A/N:
EDIT: Oh, god, it's been years since I started writing this fic – upwards of 4 – and it remains my first (and most shabby) foray into the world of fanfiction writing. It's largely unfinished, unplanned, overdramatic and very rough around the edges. That said, I'm going to give this hunk of junk another – final – shot. There are likely to be huge changes in the writing and the plot, so whether you've read the story before or are just reading it for the first time now, I'd recommend starting from the beginning. Otherwise, you might get a little lost here and there.

Warnings: Swearing, fighting, bitchiness, angst… If you don't like slash, hit the back button now. It's only going to get worse.

Disclaimer: I don't own South Park or any of the characters. Wish I did, though.

...

Junk of the Hearts

prologue

these feelings belong in a zoo

Okay, so here was the thing: Kyle liked to think he was a pretty smart guy. He'd always had high enough grades to please his bitch of a mom, a tongue so sharp he'd been able verbally parry with even the shittiest of people, and a keen sense of self preservation. (The last of which was proven by the fact that somehow he'd survived to the age of seventeen, largely unharmed, in a place as undeniably fucked up as South Park.)

Unfortunately, none of those sorts of smarts seemed to translate to the parts of Kyle's brain that were governed by emotions. He'd always been kind of screwed over when it came to differentiating his head from his heart, and sure enough, that extended to the world of love.

At the tender age of thirteen, smart, snarky, street-wise Kyle Broflovski had looked at his best friend over his big mac and, relish sauce dripping down his fingers, had had a pretty fucked up realisation: he was in love wish Stan Marsh.

As in totally, mind-blowingly head-over-heels and arse-over-tits for his very clearly straight (even at that age) best friend.

How did a thirteen year old know what he was feeling was love, you might ask? Well, as previously stated, Kyle was a smart kid from the get-go. And, as honest with himself as he always tried to be, he wasn't about to ignore the facts. There were only so many things that popping a boner while sitting across from your best friend in a greasy MacDonalds, (and getting lost in his very dreamy blue eyes), could mean.

To say it was the last time he sprang one while around (or otherwise thinking of) Stan would be a downright lie. In fact, it became kind of a regular occurrence from then on. (As did the 'getting lost in his eyes' part, though he was far less likely to admit that, even in the privacy of his own head.)

It wasn't like it was only embarrassing bodily functions that triggered this realisation, either.

Kyle wasn't a patient guy, but he put up with more of Stan's shit than anyone in their right mind ever would. Every dumb adventure when they should be studying for midterms, every bitchy complaint about animal cruelty, every pointless argument over thoughtless, fly away comments… all of it was endured with rolled eyes and a begrudging smile in the face Stan's goofy apologies.

For another thing, Kyle had always been possessive of Stan in a way that he wasn't with anyone else, spending almost all of his free time with the other boy. He actually got kinda pissy whenever anyone else monopolised Stan's attention, too. Especially if that 'anyone' was named Wendy Testaburger. (To say that Kyle and Stan's long-time, on-and-off girlfriend didn't always see eye-to-eye would be kind of an understatement.)

But the point of it was, at the age of thirteen he started seeing Stan Marsh differently to how he ever had before, and the results were… awkward. Humiliating. Mostly though, they were hard to deal with, considering how clearly one-sided his affections were.

Any time Stan turned a pale, sickly green around Wendy, Kyle wanted to punch something.

Any time he woke from a dream, or was shaken from a reverie (involving him and Stan in various states of undress) in Debates class, he had the fight down the flush of mortification and the hollow pang of longing in his gut.

Any time Stan and Kenny got talking about the girls they wanted to bang, Kyle did his best to tune it out – to duck away before they could try to involve him.

It was worst on the nights when he crashed at Stan's, and instead of going to the latest party, his best friend begged that they just stayed there. That he didn't want to hang out with any of the assholes from school. And so they'd brush off their friends with some lame excuse, and they'd stay up late watching Terrance and Phillip reruns and stuffing their faces with popcorn. Just the two of them. It would be absolutely perfect.

Well, until something came along and burst Kyle's bubble.

Even just the brush of Stan's arm against his as he reached over him for the remote, or their knees knocking together as one of them shifted in their seats, would set Kyle's nerves alight. One brief glance over at Stan, though, always managed to douse those nerves like a glass of stale, tepid water poured onto a lit match. Stan's lack of a reaction – his utter obliviousness to their contact, their proximity, his gay best friend's feelings for him – hurt in a way that nothing else did.

