A/N - Merry Christmas (or Yuletide holiday of your choice) one and all. Pray enjoy this festive oneshot. It's totally not the one I planned to publish last year, and didn't finish in time. I totally swear. Like yeah.

I'll always remember it as the Christmas Kyle broke into my house.

I'd started awake at four in the morning, and was just there, sitting on my floor. His back against the wall, his legs pressed against his chest. All neat and orderly. He was resting his chin on his knees, just staring at my carpet, his eyes shining in the moonlight. He was just sitting there like it was nothing, like it was normal, completely normal. Like breaking into your best friends house at some ungodly hour on Christmas day was all par for the course or something. Like he wasn't doing something a little bit terrifying.

I mean, him breaking into my house was nothing new, he'd done it periodically ever since we where children. Doors had always been somewhat optional for him: I'd often woken up to find him there, looming over me like some terrifying, puffy haired reaper, wanting me to sneak out with him, wanting to do something stupid, something pointless. Wanting me to listen to his monologuing, his worries and stupid moral crises. Needing me to reassure him, or not, in some cases. Sometimes he just needed me to tell him what he was doing was stupid, moronic, and morally questionable. Sometimes he just needed me to lay there, on the verge of sleep, pretending to listen. He'd stand there, at stupid o'clock in the morning, just talking. Taking away. Oblivious to his own insanity. No, this wasn't anything new, but this was different. This was Christmas. And Kyle always went a sort of loopy around Christmas. Far loopier then he usually was, at any rate.

"Are you awake?"

He was speaking into his hands, muffing himself. He didn't want to wake anyone else up. I just groaned, turning my face away from him, pressing my arm over my eyes.

"Kyle, what time is it?"

There was a pointed silence. I groaned.

"Kyle, what the fuck are you doing here?"

"I just… I… I…"

"Kyle?"

"I…"

"Jesus Christ Kyle, what?"

"I just…"

Frowning, I sat up. "Kyle? What's wrong?"

"I just…" Exhaling, he shut his eyes, arching his back, tilting his face up towards the ceiling. He was still wearing his coat, his boots, his hat. And mittens too. His stupid, stupid, stupid little green mittens. I blinked, turning my face away. He was dripping on my carpet, the mix of melting snow and slush he'd tracked in through my window had made a little damp puddle on the carpet surrounding him. He'd probably been here for a while.

"Can you… I… Can we just go for a walk?"

I exhaled, staring at my duvet, rubbing my eyes with the heel of my palm. "A walk? Dude, it's…" I reached out and twisted my alarm clock towards me. The blinking green numbers made me want to hurl it across the room. Hurl it at him. "Four in the morning. There's like, there's fucking blizzard out there! You want to go for a walk?"

"Yeah, can we?"

"Dude!"

He looked away from me, staring down at the carpet, poking the cheap wool pile with the toe of his boot. "I know. I know. But still… Stan…" Sighing, he glanced up, his eyes shining too bright in the moonlight, fixed into mine, wide and pleading. Desperate. "Please?"

He was clutching his mitten covered hands together, mitten covered palm to mitten covered palm. Like he was praying, or pleading, or begging. Cursing slightly, I kicked my covers off, pulling myself to my feet, reaching down the side of my bed, trying to hook up an old pair of jeans. He shouldn't be allowed to wear mittens. No nearly grown man should be allowed to wear mittens. Mittens were just too pathetic. Too adorable. It just wasn't fair.

xxx

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South Park was never really quiet, no matter how late at night, how stormy, how snowy, there was always something, some noise, somebody. Somebody was always up to something stupid, doing something crazy. Somebody was always running around in the darkness, clutching something incriminating, half-dressed and completely unprepared for the weather. Granted, more often then not that somebody was either me, or, more probably, Kyle. But not always. Sometimes it was someone else. Sometimes we were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Sometimes we really had nothing to do with it.

Exhaling, I kicked my way through snow, through the flurry and the darkness, glancing over my shoulder at Kyle, squinting to make him out. He was following me, step for step, tracking is own footsteps in the ones I'd just made, too mute to track his own. He kept his eyes fixed to the ground, his arms clutched across his chest. His worried face was flushed pink against the cold.

