." An awkward silence develops. Stan wants to scream at him, shake him until he remembers. But he knows it wouldn't work. "Just a tip: I know hickeys are great and stuff and you can show them off but you should be a bit careful. First of all some teachers really hate that stuff because we're all holy pure saints, sons of Christ and shit. And second of all rumors spread quickly here." Stan feels embarrassed. Kyle must think that he is the biggest fuckboy to walk this earth. "I'll...remember that. It wasn't my intention to come to class like this anyway." "Hey, no judgment." Yeah, right. They reach Stan's room and he pulls out the key from his jacket. "Okay I'll tell Kenny to give you the homework. Oh and tomorrow, after the basketball game, there'll be a party at a friend's place. You should come. You don't want to miss the first party of your school year. And some of the guys are pretty cool so I'm sure it'll be fun." Thanks to Craig this is old news to him but it's still nice to get invited by Kyle himself. "Yeah that sounds cool, I'll probably come." Kyle starts to smile. Was he hoping Stan would say yes? "Okay, then see you tomorrow. And I'd recommend you don't get too wild tonight. No matter how hot she is, you need some rest." Stan can't deny it, he loves how much Kyle seems to care about him even though, at least in his eyes, they barely know each other. "Okay, promise. And thanks again." "Yeah, no problem. See ya."