"So… another story about Kenny the immortal, and Butters his faithful sidekick." Wendy shook her head sadly. "You ever think about branching out a little, maybe writing about some of the other characters? Maybe write about Stan and Kyle, or Craig and Tweek…"

Montana-Bob was still face planted, forehead on his desk. Maybe Wendy will finally leave if he ignored her. Perhaps she would forget about him and move on and give him a chance to finally write in peace. Apparently it wasn't going to happen quite yet as she had one more thing to say: "Maybe you might even write something about me someday?"

Bob smacked his forehead against his desk, not hard enough to crack his skull or scramble his brain, just hard enough to hopefully make a point. "Why would I write something about you, Wendy?" When she didn't reply after several seconds, he finally looked up at her.

Bob was stunned by her reaction. She was staring at him wide-eyed, struggling for something to say, her mouth opening and closing like a guppy's. "You're…impossible!" she finally shouted. "You're a bigger moron than Stan ever was!"

With that, she fled the room, and Bob stared at her retreating back, wondering what he could have possibly said to have set her off this way.

Chapter Track: 'Last Child' - Aerosmith

Crossover with: Stephen King's 'The Stand'

Summary: Everyone only thought Kenny was immune to the super flu.

A/N: Long 'short crossover' chapter is long :D

This takes place six months after the end of Stephen King's epic novel and/or the miniseries/movie that sprang from it, with one major change: Babies born from two parents who are both immune to the super flu that killed 99.9% of the world's population are not necessarily immune themselves. Having a baby in this post-Randall Flagg world inevitably leads to it dying within a few days of the same flu that decimated humanity. It would appear that mankind's days are numbered.

Disclaimer: I own none of this. If I did, you'd be watching it on Comedy Central instead of reading it here :-)

~1~

"But why is this happening now, doctor?" Butters asked, trying not to sound as terrified as he felt and failing. Kenny didn't just have a cold, and he didn't have the regular flu; he had the goddamned Captain Trips super flu and was dying before their eyes. Kenny's grip on Butters' hand was faltering as he lay in the hospital bed, a look of resignation on his face as he struggled to draw his last breaths through an oxygen mask. "Everyone else who wasn't immune died over a year ago!"

Dr. Richardson shook his head. He was as frightened of the implications of what was happening to Kenny as Butters was about losing him. Perhaps the virus had mutated and could now sicken people who were formerly immune to it. If Kenny could suddenly become sick more than a year after everyone else who wasn't immune had died, then any of them could.

"I don't know, Mr. Stotch," he said, looking down at the most important patient he would probably ever have. "I'm making him as comfortable as I can. I'm afraid there's really nothing more I can do."

Kenny could barely hear them talking anymore; he just wished he would fucking die already and be done with it, so he can come back and be able to breathe again. It was hard not to indulge in serious bouts of self-pity when this happened to him every four or five days. Dying this way, drowning in his own fluids, fucking hurt; and the worst part was how Butters always cried and held him near the end, begging him to try to hang on.

And with these thoughts, Kenny felt his throat close up and heard the beginnings of his death rattle. Butters laid his head on Kenny's chest and wept while the world went gray as he suffocated and died.

~2~

Kenny awoke in bed thrashing and gasping for air. He knew he'd been dead for a day or two, but it felt like he'd been struggling to breathe just moments ago. His heart pounded hard in his chest as he willed himself to begin breathing normally.

His need for air finally met, he now hoped his rough return from the dead hadn't awakened Butters. This moment, these first few hours of his first day back, were Kenny's only perfect moments anymore. and even though he wanted them to last as long as possible, and he wanted to spend as much time with Butters as he could, he hated when his gasping and kicking his way back to life startled Butters awake. Fortunately, this time Butters slept on, snoring quietly with his back to him.

Their sheets, their pillows, Butters' sweat, everything smelled perfect; the sun was just beginning to shine in the window, and in the tree just outside, birds were singing. Kenny would be content if he could just lie here in bed with Butters, able to breathe like this, forever.

His mouth tightened at the thought that within two or three days, he would begin to get sick again, beginning with what he would try to pass off to Butters as 'just a cold' in order to put off for as long as possible the terror and grief Butters always went through watching him die again. That charade would last a few hours…and within a day he'd be back in the hospital, and a day or two after that he'd be dead again; rinse and repeat.

