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blame-canada · 6 years

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I Think - Crenny

Kenny is just starting to tiptoe into the realm of boyfriend terminology with Craig when he gives him a gift he could never repay him for. The way to Kenny's heart is his family, after all, and with the way he's gotten to see all their smiles so brightly this Christmas Eve, he's about ready to pop the question. He thinks, though, he thinks.

Hello everyone! I was given the opportunity to post the Secret Santa gift fic that I wrote for @kotaii-san! It’s some Christmas Eve fluff, just in time for Christmas Eve. It’s a bit long to be posting on Tumblr, but I guess that’s what cuts are for, haha. I hope you enjoy. :) Read it on AO3 here!

“I don’t mean to be a bratty teenager, but this sucks.”

The words hurt Kenny more than he wants to let on. At thirteen, Karen has had her fair share of pubescent girl meltdowns, and Kenny’s cleaned up the aftermath more times than he can count. In Kevin’s defense, he’s helped too, but the older he’s gotten, the more detached he’s become. His mother tries, sometimes, but more often than not she gets so overwhelmed so quickly that before Karen’s even done screaming, she’s reaching for the nearest illicit drug. It’s frustrating, but it’s life, he supposes, and Kenny sometimes wonders if in a different world he could have been dealt a better hand. It’s not worth the trouble to dwell on it now though, because the three of them are busy sitting huddled in the center of the living room, touching shoulders for warmth because the heat is at a bare minimum, and finding patterns in the stains on the carpet with their mouths shut and their fingers curled around small hands of cards.

“It’s not your fault,” she adds on, because apparently he hadn’t hid his disappointment well enough to keep it a secret and she reads him like a book anyway. “You do your best. It just kinda sucks.”

Kevin shivers while he nods, and the guilt in the pit of Kenny’s stomach weighs him to the floor so that he sinks further into the circle they’ve made, nearly touches noses with the discard pile. Sometimes in December he dreams of Stan’s house, or even Cartman’s, where it’s warm and there are soft lights and candles everywhere and pine needles wrapped around the banisters and fallen on the tree skirt that adorns the very bottom of their Christmas trees.

The McCormicks have never had a Christmas tree. He isn’t sure if it’s because his parents never thought it was important, couldn’t afford it, or both. He’d been planning on surprising them all with one this year with a meager savings he’d accumulated from the jobs he’s been working to help pay the bills, but it had to go to an emergency window fix, the glass punched out in a fit of rage. Kevin’s hand is still scabbed over and bruised on the knuckles.

“Do you think mom will be home in time? For midnight? Uno,” Karen asks as she drops a card onto the pile, because for some reason they still care that their family is together while the calendar turns to the twenty-fifth. Their father walked out ages ago, which was probably for the best. Now their mother works late into the night and early in the morning, and they don’t see her very much anymore. Kenny understands, but they all miss her, regardless of how horrible she can still be. It’s not a perfect place, and maybe when they move out they’ll each have their own revelations about just how toxic and abusive the household they came from was, but for now it’s all they’ve got.

“Dunno, Kare,” Kevin mutters, and Kenny puts his cards facedown on the ground to pat the top of her head instead. She protests with a whine and ducks away, but he still messes up the top layer of her thin hair. When she straightens up, she’s smiling, and Kenny smiles too.

“Love ya, kiddo,” Kenny says, because they don’t say ‘Merry Christmas,’ because it doesn’t really mean anything. They never were taught the story of Santa Claus. There isn’t much merry about their seance for warmth in a cold, dark house.

“Love you too, Kenny,” she replies, her voice small and fragile, and she adds, “love you too, Kevin.” Kevin grunts.

They finish their game and fall back into silence, and Kenny reaches for his phone, practically a burner several years out of circulation. He has a new text message, and he feels a flutter in his chest, because the name of the sender is a short string of emojis and there’s only one person in his contacts without a regular name.

His phone buzzes in his hand as another text comes in, from the same tiny spaceship between two stars.

You home

Answer if youre up for a good time :P

Kenny licks his lips, glances up at his siblings while he contemplates the offer. They’re each using one earbud to listen to music. The screen from the old iPod they still use is lighting up their faces, because night is setting in and the last drops of sunlight are fading from their profiles so that they turn to silhouettes. Ordinarily he would say yes, of course, in a heartbeat, because his spaceship crush is a deadly combination of addicting and rare. Tonight he hesitates though, because it is Christmas Eve, and as he realizes this, he thinks to ask him why he’s looking for a quick visit today of all days.

tf u doin xmas eve that u wanna fuck around instead @_@?

The response is almost immediate. His spaceship is always lightning-fast, the same way it traverses the galaxies like ponds and hops stars like lily pads.

Nothing important

Before Kenny can reply, he sends another.

Thats not true. Im doing important stuff. Which is why I need to know if you are part of the important stuff.

