It was no surprise that it was snowing.

Regardless of season, South Park was perpetually covered in the stuff. Even in the shadow of dusk, the blinding white snow stood stark against every building and parked car along the road. Another thing added a severe contrast to the snow, but this one was mobile. Try as they might, the snow flakes could not coat the moving figure fast enough before they melted into his blue chullo hat and equally blue hoodie.

Craig Tucker didn't mind the snow. It was at least better than summer, when he had to remove his hat lest he get heat stroke. The only problem was, he didn't like OTHERS in the snow. Pre-pubescent children making stupid snowmen and giggling when they made dicks or boobs for them and hurriedly kicked their sculpture down when a parents came by. The adults complaining about how their car had been snowed in or the roads were too icy to drive.

People were idiots and Craig had taken to staying indoors when the majority of them were out.

But now, at approximately 12:43 in the morning, Craig didn't mind the snow.

He'd walked about four blocks from his house when he'd realized he'd forgotten his gloves at home and now as he walked still further away from the warmth of his room, he cursed the fact that his pockets weren't heated like car seats. Craig bunched up the sleeves of his hoodie around his fists and shoved them deeper into the jacket pockets, hoping that this futile effort would suddenly warm him up.

Craig caught sight of Stark's Pond, an area that had once been quite nice to look at, but now shriveled away to weeds and tall grass...or in this case, knee high snow. The whole pond was frozen over and, resigning himself to what very well could be his snowy grave, Craig trudged through the snow to tap a foot onto the ice pond.

He took two steps onto it and bounced a little on the balls of his feet. His sneakers gripped the ice well enough that he didn't immediately slip, but he didn't think shoe-skating was on his agenda tonight. Or at least he hadn't thought it was until just a moment later when he spotted something on the ice. Something that was a very impractical shade of orange and not moving.

Craig knew immediately who it was; who wouldn't have known the trademark colors of Kenneth McCormick by now, but it didn't motivate him to move any faster as he inched out over the frozen pond. He reluctantly took his hands out of his pockets and spread his arms a little out to each side for balance and cursed under his breath.

"If I drown for your sorry ass, I'll haunt you forever."

His own voice almost startled Craig, so silent had his walk been so far.

Finally reaching his old classmate's side, Craig crouched down and poked at Kenny's side. Much to Craig's relief, Kenny cracked an eye open immediately.

"Heeey, Craig." Kenny said, his speech a little hard to understand through the raised collar of his parka, but Craig had spent weeks learning Kenny's language when they had been in school. They had sort of been friends for a time and once, Kenny had even worked for Craig on a school produced television show.

Craig did his duty as what was supposed to be a concerned citizen, checking Kenny's forehead with the back of his hand, despite his hand being so cold he couldn't have accurately checked for temperature unless Kenny's forehead was kind enough to turn into an ice cube and tell Craig directly.

"How long have you been laying here?" Craig asked, his voice sounding even more nasally thanks to the sniffles he'd been getting from being out in the cold for his walk.

Kenny didn't answer right away, staring directly above him where the stars should have been and for a moment, Craig wondered if he'd died. But eventually, Kenny inhaled a long breath, one that seemed almost laborious, and replied.

"I dunno. Three...maybe four hours."

"Why didn't you take a nap in bed, like normal people do? Ice can't be very comfortable." Craig asked, not even sure why he'd said 'normal people'. He knew for a fact, Kenny McCormick was anything but normal.

"Well..I went out to smoke a few...wound up here. No idea." Kenny blinked and Craig could see the motion was slow and probably difficult to do.

"I won't even ask how much you smoked." Craig stated, but Kenny answered with, "A lot!" and an uneasy giggle.

"I could leave you here, you know. Or cut the ice so you fall into the water and freeze...or drown, whichever happened first." Craig mused, his eyes watching for a reaction from Kenny.

"You could." Kenny nodded slowly. "I'd respawn in my bed, so that would be one way."