Butters awoke and squirmed around in the bed they shared to look at him through sleep-lidded eyes. Kenny grinned, glad that he was awake and knew he was about to be treated to Butters' smile. He wrapped his arm around Butters' back to urge him closer and pulled him into a kiss, even before Butters was completely awake.

Butters' eyes finally opened fully and focused on Kenny. He grinned, and Kenny's heart soared in his chest. "G'mornin' sunshine."

"Morning, Buttercup." He pulled him even closer and put a leg over Butters, pressing their bodies together.

"Woah!" Butters said happily, fully awake now. He pressed back against Kenny, rolling him onto his back to lie on top of him, their erections grinding together through their underwear. "Someone's feelin' frisky this morning!"

Kenny wasted no time, slipping his hand past the elastic of Butters' boxers and curling his fingers around his morning wood. "Yeah," Kenny moaned, pressing back up against him. "Someone is."

They pulled each other's' clothes off and made love, Kenny kissing him desperately as they used their hands and mouths and bodies to pleasure each other. They lay against each other minutes later, gasping for air (and Kenny loving every single breath).

"Breakfast," Butters murmured against Kenny's chest some minutes later. Kenny's arms tightened around Butters' back, not willing to let him go yet. Everything seemed to always start to go downhill from here once he and Butters got out of bed on his first day back.

"We hit the trifecta, you know…" Kenny quietly said against Butters' scalp, knowing that he'd already inhaled millions of super flu viruses from Butters. Everyone was a carrier of the disease, but only a lucky few were immune to its deadly effects.

"Oh, I know!" Butters hugged him back. "I thank God every day for it, too. We were so lucky Kenny! That both of us were immune…I wouldn't have wanted to live in this world without you."

"I couldn't do it without you either, Butters." He had said what Kenny most needed to hear, that Butters knew as well as he did how much they depended on each other, even though Butters had no idea what Kenny actually depended on him for. Being shot or hit by a car would be a nice change of pace from the horror Kenny lived through now. He would have lost his mind months ago if it weren't for Butters.

They lay together for a few minutes, then got up for breakfast. Butters was mopping up egg yolk from his plate with a piece of toast when he caught Kenny staring at him. He smiled and Kenny's heart skipped a beat. "What?"

Kenny smiled back. "What, what?"

"You're just lookin' at me like you want to eat me up or something."

"Maybe I do. And maybe later I'll do just that."

They were carrying their dishes to the kitchen sink when there was a knock on the front door.

"I'll get it," Kenny said. They weren't expecting company. He opened the door, took one look at their two friends, Stu Redman and Frannie Goldsmith, and knew immediately something was terribly wrong. Fran's eyes were red from crying, and she looked as though she was barely holding it together. Stu's face was sad and distant. Kenny's eyes narrowed. "Hey…come in, guys." He stepped away from the door. "What's wrong?"

Butters came into the room from the kitchen, and Fran rushed over to him and hugged him desperately, bursting into tears. "Oh honey," Butters wrapped his arms around her and caressed her long auburn hair. "What's the matter?"

"I'm pregnant!" she cried, and dissolved into tears, crying hard against Butters' chest.

Butters looked over her shoulder at Kenny, horrified. The memory of Fran's baby born six months ago (from a father who had died during the super flu outbreak) was still seared into their memories. It had been the first baby born in the Free Zone, and he had lived less than 72 hours before succumbing to the still-lingering flu. Of the 17 babies born since then, most of them to parents who were both immune, none of them had lived longer than four days. Losing that baby six months ago had taken its toll on Fran, and now it seemed she was about to go through it all over again.

"Oh Frannie, I'm sorry!" Butters said. "Come on…let me make you some tea, okay?" She sobbed and nodded, and Butters led her away toward the kitchen, leaving Kenny to deal with Stuart Redman.

"Dude, I'm so sorry!" Kenny said, nodding to their couch. Stu limped over to the couch leaning heavily on his cane and sat; his leg had never healed right after being broken and not set properly six months ago. Kenny went to their dining room and brought back a bottle of whiskey and two glasses from the hutch and sat down next to him. He poured them both generous drinks and handed Stu one of them, thinking it might be a good idea to bring them some ice cubes soon, while he could still walk.

"She can't lose another baby, Ken," Stu said after downing most of his drink in two large gulps. "And I can't go through that again either. Especially knowing it's my child that's going to die this time."

Kenny was lost for words. He leaned over to refill Stu's glass instead. Some situations called for chamomile tea and a gentle caring friend with a shoulder to cry on, and he knew that was going on one room away; this one called for stiff alcohol and someone to curse at and vent their rage to.