We'd been walking for half an hour, fighting our way though the sort of night humans were designed to sleep through. It was still snowing, snowing furiously, the flakes falling thick and fast, whirling down, settling on the mounds of snow already blanketing the ground. The pavements hadn't been so bad, neither had the roads. They'd been cleared by the plows, and the passing footfall from Christmas Eve shoppers. But Kyle hadn't wanted to trek the beaten path. He hadn't wanted to walk around South Park. He hadn't wanted to be surrounded by those houses. Those people. He'd wanted to go somewhere quiet, somewhere secluded. He'd wanted Stark's Pond.

Exhaling, I stopped, doubling over slightly, resting my hands on my knees. We hadn't quite made it out of the trees, but we were nearly there. Nearly at the waters edge. It was getting harder and harder to fight a path through it. The snow was getting deeper; round here no-one bothered to remove it, the winter sun lacked the power and heat melt it. So it just piled up and packed, fresh snowfall layering over ice and slush, inch after inch, foot after foot. It was getting harder to fight my way through the drifts.

Behind me I felt Kyle clutch at my coat, gripping handfuls of fabric. He was fighting his own way through the snow, positioning himself next to me. Exhaling, I gripped his shoulder reassuringly, smiling at him through the darkness.

It was always pretty, Stark's Pond. In its own creepy, misty way, it was always pretty. In the distance, the lights of the town were glinting through the snowfall, shining through the night. The warm glow from a few odd windows, the kids who'd gotten up to early. The ones who'd never gone to bed. Occasionally an eerie, coloured glow would break through, the faint light from the garish, flashing Christmas lights, the silver strings, the decorated trees and colourful, if slightly abstract, festive shapes. It was dishonest: South Park should never look so normal, not even from a distance. Not ever.

Kyle's hand was still on my back, he'd kept it there, clutching a handful of my coat. He was shivering slightly, standing next to me. He was bundled up tightly, tighter than me. But he couldn't seem to stop himself shivering.

Reaching out, I slipped my arm round his back, pressing him against my side. He was going to make himself sick, running about at stupid o'clock, running about in this weather. He'd be in trouble if he didn't warm himself up soon.

"We could run away, you know."

"What?"

He was blinking against the wind, staring out over the frozen lake. "We could just run away. We could just get in your car and drive. There's nothing stopping us."

"You want to run away? At five in the morning. On Christmas day?"

"We could do it."

"We could leap off Mount Rushmore, it doesn't mean we should."

"Stan!" He was exasperated, wide-eyed, staring up at me with a pained expression.

I just sighed, gripping his his side, his fabric covered ribs, trying to reassure him. "We'll get out soon enough. Just hang in there Ky."

Kyle exhaled, rubbing his face with an icy mitten. "I don't know how much longer I can last dude. I think I'm going insane."

"You're already insane. You've been cray since we were kids."

"Stan! I'm being serious!"

"So am I! But you're the good kind of insane. Not the Cartman kind."

"Dude!"

Blinking slightly, I rubbed my hand across my face, wiping the snow off my cheeks. The cold was beginning to sting. "Look Ky, don't worry. You're fine."

"But-"

"You're fine."

"But-"

Rolling my eyes, I slipped one hand round his neck, and pressed my lips against his. He mad some throaty, surprised grunt, pressing his hands against my chest, curling his fingers, clutching two handfuls of coat. I wasn't quite sure if he was trying to push me back, or trying to pull me closer. He seemed to be attempting to do both simultaneously. He was always so indecisive during moments like this.

I was busy trying to force his lips open, trying to force my tongue into his mouth, trying to hush him up. He was busy forcing his lips together, trying to keep me out. Like some naïve, chaste sophomore on her first date.

Not that it mattered. Whatever he was attempting to do, whatever I was attempting to do, it was shutting him up. I stepped forwards, into him. He tried to step back, but he caught his foot. He caught his foot on his other foot. He was pulling me backwards, pulling me into the snow. If he was going down, he was going to make damn sure I came crashing down with him.

He was lying in a mound of snow, part buried. The clash of his clothes against each other, against him, the clash of him against the snow, his hair against his hat. His mittens against his coat. It was gorgeous. He was gorgeous.

But then, he always sort of had been.

And I was just kneeling over him, pressing my lips against his. He'd given up trying to keep his lips forced together, trying to keep me out. He was giving in, giving in to it. Just like he had last time. I grinned at him, my hands tugging at the toggles on his coat. He was going to let this happen again. He was going to let me happen again.