Respawn. Kenny used that word a lot, like he was simply living in a video game where someone could snipe you from the rooftops and you'd simply relocate back at base with shitty weapons. Craig was one of the few people who knew about Kenny's 'condition'. He'd once found pride in the fact that he was the only observant student in the entire class, but one by one, a few others started noticing. Craig sort of wished he could have told Kenny he'd known. Given the boy someone to talk to about what was going on.

But when others noticed, Kenny turned to his best friends and the allure of being the hero for Kenny McCormick for fucking once went away.

"I'm not going to kill you." Craig finally stated, breaking the silence that had fallen between them and causing Kenny to jump a little on the ice. Apparently Craig had startled him. Good.

"Oh? Okay." Kenny frowned, an action Craig almost missed under the fur of the parka. "What'cha gonna do then?"

"Are you still high?" Craig asked.

"Um...fairly." Kenny tried to shift his limbs but barely succeeded in making them twitch. "I am lazy and want munchies fucking now. That's high, right?"

Craig could have rolled his eyes. And so he did. Even when his life was in danger, Kenny pretended to the world that he didn't care. And maybe, just maybe, he was high enough from the pot that he genuinely didn't right now. But Craig would rather kill Stripes than admit that he'd just believed Kenny's lies and let him die on the ice of Stark's Pond.

"Try to lift yourself up." Craig instructed and Kenny groaned. Craig cut it off with a sharp raise of his middle finger and helped the poor boy up to a sitting position. Kenny weighed practically nothing, even with the parka covered in ice and snow, so it wasn't too hard for Craig to coax him up a little further and get him to grip onto Craig's shoulders from behind. The hard part now was standing up and getting Kenny to work with him so this piggy back was successful and not end up with Kenny just choking Craig to death.

"Legs." Craig ordered, just as he pushed up with all the strength he had in his own legs and felt a flood of relief run through him as Kenny obeyed and locked his legs just above Craig's hips. Some awkward maneuvering later and Kenny had a safe grip on Craig and the darker haired boy was carefully making his way off the ice.

Curiosity overwhelmed Craig as they finally made it back to snow and solid ground and he asked, "Why don't you just smoke at home? I can't see that being a problem. Your family sells the shit."

"My parents always steal my stash." Kenny replied lazily, resting his head on Craig's shoulder. "If they smell it and they aren't currently doing it, they come upstairs and confiscate it." An added emphasis was put to 'confiscate' that led Craig to believe Kenny knew his parents were just addicts and wanted more more more.

Craig said nothing as they got to the main road and started off in the general direction he believed Kenny's house was in. He'd never actually been over to the McCormick's house, but the ghetto didn't house many people so it was either the house with the crack shack in the back, the cardboard box or the house that literally just WAS a shack. That probably also housed crack.

The silence was almost welcoming now, after the little interruption to his walk. Craig could almost forget he had a whole human being on his back in the silence between them. The walk was fairly easy too, and Kenny, regardless of how icy his parka was, began to slowly warm up with Craig's body heat. Warmth blossomed where Kenny was pressed against him, making his jacket almost too warm. However the warmth on his hands was almost better than gloves. Almost.

Craig could see the ghetto only about two streets down by the time either of them spoke again. Kenny appeared to be coming down from his high and shifted idly from breathing into Craig's shoulder or breathing against his neck. The breath was warm so Craig didn't mind, but the steady rhythm of it broke as Kenny mumbled, "You could have just let me die, dude. It's no big deal."

The urge to drop Kenny in the snow just to teach him a lesson loosened the grip Craig had on Kenny's legs and he awkwardly tried to hoist Kenny up properly again.

"You know, I've told you this before, but you are an asshole." Craig said. "You and all your friends. Assholes."

Kenny seemed to take offense to that, lifting his head from Craig's shoulder and saying, "What do you mean by that, Craig?"

"I'm not the kind of guy who just lets somebody die." Craig huffed in response, nearly missing a step from the exertion his body was now feeling from having to hold this position for so long just to keep Kenny on his back. "I mean, if it's unavoidable, I guess maybe."