"We were being so careful," Stu went on, not raging but in a sad monotone. "She was on the pill, and I always used a condom. We never wanted to let this happen to her again." He swirled his drink around, watching the amber liquid in the bottom of the glass for a moment before raising it and tossing his second drink back.

Kenny gave him a minute while he sipped his own drink, already feeling the effects of the alcohol this early in the morning.

"Maybe I shouldn't ask this, but…have you thought about, you know, what you're going to do?"

Stu nodded sadly, holding his glass out for Kenny to refill again. "We went to talk to Dr. Richardson this morning. We thought it might be best if we…" Stu gestured helplessly. "I mean, what's the use? This flu is still around; every baby that's born dies from it…mankind is over. Flagg still won, even if we defeated him."

Kenny didn't know what to say to him, and wondered how Butters was doing in the kitchen with Fran. Stu saved Kenny from having to find something to fill the silence by continuing.

"He wants us to wait a week to think about it, and then come back with our decision. Frannie and I…we both agree, it's best we just abort the baby." His face crumpled and he pressed his hands over his eyes. "I mean…is that wrong?"

Kenny shook his head. "I don't know if I can really answer that, man." He knew a couple people in the afterlife who could though. Maybe the next time he died, he'd get a chance to ask one of them. At one time, he could have grilled them mercilessly about it, but lately all he ever does is die and wake right up again. "But…yeah, I think it's the right thing. Jesus…bringing a baby into the world just to have it…you know…in a few days." He looked down, studying his own drink. "Yeah, I think it's right."

"You two…" Stu was clearly still uncomfortable when it came to talking about anything to do with two gay men. "You were both together…before the world went to shit. And you were both immune," He was already more than a little drunk. "I've never met another couple who were that lucky. I mean…what are the odds?"

"Yeah." Kenny looked down at his boots. "What are the odds?"

~3~

In the early evening of his third day back, just as they were finishing dinner, Kenny suddenly sneezed twice, hard. He grabbed his napkin and blew his nose and looked at the thick grey mucus he'd produced. Shit…here we go again.

"Sounds like you're coming down with a cold there, mister."

"Yeah." Kenny blew his nose again. "Probably just a little summer cold."

"Those are the worst." Butters went into their kitchen and returned a moment later with a large glass of orange juice. "Why don't you drink this and go up to bed and rest? I'll bring you up some medicine."

"Okay, Dr. Stotch." They grinned at each other and Kenny drank his glass of juice.

Butters came into the bedroom two minutes after Kenny had crawled into bed carrying a glass of water and a capful of green liquid. "Here's some NyQuil, Kenny. It'll make you feel better and help you sleep."

"Hmm." He drank the NyQuil and washed it down with water. "Yuck! Original death green flavor. Let's get some cherry flavor next time we go shopping, okay?"

"Sure thing, Ken!" He set the empty NyQuil cap on the nightstand. "Anything else I can do for you?"

"Stay with me?" Kenny replied immediately and sneezed again, grabbing a tissue and blowing his nose.

"Well, of course Kenny!" Butters climbed into bed and lied down, pulling Kenny to him until his head was lying on Butters' chest as he stroked Kenny's hair. It didn't take long for the NyQuil to begin making him feel drowsy. Kenny wrapped an arm around Butters' side and gave him a little squeeze.

"I love you, Butters." He put as much feeling into the words as he possibly could.

"Aww!" Butters replied, kissing the top of his head. "I love you too, Kenny! With all my heart." And with those words, and Butters stroking his hair, Kenny drifted off to sleep, knowing he'd be awake within a couple hours, sick as a dog with a high fever, and would be in the hospital by noon tomorrow.

~4~

The moment Kenny awoke, he knew he'd been asleep for many, many hours. Dawn was just starting to light up the eastern-facing window. He rolled over onto his back, took a deep breath, and stared at the ceiling contentedly, as Butters snored softly beside him.

A deep breath?

Memories of last night came rushing back. He took another breath: His head was completely clear, there was no congestion in his chest, no sore throat or body aches, and he knew that he didn't have a fever.

He sat up, breathed deeply again through his nose just to be absolutely sure, and said excitedly, "Butters! Get up—we have to go see Stu and Frannie right now!"

"Wuh…why, Kenny?"

"I'll tell you when we get there. Come on!" Kenny stood up and started getting dressed. "Let's go!"

~5~

"I wish you would tell me why we're doing this," Butters complained as Kenny pulled his pickup truck into Stu and Fran's driveway.

