Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The Stotch couple is visiting their “ancestral home” in Hawaii when their son is born (they’re on vacation), and luckily, it’s a slow birth; there’s enough time for the mother to be brought to a hospital, that is.

Later, Linda Stotch will claim it had gone smoothly and painlessly, and like any decent woman, of course, she has done it all au naturel . No epidural, no unnecessary cuts, just gritted teeth and the will of God. Like, it’s true, but such a weird flex too. It kind of fits the Stotches. They’re a bit of an odd couple, and now, a whole triad of strangeness.

Baby Leopold Stotch is quite giggly. To his mother’s pleased happiness, he is a bundle of joy, always looking up at the adults cooing over him and, after a few months, giving them toothless little smiles of recognition in return, always reaching tiny hands towards his parents, eager to be held and cuddled and talked to, even if he doesn’t understand much. The baby seems to settle in well enough in their home in the little town of South Park too, when they go back, but then again, at a few months old, it’s harder for the little one to notice abstract changes like that. He does seem to like the fluffier, warmer clothes he’s made to wear though. Comfy.

By one year and a few months old, Leopold Stotch’s vocabulary consists of a colorful array of ma , da , yum and byeybyebye (always said three times, for some reason) and a few other syllables that Stephen Stotch shakes his head at, sighing, wondering why his boy has so much trouble articulating properly. He knows he should have addressed the baby-talk Linda sometimes still indulges in.

Slightly more worrying than that, Stephen thinks, is the way Leopold has yet to start walking. At eleven months old, his own mother says he’d already been running around, all but looking for trouble through the house.

A bit of tactical hand-holding, even when the boy’s small face scrunches up, tears beading in the baby's blue eyes, is all it takes, and see, little buddy? Isn’t that better? Now you can walk like the proper, little boy I know you are!

Linda films his first steps.

And yes, slowly, baby-babble turns to clearer syllables, then words, then sentences. It takes a bit too long for Stephen’s liking, but he’s glad their baby is developing as he should. Linda agrees that they should try to talk to their baby in a more refined way - they should set a good example for Leopold, after all!

Leopold Stotch. His mother calls him baby and sweetheart and little one and Leopold and his father slowly moves on from little buddy to little bud to Butters and, somehow, over the years, the nickname will stick.

Leopold “Butters” Stotch.

Names. Very silly things, but they matter, you know?

Luckily, Butters’ development is on track otherwise. By two, he starts attending preschool, and Stephen and Linda are well aware of the fact that, for the most part, the lousy preschool teachers don’t do much to help Butters’ education any, they just have the children playing and singing songs about numbers and colors and what have you.

And, so, at home, he and Linda make sure that their son will not grow up stupid. No, their boy is too precious, and he is perfect in his parents eyes. There’s just some maintenance that needs to be done.

Books with images are slowly swapped out for images and blocks of text. Butters seems excited to spend more time with his parents, too, and he tries his best to imitate the sounds they make as they read to him.

At four, Butters starts helping out with chores. He can’t really do much, but his parents indulge him. Linda finds it adorable and, sometimes, she even hums along with her son when they’re washing dishes together or dusting the furniture in the house. Her little boy is growing up so fast!

Stephen thinks cleaning and washing dishes are womanly chores, but when asked what he’d suggest they teach Butters to do instead, he sputters and looks away and that’s that. Linda is secretly happy. Her son will grow up to be a little gentleman, but he should know how to take care of a household too, is what she thinks, even if she doesn’t say that to Stephen in as many words. It's good discipline, honey , this is what convinces her husband.

Her husband, who has been acting strange lately anyway, coming home late and always talking about work, work, work, so Linda can’t really blame him for being a little testy either. Oh, but she does wish Stephen would spend more time with their little Leopold. He’s just busy. Still…

As much as Butters’ early childhood is all about learning about everything in sight and smiling as wide as he can and exploring as far as his little feet will carry him (all within the space of the fenced-in backyard of the Stotch family, of course), it isn’t about rules. Gentle guidance, yes, but not really rules . Mommy helps him a lot, especially when he doesn’t understand something, and Daddy always gives him stuff to see and do and learn.

Butters doesn’t even get it at first. It’s just Daddy being angry, yelling, and there’s a plate on the floor in the kitchen, except, there’s something wrong with it, because it’s all tri-an-gles (pointy, one, two, three points) instead of round.

Daddy’s yelling and Mommy’s saying something too, but not to Butters. She does look at him once though, and it’s strange, because she usually smiles when she does, but now her brows are all bunched together and her mouth is upside-down.

They were putting away the dried dishes.

“Butters, you careless little-”

“Stephen! Not in front of…”

“Linda, you stay out of this! You ”, Daddy is looking at him, really, really not-smiley, even if his teeth are showing and his eyes are scrunched and narrow and Butters doesn’t like how loud he’s yelling, “You knew you had to be careful with the dishes, Butters! Now look what you’ve done!”

He points at the plate on the floor and Butters looks at it too. After, he can’t look up at Daddy anymore; he isn’t sure why.

“I- Daddy?”, Butters asks, words all silly and wobbly, “I’m lookin’, Daddy, I-I am…!”

But Daddy only yells louder.

“Oh, good job, now the pieces are gonna clean themselves, are they!? You insolent child!”

“Stephen, that’s enough”, Mommy finally says, and when she walks in front of Butters, he does look up at her, seeing the back of her head. He has yellow hair, like hers.

“Linda, no”, Daddy says, a bit quieter too, but still angry, angry, angry. Butters doesn’t know why. It’s ‘cuz of the plate, isn’t it? ‘Cuz it’s wrong.

“He made a mistake, Stephen, you shouldn't be so hard on him”, Mommy says as Butters knocks his fingers together, looking at the triangle pieces.

“And what, we should allow him to keep making mistakes? No, Linda. It starts with dropping a plate, then his grades are dropping and then he drops life! No. No… We have to discipline him early, or else…”, Daddy says.

Butters bends down. Tiny fingers shake as he starts to pick up the pieces of the plate. Maybe it’s like his toy puzzles? Put it back together and Daddy will be happy again and he and Mommy will smile!