"It's no big deal, really." Kenny argued. "I'll just wake up at home and no one will notice. No one would accuse you of murdering me, hell, I was expecting you to."

"Someone would notice." Craig muttered, frustrated with where this conversation was headed.

"Who? Everyone sort of just takes it in stride. I mean, sure, if I die right in front of them, people have started noticing. But here, alone, on the ice?" Kenny paused mid rant to look at Craig. Or at least, that what Craig guessed he'd done because he'd felt Kenny shift and there was no arguing. He heard a brief intake of breath and braced himself for more suicidal tidbits from Kenny McCormick.

This kid could be a TV show, Craig thought, Suicide Hour with Kenneth McCormick.

But what came out wasn't exactly more death talk.

"Oh. You'd know. And that'd make you feel bad, wouldn't it?" Kenny asked softly. There was somewhat of a teasing tone as he added, "Craig Tucker has feelings, who knew?" but Craig could tell his heart wasn't in the joke.

"Fuck, I hate making people feel bad." Kenny mumbled, laying his head back on Craig's shoulder as they neared his house.

"Then stop being a fucking idiot?" Craig offered half-heartedly.

Kenny chuckled and Craig found himself almost smiling. It wasn't often he got to just chat with Kenny anymore, even if the conversation was as grim as this one.

They must have reached Kenny's house because the boy began clambering to get down from Craig's grip. Craig looked over to see which house Kenny had noticed and raised an eyebrow. So it was the house with the crack shack in the back. Huh.

"Listen, thanks for taking me home." Kenny gestured weakly at Craig and backed up a bit. His heel caught the poorly made sidewalk and he nearly tipped over, but Craig grabbed his wrist and said, "Really? Do I need to walk you to your room too?"

Kenny grinned widely and gave a short laugh.

"Only if you wanna, big boy." Kenny teased, giving Craig a wink and causing the darker haired boy to unintentionally let a smile show through his usual expressionless mask.

Even with the jokes, Craig could see that Kenny was still uneasy on his feet. This wasn't just drugs, there was something else wrong. Laying on that ice had probably frozen half of his limbs and it would take time for him to readjust to them again.

"You're freezing." Craig observed. It wasn't a question and Kenny knew it.

"I'll warm up by the fire." Kenny stuck his thumb out in the direction of his house.

"You don't have a fire pit." Unamused.

"Well, we've got a backyard area away from my parents work shed that I can start a fire on." Kenny shrugged, knowing he was going to lose this battle, but fighting anyway.

"And end up on the news tomorrow morning when you've smoked out the whole ghetto." Craig shoved his hands back into his pockets. The lack of body heat from behind him was causing the cold to seep back into him and fast.

"Well then what do you suggest, oh wise one?" Kenny asked, throwing his arms out in frustration.

Craig sighed.

"Look, it's more moving, but why don't you come over to my place?" Craig offered, biting his tongue to keep from telling Kenny just to go steal blankets and leave him alone. And also, don't die.

Kenny seemed a little confused.

"You saved my life and now invite me over to your house. Dude, who are you and what have you done with Craig?"

"Just shut the fuck up already and come on. I can call a taxi, you're too fucking heavy to carry all the way back again." Craig snarled, reaching his limit on patience and pulling out his phone, dialing the South Park taxi service with nearly numb fingers.

Usually the taxi's stayed away from the ghetto, but since there were only two taxi's in the entire town of South Park, sometimes exceptions needed to be made. Kenny fell into the back seat while Craig took the front passenger seat. He was paying, so he might as well.

"Adventure!" Kenny exclaimed weakly from the back seat.

Craig just rolled his eyes and directed the driver where to go.

00000

Author's Note:

Had the idea for this in the lull between chapters of my other story, "I Hate You Less Than Usual".

This will be a two parter and the final part should be out in the next couple of days.

My fifth chapter in I Hate You Less... will be out by Sunday of this week at the latest.