The Measure of Life Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at http://archiveofourown.org/works/14017770. Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Archive Warning: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Category: F/M, M/M Fandom: South Park Relationship: Kyle Broflovski/Kenny McCormick, Stan Marsh/Wendy Testaburger, Stan Marsh/Butters Stotch, Craig Tucker/Tweek Tweak Character: Kyle Broflovski, Kenny McCormick, Stan Marsh, Eric Cartman, Butters Stotch, Wendy Testaburger, Tweek Tweak, Craig Tucker, Mysterion Additional Tags: Slice of Life, Romance, Growing Up Together, Friendship, Friends to Lovers, Character Study, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Character Death, Mutual Pining, Dorks in Love, The Creek is mostly background, and K2 is singlehandedly taking over this fic, sorry they run this town now Language: English Stats: Published: 2018-03-28 Updated: 2020-07-16 Words: 83,663 Chapters: 21/23 The Measure of Life by panaceaa Summary The kids in South Park are growing up and growing older, one moment at a time. Notes July 2020 update: I’m not giving up on this, but I’ve at this point switched fandoms and lost most of my passion and motivation for this one. The last two chapters are drafted, but it’s taking me longer than expected to polish and edit. The Beginning Chapter Notes See the end of the chapter for notes They are young, no older than four. Their lives have only just begun, so their universe consists of fragmented thoughts and cycles of events that become ingrained within them through the sheer power of repetition. This is how it starts. __________________ Kenny’s world is consistent gnawing hunger and hiding himself deep within the bright orange parka that his momma bought for him with what little money they had. It’s a rough and faded existence, but it’s all that he knows. And so, he cherishes his parka as a child might cling to a favorite blanket, and looks at the world with the bright-eyed gaze of a child who does not yet know that there are children out there who have never known what it feels like to go hungry. It is a day as ordinary as any other. Kenny walks out of his house, little legs sinking deep into the patches of snow as he collects rocks and small flowers that have somehow survived the cold. He’s leaning down to pick up another rock when he spots a flower on the other side of the tracks. It’s large and beautiful, with yellow petals and a deep green stem. It’s something like the cartoon flowers he would sometimes see on TV, something perfect and beautiful, and nothing like the small withered weeds he’d been collecting. He wants it, as much as a young child can want anything, but his feet hesitate on his side of the tracks. Don’t go near the tracks, Kenny. The train tracks have always served as a sort of divide. There is a world so unlike his own sitting on the other side, and sometimes Kenny liked to sit in the snow and watch it as an ordinary child might watch their favorite TV show. His family crossed over there on days that they went to church, and so he imagines that maybe his parents tell him not to cross the tracks because if he does so when it’s not a church day then maybe he might anger God or something. Because maybe the world over there is something like heaven, where only special people get to go on normal days. But he is young, with a heart not yet accustomed to fear. And so, he takes one look behind him for any sign of his parents, and then takes one single step onto the tracks. The train comes out of nowhere. Kenny is left frozen, barely three and suddenly staring up at the monstrous machine rushing towards him, the sight immediately preceding the feeling of the bone-crushing impact only a moment before all goes black. The next thing he knows, he’s waking up in his bed. It’s the middle of the night, but although his body thrums with the recollection of the collision, his skin is whole and unmarked. His beloved parka shows only faint signs of wear and suggests nothing of the accident. And so, Kenny squeezes his eyes shut and tells himself it was just a dream. A horrible, terrible dream. *** Eric is startled awake by the sound of a scream in the middle of the night. “Ma?” he whispers into the dark, before sliding down from his bed and slowly walking out into the hallway. It’s only once he steps out from his room that he hears a strange thumping sound coming from his mother’s bedroom, followed by another scream. “Ma!?” Without thinking he runs over and slams his little pudgy fist on the door, but there’s no response. He tries turning the doors handle only to find it locked. The sounds don’t stop, and at only the age of three and overwhelmed by the thought of something horrible happening to his mother, Eric does the only thing he can do and runs back to his room to hide under his covers. That’s how his mother finds him in the morning, curled up in a ball with his tears long dried up. “Sweetie, are you feeling alright?” She sounds fine, and when he peaks over his shoulder she looks fine, and he tries to rationalize it, but comes up blank. He wants to ask her, but he’s afraid of the answer. Afraid that saying it out loud will make it more real. No matter how hard he tries he can’t stop hearing it and wants it to go away. Wants to bury it like he buried his favorite stuffed animal after it called him fat one too many times. “Hmm... how about a pot-pie, hun?” Liane Cartman says eventually when she doesn’t get a response. “Will that make you feel