Whoever said that love was easy, or nice, or cherishable was clearly an uneducated fuckwit that had never experienced the one-sided variety. It was miserable, and it didn't help to even entertain the possibility that this was something Kyle might be able to get over. How could he, when Stan was everywhere he went? When his friend smiled his bright-toothed smile and laughed his awkward, throaty laugh? When he always said just the right (dumb) thing to pull Kyle out of his funk, without even realising that he was the cause? It was impossible.

And so it was that Kyle – smart, honest Kyle – started lying to himself.

He's not even that good looking, he'd tell himself as they tossed around a basketball in the court near the park, the summer sun beating down on them until Stan's t-shirt clung to his lean stomach and broad shoulders in a way that made Kyle's mouth go dry.

It sucks to be stuck doing the same old crap over and over, he'd repeat to himself as their fingers hammered down on the controls, and the sound of the Guitar Hero virtual crowd cheered to 'Carry On My Wayward Son'.

I'd never be attracted someone who didn't take school seriously, he'd think sheepishly as they skipped classes to go watch the latest Adam Sandler movie in the cinema.

I'm not in love with him, he'd insist as they drove around in Stan's brand new car, going nowhere in particular and just sitting in companionable silence. He'd think it as Stan's fingers tapped against the steering wheel and Kyle breathed in the faint, cool scent of the aftershave Wendy'd bought his best friend for Christmas.

Kyle knew that all these things sounded really fucking gay, even to his own ears, but it was hard pretending he didn't spend the majority of his time obsessing over his best friend.

The cold, hard truth was that when he was with Stan, nothing else mattered. It was mortifying, but that didn't make it any less legitimate. (No matter how much he tried to convince himself.)

In all honesty, he was surprised that he hadn't been called out on his feelings by anyone yet – subtlety wasn't exactly Kyle's forte. But then, Stan lived in his own little bubble of denial too. If he didn't want to see something – really didn't want to see it – then not even his own common sense (something Stan had more of than most people in South Park, questionable though that statement was) would clear his vision.

In the end though, it all came down to the fact that no matter what Kyle told himself, or how much Stan wilfully ignored his best friend's blatant pining, Kyle was still majorly screwed. As in, so screwed there was no chance that he was gonna recover anytime soon.

This fact was made abundantly clear when Stan and Wendy had gotten back together at the beginning of eleventh grade. They still spent more time together than they did apart, and Stan never once bailed on him when they'd arranged to do something together, but the fact remained that Kyle really didn't want to hear about how great Wendy's tits, or her ass, or her lips were.

The day that Stan, blushing red as the rim of his hat, had told him that he and Wendy had finally done the dirty, some hopelessly optimistic part of Kyle had shrivelled up and died. He'd wanted to punch Stan's bitch of a girlfriend in her stupid fucking face; he'd wanted to curl up and cry. He'd wanted to, but he hadn't. Instead, he'd just smiled an unbelievably stiff smile and had clapped a blushing, grinning Stan on the back.

(He was only grateful that Stan was too embarrassed to go into the real details about the event, because that was the last thing he wanted to hear.)

Half an hour after Stan's proud admission of getting laid, Kyle had made some half-assed excuse about getting a text from his mom, wanting him home for dinner, and had left. The short trek back through the snow had made his eyes sting and his tightly fisted hands ache worse than usual. When he'd gotten home, he'd walked up to his room, sat at his desk and tried to drown himself in algebraic equations. It wasn't nearly as melodramatic as shrieking at Stan until his throat was raw or pummelling Wendy into raspberry jelly, but (he had tried to remind himself) he wasn't that sort of person. He was fucking smart. And dignified. And he wasn't in love with an oblivious asshole of a best friend, so what the hell did it matter that Stan and his loud-mouthed girlfriend had screwed?

It wasn't the end of the world. He'd eventually gotten ahold of himself again, and when he had, things seemed to fall back into a state of relative normalcy. Well, aside from the fact that his Stan-centric universe now expanded to fit Wendy, too. It was shitty, yes, but he got by, gritting his teeth and rolling his eyes like always.

So he continued to keep all this to himself. And late at night, when he was by himself and feeling like someone had carved out his chest cavity with a rusted spoon, he'd stop lying to himself. He was in love, and it sucked balls. But… it was tolerable. It had to be. He kind of had no choice in that.

Well, right up until one morning after winter break, twelfth grade, when he was woken up by a hand shaking his shoulder, a pair dreamy blue eyes, and a smile bright enough to leave sunspots on his vision.

Stan Marsh leaned over his best friend, clothes skewed like he'd dressed in a rush and warm fingers pressing into Kyle's bare skin.

"Kyle, dude, she said yes!"

...

A/N: Please let me know what you thought of this rewrite – whether you read the story before or not. I love me some feedback!

(EDITED 06/07/17)