Chapter Text
Kenny has never bought into the conspiratorial ramblings of Craig's boyfriend. Yet, as the remaining two people in the Harbucks scream bloody murder around him and at him, he can't help but think that this must be the fault of those gnomes that Tweek blamed for everything. Tweek, himself, spasms and screeches behind the counter more so as a reaction to the other person yelling than anything else. Kenny's whole attention locks in on the other patron, however. The words he spits at Kenny don't register as much as the enraged flush across his cheeks and the expressive movements of his hands. In fact, Kenny steps back before he has to literally catch this stranger's hand on its way to his face. The blond tunes back in to attempt to defuse the situation while subtly adjusting his pants to ease his discomfort.
"-go of my hand you creep! Are you going to assault me, too now that you've ruined my thesis? Huh?" the man demands and Kenny amiably drops his pale hand. The redheaded man rubs his wrist and glares daggers at Kenny with his hazel eyes. This certainly wasn't how Kenny had planned this late night/early morning excursion.
--
"If my ass has to sit in another plane chair in the next month I'm going to set something on fire. Probably myself."
Kenny rolls his eyes at the melodramatic complaints of Craig. Their guitarist may wear a poker face most of the day, but he certainly has no trouble voicing all his bitching in that nasally bass voice of his. Luckily for Kenny, Butters swoops in with encouraging words despite his own exhaustion.
"Aw, c'mon, Craig. All a' this plane business just means we finally made it. An' anyway, we're fixin' to be home soon anyway," Butters soothes. Craig glances over and pouts. Kenny swears that despite being the oldest in the band, Craig behaves more like a 13 year old than the man of 23 years he truly is. Craig's head whips forward under the force of a light slap, the pout on his face falling into mild shock.
"Yeah, you little shit. Especially since we all know the real reason you're grumpy," Red brings her hand back down to the strap of her carry-on and sends a shit-eating grin her cousin's way. Craig frowns and huffs in annoyance as Red singsongs, "Someone misses a certain twitchy barista."
This sends Kenny into a fit of sleep-deprived giggles. The four of them gather themselves to trudge over to the baggage claim and proceed to load their belongings into the back of a taxi van. They pile in and shove each other around until the cab pulls away from the curb with Butters already falling asleep on Kenny's shoulder and Red continuously poking Craig in the face to keep him from doing the same.
Kenny glances down at Butters' sleeping face. The scar running vertically across the boy's left eye used to hurt Kenny a great deal. Now he accepts that Butters has long since forgiven his childish stupidity and laughs along with him when he suggests it makes him look like a badass. Fluffy, straw-colored hair covers Butters' right eye, though normally it was brushed to cover that "badass" scar. Kenny smiles fondly, uses his right hand to gently ruffle those top-heavy locks, and turns to look out the window.
Ah, Denver, home sweet home. Sort of. The Denver skyline never fails to impress Kenny a bit, but that's to be expected after growing up in a podunk town like South Park. The sun has long since set and the skyscrapers glow like a million glow sticks at a rave without end. Even at this late hour people wander the sidewalks to do whatever people do at fuck o' clock in the morning. The cab navigates the streets of Denver until Kenny has to shake Butters' shoulder because they'd arrived at the band's penthouse apartment.
Thankfully Craig and Red pick up the slack in carrying their equipment since Butters seemed incapable of carrying more than the backpack Kenny slipped onto his shoulders. Kenny pays the cab fair and tip and jogs in through the door that Craig holds open with a straining foot. One of the perks of being a famous musician had to be that their buildings elevator always worked. They'd have probably slept in the lobby had the stairs been their only option to reach the tenth floor.
After the ceremonious kicking open of the door, the music equipment is carefully placed in its home and the remaining luggage is thrown somewhere near the wrap-around couch. Kenny makes sure Butters actually makes it to his bed, pulls up his covers since making contact with the mattress took away Butters' last shreds of consciousness. He then saunters out into the living area where Craig sprawls across the couch letting out a long-winded groan. Red stands in front of the fridge, filling a glass of water in her underwear. Kenny can only assume she ditched her outerwear while he was tucking Butters in, but he also knows better than to comment. His dick remembers the price paid when one flirts with Red in her home.