“Butters is a smart little boy. This is… It won’t lead to worse things, Stephen.”

“And if it does? Linda, being soft on him will not help our son. You have to trust that I know what’s best for him, darling.”

“Oh, I know you do, dear, I know you do, just- Butters? Sweetheart, what are you doing?”

It stings a little, but it’s done, even if the white plate has a few spots on it. Orange- Or no, pink? No, no, red. Like Strawberries! And Butters’ fingers sting a little, but the plate is round again!

Mommy and Daddy look down at him and the plate and they’re both silent. Butters smiles, wide and bright, until he realizes they keep not-smiling back.

“Butters…”, Mommy says, “Oh, Butters, why’d you do that? Your hands-”, and she bends down to take his hands in hers, her brown eyes a little shimmery. She picks him up and rinses his hands in the sink, which stings a bit more, but Butters tries to keep smiling, ‘cuz he fixed it, see? Oh. He should tell them! They must not have realized that Butters did it aaall by himself while Mommy and Daddy were still talking.

“I fixed it, Daddy!”, he says.

But Daddy’s face changes again. No longer showing teeth, but not happy either. He runs a hand down his face and lets out a flat sound - puffing out air.

“Butters, that is not fixed. You just put the… Oh, it doesn’t matter anymore.”

He looks at Butters as soon as Mommy has dried his hands, and they still hurt a little, but Butters finds that he can’t look at Daddy. It feels a bit scary. His lower lip wobbles.

“You, mister, are going to stay in your room until dinner for messin’ up that plate. No toys and no cartoons.”

Butters’ eyes widen, fixed onto the empty floor, because Mommy brings out the broom and ruins the plate again and sweeps the triangle pieces away.

“B-but I fixed it an’ I-I… I always play before dinner, Daddy…”, Butters says, looking at Mommy, because he doesn’t understand. But Daddy grabs him by the shoulders, enough that that hurts a little too, less than the fingers, but it’s scarier.

“No. You are grounded until dinner, am I clear? You can’t just break stuff in the house all willy-nilly, like that, there are consequences”, Daddy says in a hard tone. He lets go of Butters and looks at him, so Butters knows Daddy wants him to answer, because he does that too when they read sometimes and he asks Butters to sound out the letter-shapes.

“Okay, Daddy”, Butters says quietly.

But Daddy shakes his head.

“Okay, sir ”, he says just like he does when Butters doesn’t say the right name for the letter-shapes. He corrects Butters and so Butters nods again.

“Okay, s-sir…”

When Daddy lets go, Butters climbs up into his room and stands at the door, looking at the little toy chest next to the bed and at a few of the toys scattered around it. Can he pick them up just to put them back at least? Butters doesn’t know. He’s just a little confused.

Mommy comes up too, and she doesn’t say much, but she takes a few little sticky bits of paper from her apron and she wraps them around Butters’ fingers, and they’re not red anymore after. It’s not paper though; Butters repeats after Mommy when she calls them bandages .

She gathers the toys, kisses his forehead and leaves Butters’ room without another word.

So Butters waits until dinner, not doing much, just laying around, then looking out the window to watch the sun turn orange.

His fingers don’t hurt anymore and the plate is gone, but Butters is still confused and his shoulders hurt a little , but at least Daddy isn’t yelling anymore. Butters will just have to make sure he’s a good boy and that he doesn’t break any more plates, then he won’t be confused anymore, and he won’t be scared either.

It won’t happen again. He won’t be ground-ed again.

Daddy says following the rules and being good is supposed to be easy. Butters isn’t sure it always is. Sometimes, Daddy tells him what he has to do or what he isn’t allowed to do, but it’s tricky when Butters doesn’t know about a rule until he makes a mistake, and then Daddy is yelling again. Butters doesn’t like it when he does.

Eat all the vegetables.

Don’t play with food.

Don’t play out into the street.

Help Mommy around the house.

Do the reading with Mommy and Daddy both.

Don’t yell too loud.

Don’t keep the bedroom door closed.

Don’t talk back.

Don’t stay silent when asked a question.

(These two are tricky, because Butters isn’t always sure when he should follow one rule over another.)

But there’s more. There is always more and Butters quickly realizes he’s not a very good boy at all! None of the other kids on Butters’ street get yelled at as much as he does and they don’t get grounded as much as he does, so they don’t mess up as much as he does either. Butters just wishes he knew how to do better. He tries not to be scared anymore when Daddy yells, but even that doesn’t work out. Sometimes, even Mommy gets mad, but she never yells, and sometimes, she says sorry later and Butters isn’t sure why, ‘cuz he’s the one who keeps messing up, you see?

Being grounded starts to become routine, but Butters still doesn’t like it much.

The first time Daddy hurts him because Butters is being bad is when Butters comes home from kindergarten, a painting clutched in his hands and pink paint splattered over his overalls.

He painted pink hearts and flowers and the teachers said he is really talented. Daddy is in the living room, reading his newspaper, and even he smiles at first when he notices Butters. The little boy runs up to him, but already, at the sight of him, Daddy’s smile goes a little sideways; still, he lets Butters climb in his lap before anything.

“Butters, what is…”, he starts asking, but in his excitement, Butters talks over him.

“Daddy, Daddy, look! We made this in class today an’ I was thinkin’ Mommy could put it on the fridge!”, Butters grins, showing off his painting, “Isn’t it pretty!?”

But Daddy’s smile is completely gone. And then he’s yelling again.

Butters only catches a few words, girly , inappropriate , young man and something else he doesn’t hear as well, because suddenly, Daddy’s pushing him off of his lap and onto the carpeted living room floor. Butters falls down with a small oof , yet, as he tries to get back up to his feet to stand up straight like Daddy always says he should , there’s a sharp sting in his cheek suddenly and Butters stumbles back again.

He looks up at Daddy with wide, glassy eyes. Daddy’s hand is raised and he is breathing funny, like he just ran up the stairs, but he’s standing completely still.