better?” Without looking at his mother, he nods. There might be things worse than monsters in the world, but that doesn’t mean he can’t find ways to help pretend otherwise. *** There is a weird scuffling coming from beneath his bed. It’s late and Kyle can’t sleep, picturing a monster with a thousand eyes, or perhaps a bug the size of his fist that will crawl down his throat as he sleeps. He eyes the ground warily, before he jumps down and practically runs to his door and down the stairs. Downstairs his parents are still awake. His mother is in the kitchen drying the dishes, while his father is in the living room, reading. He starts with his mother. “Mommy,” he says, but Sheila doesn’t turn around. He stomps his foot, “Mommy!” “Kyle,” she says, looking up with surprise. “What are you doing out of bed?” “Somethin’ under bed,” he explains. His mother shakes her head at him and returns to drying off the plate she’s holding. “That’s ridiculous, bubbe.” He blinks at her, but even at three, Kyle knows better than to argue with his mother, at least not while he still has another option. So, he goes to his dad. “Somethin’ under bed!” Gerald only spares him a quick glance from his book, “Kyle, I promise nothing’s under there. Just go back to sleep.” “But-“ “ Now , Kyle.” And so, he clenches his hands into fists and stomps his way up to his room, fear vanishing in the face of fury. He’d deal with it himself. *** Stan is alone in the living room watching TV while he sits at the coffee table and draws. He doesn’t really understand what’s happening in the show since he only looks up at it every so often, but what he does know is that on the screen is a family. They’re playing some sort of game in the backyard, or at least they were until the dog ran off with their ball. It’s not long before their efforts turn into a full-on game of chase, and they decide to split into teams to try to trap Sparky and get their ball back. One game turning into another. Even as young as he is, Stan thinks it’s pretty stupid, but still, they’re smiling and happy, and he kind of wants to play and be stupid with them. On the coffee table sits the drawing he’s been working on, a simple stick figure drawing of his own family, which Stan’s three-year-old mind pretty much considers a masterpiece. He draws his mom with a pretty triangle dress, and himself with his favorite poofball hat, and his sister with horns like the devil, and his dad with- Well, he was still working on him. As if on cue, the next moment his dad comes stumbling through the front door in nothing but his underwear while waving some sort of glass bottle around in his hand. Stan looks up, but his father walks right past him and into the kitchen. Soon enough, from where he’s sitting, he can hear his mother start to yell. Not to be outdone, his father competes with a voice of an even higher pitch, and together their voices drown out those on the TV. He looks up at the smiling family on the screen, before looking down at his drawing. He scribbles out the figure of his dad before he crumples the paper up altogether and walks up to his room to lay down. When he falls asleep, he dreams of having a normal family. ___________________ It is the first time, but will by no extent be the last. Chapter End Notes Heya! Just wanna let you guys know that the writing style does change a bit as the chapters go on. Things get a little less flowery and more narrative. Oh, and also happier :) Thanks for reading!<3 The Angel It’s Sunday morning. It’s Sunday morning, and so Kenny’s at church with his parents and brother, in the same way they are at this time every week. The priest is saying words that he hardly understands at his age, only picking up bits and pieces of things. So, to pass the time, he looks around the church and at the pictures depicted around the building. He stares upon the stained glass windows, pictures shining with the morning light. Winged angels, and golden halos. He thinks they look familiar, but he’s not exactly sure why that is. A distant dream maybe, or a forgotten memory. But, although he is aware of the comforting feeling he gets when looking at them, Kenny is still much too young for deep questioning. So, at barely over three years old, Kenny just reaches his tiny fingers toward the sun shining through the glass and imagines there’s someone up there who’s reaching back all the same. *** He keeps dying. The first few times he passed it off as bad dreams, nightmares to rule out all others, but there’s only so many times he could lie there bleeding in the middle of the street before it became something impossible to ignore. He doesn’t know if maybe he made God angry or something, or if maybe he’s the devil’s personal joke and God’s the one up there who keeps trying to save him. Death is still somewhat of a mystery to him, but he thinks he knows enough about it to know that it’s supposed to be final. People aren’t supposed to come back from it, not unless they’re Jesus. And Kenny’s pretty sure he’s not Jesus. He just has so many questions and no one who can answer any of them. He is the paragon of curiosity, but where most three- year-olds asked questions about simple things like why their block tower fell over, Kenny wanted to know if there was something connecting him to the stories he’d hear at church. So, late at night alone in his room, Kenny clasps his hands and lowers his head. He doesn’t know much about praying, but he thinks he gets the gist of it. And he asks God for an answer. *** Kenny is in the