Drown
Cezille07

"How long can you hold your breath, Kyle?" Cartman has a sinister plan involving jars upon jars of...something Kyle doesn't really want to care about.

Warnings: Suicide. Language, of course. OOC-ness, I think.

Disclaimer: South Park was created by Matt Stone and Trey Parker.

Around eighth grade, three years ago by now, Cartman abruptly stopped hanging out with us. It was uncalled for; there was no brawl in the hallways, no police, no wildfire rumors, nothing. While surprised, Stan, Kenny, and I were pretty pleased to be able to do normal, peaceful things appropriate for our age, for once. Where every lunch and recess used to be filled with his shenanigans, there was silence, a tense silence that ebbed into casual ignorance, when we realized all he did now was avoid being seen in the corridors.

Our days would pass in relaxing rounds of basketball between us and Craig's group, absorbed in some book, sometimes jamming. Wendy tagged along sometimes, and when Bebe had nothing better to do she hung out with us too. It didn't take me a while to figure out that the only thing preventing girls from approaching us was that fat tub of lard in red. We weren't the outcasts, he was. I decided to enjoy this change of atmosphere. Even if we weren't a performer like Jimmy or rich like Token, we passed well enough for what people needed in "friends".

I often saw him at the school roof, a distant look on his face, but since it didn't look like he was going to jump, I paid him no attention. We heard he still had his extravagant birthdays, but we stayed out of it, as we were the only ones uninvited. Then he had a pool party—it was like him slapping us in the face. Since when did he have a stupid pool? Even if that asshole wasn't our friend anymore, he found ways to hurt us. Me at least—the others had no problem ignoring him likewise. Proud son of a bitch! He completely stopped acknowledging our existence, which was fine: four can play at that game.

Tonight, it was Kenny's turn to be entertainer. He brought a worn, yet flashy, marker-ridden guitar, and plucked at it professionally despite being all impromptu, while all of us joined in the song with drunken gibberish. We had lit a small bonfire beside Stark's Pond, basically singing and drinking among ourselves. Stan was just saying how nice this was, the normalcy of it all. No antics, no bickering. I sighed in relief. We sang until Bebe tried to flash her boobs at Kenny, at which point it was decided that all of us were drunk enough.

We packed up and headed home. Stan's uncle Jimbo rented us his truck, and I, being the most reasonably sober, drove us back to the town proper. The dark of the school loomed over us as we turned into the main street, and I glanced up at the roof where Cartman seemed to spend all of his time. His upright frame icily adorned the eerie silhouette of the school. It sent a shiver through my bones.

"Anything wrong, Kyle?" slurred Stan, who noticed my distress.

"Nothing. We're almost home." I gripped the wheel with sweaty palms; an unshakable feeling of dread crept up in my chest and rooted itself there. I had to talk to him tomorrow.

Because we had no common subjects until afternoon, lunchtime was the earliest I could try. I ascended the dusty stairs, and each step upon the thin metal steps clanged too loudly in my ears. The rooftop access door swung undecidedly in the weak breeze. As I emerged, I was greeted by rows upon rows of glass jars, soda bottles, buckets, and one actual dislodged sink, each filled with a slightly murky liquid.

I took in this strange scene and scanned the area. That mannequin over there, I think that's what I thought to be him the night before. And the containers were lined up neatly, and covered by a plastic wrap. Off to one side lay a pile of empty packs of potato chips.

"What the hell, Cartman..." I muttered to myself. But if he wasn't here, and if he hadn't been here a while, what was all this set up for? It was certainly a no-good plan; that avoidance was a plot!

Just as I was about to come down for help, the door swung open again and Cartman strutted past me without so much as a hello. He picked up an armful of containers and placed them inside the rucksack he carried. When it was full, he simply turned back as I watched, flabbergasted.

"Um, hello, what is this?" I intruded, barring his passage.

"What you all wanted me to do," he replied stoically, "leaving you alone. Let me through."

I stared at my former friend. There was no argument, but my mouth uselessly moved, before I could clamp it shut and step aside for Cartman.

If I just had my wits about me, I would've invited him to lunch with us; more questioning eyes and ears were harder to deny than just one. I needed a new way to extract his plan from him.