Daddy brings Butters to his study, where he yells some more and slaps him again, saying:

“ Don’t ever let me catch you bringing home these- These fag paintings! You’re a boy and you sure as Hell are gonna act like one, mister! ”

And Butters nods. His face aches a little.

That night, when Mommy comes into his room to tuck him in, she pauses at the redness on Butters’ cheeks, and she gently cups his face, kissing him goodnight like she always does. When she pulls back, she whispers something besides their usual I love you or sweet dreams, Leopold .

“Sometimes… Sometimes, Daddy gets sore with you, but he’s just trying to help you sweetheart, do you understand? But I’ll have a talk with him. You’re my good little boy, and I know he doesn’t need to go this far to… To…”

She never finishes her sentence before Butters smiles too, as wide as he can manage even if his cheeks ache. Mommy looks sad and that makes Butters sad too, so he smiles to show her that everything is ok.

She’s wrong. He’s not very good, and Butters thinks he prefers being grounded to the other type of punishment he’s seen today. But he’s not good, and if Daddy meant well, then it’s supposed to help him. She shouldn’t be sad about that.

“Nighty night, Mommy”, he says.

Finally, Mommy smiles and leaves.

In the dark, Butters still thinks about Daddy standing there in his study, hand raised and eyes really angry. They have the same eyes, blue like the sky , Mommy always sing-songs happily. But in that room, he’d looked different. His eyes had been scarier, darker. Butters wishes he wouldn’t make Daddy look like that.

He has to learn to behave himself, that’s what he’s gotta do.

Mommy doesn’t really punish him, or at least, not until he’s a little older. She’d always been softer on him, as if she didn't notice hat Butters was different, that he had trouble doing the right thing, but slowly, she’d started joining in on Daddy’s yelling.

It’s never the same, however, because Daddy always tells Butters to act smarter, to be more manly, to be more obedient, but Mommy asks Butters to speak nice and polite and she gets angry when he dirties his clothes on the playground, and later, when Butters starts attending school, she frets over what he eats and how he’ll end up fat and sick and dead, and how Butters has to watch himself. They have different things they yell at Butters about, and, Butters realizes, different rules, but they all come together in the end, and they all have something in common:

Butters never follows them properly.

Even as he grows older and starts understanding how to do things the right way and how to keep Mommy and Daddy happy and how to be good for them, he knows, deep down, that there’s something wrong with him, because it’s never enough.

So Butters keeps making mistakes.

So the punishments and groundings get worse.

The first time Mommy punishes Butters is when they get back from visiting Grandma. 

He’d said a bad word in front of Grandma, in front of everyone, really, but he hadn’t known it was bad. Uncle Budd had taught it to him after he’d helped Butters bathe. They’d played, after, with the bathroom door still locked, but Butters hadn’t realized that the words Uncle Budd was saying were bad. All he knew is that his uncle had asked him not to tell Mommy and Daddy and Grandma about their little games, and Butters was trying to be good, so he didn’t. But he didn’t know he shouldn’t be repeating the words either. Sacks and nuts, they don’t sound bad to him, but what does Butters know? He’s not very bright, Daddy always says so.

So at dinner, on the night they’re supposed to leave and go back home, Butters says nutsack and laughs, but nobody else laughs along with him.

Mommy apologizes for him, Daddy makes him apologize.

The drive home is quiet.

Before bringing Butters to bed, Mommy calls him into the bathroom, and she doesn't yell, not like Daddy does, not this time, but she goes on and on about his pottymouth and how a nice boy like him should have known better .

“Come here, Butters”, she huffs eventually, standing next to the sink, holding a hand out for Butters to grab as he climbs onto the little stool he uses when brushing his teeth and washing his hands.

He joins her next to the sink, but hesitates a little. She does too. Then she shows him the bar of soap in her other hand, the one not on Butters’ back.

“B-but… But it’s not bath time, mommy”, he says, confused.

Mommy shakes her head, sighs.

“Open your mouth, Butters”, she says.

There it is, the confusing fear that Butters doesn’t know what to do with. But he’s never felt it around Mommy before.

It happens in less than a minute after Butters obeys, but the taste lingers, tangy and bitter and really, really, really yucky, and Mommy is saying something while she rubs the soap over his tongue, about using bad words and about Butters needing to learn to behave himself, but he can’t hear her all that well, his ears are filled with this squeaky-high noise. He tries to pull back, but Mommy keeps him still.

After, he pukes. Mommy is there, and this is where she would talk in soft whispers usually, just like she does when she puts Butters to bed after he’s been grounded or punished by Daddy, but this time, she says nothing. She helps him brush his teeth and rinse his mouth and she wipes the tears and snot off of his face a bit more roughly than she usually does.

She tucks him in for the night and leaves without a good night kiss and Butters can still taste the soap. He feels like crying again.

He wishes he could do better than this, but he can’t help it that he’s bad. He didn’t know. He didn’t know it was a bad word and he didn’t know it would make Mommy angry too. It’s not something he’s used to.

The next day, Mom acts like nothing happened, smiling and happy again as she makes him breakfast and drives him to school, but Butters is careful of the words he uses from then on. Even as the other kids in his grade start saying naughty words, Butters abstains.

He wants to be a good boy, even if he isn’t.

When Mom makes Butters spy on Dad, things happen quickly, and he doesn’t understand things as they're happening, since it is a very strange situation. All he knows is that Mom starts acting weird after she hears about Dad’s shenanigans, the movies and the “wrestling” and the little, white lies. She takes some off-time from work and starts cleaning the house repetitively, like there are stains that Butters can’t see that she has to work out of the floor and the walls and the ceiling and everything.

“Clean, clean, clean”, she keeps saying, “Must clean. Everything new, everything clean. ”

And Dad is keeping secrets.

It’s a few very tense days, and Butters realizes how serious it is when he comes back from playing outside with mud staining his pants and neither Mom nor Dad get sore enough with him to ground him.

It’s actually why Butters sighs in relief when Dad calls him to his study. He isn’t happy, because the study means punishment, but at least it’s more normal than… Whatever this is. He looks at Mom, who’s still painting the walls of the house. She’s even painted over one of their family portraits in the process.

