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Stan was completely and utterly screwed, and it was all Jesus’s fault.
Well, not technically his fault, but still. Who else was Stan supposed to blame for the situation he’s currently in, stuck in the kitchen pantry with Kyle, his super best friend in the entire world, with the devilish plant his mother liked to string about the house above them - the plant being mistletoe. But let’s focus on how Stan got here first before he decides to make his way down to the local church with his dads matches, a bottle of vodka, and his mother’s holiday cloth napkins and show the Lord how much he appreciates this.
Stanley Marsh, a 10 year old living in South Park, was like most of the population of this tiny weird mountain town - a Roman Catholic. Being catholic, his parents always made a big deal of seeing family over the two weeks of winter break and spending a nice time worshiping God and the Bible and whatever else Roman Catholics are supposed to do.
Stan honestly didn’t care. He only goes to church because his parents make him, and the only reason he participates in his mothers holiday family festivities as much as he does is for the presents - Kyle taught him that if he holds out for the long run, he can get better toys by becoming the favorite.
Anyways, Jesus Bible blah blah blah. What most people fail to acknowledge is that Christmas, the very day of the birth of Christ, has become a capitalistic excuse of a holiday. And Stan’s mother, ever the devout follower of the Lord, fed straight into it. Every year, Sharon Marsh would go all-out in decorating the house. Light everywhere. Mini nativity scenes in every corner of the house. Tinsel and ornaments and snowmen galore. She even buys a live wreath and tree yearly, specifically picked up and decorated elsewhere, and gets it dropped off at the house to set wherever she desires. What the woman is most proud of, however, is her mistletoe.
When he first was shipped off to the hell house he lives in now - a weed farm called Tredgery Farms - his mother demanded a small patch of land to grow regular plants. This was something she wasn’t able to do at the old house, but she’d been windowsill growing mistletoe since she could walk so a sprig or two would go up around their old house. Now that his mother’s plants had room, they seemed to shoot up quicker than Stan and Shelly would from the dinner table when their extended family started discussing politics.
And since Sharon now had so much mistletoe, paired with her new love for all-out Christmas decor, you couldn’t walk five feet without looking up and finding the godforsaken plant.
Now, this typically wouldn’t be a problem because winter break meant that everyone in his friend group got shipped out to their extended families houses for the holiday - even Kenny, who’s uncle always sends him back with food that he has to hide from his father at Stan and Kyle’s houses - because of the Christmas season. Stan’s mother would always take down the decorations the day after too, so he never had to worry much about accidentally getting himself into a situation where he’d have to kiss one of his friends.
Unfortunately for Stan, Kyle always is around for Christmas because his family doesn’t celebrate it. Sure, sometimes Hanukkah can bleed into the 25th, but most of the time Kyle spends Christmas at his house. Stan’s mother started the tradition of inviting him over when they were young - too young for the two boys to remember a time without it. Sharon had thought of it as a way to let Kyle have some semblance of ‘normal’ so the other kids wouldn’t make fun of him for Santa not visiting or something like that. She’d leave a small gift from Santa - who would leave a typed note explaining that he wasn’t tied directly to Christianity or something saying being Jewish is cool - and a gift from the family under the tree, and they’d all unwrap gifts together.
Kyle always got there the afternoon of the 24th, stayed overnight, and stayed the entirety of the 25th, only leaving midday of the 26th to go back home.
Now, back to the problem at hand. The first night Kyle is staying over.
Stan had been so careful. He’d make sure to enter every room before Kyle, checking the walls for the green and red plant as he went. There had been no incident within the house, and they were always safe in his room because he fought tooth and nail to keep that woman out, and he hadn’t lost yet. So of course it would happen the moment he let his guard down, rifling through the chip box in the back of the dark pantry. Kyle was doing almost the same, shifting through a special box of kosher snacks they kept specifically for him. Stan never would have expected to be attacked while he was at his most vulnerable - while around food - but he had finally found the bag of Cool Ranch Doritos he had been looking for when Kyle suddenly spoke.
“Hey, Stan?” Kyle says, hitting Stan’s arm to get him to look at him. Stan looks, opening his mouth to protest the treatment when Kyle points up and finishes his idea. “What’s that?”