front of his house, drawing on the road with a few pieces of sidewalk chalk he had found abandoned a few weeks ago. He’s drawing an angel, a simple stick figure with wings and a halo, when he hears it. He looks up to see the massive truck rushing towards him and squeezes his eyes shut, bracing himself for impact. But it never comes. Instead, there’s a faint brush of wind against the exposed portion of his face, and the tremor of the ground as the massive vehicle passes right by him. Kenny stares after it in shock, before his gaze falls to his palm to see that he’d crushed the piece of chalk into dust within his fragile hand. The wind blows it away and it lands like mist around his angel’s face. *** Days turn into weeks, and weeks give way to months and still, Kenny does not die. He looks up at the sky every day, but he’s not sure what he’s supposed to see. Not sure what it’s supposed to mean. It’s not until later that he finally finds an understanding. That he finally gets his answer. *** It’s Sunday morning. He walks into the kitchen only to see his mother and father sitting down at the table. “Mornin’ son,” his father says to him, before sharing a look with his mom. “Come over here and sit down for a second, your mom and I have somethin’ to tell ya.” Kenny listens and sits down, looking between the two of them curiously. “Kenny, your mom and I are having a baby,” his father finally says, slowly, unsure if he would understand, “do you know what that means?” Kenny does. He hops down from the chair and walks over to his mother who’s gently holding her stomach. She smiles down at him, “You’re gonna have a little sister,” she whispers, as soft as he’s ever heard her. Kenny smiles back at her and places a hand on her belly. He wonders if she knows that she’ll be giving birth to an angel. Preschool Chapter Notes See the end of the chapter for notes It’s an especially warm day for South Park, the summer fighting its inevitable departure as the month of September opens the doors for autumn. In front of the doors to South Park Elementary are several pairs of parents. All of them now absent of their children, with the exception of one. “Don’ leave!” Eric Cartman wails, as he clutches desperately at his mother’s clothes. “Oh dear,” says Liane Cartman, looking around for assistance. “Now, now Eric, don’t you want to go to your first day of Preschool?” He continues to cry loudly in response, and it’s not long before a teacher comes out from the school building. With her help, his mother finally manages to pry her son’s hands from her clothes. Hold finally broken, Eric looks at his mother, pudgy hand reaching out, hoping she might change her mind. “Don’ leave...” “Bye-bye, Eric!” She waves instead, a bright smile on her face. “Have fun, sweetie!” And the teacher drags him away, pulling him into the building and shutting the doors behind her. Together, they enter the classroom, walking into a room full of kids where every gaze was trained fully on him. They were staring, but Eric was no stranger to being the center of attention. He knows he can work this to his advantage, can make things better for himself from the start. He is the master actor, and this room will be his stage. But then one from the audience speaks up. “What are you cryin’ for?” It’s an innocent enough question, yet it’s also putting the focus on something that never should have been focused on, putting words to something that should have been ignored. Eric wanted it to be ignored. Was going to make it so it was ignored. Who did this kid think he was anyway? He recognizes the kid only faintly, blurry recollections from when he would go shopping with his mom, or forced playdates he never really wanted any part in. Knows the character but not the name. A side-character who always thought he could be bigger than he was. Still, he knows enough And so, Eric Cartman blinks away his tears and tightens his small hands into fists. “Shut up you stupid Jew!” *** Stan thought that by coming to preschool he’d be getting away from the stupid fighting. The fat one is throwing his arms around in some semblance of a hissy fit, while the skinny kid is looking angrier by the moment. Stan looks around for their teacher only to see her trying to stop some kid from eating glue or something. It irks him, more than it probably should. Is there not one responsible adult in this stupid town? “I don’ get why you’re so mad, that’s what you are innit? A stupid Jew?” “ God Sharon, you’re such a bitch sometimes! You just don’t want me to have any fun!” “Stop callin’ me, Jew! My name is Kyle!” “Randy, would you quit it! Do you even hear yourself!?” It’s a scene he knows well, only this time he’s on even ground. They can’t ground him, can’t send him to his room. His gaze narrows. “Shut up, fatass. Kyle’s right.” *** Kenny watches them, only half-interested, from where he is. He’s drawing a flower using some crayons he found on the table. His family might have never been able to afford art supplies but he had found that abandoned chalk left on the sidewalk before. This was nicer. Especially since he didn’t have to worry about getting hit by any trucks like he did when he’d color on the sidewalk. A little blond boy wanders up to his table. He’s fiddling with his hands, as if he’s nervous or something. “Oh gee, they’re really goin’ at it, huh?” Kenny doesn’t respond, just gives a small little shrug. The boy looks at him as if waiting for him to reply, but when it becomes clear that he’s not going to, he wanders away. Probably