But Dad doesn’t look angry and he doesn’t get his belt and he asks Butters to sit on his lap and they only talk.

So no, things aren’t back to normal, and it’s all about a different type of fear, because Butters realizes he doesn’t know what he should do in this sort of situation, what rules still apply and which are fresh and supposed to be followed temporarily.

Dad tells Butters that Mom shouldn’t know about his lies, but since he seems calm and happy as he does, Butters smiles back and tells him that Mom already knows. Oh, right. Dad hadn’t known that it was Mom that had sent him out to spy on him.

That wipes the smile off of Dad’s face, leaving only wide-eyed shock there instead, and his expression seems stuck that way even when Mom comes into the study too. She never does when Butters is being punished.

“Butters, Mommy is gonna take you out for a drive now”, she says serenely.

And she does. Butters tries to act excited, rambling like he usually does, which would usually earn him a slap from Dad because he always says that Butters talks too much, and sometimes Butters can’t help himself even after a warning or two. But it’s only him and Mom in the car now.

Mom drives them to Stark’s pond, near one of its exits to a small, local river. She stops the car on the pier and turns towards Butters, whispering:

“Butters, you know Mommy loves you very much?”

Suddenly, Butters feels like he did when she had called him into the bathroom after the bad word incident. He feels small and scared and his tummy is tied up in knots.

“Sure I do! I love you too, Mom”, he says, looking up into her eyes.

“And… Sometimes mommies do things that seem hurtful to their babies, even if it’s really for the best…”, she continues.

Butters nods. If he didn’t know any better, he’d think the drool in his mouth tasted like soap, but that’s not true. She turns her head and looks at the water. Butters looks too.

“I’m going to get out of the car now, Butters. I want you to stay put with your seatbelt fastened, okay, sweetheart?”

Butters nods, frowning a little. It’s not the strangest thing she’s done these last few days, so it will be fine, he thinks to himself.

The lights in the car are turned off. Mom gets out.

Then the car starts moving, forward and towards the water, inch by inch.

After floating down a river and somehow making his way back home, after Mom and Dad’s confessions, about their lies and their intentions ( infidelity, child murder , the other people in South Park whisper when they think Butters can’t hear them), Butters doesn’t know how to feel.

He’s not grounded and he’s not been punished, but his chest feels a bit strange, hollow and tight at the same time, like it does when he is .

Dad is sleeping with other men. Mom tried to kill him.

But they… It’s over now. Things are back to normal.

So Butters pretends everything is normal too. When he gets sad and lonely, when he’s nursing a reddened cheek or a welt on his arm or leg. When Mom gets hazy-eyed and asks Butters to clean with her until both of their knuckles are red.

It’s alright.

Chapter Text

Eric Cartman lives close by and, because his parents think he would be a good influence over Butters, polite and quick-witted as he seems, they encourage Butters to go out and play with Eric.

They aren’t friends, not really, not the way Eric is friends with Kyle Broflovski, Stanley Marsh and Kenneth McCormick, but Butters still enjoys playing with him. He thinks Eric comes up with just the strangest games, but he usually has fun playing along.

The older they get, the less they hang out without the insistence of either of their parents, obviously, and so, Butters’ first few years of school are quite lonesome. Well, there are people that “hang out” with Butters, but it’s usually just them tagging along so they can say mean words to him and steal his lunch. Sometimes, his schoolmates do worse than that, but there isn’t much that Butters can do about it.

He told Dad once, when one of his textbooks had gotten damaged due to one of the girls spilling her orange juice all over him and then giggling at the face he had made. Needless to say, Dad had grounded him and Butters had had to do even more chores than his usual load to earn back some pocket money for the replacement textbook. After, Butters decided it was better to keep such things to himself.

It’s in fourth grade that Eric rekindles his and Butters’ friendship (acquaintanceship?), but it’s not quite something he does out of the goodness of his heart. He doesn’t want to be friends with Butters , but one of the boys in his group is gone (Butters had been sad when he’d first heard about what happened, still is, and he remembers some of the teachers talking about it) and Butters serves as their replacement for the late Kenny McCormick. The three of them, Eric, Stan and Kyle, never fail to remind Butters of that. They’re grieving, though, so he can’t blame them for being a bit prickly, a bit rude.

Friendship is something Butters doesn’t take for granted.

It doesn’t last! No surprise there, actually; Butters knows he’s not bright, but no amount of calling him Kenny or Not-Kenny will ever make Butters appear more similar to their actual friend, even he knows that.

It’s actually a bit worse than how the rest of the school treats him, to be their friend temporarily, since being that close lets them do a lot worse than occasionally tripping Butters or saying something hurtful to him when he passes by, but Butters sucks it up because it’s… Nice. Despite everything. It’s nice to have someone to talk to, people to hang out with.

Even Mom is a bit surprised when Butters tells her and Dad that he’s off to hang out with his friends one day after finishing with his homework and chores for the day, and then she smiles so big and bright that Butters doesn’t have the heart to tell her that they’re planning to visit the City Wok, which, Mom doesn’t like on principle. She says their food is fattening and unhealthy, so Butters hasn’t really tried it. But Eric has some sort of idea in mind, you see?

Said idea backfires, a few weeks later, and because of shenanigans, Butters ends up grounded. When his friends come to his house to ask him to hang out, still dead-set on turning Butters into some Jared-like celebrity due to his sudden weight-gain, and later, weight-loss (nevermind that that’s why he’s grounded in the first place, but ah, what the heck, he is bored and Kyle and Stan have been a bit nicer to him recently!), Eric stays behind at Butters’ house to handle the Dad and Mom’s phone check-in phone-calls, and see, even Eric is being nicer to Butters now!

When Butters gets back with exactly three dollars from the fifteen Mr. Kim had given them after backing out of the deal, he’s actually quite happy, regardless of their unsuccessful stunt.

“All went well?”, he asks Eric.

Eric smiles, chubby cheeks scrunching a little.

“Yep! I drew a picture so it looked like you were busy and I even ate some of your food to look like you ate it”, Eric says, sounding mighty proud of himself.