I tugged at his jeans, at his boxers too. I didn't bother unbuttoning them, his clothes never really fit him that well anyway. Always either too big, or too small. Never quite right. So I just tugged at them, pulling them down, exposing him to the cold. Exposing him to me.

It was dark, too dark really. Too cold. It was stupid to be doing this, stupid to be undressing in the middle of a blizzard. But hey, stupid was what this town did.

Sporadic strips of moonlight fought their way through the clouds, through the snowstorm. I didn't need them. I'd already seen him, seen the lines he made. His ogees. I could never forget them. They were burned into me, engraved into my mind. I'd carry the scars he gave me for life. And he had absolutely no idea what he'd done.

I clutched him, smiling, laughing. He gasped, arching his head back, exposing his neck to me. He was freezing, but so was I. Freezing cold and burning. Icy skin against icy skin, slightly damp, sweat and snow, and pale, pale as snow surrounding him. My face was driven against his neck, my hands clutching deep into the snow, grasping for a leverage I couldn't find.

He was murmuring something. It sounded like he was cursing, but I wasn't sure. If he was, he was doing it in some language I didn't understand.

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Putting the clothes back on was a lot harder than taking them off. My hands were numb with cold, my fingers fumbling against his toggles and buttons. Putting the clothes back on wasn't really the way I wanted this to be, but he was already shivering again. I didn't want to be the reason he spent Christmas with a fever.

I probably would be, mind you. But I could at least go though the motions.

Brushing the snow off my jeans, I staggered to my feet. I ached, the exertion and the cold were taking their toll. I had no idea how Kyle felt, if it hurt him as much. If it hurt him more, even.

Smiling, I reached down, taking his hand and pulling him upright. He staggered to his feet, but I didn't let go. I kept my hand wrapped round his mitten, my hands still painfully cold. The mess of snow beneath us, the packed near-ice and disturbed mounds, it looked sort of like we'd tried, and failed, to make a snow angel. Or we'd had a fight or something. You sort of see the outline of Kyle, the groves made by his back, the way he'd be lying, framed by the dents made by my knees, my elbows and forearms, the shape of my hands. It'd be gone by tomorrow, the wind and the snow, it'd be hidden, destroyed. Chances are it'd be gone within the hour, rendered nothing more then a memory. Just another stupid thing we did one Christmas. Just another stupid memory.

I tightened my grip, clutching his fingers through the knit of his mittens, clutching him too tightly. Like I was afraid he was about to run away, disappear into the wind, the snow, disappear into the storm. Like I was scared he still planned to run away. From me, as well as this fucked up town.

Then he was gripping me back. Through his mittens, I felt him curl his fingers back round mine, lining our palms together, driving the wool against my skin. He wasn't looking at me, not at my face, he was too busy staring at the buttons on my coat. But he was holding on to me, clutching me, gripping me. He was here, this time, he was staying. He wasn't about to disappear, flit away, balk. He wasn't going to run away, not from this. He was here, in this shitty town, in this forest, standing on this stupid, mess of snow. And he was with me. Always me.

"C'mon." I was smiling at him, my head bowed against the snow. He was still pointedly refusing to meet my eyes, his gaze riveted to the buttons on my coat. His cheeks were tinged red, his nose, he was flushing against the cold. Or flushing against me. I didn't know, and I wasn't about to ask. I just smiled at him, clutching him. "C'mon. We need to go back."

Kyle just nodded, his face still downturned, his eyes averted. Still admiring my buttons with disconcerting focus. Still holding my hand, like we were children again. Kids refusing to be separated on a field trip. Grinning slightly, I stepped towards him, leaning into him, pressing my forehead against his, pressing my hand against his face. I felt him inhale sharply, wincing against the cold, my icy fingers pressed firm against his flush-warmed cheek.

"We'll be alright Ky. You'll be alright. Don't worry, yeah?"

He just nodded, looking unconvinced. He always doubted me when it came to the big things. He could never just trust me, trust that I knew what I was doing. Trust that it would all turn good after the turmoil. It all comes up roses in the end.

He frowned, reaching out. Brushing the back of his mitten covered fingers against the shiny buttons on my coat. I just smiled, pressing a kiss against his hat.

I'll always remember it as the Christmas Kyle broke into my house. The Christmas we crashed against each other, hidden in the darkness, the night and the blizzard, part-buried in five foot of snow. I'll always remember it as one of the best Christmases of my life.