Kenny sighs. Though it’s tempting, and he feels like maybe it’s selfish, his family needs him more. Maybe they’re fine, he doesn’t know. It just doesn’t feel right.

i gotta spedn it w the fam dude. xmas sux but u kno. its family

*spend

There is a long pause in which Kenny does nothing but stare at his phone. There isn’t much to do on it like the newer models, so it feels like more of a brick than anything else. He switches between watching the clock tick by and watching his brother and sister share music together. It’s approaching eleven, and he isn’t sure his mother will make it home in time after all. The pile of cards they’ve abandoned sits neatly at their feet. The brick vibrates.

Well. Dont go anywhere.

Kenny’s curiosity is piqued, but he’s not sure if it’s too forward to ask what he’s talking about. His spaceship likes to keep secrets sometimes, within its indestructible metal walls. That’s not quite true, Kenny corrects, because he knows how to destruct it, and it’s one of his favorite things to do. The faint high of excitement and nerves makes his stomach flip, and he tucks his phone away in his pocket, reaching out to hold Kev and Karen’s hands again per tradition.

Karen drops her head on Kenny’s shoulder and starts to doze off then, and he starts blinking away sleepiness himself as the ambient noise of his house lulls him to sleep. He doesn’t want to fall asleep though, so he keeps snapping back up to attention, jolting his head up and blinking his eyes rapidly awake. Kevin seems to be doing the same thing, and eventually, Karen starts gently snoring against him. He adjusts his arm so she can rest her head on his lap and in her sleepy stupor she obeys- something she hasn’t done since she was nine years old. He pets her head with his now free hand and tries not to think about how much she deserves better.

A knock on the front door startles all three of them so that they sit up straight, and Karen gasps as she returns to the waking world. “Mom?” Kevin asks, and Kenny shakes his head.

“Nah, she don’t knock. Lemme check by the window.” Kenny stands, walks across the room carefully to avoid the squeakiest floorboards, and peeks out the window to check out the scene.

He’s met with a view of a mass of dark green.

He is even more confused than before. He looks back at his family and nods his head roughly to the left, silently telling them to hide behind the hallway, and they obey quickly. Kenny takes the metal bat he keeps by the door in his hands, shifting it in his grip carefully and weighing its potential fatality, and in a streamlined motion he’s practiced before, he yanks the door open and pulls his bat up behind his head, ready to swing.

“What the-” a familiar voice rasps, and its owner leans backwards, his eyes wide with surprise. “Kenny what the fuck,” he exclaims, and it takes Kenny a moment to take in what he’s seeing.

Craig, his spaceship between two stars, is standing on his doorstep, and in his arms is a big pine tree as tall as he is. Kenny drops his bat down against the wall, and takes a deep breath in through his nose. “You answer first. What’s goin’ on?”

Craig blinks, then shakes the tree a bit to his right. “I said important stuff.” He shrugs, a motion made awkward by his bulky cargo, and Kenny points at it.

“What is that?” he asks, not wanting to get ahead of himself, but he thinks he knows. He has a pretty good idea that he knows.

“The fuck does it look like?” Craig shivers and Kenny realizes he’s left him standing outside inappropriately, and he jumps to the side so Craig has room to enter his humble abode- emphasis on humble. “I got you a tree,” he says as he lugs it in, and with a small grunt of effort, he leans it against the wall beside the door.

Kenny is silent for a moment. “You sure fuckin’ did,” he replies, weakly, because he’s not really sure what else to say. “Where the fuck d’you find a tree on Christmas Eve?”

“Farms sell them till the last minute. I knew you didn’t have one this year. I got a stand and shit too, because, you know.” It’s unspoken that Craig most likely knows that it isn’t just a this-year thing that they don’t have a Christmas tree.

He can’t really help himself; Kenny wastes no time in planting a sloppy kiss on Craig’s lips, not caring that maybe their relationship status isn’t the most defined or that his sister might see. He doesn’t care at all about anyone except the angel gone rigid in front of him who then wraps his arms around his back like he’s hugging him for dear life, like he always does. He feels tears prick at his eyes and tries to blink them away, but he’s not entirely successful. He wants Craig to know how much he loves this moment so he doesn’t try too hard.

Kenny doesn’t say anything at first because there’s not much that he can say to make it better. The silence between them is their usual comfortable normal, the adoration in Kenny’s heart beating so rapidly he’s sure Craig can feel it against his chest. “Thank you,” he finally decides on, whispering it, and Craig hums, the vibration of his Adam’s apple tickling Kenny’s cheek. “Is this real?” he breathes against his collarbone.

“I think so?” Craig replies, but the way it sounds genuinely like a question makes Kenny laugh.

“Craig, I don’t,” he begins, but he truly doesn’t know what to say, and so he says, “I don’t know what to say.”