Butters smiles back and leads Eric to the door, waving when the other boy leaves. Then, he looks back at the living room and thinks about cleaning up a little. Just like he’d said, there are a few empty chips bags and candy wrappers and some empty soda cans on the coffee table and living room floor, and Mom would be sore if Butters left the room so messy when she’s back from work.

He’s about to start when he hears the screeching sound of tires outside.

Butters makes quick work of the cans and wrappers and bags and he’s back just in time to greet Mom and Dad, smiling happily and trying not to act suspicious.

They had come home early. In his bedroom, later in the evening, Butters thinks to himself that he should have been able to tell something was wrong from that fact alone. As it stands, he hadn’t noticed.

He’d seen Mom and Dad walk into the house, looking all angry and tense, and the yelling had started before the front door had even been slammed shut.

Butters doesn’t remember exactly what Dad had said after dragging Butters up to his study, only that it had sounded like accusations and that he doesn’t recall hearing some of the words he was being punished over, let alone saying them out loud to anyone at all. But saying so would have meant telling Dad that he’d gone out while grounded and that Eric had been playing a prank. He would have done it too, because Butters isn’t good with pain, but he’d only been able to mumble little apologies and to ask Dad to stop or Mom to help by the time the idea had hit him. Dad had slapped him for mumbling.

Mom hadn’t helped him get to his room either (or crawl there). In fact, she’d joined in on the yelling and then, when Dad had finally stepped back, she refused to look at Butters.

Of course, Butters wasn’t invited to dinner either. This is what happens when you act like this, mister.

With how numb he is, Butters doesn’t mind the pain as much as he does the hunger. Eric had made it seem like Butters had been home to eat lunch, but Butters had been out with Kyle and Stan. Butters regrets it now, but then again… It’s his fault. He should have never gone out while grounded. Then Eric wouldn’t have pranked his parents and everything would have been fine. But no. Butters just had to go out and disobey the rules he knows are set in stone for his own good.

That matter settled, Butters tries to shift his position on the bed. He’s been sitting upright on it since the punishment, but if he wants to be well-rested for school tomorrow, Butters thinks he can do with going to sleep a little early.

The pain comes as a surprise, now, hours later. The numbness fades really quickly when he tries to lay down, on his back, on his sides, stomach-down, it doesn’t matter; it just hurts. But trying to sit back up hurts too. Well, sleep is gonna be a lot more difficult like this, isn’t it?

“C’mon, mister”, Butters whispers to himself, “You gotta take it like a man!”

It’s a weak encouragement even to his own ears. But a little swing forward and a small, sharp exhale later, Butters finds himself on his feet.

Mom and Dad are probably (hopefully) in bed by now. And Butters remember what Mom would do when he’d get hurt on the playground.

Bath and bandages.

Very slowly, he makes his way to the hallway, and from there, to the bathroom. It’s easy enough to fill the tub, but it’s harder for Butters to take his clothes off. His body hurts like nothing else now and it takes him a long time to get his shirt off. Eventually, he manages and steps into the tub. The water is just a bit too hot. It doesn’t feel so nice on the skin of his arms and stomach, it only makes it redder than it already is, and there isn’t any blood to rub off because Dad only used his hands.

But… It’s nice, being warm.

A bit calmer after the bath, Butters realizes that he doesn’t really need the bandages either. The pajamas are even harder to dress himself into, but Butters is starting to get more used to it and that’s how he finally falls asleep, warm and a little uncomfortable still.

Mom picks Butters’ clothes in the morning, but Dad looks at her weirdly when she says so. She raises one of the Butters’ arms in response from where he’s sitting at the kitchen table, his breakfast already demolished. The hunger pains are no more!

Both Dad and Butters look at the marks on his arms Mom points to, and they’ve gone from red to purple. Guiltily, Butters wonders if it’s because of the bath he took, but since his parents don’t say anything, he follows their lead and stays quiet.

And Mom chooses normal clothes, anyway. Two layers of long-sleeved shirts and a small detour to her and Dad’s bedroom, where she pats some beige-powder into Butters’s face, later, Butters is running to catch the bus. He’s a little slower than usual, and maybe he still feels weird after yesterday and it still hurts, but it’s going to be ok. Mom even whispered to him that she loved him before he made it out of the house and Dad didn’t seem angry at breakfast, only a little stressed.

Butters’ friendship with Eric, Kyle and Stan lasts three more weeks. By then, Mom stops putting powder on his face in the morning and she starts acting normally again, smiling and talking to Butters like she always does. By then, the bruises have mostly faded, and Butters is only a little sad when Eric calls him a liar after he asks him what he’d told his parents over the phone to make them so mad.

It’s been months since the whole thing started and they call Butters over to the Cartman house. Butters is excited to hang out! The other boys, er… They seem less so. They have these very serious faces on as they greet each other.

Then they tell Butters they don’t want to be friends anymore. They say that they appreciate Butters’ attempts to be their friend throughout these hard months after Kenny’s death, lame though they were . And that’s what they call Butters, too.

Lame .

Yep. That’s what they call him.

And Butters thinks… He thinks…

So- So fuck them!

No one’s in his room or in Butters’ head to hear him swear, but he still gasps and covers his mouth, looking behind him just in case.

The sentiment is real, though.

Professor Chaos is a petty, vengeful creation.

It feels good to go around, identity hidden, causing mischief in all the ways a fourth-grader can manage.

Good enough that that’s all Butters does for a few days, after the breakup. The days are all school, homework, chores, chaos , and Butters likes it. He’s never had a knack for breaking things or pranking people (and if he targets the houses and desks of his former “friends” the most, well, they haven’t connected the dots yet, so ha!), but right now, Butters thinks it feels right.

Dougie makes carrying out his schemes even easier, and really, who needs stupid Eric and Kyle and Stan when he’s got a new, supervillain sidekick and his awesome minions anyway? Butters sure doesn’t! He’s feeling great !

…Accusations of being a ‘Simpsons' copycat aside.

Butters finds that anger and bitterness are not particularly sustainable emotions, or at least, not for him. His parents, or heck, even other kids, they seem to hold onto these feelings much better than Butters.