He was stoic as ever in Algebra that afternoon. Indifference was plastered on his face, his gaze fixed on a blotch of permanent marker on the wall near the window. When did that happen? He usually was the source of every disruption in class. When did that stop? Was this maybe maturity? Unable to bear my doubts alone, I passed a brief summary of my troubles to Stan.

His reply was slow; the messy scrawl of writing showed that he was still dealing with hangover. Wendy shot me a "don't bother him" look. I grumbled and read his reply:

"Ignore the Walking Cholesterol."

This didn't sit with me well. There had to be a way to confront this issue. The fact that I had to see this through solo was the worst part.

The final bell rang. Masked by the flood of jovial students, I followed Cartman to the roof again, where he retrieved what appeared to be the final batch of the mysterious liquid. I clamored away from the door into the nearest classroom before he could see me. No one paid heed to the large boy with an obscene amount of containers in his bag and between his arms. I had no idea how he even planned to transport this strange baggage to wherever he intended to deposit them. His walk was slowed by his burden, but steadily he plowed onward along the stream of homeward people.

What I didn't expect was for him to stop at my front door.

"What do you think you're doing?! Don't put that stuff there! AAAAHH!" I screamed when he bent down to place a single jar of something in the middle of our welcome mat.

He turned to me, surprised. "Aha...hahaha... You really couldn't keep away from me, could you Kyle?" His voice was cruel, but something else hid behind his unfathomable expression. "Well, well, I always like an audience."

"I am NOT standing by when you have god-knows-what in those stupid jars, right in front of my house!"

"Just—god!—stop yelling at me!" Cartman grabbed my shirt, pushed me against the wall, and swung at me with his balled fist. It hit the wall beside my head. I heard several of his fingers break. Panting gruffly, he snarled, "These are my gifts to you. Three years of loneliness. My tears in a jar."

I would have laughed any other time, but my collar was still arrested by Cartman. His glare was full of his classic obstinate tenacity that I was forced to resign.

I considered this; each of the neat rows on the school rooftop were all patiently and miserably collected, for what purpose? Revenge? A guilt trip? Before I could divine another guess I was dropped to the ground. Cartman collected his jars and turned homeward.

"Come on. I still need your help," he commanded sternly, leaving no space for refusal. I followed half-heartedly, still wondering what the point of all this was.

We went to his house. There was the new pool in all its glory, but without any water. In fact, there were no pumps, no other installments for cleaning and draining, just a tiled hole in the ground where a little bit of rainwater had stagnated. Some of Cartman's jars were already here.

He handed me a jar. "Just help me pour it in, Kyle."

Dumbstruck, I did as he instructed, picking up one jar after another, turning it upside down, and emptying the tears into the pool.

"What are we doing?" I asked naively. "Are you gonna drag us here and kill us?"

The thought was horrific to me, but the indifferent Cartman pouring his tears into the pool dissuaded any terror from accumulating in my chest. This was really too juvenile, because it's Cartman we're talking about. What kind of prank was he trying to pull?

"Close enough. How long can you hold your breath, Kyle?"

I blinked, but didn't falter. Two more jarfuls went into the pool before I replied. "Around one minute."

"I need longer than that."

"What, so you could enjoy my suffering a little more?"

"No goddamn it! I need you to keep me down for as long as it takes for me to drown."

I literally just smacked my palm into my forehead. "No, no, no, no, and NO. The fuck, Cartman, I'm not going to help you kill yourself—"

"But that's what you all want, right? I did what you told me, I stayed away, and I didn't like one bit of it. Always left out. And no one ever asked for me back! Or even how I was! No one asked, whatever happened between you guys and Cartman? No one said, isn't it a little weird that there's only three of us?"

"That's called arrogance! You couldn't just apologize for your behavior, you wouldn't even go near us to maybe, I dunno, just squeeze into conversation and be done with it, like you used to. You wanted us to beg, didn't you? Asshole!"

"NO KYLE! You think you guys are so keeewl that there was no room for a fat fuck like me! Nobody fucking cared, and I'm sick of it!"