“Then don’t say anything,” Craig murmurs, and he kisses the shell of his ear, and suddenly Kenny is floating miles above his own body. His soul dances in his chest like a ballerina, jumping and spinning in joyous circles that make him laugh. He must look crazy, doing that, laughing for no outward reason, but he doesn’t care.

“Kenny..?” a timid voice calls, and he remembers he banished the other two-thirds of his family behind the corner of his house for their protection. He leaves Craig’s arms as he turns around and Karen is peeking around the corner, her tiny hands gripping the wall and hair spilling straight down towards the floor.

“You can come out,” he says softly, his smile warm and glowing, “it’s just Craig.”

He can see the sigh of relief in her shoulders before she hops out from the hallway. She catches sight of the tree and gasps. A big smile is slowly growing on her face until it becomes too strong to hide behind her lips and her teeth poke out with glee. Kevin saunters out behind her, but rests his back against the wall, crossing his arms and keeping watchful distance.

Before she can crash into them, Karen screeches to a halt in front of him and Craig. She looks back and forth between the two of them, her eyes crinkled slightly closed from the pure intensity of the blissful grin on her face. “Um,” she begins, suddenly growing shy and clasping her hands in front of her sheepishly, “is that for us?” She looks over at the tree then back at Craig, waiting patiently.

Kenny looks to Craig too, whose expression is essentially unreadable at first but melts into a gentle smile, the kind that makes Kenny melt too. “I had an extra, so.” Karen giggles and Kenny sees Kevin chuckle a bit too before he kicks away from the wall to join the rest of them. “We gonna put this shit in the window or what?”

The rest of their evening is punctuated by happy chattering and giggling while they put together the small string of lights and miscellaneous baubles that Craig has likely stolen off his own Christmas tree for them, and Kenny wishes he could have recorded it. He wishes he could have committed every single second to memory, to savor the glow and genuine joy that pulsed from each of their chests so that every moment felt sweet, soft, and safe. He can, however, memorize the little flashes of things: the way Craig’s eyes get so dark they look black when the room is lit only by Christmas tree lights. The way Kevin smiles when he’s truly, really, happy, with one side of his mouth higher than the other and his tongue stuck between his canines in a smile. How Karen looks at him when no one else is looking, with so much innocent hope in the rosiness of her cheeks that he’s forgotten his worries entirely.

The way his mother looks shocked, confused, then overjoyed when she walks through the door at twelve fifty-three in the morning, officially Christmas Day.

They hold their breath as she steps quietly across the room and looks up at Craig, who struggles to keep eye contact and has to look away after only a few seconds. “Um,” he starts, but she pulls him down into a tight hug, and she starts to cry.

“Thank you,” she says, “oh, thank you for doin’ this for my babies. Thank you so much, Craig. Yer a good kid, you know. Your momma must be proud.” Craig’s cheeks are flushed with embarrassment after that, and Kenny can’t help but giggle at him, his heart in the clouds. “Well come on in now, kids. It’s Christmas, come on!” she insists quietly, her arms opened wide on either side of her, and Kevin, Karen and Kenny pile into them with Craig squished between them all.

She sighs, but it’s happy, and she holds them for a moment longer than usual. “Look, look,” she murmurs, twisting each of her children around by their shoulders- Craig too. “Look at all them pretty lights. You ever seen somethin’ so beautiful in this room?”

Kenny looks up, studies the way the white lights glow against the window and the wall, and he thinks to himself that he has. He’s seen four things so beautiful in this room in fact, and he sees them all around him, and it’s the most beautiful this room’s ever felt for as long as he can remember. Craig’s shoulder is bony against his own, and, remembering his proximity, he twists his hand around his forearm to search for his fingers. They find his and wrap together, warm and clammy, and Kenny breathes out deeply. For a moment, as his lungs empty, so do his troubles.

“Craig,” Kenny mumbles, his eyes struggling to stay open, the streetlight outside the only thing telling him that Craig’s eyes are open too across from him on his mattress.

“Hmm?” he hums, the way he does where his lips buzz and resonate with the vibrations of his heart. Their hands are clasped between them, meeting in the middle between their pillows and bathing in the white light that paints crescents in Craig’s dramatic knuckles.

“I think I love you,” he whispers, letting the smile in his heart overtake his lips, and Craig’s eyes widen before they return to half-lidded. Kenny watches his lips stretch into the widest closed grin he’s ever seen on Craig’s face. He looks so silly, like a caricature of a smitten cartoon.

“Oh yeah?” he questions, and Kenny laughs a bit.

“Yeah,” he says, “I think so.”

“Well,” Craig murmurs, in the deep, raspy voice that he adores that precedes his sleep and preludes his mornings, “I think I love you too.”

He squeezes his fingers in time with his racing pulse and closes his eyes, resting his forehead against the soft, flat back of Craig’s hand. “Thank you,” he whispers, and Craig hums again, and he falls asleep dreaming of the day he isn’t afraid to leave out ‘I think.’

Not yet, but maybe next year.

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