But there’s only so many times Butters can kick down the ‘Welcome to South Park!’ sign before he actually breaks his foot.

It honestly doesn’t do as much as Butters was expecting it to do, this side gig of his. He gains Dougie’s friendship through it, and it is fun , but nobody seems to… Care.

He keeps the costume, and sometimes, when he wants to feel super brave and awesome and not-lame, like he can do anything and nobody and nothing can get to him, he puts the costume back on. Or when General Disarray wants to play villains. But it doesn’t bring Butters the revenge he’d wanted. He just doesn’t have the resources necessary yet, is what he tells himself and his hamsters after storing their little costumes away in an old shoebox. But one day he will, and whoever wronged or ostracizi-

Ostricisiz-

Ostri-

Whoever shunned Professor Chaos, South Park’s greatest agent of chaos, will regret it!

His parents never even noticed either, so at least Butters is happy that he’s not grounded. He’s sure his adventuring as Professor Chaos would have broken many of their rules, even if he isn’t sure which anymore, so it’s better this way. For now.

Kenny comes back.

Butters isn’t sure what happened exactly; in fact, just thinking about where the other boy has been for the past few months gives him a headache and leaves him more than a little confused, like his memories are all out of order. Butters thinks Kenny may have been sick. Poor guy. Butters isn't that close to Kenny, but he knows Kenny and his siblings don’t have a very good home life. Being sick on top of that… That would be awful to deal with.

Butters makes it a point to try extra hard to be nicer to him, even if they don’t interact that much. After winter break, he looks a bit more tired than Butters remembers him being before. But Kenny… Oh, hamburgers, there is that headache again.

A-And hey! Eric and Kyle and Stan have their friend back! They seem happy too (in their own, peculiar way…) and Butters can’t bring himself to be too sore.

He has these dreams though, sometimes, of bad stuff happening (to Kenny ), but in the morning, Butters never remembers any of it.

“Mom, can I pack some bandaids in my school bag?”, Butters asks one cool September day, head still bowed over the homework he’s spread out over the living room floor.

“Hm?”, the sound of running water stops and there’s a soft clink, “What’s that, Butters?”

“Aw, well, I was only wonderin’ if…”, Butters feels a bit more nervous to have her full attention on him now, but he clears his throat and looks over to see that his mother is now looking at him, only a few plates remaining in the sink.

“Yes, sweetheart?”

Butters puts his own pencils down too and sits back on his hands, wincing at the way the action pulls at one of the wounds on his arm.

(“ This is what happens when you talk back, mister! Oh, stop crying, Butters, it’s only a little bit of blood. ”

Butters isn’t sure what he’d talked back to, just that Dad hadn’t liked it, oh no, not one bit. Something about not wanting to visit Gramdma. The punishment hadn’t even been that bad, but Butters had gotten scared when he’d seen Dad reach for the belt. Fell. Scrapped himself on the carpet in the study. Ripped a layer of skin off on both arms.

But Mom had cleaned the wounds and she hadn’t seemed none too pleased with Dad. It’s a little foggy now, Butters can’t recall why.)

“Could I-I take some bandaids to school with me? These, they, uh, they bled during gym and I… Why, I just thought it’d be good to have ‘em with me!”, he finishes with a smile and Mom smiles back, sighing a little.

“Of course. Now that you reminded me… Let’s have a look at those again, shall we?”, Mom says, taking off her rubber gloves and holding out a hand for Butters to take; she leads him upstairs.

He leaves the bathroom a few minutes later smiling and with a small package of colorful, patterned bandaids.

The bandaids see use, though not on Butters himself, as he may have expected it. The plasters are not quite Kenny McCormick’s aesthetic.

It happens during lunch and comes as a result of a fight, which, on principle, Butters stays away from fights, especially when he’s not the intended target of an altercation, lest he become one of the victims just for intruding. It’s happened before, Butters knows it could happen again.

So what’s different?

Well, to be fair, Butters doesn’t get involved in the fight, just the aftermath. And it’s between two boys he knows, one who’s been gone for months, and another who’s let Butters pretend to be his friend for just as long. Eric and Kenny. As far as Butters can tell, as far as the rumors spreading around the lunch hall go, it was one of Kenny’s and Eric’s usual spats, with Eric being too giving with his insults about Kenny’s homelife. Only he must have said something else, but no one knows what exactly, because one minute they’re talking in angry tones, and the next, Kenny leaps over the table and punches Eric Cartman for all he’s worth.

There’s a few more punches being thrown. Nobody calls a teacher because the fight ends just as suddenly as it starts and because both boys refuse to look at each other. Butters thinks that even if a teacher were to get involved, Kenny and Eric might just refuse to acknowledge that any violence between them happened at all.

It’s only that… Well…

Butters is only still looking over at their table, maybe due to a lingering sense of bitterness, maybe because he genuinely got a little scared (he doesn’t do so well with physical violence), but the point is that he sees blood on both of the boys and, oh! Butters has bandaids! He can help!

And he walks over to do just that, the small package held tight in his hands.

To Butters’ offer, Eric scoffs and says:

“What? No, I don’t need your gayass bandaids!”

And then he takes some anyway, all but ripping that ‘gayass’ package out of Butters’ hands.

Kenny says something, voice too muffled by his parka for Butters to understand properly, but it must have been an affirmative, because he holds out a hand with bloodied knuckles. Oh.

Please ?, gray eyes seem to say from the shadow of his orange hood, so Butters just nods, happy to help for once.

Kenny runs up to Butters when classes are out, mumbling something that Butters takes a moment to understand are all just variations on thanks a bunch for what you did at lunch, man , and then, because their houses are in the same direction if they take the route that hugs the town’s edge, they decide to walk home together. Maybe stop by one of the playgrounds on the way since today is a friday and Butters’ parents won’t mind as much if he’s a little late. Hang out.

And so begins one of the first genuine friendships Butters has ever had, with bandaged fingers and muffled speech and a boy he's known since preschool in an orange parka who is a bit rough around the edges, sometimes a bit callous, but smart and kind of sweet - that’s the way Butters sees it.