to find some more interesting company. Kenny doesn’t mind. He adds some orange petals to his yellow flower. He gets so lost in his drawing that he doesn’t notice that the fighting has stopped, or that the argumentative boy had managed to find his way over to his table. “Can I draw too?” Through the fur on the hood of his parka, Kenny gives the boy a cursory side glance. His hat is green and his jacket is orange, and had the colors been swapped he would have looked like his flower. They aren’t though, and Kenny doesn’t really know how to answer that question, so he just focuses his gaze back down on his paper and shrugs. Still, the boy doesn’t leave. “I’m Kyle,” he attempts in an alternative approach. Kenny doesn’t really see why that matters, or why he says it like it’s such an important detail. He lightly shades the leaves in green. “There somethin’ wrong with im’?” Another voice answers, one that Kenny recognizes as the voice of the boy Kyle had been fighting with earlier. “Shut up, fatass.” Kyle snaps before he lowers his voice to speak to him again. “You’re quiet,” he points out as if he’s discovered something no one ever else has. Maybe it’s even true. And then from the corner of Kenny’s eye, he sees the kid plop down in the seat across from him without even a hint of hesitation. “What’s your name?” Finally looking up from his paper, Kenny inspects him. The first thing he notices is that his eyes are bright green, like the color he had been coloring the leaves on his flower. The second thing he notices is that within those green eyes is something that is abundantly curious, as if he can’t quite figure him out, at least not at the moment. Because there’s something else there too, something in the way he holds himself, and the way he sits across from small insignificant orange-parka- wearing boys as if God had crafted him with all the fearlessness and determination in the universe. For a moment, Kenny wonders if there’s a single thing in the world that this boy doesn’t know already. If there’s ever been a question that he hasn’t found an answer to. Kenny’s been looking for an answer to one question his entire life and he’s still no closer to finding it, and if this boy- Kyle, if he thinks he can figure him out, well it might be better to just disappoint him now. Still...while Kenny’s trying his best to understand why Kyle is trying so hard to talk to him, even to his five-year old brain- it’s already very clear that this boy before him is not one to give up easily, not once his mind is set on something. Maybe...he won’t be going away anytime soon. “...Kenny.” His voice comes out muffled from his parka, and Kenny doesn’t think he’d even be able to understand him, but then Kyle smiles. Smiles as if Kenny has just given him something special. It seems Kyle doesn’t have any trouble understanding him, at least not while he’s listening as intently as he is. “I’m Kyle,” he repeats from earlier, and Kenny’s not sure why he says it because he’d heard him the first time. Still, Kenny nods. “Okay.” And once again he smiles. *** Kyle doesn’t know why Kenny is so quiet. He doesn’t understand how someone could possibly not want to be heard, Kyle’s been fighting for people to listen to him his whole life after all. Maybe, Kenny just hasn’t figured that part of life out yet. That was fine, Kyle could teach him. He’d have time for that though. For now, he just grabs a piece of paper and starts to thoughtlessly draw a picture of a sunrise. Stan, the boy who had sided with him and then followed him over, takes a seat next to him and starts to draw something of his own. Then, after muttering something under his breath, the fatass grabs a piece of paper and situates himself in the seat across from him. It’s a rough start, but in a week they might even consider themselves friends. Chapter End Notes Side note: I’m intending for this fic to go up until everyone’s in their late 20s, early 30s, so there are a few more chapters with them as kids/character introductions and then things should really start picking up! :) The List By the time Stan is six years old, he’s pretty sure he’s got his life figured out. He has watched a whole lot of TV shows, and using everything he learned he made a pretty comprehensive list. 1. Find a wife 2. Get a big house 3. Get a dog 4. Have three kids It’s about as foolproof as he could get it, and he keeps it in his bedside drawer so he can take it out and look at it every night before he goes to bed. Even after he’s long memorized its words, he uses it as a reminder. *** By the time Stan is seven years old, he adds a number five to the list. 1. Find a wife 2. Get a big house 3. Get a dog (maybe 5) 4. Have three kids 5. Be a good dad He had been leaving number five open for a career choice because he knows that those are important to adults, but it took him a year to finally figure out what he really wanted to be. What does making money matter anyway if your family doesn’t even like you- No, that’s mean. When he tells the guys his new aspiration they all laugh at him, so he makes sure to tell everyone that what he wants to be when he gets older is much cooler. Something like a fireman, or a football player. And sure, they both seem pretty cool, but geologist sounds pretty cool too until the man himself sets the kitchen on fire in the middle of the night. *** It’s only when Stan is eight that number one becomes a little more clear. He’s walking home from school when he hears what sounds like a crying toddler, and he turns