"Night, losers, gg on the tour," Red drones, padding off to her bedroom and shutting the door. Kenny looks down to Craig, who amazingly continues to groan. The man's hat has fallen off, likely when he fell onto the couch, and his black hair fans out around his head. He stares blankly at the ceiling, which Kenny figures has to be pretty damn boring. He nudges Craig with his knee but this only serves to increase the volume of the noise emanating from Craig's open mouth.
Kenny sighs, "Craig, as much as I love hearing you moan for me, it's kinda getting annoying." When Craig merely grunts in response, Kenny walks over and grabs his coat from the hook. "I'm gonna go get some coffee, man. I won't be sleeping tonight, anyway. I'm takin' my keys, make sure you get your ass to bed before I come back or I'll tell Tweek about your photo collection." As Kenny crosses the threshold he hears an intake of breath interrupt the groan and a whisper filled with panic and anger:
"You wouldn't dare."
Kenny smirks. He shuts the door.
--
Now Kenny finds himself as one of those people that wanders the streets of Denver at four thirty in the morning. He's only looking for a caffeinated beverage, though, not some other sort of fix. About a block and a half away from his apartment, he pushes the door open to Harbucks. They open at four, which seems ridiculous, but here Kenny stands, proof that some random bastard will want coffee at this hour. A quick scan of the café shows two other occupants. The first is familiar and Kenny cracks a gap-toothed grin at the blond that nurses what must be at least his second cup of coffee this shift. Tweek usually takes the morning shift, which partially motivated Kenny to come get coffee. Craig may miss Tweek because they're dating, but Kenny missed Tweek's entertainment.
"Tweek! Craig probably told you, but we're back in town," Kenny announces as he strolls up to the counter. Tweek predictably jerks at Kenny's loud voice and he nearly slams his coffee mug onto the granite countertop.
"K-kenny! Oh, yeah. Rgh, Craig sent me a t-text when you guys touched, hngh, touched down," Tweek's right eye twitches a bit, but overall this looks like it's going to be a good day for him, Kenny thinks. The blond orders a frappucino, which causes Tweek to scrunch his face up in obvious disapproval. Tweek's unabashed critique of people's drink choices always amused Kenny, and this morning is no different. He lets out a chortle which turns into a full on guffaw as Tweek regales him with the new nefarious deeds of the gnomes. Shortly after Craig and Tweek began dating, Kenny insisted to Tweek that he wanted any and all information Tweek had on the gnomes. Tweek didn't seem to mind that Kenny would smile and giggle at every update. It appears that this time, though, someone did mind.
"Excuse me, can you please pipe down?" a tired and clearly irritated voice chimes in when Tweek takes a deep breath and Kenny lets out a particularly loud snort.
Kenny turns to more closely observe the second occupant of Harbucks he noticed as he walked in earlier. His eyes widen and his grin falls. Over at one of the tables by the window sits a man with a mess of red curls atop his head. His eye bags are visible against pale skin from across the café and he appears to wear worn pajamas. Kenny stares at who has to be one of the hottest men he's ever seen in all his 22 years.
Tweek must have begun making Kenny's order, because the whir of machines sounds behind the blond and the ramblings about gnomes have stopped. Kenny recovers himself when the redhead huffs and turns back to his laptop, seemingly satisfied now that Kenny is struck silent. The redhead furiously types away at the laptop and Kenny notes a full mug of coffee next to him on the table, the steam long since dissipated. A finger taps Kenny's shoulder and Kenny whirls. Tweek flinches back, which Kenny feels bad about, but he simply reaches into his pocket for some loose bills to hand over. He tells Tweek to keep the change and grabs his frappucino.
Instead of leaving Harbucks and heading home like he should have, like what he told Craig he was going to do, Kenny takes a sip of his drink and decides to do what he does best. He follows his instinct. Kenny's legs carry him over to the redhead's table, almost convincing himself that the table fell between him and the door anyway. He comes to a stop half a foot from the table and stares down at the other man. He'd been bothered by Kenny's laughter, but seemed unperturbed when Kenny stood directly over him. Or, he simply hadn't noticed Kenny; he did seem pretty engrossed in whatever that document on his laptop was.
