4 of 4. Finally.

cartman/butters

"Hey Butters, I need a test subject for—"

Cartman's voice broke off and Butters froze, one hand still raised to apply the mascara. He met Cartman's eyes in the reflection of his mother's vanity mirror with growing dread. To think, the most he'd been worried about was that his parents might come home from their anniversary dinner early and catch him. This was a hundred times—a million times worse. It was one thing to get dressed up like a girl because all of the guys in school unanimously voted you should be the one to do it and then made you; it was quite another to do it when you thought no one was looking.

He should have remembered to always be on his guard for Cartman; that locked doors were not an obstacle when Cartman wanted in.

Butters braced himself for the teasing; for Cartman to run from the house and belt the news; for Cartman to whip out his camera phone and have a public revenge viewing with the video.

He wasn't prepared for Cartman to snort, shove him down onto the stool, and say, "You don't know a fucking thing about blending, do you?"

craig/thomas

Craig doesn't steal Thomas' underwear so much as borrow it. He rationalizes that this keeps him from being completely creepy.

Thomas never even realizes it's missing, since Craig's been doing his laundry for... Craig doesn't even know how long. Long enough that Thomas' mom has stopped acting like it is strange that a boy is coming into their house to do chores without pay.

It's not, Craig tells himself, that he's doing anything weird with them. He hasn't started a collection or sold them on ebay or worse. He just wears them for an afternoon before he throws them in the wash.

It's not like he's masturbating with them or something. Wearing the boxers of the kid that can tell off Chris Hansen is... liberating. It gets Craig through what is so frequently an exasperating day in South Park.

And if it's weird, well... he's come to accept that's an inevitability in this town.

ike/rebecca

If nothing else, Ike learned from the fiasco with Ms. Stevenson that finding a good teacher is paramount. One that makes sex a matter of discovery, not dictation. And Ike knows just the woman for the job.

He tracks her down behind the tennis courts, gyrating against some fumbling loser from his brother's grade. He falters when he spots him, then snarls out a sharp, "Get the fuck out of here, Broflovski."

Rebecca, who continued on completely unperturbed by an audience, pauses here and glances over at him. "Broflovski?"

"Ike," he specifies.

She gives him a thoughtful, considering look, and then she smiles and resumes grinding against the now thoroughly flustered boy, calling over her shoulder, "Meet me here after school."

"She's going to eat you alive," Filmore tells him later when he recounts the story, shaking his head.

"God, I hope so."

bridon/stan

Most of the people in the grade above Bridon's were complete and unrepenting douchebags. They went above and beyond the call of regular douchebaggery, and everyone did their best to avoid them.

Stan was different. He looked out for people and he gave great advice, even if most people in this town were too stupid to hear it. Sometimes Bridon was just overcome with the urge to bask in his presence. He refrained refrained because he'd already tried that, years ago. After he finally stood up to his father and joined the basketball team, he'd tried hanging out with Stan. It had been a bit of a thrill, even if it meant that girl, Wendy Testaburger, was always around, too.

But after less than a week, Stan had cornered him while they were alone. Encroached on his personal space, and while Bridon's heart had been going crazy, he said, "I know what you're trying here, Bridon, and it's really not cool."

Stan was smart. Bridon wasn't sure how he'd recognized Bridon's more-than-hero-worship for what it was before even Bridon had, but he'd made it explicitly clear he wasn't interested. And Bridon wasn't stupid, so he stayed away.

kyle/mark

It's the goddamn ties.

Kyle's thought about it long and hard, this thing with his first crush's twin brother that he balks at calling obsession, and that's what he keeps coming back to. Because Mark wouldn't tolerate being duct-taped to anything, not anymore, and now he's got the worldliness to know to fight off anyone if they tried to tie him done, instead of just standing there confused and letting it happen.

But he still wears those goddamn ties whenever he's taking part in a spelling bee or the county-wide trimathlon, like a tantalizing possibility. If he could just tie his swinging fists down to a headboard...

It's the only reason he always beats Kyle when they compete against each other, but he can't exactly tell his parents that's why he's always so distracted.

tammy/kenny

Tammy knows just how long to let an illness incubate. Just how many years to leave the syphilis untreated to give herself a life-long high without letting it kill her.

She's a poor slut and she does a lot of drugs, but that doesn't mean she's stupid. All she's doing is intentionally brain-damaging herself so that her life will feel sunnier, funnier, and less South Parkian in general. Not stupid at all.

Maybe that's Kenny's problem, she muses, sprawled out on his lumpy mattress while he kneels on the rug between her legs and gives as good as he's gotten. He's never learned caution because he's never needed to, so he can just damn the consequences and go down on a girl knowing it's going to kill him.

Tammy groans and gropes blindly; finds Kenny's hair and pulls him closer after a successful experimental technique, reevaluating who's the smarter one here. At least Kenny knew what he was getting into.

craig/kenny

Craig outed himself when Kenny died of rabies. He walked into Hells Pass Hospital and calmly informed the doctor that he needed shots.

"Where was the animal?" the doctor asked, preparing the large needles with relish. "Animal Control needs to be contacted."

"It was Kenny," Craig said.

"He bit you?"

"I got it from his saliva," Craig stressed, and when the doctor continued to look at him blankly, Craig flipped him off.

In retrospect, he should have waited until after the doctor gave him the painful shots to do that.

So now everybody knew. Craig continued on with the same amount of disinterest toward everything around him; it was just that now he had even more to be disinterested in.

Eventually, Kenny found him on the bleachers behind the school. He climbed up to join him, but Craig held him off from the reunion kiss.

"Why'd you out us if not for the PDA?" Kenny frowned.

"The vaccination takes three weeks," Craig informed him. "You'll reinfect yourself."

"Oh." Kenny swung his legs a little, then said, "You could have just told them I bit you."

"You do bite."

"Or that it was some animal up in the mountains."

Craig sighed. "Kenny, try to imagine what would happen if I told everyone there was a rabid animal up in the mountains."

"Umm." Kenny thought it over. "Town-wide panic, professional exterminators with hidden agendas, possible literally snowballing into a wacky misadventure?"

"Exactly," Craig said, leaning back. "Too much of a bother."

Kenny grinned a little. "Well. Happy to hear I'm the lesser of two inconveniences."