with a roll of his eyes only for his world to come to a crashing halt. It’s a scene right out of the TV shows, a moment so utterly pure and beautiful that Stan gets a weird feeling in his gut witnessing it. The setup is simple: a girl from his class is crouched down and talking to this little girl who has tears running down her face. The older girl smooths down her hair and wipes away her tears while she gently talks to her, and something she said must have been funny because suddenly the little girl is giggling. The older girl smiles at her, and after her laughter comes to a stop the little girl matches her smile as if nothing was ever wrong. Then she ruffles the little girl’s hair and takes a moment to look after her as she runs off to play on the swingset with the other kids. Then she turns and Stan is suddenly staring at the face of Wendy Testaburger. Sure, he’s known the girl since preschool, and sure he’s never paid much attention to her, but then again maybe he’d never really been looking before. Because the girl standing in front of him might just be the most perfect girl he’s ever seen. She seems a little startled to notice him standing there, but then she easily offers a smile and a wave, and Stan feels whatever has been spinning around in his stomach increase at the sight. He throws up his lunch all over the pavement. For a moment he’s horrified, but when he looks up she’s trying to hide her laughter from behind her hand, but he can still see the curve of a smile through the holes of her fingers. He’s so overwhelmed that he can’t even respond when she offers another wave, and a quick “Bye, Stan!” from over her shoulder. All he can do is watch the proud set of her shoulders, and the perfect way her hair falls down her back until she turns a corner and vanishes from his sight as if she’d only been a dream. When he gets home he pulls out his list, crossing out number one and replacing it with marry Wendy Testaburger The Timekeeper There are 3,600 seconds in an hour. 86,400 in a day. 31.536 million in a year. Tweek likes to count them. Late at night, when the darkness threatens to eat him and he can’t sleep, there is a little book that Tweek scribes his numbers in. A bright red tattered thing that sits at his desk, next to his dim little lamp that isn’t bright enough to be seen from beneath his bedroom door. It’s a comforting thing, almost as if he’s figuring out the world, piece by piece, number by number. Numbers don’t lie. He can measure his life through facts and percentages, and then face the world the next day feeling just a bit more stable. He knows that he’s approximately 261.7 million seconds old. He’s figured that out. He also knows that there are 6.146 billion people in the world, and 1 out of every 100 of them is statistically a psychopath. Tweek also knows that there’s about a 50% chance that he’s mentally insane. He tries not to think about that one. *** There is a place in his backyard that Craig doesn’t tell anyone about. Craig likes to go there. Late at night, when it’s dark enough outside for the stars to shine along in the empty blanket of the sky. It’s nothing special, just a simple tree with some scuffed off bark and broken branches; an entirely insignificant construct that had whispered promises of being able to get away from his friends and his parents in a way that not even his bedroom door could allow. It’s the one place that he knows no one will be able to find him, the one place that he can be safe from the weird kids in his class, and his family being annoying, and just...the world in general. He knows that if he focuses his gaze on the stars he can pretend that this is all there is. It’s a peaceful feeling. He also knows that as he sits there with the endless starry sky surrounding him and the leaves of the trees blocking out the ground he can imagine that he has become lost within the atmosphere. Craig also knows that it’s too easy to pretend that this is all that will ever matter, and he really is the only one in the universe. He tries to tell himself he’s not lonely. *** They’re sitting in Craig’s house. It’s been about 604,800 seconds, also known as one single week since the rather unconventional start to their friendship. Tweek hasn’t been sleeping again. He’s jittery as hell from all the caffeine, and he’s pretty sure his heart rate has increased by about ten percent and it hasn’t gone down to normal for the past four days and he’s pretty sure he could have a heart attack from long-term heart palpitations. Craig knows all this because he’s been listening to Tweek talk about it ever since he walked through the door. It’s cute in a psychotic sort of way, though Craig wouldn’t exactly call some of his own mannerisms normal either. Case and point, while Craig listens to him talk, he finds himself weirdly distracted by the way Tweek’s small hands twitch restlessly around the controller he’s holding. He doesn’t really know why he does it, but one moment he’s watching Tweek’s hands, and the next he’s pausing the game they were supposed to be playing, standing and holding out one of his own towards him. Rather appropriately, Tweek looks at it in half-startled confusion. “What the hell are you doing?” Rather inappropriately, Craig rolls his eyes. “Just come on before I change my mind,” he tells him. “I want to show you something.” “Agh! How do I know you’re not some sort of psychopath who’s been waiting for the chance to murder me!?“ He panics, endlessly skeptical and wary. Craig just stares at him and