"I'll tell you and them at the same time." The truth was, Kenny wasn't quite sure how he was going to explain this, or how he was going to convince them. "Just trust me, all right?"

"You know I do, Ken."

As Kenny stepped out onto the driveway, he looked toward the east; the sun was about to rise, and the almost-new moon was just above the horizon. He stared at the moon and suddenly an idea that seemed almost divinely inspired came to him. He smiled and grabbed Butters' hand. "Come on."

Stu opened the door moments after Kenny knocked on it. "Oh, good morning Kenny, good morning Butters." He stepped back to let them enter. "Frannie was just about to make coffee; would you guys like some?"

"I have to talk to both of you right away," Kenny replied. The urgency in his voice must have gotten through to Stu.

"Frannie!" Stu called toward their kitchen. "Come in here!"

She appeared a moment later in a light blue bathrobe, looking downcast but trying to smile. "Good morning you two."

Kenny strode over to her and took both of her hands into his. "Frannie…I have something very important to tell you. Please hear me out, okay? I…I'm pretty sure it's okay for you to have your baby."

Her mouth dropped open. "Wha…"

Stu looked furious. "You can't…you can't come here and say something like that and give us false hope. Why on earth would you tell us that?"

"Because I had a dream last night!" That managed to catch everyone's attention; they all remembered the common dreams that had been shared by hundreds of survivors, which had ultimately led them here to Boulder Colorado, or further west to Las Vegas, where the dark side of humanity had gathered.

Kenny continued, hoping the lie he was spinning seemed plausible. "I dreamed that…babies were being born here in the Free Zone by the dozens, and none of them caught Captain Trips and died. The flu… mutated or something, and didn't kill people anymore. And this dream was every bit as real to me as the ones that all of us had, the ones that brought us all here."

"Oh my God!" Fran cried. "Oh God…if he's right, Stuart! Maybe we can have this baby! Maybe mankind isn't…finished yet after all."

"I wonder if anyone else had that same dream?" Stu said. "Or if more people will start having it."

"I…don't think anyone else had this dream," Kenny confessed. "It's just a feeling I got. But…I think I know another way we can confirm what I'm telling you."

Stu picked up on it immediately. "Tom Cullen," he said.

"Yeah," Kenny replied. "Let's go pay him a visit…and ask him if he wants to go see an elephant."

~6~

Butters loved going to visit Tom Cullen. As the four of them pulled into the driveway of Tom's huge corner lot house, he thought he loved visiting Tom's house and grounds nearly as much as he did the sweet, developmentally-challenged man who lived there.

Tom's yard was adorned with chaos that he referred to as 'landscaping'. At least a dozen department store mannequins were posed in the front yard alone, some in Victorian costumes around a little girl's colorful plastic kitchen play set, some in business attire seated around a long conference table he had liberated from the Boulder First National Bank. A dozen statues of the virgin Mary were scattered throughout the yard, each one holding their hand out, apparently in the act of feeding flocks of large pink plastic lawn flamingos.

They spotted Tom as they parked, working around the side of his house. Tom Cullen couldn't read or write, but he had recently discovered an amazing ability within himself to create incredible works of topiary art.

"Stu and Frannie!" Tom called happily from three rungs up the stepladder he was on. He was working on trimming one of the ears of an eight foot tall Mickey Mouse sculpted from a large juniper bush. He climbed back down, nearly falling over backwards and pulling the ladder over on top of him. "And Kenny and Butters! Some of my favorite people came to call on me today, laws yes!" Tom pulled a worn out pair of gardening gloves off his hands and set them on one of the ladder rungs. "I would have made lemonade or something if I'd known you were going to come visiting today."

"It's okay, Tommy." Kenny said and watched Butters detach himself from their group and go over to Tom to give him a hug. "We just thought we'd pay you a visit."

Tom was obviously delighted by the arrival of his unexpected guests. He thumped Butters' back before releasing him.

"Well, let's go inside my house!" Tom said happily. "I have ice! I can make us some iced tea, laws yet. M-O-O-N, that spells iced tea!"

The inside of Tom's house was even more bizarre than the outside. Stuffed birds –mostly owls and eagles – he had found in a taxidermy shop were suspended from the living room ceiling in between model airplanes plus a giant inflatable space shuttle, all carefully hung from nearly invisible fishing string.

Tom cracked ice trays and filled glasses with ice while Butters made a pitcher of iced tea from a canister of powdered mix.