He is nothing like what his parents have said he would be when the topic of the McCormicks comes up during dinner. Kenny, in Butters’ opinion, he’s great .

They grow pretty close. Mom and Dad aren’t too happy when Butters asks them if he can go over to Kenny’s house, or if he can come over, but after the fifth time Butters asks them about it, Mom sighs, shakes her head and, with a small smile, she relents.

Dad reminds him of the dangers of people like Kenny and his kind. As far as Butters is concerned, for the first time ever, Dad is wrong about something. He’s wrong about Kenny and his family, and that afternoon, when he visits, his thoughts are very much confirmed.

Stuart and Carol McCormick aren’t home when Butters gets there, so he waits a bit when on the porch after knocking on the door. It’s cold today, the wind cool and biting, but it isn’t snowing at least, so Butters is grateful for that. His hands and cheeks may have gone a bit numb, but that’s ok too.

After a minute where Butters rubs his knuckles together and wonders if it would be alright to knock again, the door swings open with a loud squeak. Before him is a girl with brown hair and gray eyes, and Butters remembers that Kenny has a younger sister.

“...Who are you?”, she asks in a small voice.

Butters brings his hands behind his back and laughs nervously.

“Oh! Oh, hamburgers, I, uhm, I am from Kenny’s school, I’m a friend!”, Butters gets out, suddenly a bit unsure of himself. He’d told Kenny he’d be coming over, but maybe-

“Butters?”, someone yells from inside the house, voice noticeably un-muffled, “Dude, come on in! Karen, it’s ok, he’s a friend.”

The little girl looks Butters over one more time before ushering him inside.

“I’m Karen”, she says, closing the door behind Butters, “And I’m six!”

She sounds so excited now, without the wariness from before, that Butters can’t help a smile.

“Hi, Karen! I’m Butters!”

As she pulls him deeper inside the house, side-stepping little, broken-off pieces of furniture expertly, she keeps looking back at Butters with big, curious eyes. And she asks:

“Why’dya talk like that? What kind of name is Butters? Are you really, really friends with Kenny?”

“Karen, don’t interrogate him”, Kenny says even before Butters can think of how to answer her questions, and suddenly, they’re in a kitchen. The room is a bit rundown, but clean nonetheless, and at the table, munching on a waffle, hood down, is Kenny.

Already, Butters feels giddy to see his friend.

“Aw, it’s alright, I don’t much mind-”, Butters starts, waving his hand in greeting.

Karen jumps up into Kenny’s arms, taking a bite from his waffle and talking while chewing.

“But he’s so weird, Kenny!”, though it sounds more like sho wurd do to her mouth still being full.

Kenny looks at Butters, waves back and then raises his eyebrows.

“No, he’s not- Oh, well, maybe he’s a little weird. Hi Butters”, he grins.

Butters giggles when he realizes Kenny’s not actually making fun of him - just teasing.

He sits down on a slightly uneven chair while Kenny and Karen finish the waffle, taking off his jacket and pulling up his school backpack into his lap, looking around at the cracked wall paint and old cupboards filling the small kitchen, discolored with time and with hinges that stick out at odd angles.

When she’s done, she hops off Kenny and grabs a teddy bear (it looks well-loved) and then, just like that, she walks out the door, yelling about going out to play with some of her friends. Kenny shakes his head and yells back:

“Don’t forget your gloves!”

“Okay!”, and a second later, the front door squeaks and slams shut.

Kenny turns to look at Butters.

“Er, sorry about that. Mom found another job and my dad is, well… I don’t know, so I have to look after her today. She’s usually more shy”, he admits, smile turning a bit more bashful.

“Aw, that’s alright, Kenny. She was very sweet!”

“Heh. Uhm…”, he looks at the jacket in Butters’ arms, “I just got this new game, I was thinking we could go to my room and play, but you might wanna bring that with you. The heating doesn’t fucking work”, Kenny adds, rolling his eyes, though he does look a bit embarassed, and Butters almost covers his own mouth for Kenny with how easily the swear slips out.

Instead, Butters follows Kenny out of the room, smiling and holding onto the sleeve of his orange parka, which, Butters thinks Kenny will mind at first, but he doesn’t seem to. Butters just tends to cling.

“Woah, a new game? Sounds fun!”, Butters says.

And Kenny smiles again, like he’s happy to have Butters there. It’s a very nice feeling.

Maybe due to his proximity with Kenny, Butters gets closer (again) with the rest of his friend group too. Only this time, it feels a bit more awkward, but it’s more real too, since he isn’t just a replacement. And actually, he finds quite a few common talking points with the other fellas. Kyle is really focused on school, which Dad always encourages Butters to be as well, lest he end up in a ditch somewhere, Stan likes the same video games that Butters likes to play whenever he goes over to Kenny’s house and Eric…

Eric is a bit of a bully. He likes to prank Butters, to make fun of him, but sometimes he’s nice too, so Butters can’t mind it too much. Not to mention that he seems to notice things about Butters that only Dad ever calls him out on, like how he’s a little slow, or too much of a coward. The likes. Kenny doesn’t seem to like the way Eric talks to him, but when Butters smiles and tells him it’s alright, and that he’s just glad to have any friends at all, his frowns always soften into smiles that Butters can only tell are there because of the way his eyes crinkle. It’s the only feature Butters can see underneath his hood.

And Butters is happy, happier than he’s been in a bit, and no amount of being grounded or punished for various shenanigans that he gets into with his friends and with Kenny (his bestest friend) can change that.

He's so happy.

Honestly, Butters should have expected things would go wrong sooner or later. They always seem to for him.

They haven’t visited Grandma over the holidays in a hot minute, mostly because, for the last handful of years, something always intervened.

This year, his grandmother and aunts and uncles are supposed to visit them in South Park instead, but only Grandma and Uncle Budd and Aunt Nellie are actually set to arrive early, on Christmas Eve.

It’s quite the occasion too. Butters helps Mom clean and decorate the house twice, starting over when Mom notices something about the color scheme not matching properly. Butters doesn’t think anything had seemed wrong, but he’s eager to help nonetheless.