"Then you didn't need to wait three years to agonize over it. If you didn't want to suffer why the hell didn't you just end your life right away?!"

I regretted the hateful words as they came. It was more reflex than anything, but the hurt on Cartman's face pierced the anger bubbling in me. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean it..."

"Fuck you, Kyle!" He sharply turned away and focused his attention on the jars still full of their bitter contents.

I wrenched myself away from the gutter and entered his green abode. I found Mrs. Cartman entertaining a guest in the living room.

"Hello Kyle, it's so good to see you!" she greeted cheerily. "Eric's not home yet. Would you like anything from the kitchen?" Her hands were laced around the gentleman caller's ruffled collar.

"No thank you, ma'am, I just need to borrow your first aid kit please," I answered.

"Bathroom upstairs, dear," she cooed.

Outside, Cartman was wallowing in his literal pool of despair. I jumped into the shallow end and waded towards him on the opposite corner. At the "deep end", the water just barely reached halfway up my shins; it rippled around the exposed part of his stomach, which looked like a smooth round island. He sat up angrily as I approached, his apprehension visibly heightening.

"What're you doing, Jew?" he sneered, evidently frustrated at the lack of drownability of his pool.

I hesitated when he gave me an accusing glance, but I was determined to assess the state of his hand. "Lemme see your arm."

It had been a good while since I heard him call me that. It wasn't pleasant by any means, but that probably meant he was back to his normal self. Still, he looked doubtful at the lack of name-calling on my end. "No."

"Don't be such a baby," I said, showing the first aid box. "You hit that wall of your own accord. It was pretty dumb, by the way."

"Thanks, genius." He held out the red, swollen hand, and rolled his eyes. "This sucks balls."

"Cartman, seriously. Don't be such a creep in the school rooftop and tell me you're going to drown yourself." I honestly wondered why none of his other "friends" were helping him. Why not poor Butters, or any one of the kids he bullies these days?

He didn't respond.

"Look," I added tentatively. "We're gonna go camping this weekend at my cousin's farm in Denver. You wanna come?"

"No," he snapped.

"Two words, fatass—free! Cheesy poofs!" I cried exasperatedly.

"AY! I'm not fucking fat you stupid Jew!" Of course, he notices only the important stuff. I face-palmed mentally.

I merely had to squeeze his hand and he squealed in pain. I chuckled. "See you there, Cartman." I stood up. That was enough close contact with him anyhow.

Just before I was able to climb over the gutter, he called, "Jew!"

"What?"

"Uh, nothing. I just, uh, sneezed."

Pathetic asshole, I thought, smirking. "Get inside and dry up, and throw away these stupid tears."

"Wait! Kyle," he called again.

"WHAT?"

"I'm still injured. I can't do all that by myself." His voice had that whine that boiled my blood, no matter what context or honesty it contained, which was currently none.

"I've been mentally scarred by you enough for one day, so just drop it. I'll see you in school tomorrow, and you better have disposed of this," I motioned to the translucent liquid rippling around us. I huffed away angrily, ignoring what looked like fresh tear streaks along his cheeks.

I don't know what got into me by inadvertently leading him back into our group, but the nice things we had managed to accumulate—friends, mostly—dissipated little by little. Stan gave me angry looks because Wendy couldn't sit with us anymore during break without enduring Cartman. Kenny had popped a nerve during an argument involving drunks and poor people being directly related; Cartman showed us a photo of one of our first camping nights at Stark's Pond, where Kenny was sitting on a crate of beer, drunk out of his wits, and everyone was passed out beyond hope. "The hope of the future is the youth, ha!" he laughed. "You guys have been wasting your life."

"You fucking creep!" yelled Stan in disgust. "Don't follow us! We don't go around jealously watching your every move!"

But no one questioned the why. I sat in the far corner of the lunch table, head in my hands, my food untouched; Kenny would've been so happy if he weren't currently dead. I tried so hard not to join in the crazy. I supposed what people see as "normal" was my utter desolation, us dealing with Cartman on a daily basis. I tried to convince myself I had done a good thing by preventing what he wanted to do. I tried so hard not to regret it. In any case, if he crossed the line, I would happily be the one to personally put his lights out for good.

END

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