“Mistletoe, wh- OH DAMNIT!” Stan says, at first surprised by the question, but then realizing that this is what he was trying to avoid. The useless plant. Hanging from the sealing of the walk-in pantry is, in fact, a sprig of phoradendron serotinum. Just his luck.
Stan looks over at Kyle, expecting to see the same look of utter terror on his face, but to Stan’s confusion, Kyle has a look of childlike wonder on his face, like how he looked when Stan first brought Guitar Hero over - one of Stan’s favorite memories simply because Kyle gave him the biggest hug and swore that he “never wanted to stop being your friend, Stan!” because “your so kind and thoughtful and awesome and just perfect!”, which gave him funny little tingles to his stomach.
“Why do you have a useless plant up in your pantry?” Is what Kyle next asked, followed by “And why are you acting like we’re in Friday the 13th? I know these plants are poisonous, but poisonous means you have to eat them to get sick, Stan, not be in the same room as them. Your confusing poisons with toxic fumes again.”
“I know the difference between poison and toxic fumes, Kyle! And I thought you said the mix-up was an honest mistake. I didn’t know that not knowing the difference between the two would cost Kenny a toe!” Stan exclaims “And you really don’t know why the mistletoe is a up? How holiday seasonally repressed is your family?”
The look Kyle shoots him is very unamused.
“Okay, okay, not funny, I get it,” Stan says, letting out a small breath. The two are now facing each other full-body, and having all of Kyle’s focus specifically on his has been starting to make Stan’s stomach act up. “But seriously, even Kenny’s family snags a sprig or two off my mom to put up around the house. You’ve never heard of the tradition?”
“Nope.” Kyle says, popping the p at the end. Stan stares at him, completely shocked. What would a Christmas - Haunakkah for Kyle, or just holiday season in general - be like without having to watch your back unless a sticky relative, or worse, your sister, finds you under one of these death plants and forces you to plant a wet one on their cheek - or, in the cases of very deranged old women, their lips. Stan couldn’t imagine an existence without the godforsaken tradition.
“Well… since you don’t know, I should explain it to you.” Stan says, defeated. He really, really, really doesn’t want to tell Kyle about it, but if he doesn’t… Stan shudders at the thought of the consequences of his actions.
“Mistletoe is a piece of holiday decor that you can find in legit any home at this time of year, dude. But my mom grows them fresh because this is such a big thing for her. So! You put the plant out and if you and someone else walk under it together, you have to…” Stan cringes at the thought, forcing the words out of his mouth. “…kiss.”
Kyle cringes at that last word, and Stan continues with a tone of understanding. “I get it, dude. It’s, like, really gross. But if you don’t then you get super bad luck and no Christmas cookies for like a week.” At least, the first part Stan’s mom told him. She always said “Stan, if you don’t give someone a kiss under the mistletoe during the season of love, then Jesus will think you don’t love him, and that’s not good.” Stan always thought this meant that Jesus would curse him into the new year, seeing as the Jesus who walks around South Park likes to do that anyways.
The second part of that statement was something he experienced personally. He and Shelly had gotten caught under the plant after returning from their mom's parents house. Their guards had been lowered, and the car ride spent entirely too long in each other’s space had annoyed them enough, so when their mom pointed out the mistletoe they just glared at each other and stalked to their respective rooms against the protest of their mother.
Never again, Stan had sworn to himself when a week later he was crunching on a misshapen candy cane with green frosting - the last non-broken cookie in the box. Never again will a stupid, meaningless kiss on the cheek keep me away from these.
Kyle was looking at him with a look of embarrassment. “Do we really have to? Like, can we just not?”
With that statement, Stan’s face fell. I mean, yeah, kissing someone is gross and yucky and gross, but it’s Kyle, and Kyle is his super best friend so it shouldn’t be that bad. Besides, he was starting to get… fluttery in the gut, and when that happened nothing bad was ever happening. He was usually happy. Now, there’s only rocks sinking to the bottom of his stomach.