"It sure is a warm day today, laws yes," Tom said as they all settled around his living room. They made small talk for a few minutes, about the weather and plans for Tom to join Kenny and Butters for a cookout in a few days.

"Tom," Stu leaned forward, arms resting on his thighs. "We wanted to ask you if it would be all right if we hypnotized you again?"

"Oh, like before? 'You are getting verrry sleeeepy…' Well, sure Stu, you can try, but I don't feel at all sleepy! You want me to look at the swinging watch again?"

"Not this time, Tommy." Kenny and Stu exchanged nervous glances. The last time they had done this, the results had been like something from a Twilight Zone episode.

"Well, go ahead and try Stu! I don't think it will work though."

"Tom?" Stu said in a quiet monotone, waiting for Tom to meet his eyes. "Would you like to go see an elephant?"

The effect was immediate. Tom's eyes closed, his head dropped forward, and his body slumped into his chair as the post-hypnotic suggestion that had been planted in him a year ago by Glen Bateman took hold. His breathing deepened to almost a snore…yet they could tell he was still aware of his surroundings.

Almost like putting a chicken's head under its wing, Kenny thought.

"Tom? This is Stu Redman."

"Yes. Stu Redman." Tom's hypnotized voice, coming from his subconscious, was completely different than his regular awake voice. This voice was that of someone who knew he had been denied a normal life.

"Fran is here. And Kenny and Butters."

"Yes. Fran. And Kenny and Butters."

"We're your friends, Tommy."

"I know." A thread of drool stretched from the corner of his mouth and fell to the collar of his plaid shirt. "My friends are here."

Stu was about to proceed when Tom interrupted him

"And the elephant is here," he said in that deep sonorous monotone. "No. I don't want to go see the elephant ever again."

Stu and Kenny looked at each other and shook their heads. The outline they had prepared on the ride over here for how this would proceed had just been thrown out the window.

Stu decided to wing it and asked, "Why not, Tommy?"

"Last time I saw the elephant, he sent me away from here," Tom replied sadly. "He made me leave my home, to go spy on the people in the west. He made me promise to tell anyone who captured me that you all drove me out because I was an idiot, and you didn't want me to infect your gene pool with idiot babies. Tom Cullen doesn't want to leave his home ever again."

"Tommy." Stu's voice was choked; he was barely able to speak. "The elephant doesn't want you to leave your home this time." He wiped his eyes. Kenny was staring at him fascinated, while Butters and Frannie held each other. "He just wants to ask you a question this time."

"You want to know about the babies." Kenny and Stu looked at each other, awestruck; Frannie wept while Butters held her. "Kenny knows," Tom continued. "Kenny knows all the new babies won't die."

Kenny felt the blood rushing from his head. Somehow, Tom Cullen knew. Kenny wondered if Tom knew of his immortality and his new and wretched life as well.

"But Kenny can't convince you alone," Tom continued. "So you came to ask Tom Cullen. The doctors at the Center for Disease Control would tell you if they were alive, if they could use their electron microscopes and such, that the virus has mutated, that it's no more lethal now than the common cold." Tom's voice trailed off for a moment, and it seemed that he might have fallen asleep, when he was actually deep in thought.

"Stu and Frannie's baby will be okay." Tom added. "He's going to grow up to be a fine man too."

"He?" Stu said, a big goofy grin slowly spreading across his face. "I'm going to have a son!"

~7~

Seven months later, Fran went into labor, and while the entire population of the Free Zone waited anxiously to learn the outcome, she gave birth to a healthy, screaming eight pound baby boy.

Ten days later, while a winter storm raged outside their home, Butters settled back on their couch while Fran carefully laid his and Kenny's godson on his chest. They'd given him the name Thomas Kenneth Leopold Redman. The baby reached up and tried to grab Butters' nose.

"He's beautiful Fran," Butters said, leaning down so the baby could explore his face with his tiny fingers.

"He sure is you guys," Kenny said from all the way across the room. "I can't wait to hold him too, but I'd better stay away until I get over this cold."

"You sure are getting a lot of colds lately Kenny," Butters told him, bouncing his knee a little and making the baby smile at him.

"Maybe I need more vitamin C or something," Kenny replied. In the seven months since they'd hypnotized Tom Cullen, he had only died once when the truck he was driving hit a patch of ice and went over a cliff. Between that and the almost weekly head colds he got now, Kenny thought that the way things were these days was something he could live with.

THE END