"Whatcha workin' on?" Kenny questioned. His last assumption proved correct when the redhead took a page from Tweek's book and bodily flinched in surprise. Unfortunately, the man, not having as much practice as Tweek did in crashing into things when twitching, could not prevent his hand from knocking his mug off the table…
And onto Kenny. The sharp sensation of liquid that was not as cool as it looked hitting his crotch caused Kenny to hiss and tilt forward violently. Another unfortunate factor came in the form of gravity as it overcame the lid on Kenny's frappucino and cold coffee cascaded onto the keyboard of the redhead's laptop. A spark flew and the screen went dark. For a moment, the café remained silent and still in utter shock at what just occurred. Then, all hell broke loose.
And that was where Kenny found himself now, with a smoking hot and flamingly furious redhead cussing him out about… a law thesis? All while Tweek must have been considering a million ways to abscond or whether or not he should call Craig, or the police. Kenny thinks that the police don't need to involve themselves in this, he's got this. He thinks. If he hadn’t gotten Tweek so keyed up with the gnome talk he wouldn't have to wonder. Damn gnomes, making Kenny insecure for no reason.
"So? What've you got to say for yourself?" the redhead interrogates.
Kenny snaps out of his gnome reverie and wonders, "Uhh, I wanted to get your number. Sorry I fucked up your laptop, you want me to get it fixed?"
The man buries his fingers in his ginger curls and scrubs, his eyes scrunched shut. His hands fly out and Kenny leans back, anticipating another swing, but the redhead gestures wildly in aggravation and embarrassment. Kenny notes he completely ignores Kenny wanting his phone number.
"Get it fixed? Get it fixed?! I need to turn in this thesis today, I don't have time to get it fixed if anyone can even recover the files from this thing," he yells. Well that fucking sucked, Kenny thinks. Then he thinks some more.
"Then lets hit up a geek store and see if they can hack your thesis out of there. I've got nowhere to be, and you probably don't got nothing better to do," Kenny offered. The redhead seems to struggle with continuing to rage and also getting his computer fixed quickly. He settles on the latter.
A grunt, "I… may know a place. And," a grumble, his hand reaches up to pinch the bridge of his nose, "now that I'm thinking about it, my thesis is on a google doc. I can access it from the cloud while we get my laptop fixed."
Kenny doesn’t think he should feel as giddy as he does at the reference to "we", yet he does so he'll have to consider that later. Still, the redhead seems to run out of steam, which may have mostly been sleep-deprivation. Kenny glances over his shoulder to see Tweek silently twitching and cleaning the coffee machines. Good, Kenny thinks, he wouldn't want it on his conscious if he left here with Tweek a mess. Not to mention Craig would inevitably find out, kill him, and then Kenny wouldn't be able to look at him for a few days while he mentally recovered.
Kenny turns back to the redhead, "Alright hot stuff, wipe off what you can and let's head out. You know what time this 'place' opens? We can throw some rice on that shit in the mean time."
The man flushes a bit at Kenny's nickname and shoves napkins all over the keyboard of the laptop. "It's Kyle. Not… It's Kyle," he corrects. "And it won't open for another three hours."
"My place is close by and I've got loads of rice. We can chill there," Kenny put forth the offer expecting rejection, especially since he mentioned chilling with a wiggle of his eyebrows. Instead, Kyle considers the offer with a pensive expression before sighing in resignation.
"Yeah. Okay. You're not going to kill me or anything are you?" he asks tiredly.
Kenny smirks and holds up a hand in salute, "I live with three other people, even if I wanted to murder your fine ass I'd never be able to do it without one of 'em waking up and bitching at me about the noise. Scouts honor, no killing, just chilling."
That manages to bring a small smile to Kyle's face. "Somehow I get the feeling you're not actually a scout," he jokes.
With that, Kenny waves goodbye to Tweek, who jerkily waves in return, and like the goddamn gentleman he is, holds the door open for Kyle and his coffee-logged laptop. The part of Kenny that is not a gentleman, however, gets to appreciate the redhead's gifted ass as Kyle walks in front of him. While it doesn't last long, Kenny must lead the way to his own apartment after all, it allows Kenny to make another decision. He may have started on the wrong foot, but this man, Kyle, would be his. He just has to hope the gnomes don't try any funny stuff along the way.