“Oh, Stan,” Kyle says, caching Stan’s mood like he always does. “I’m sorry. I just don’t get this. Ma never puts up stuff like this, and I’ve never been under a plant that you have to… kiss to get out of. Hey, come here.”
And with that, Kyle grabs Stan’s cheeks with both hands, gently cupping them like his mother does to him when she goes to kiss him on the forehead. And that’s what Stan thinks Kyle is gonna do - kiss him on the forehead and get out of this mess. Except, when Kyle leans in, he leans at an angle. Stan finally notices when their noses brush and his eyes widen to the max when Kyle's lips finally make contact.
Contact with what?
Stan’s lips.
It’s not Stan’s first kiss - no, that was the one with Wendy Testaburger, where he threw up all over here - and it isn’t Kyle’s. He’s saying might because he’s, Kyle kissed Bebe on a dare, but he swerved pretty hard to get out of there ASAP and when Stan had found him afterward Kyle had been screaming various differentiations of “IT DIDN’T COUNT!” And then there was Rebecca, but Stan and Kyle don’t really talk about her anymore, seeing as she is an actual asshole that made Kyle cry. Stan’s going to punch her the next time they meet. Anyways, neither of them could be called ‘inexperienced’ for being elementary schoolers, yet this was new. This was new because it was them, Stan and Kyle, best friends, both boys, kissing in the equivalent of a closet like they’d never looked at a girl before.
Kenny would be laughing his ass off of he could see them now.
Stan finally gets the sense to do something with his eyes other than look at Kyle’s hair like it was the thing kissing him. He looks downwards, seeing Kyle’s face. His nose is scrunched and turned so it just touches Stan’s, not interrupting the kiss. His eyes are scrunched close, and Stan thinks looking down was the wrong idea because Kyle looks cute and Stan doesn’t think it’s normal for someone to be thinking about their super best friend like that.
After a few seconds, too long and too short in Stan’s divided opinion, Kyle leans away, retracting his hands from Stan’s face and setting them on his thighs. Kyles blushing, and Stan is stunned speechless because Kyle looks so cute, shy and red and embarrassed with a little bit more blood rushing to his lips because of the press of the kiss.
Stan opens his mouth, but nothing comes out.
“Ahem, so…” Kyle starts, clearly flustered by the tone of his voice and the look on his face. Stan can’t stop staring at the goddam face . “Was that… good enough?” And holy shit, Stan can’t with how adorable this boy is being. He goes to say something, anything, but then he feels it. His stomach went from just fluttery to down right shaking, quaking, and Stan knows what’s going to happen next.
Stan slaps a hand over his mouth, stands up as quickly as possible, and runs to the bathroom down the hall, not even stopping to close the door before throwing his guts back up into the toilet.
At some point, Kyle comes over carrying their snacks, adorable, and waits for Stan to finish, handing him a glass of water when he’s done. And Stan is scared, so scared, that Kyle will want to talk about how this only happens with Wendy Testaburger, a girl he is undeniably in love with, but Kyle doesn’t push. He never does, and that’s why Stan likes - loves? - him so much. Stan goes to open his mouth, but Kyle interrupts him.
“We don’t need to talk about it.” Is all he says, and all Stan wanted to hear. Stan flushes the toilet, rinses his mouth because “throwing up and brushing your teeth afterwards is bad, Stan!” and follows Kyle back up to his room, where they lay together on his bed eating chips like nothing happened. This will stay between them, a secret they get to keep.
Cartman can never find out.
And if those two are less careful at night during the holiday season? If in their teens, they walk around the house, kissing way longer - and with more tongue - then they did the first time they were caught under the mistletoe? If they start dating under mistletoe, share their first bed under mistletoe, get married under mistletoe? Then, that’s just between them and the plant.
And Shelly, who accidentally witnessed the entire scene from the stairs while trying to get a glass of water. She had so wanted to approach the two, but then they were kissing, and Stan was running to the bathroom, and she had to get out of there before she was found. As she closed the door to her bedroom just as the two started up the stairs, she decided to let it be. So she made no comment when the next morning the two came downstairs, attached at the hip and practically hand in hand. Because that’s just Stan and Kyle, Kyle and Stan.