When their extended family arrives, the house is spotless and the Stotches are the ideal picture of a happy family, all of them wearing fluffy, matching Christmas sweaters. The rest of the family is just about as cozy, if only a bit more mismatched.

“My wife couldn’t make it”, says Uncle Budd when they sit down at the dinner table after a prayer under the changing lights of the Christmas tree, “Emergency at work, you know?”

“Aw, the poor dear. You better give her a nice present to make up for this, Budd”, Grandma coos, passing Butters’ plate back to him; it’s more empty than not, “And this is for you! We don’t want you to get too chubby, now do we, dear?”

It’s a usual comment for her, he hears it almost every time he has to talk on the phone with her, and Mom doesn’t say it as much anymore, but she used to. Still, it makes Butters squirm uncomfortably in his seat. He eats and finds that he’s still hungry, so he drinks two glasses of water one after the other.

So, after, Butters needs to go pee. And suddenly, the way Uncle Budd stands up too makes Butters nearly jump out of his skin.

“Oh, you should show me where the bathroom is too, buddy. Been a while since I've been in little Steph’s house”, Uncle Budd says. 

There isn't a lot of sincere affection between him and Stephen Stotch, Butters’ father, but Butters thinks these names may be how they tease each other.

Dad grinds his teeth together. He isn't very amused.

“Ah, it’s just down the hallway, Uncle Budd-”, Butters tries to say, smiling a bit too wide. He hasn’t even risen from his seat, and that makes the way his uncle looks down at him, the way he looms, a little worse.

“House tour!”, Uncle Budd declares instead.

Unable to come up with any excuse and with Dad’s expression growing more strained the longer he stays quiet, Butters gulps and makes his way towards the bathroom, footsteps echoing. His own and Uncle Budd’s.

And it’s just like Butters expected it would be, when they reach the bathroom. How it’s been for years, even after he grew old enough to not need help with bathing anymore.

Hands on Butters’ arms and on his shoulders and sliding down his back, pushing him against the closed door.

It used to be gentler and Butters used to understand less.

But after one incident with a certain tape and after some fumbled explanation of what sex and consent are, Butters thinks… He thinks he doesn’t want this.

“Uncle Budd…?”, he asks, face squished against the door as his uncle’s hands move and move until they lift up Butters’ shirt and slip under. Against his skin, in direct contact, the sensation is even worse, so Butters tries again, louder this time. “Uncle?”

“Hm?”

“Stop, please.”

He doesn’t stop.

Uncle Budd says something, about how Butters used to enjoy it (not really), or about how it’s shameful, what Butters made him do, but at this point, all Butters can hear is the sound of his own heartbeat, loud and sharp, inside his skull, drowning out everything else.

Butters doesn’t know what else to do. He knows where this has led when they've done this before, but over the time he’s not seen his uncle, he’s forgotten how bad it feels, how much he wishes it weren’t happening. How much Butters wishes he were anywhere else. He wants it to stop.

He reacts on impulse.

Next thing he knows, Mom is holding him as he cries, her nice sweater getting damp and wrinkling where he clings to it. See? Clingy. His fingers shake and tighten the more he tries to loosen his grip.

Uncle Budd is nursing a bloody nose. Butters thinks he punched him. He isn’t sure.

Grandma and Dad and Mom talk about things, all while Uncle Budd adds in his own arguments, but Butters can’t hear any of them properly, it's only fragments, hiding in his mother’s arms.

What have you been teaching that boy, that he’d throw himself at-

Butters squeezes his eyes shut. His breathing picks up again.

Ma , Dad is saying, I don’t want him in my house ever again. Not after-

Do you really believe that brat over your own brother?

And the conversation ends somewhere around that point.

Nothing will change, not really. It’s only that Mom will keep Butters close to her when Uncle Bud is over or when they’re visiting. It’s only that Uncle Budd says something about temporary temptations and children being shameless these days. It’s only that Mom will seem angry, but not at Butters, while Dad will look conflicted.

Their family still spends the holidays at the Stotch residence or meeting at Grandma’s, but Butters doesn’t spend any more time alone with his uncle.

Mom reads him a bedtime story this Christmas Eve and doesn’t get angry when Butters doesn’t say much in reply, only sitting there on his bed quietly, still clinging to her.

Dad locks himself in the study with Uncle Budd. In the morning, they both smell sharp and kind of bad. Grandma shakes her head and says they shouldn’t be drinking during the holidays.

Chapter Text

This is breaking a whole lot of rules, actually, what Butters has been doing since school started back up after the holidays.

Skipping class, getting in trouble with his classmates, talking back to his teachers. Butters knows this, logically, and he knows the repercussions would-should-will be painful. Though it doesn’t feel wrong. He’s acting out and it feels more normal than it should. Or no, that’s a lie (a little, white lie?); it doesn’t feel bad, and it doesn’t feel good. It feels like nothing.

He thinks he’s hurt someone. Well, it doesn’t matter. Inside the bathroom, with the lock firmly in place, Butters can’t find it in himself to think about why that may be bad. He punches the wall instead, but it doesn’t do much against the restless energy pressing against his lungs and up his throat. It’s a little like puking.

Scott Malkinson, his mind supplies.

He’d asked Butters something during one of the classes, but when Butters hadn’t answered, he’d just- He just kept asking and Butters just hasn’t. It’s not. It just-

So Butters fought with him, or beat him up.

Inside the bathroom, he’s still angry and he isn’t really sure why. But bruised knuckles makes his little habit of rubbing his fingers together a little more painful. Butters can’t stop.

“Calm down, calm down”, he tells himself, pacing. He knows better. He has to be better, even if he feels like his body is acting completely independently from him.

A look in the mirror has Butters flinching and looking down at his shoes. He jumps when something red lands on them and he wonders just how violent he’d gotten with Scott, but then more drops of red fall onto the floor, and that’s more familiar. He’s rubbed the skin right off of his knuckles, and he’s still going. So why is he still so numb? So angry, to cover it up?

“Calm-”

“Butters?”, comes a muffled voice from behind the locked bathroom door.

Stan.

“Butters, you have to come out.”

Oh, heck no. Not this.

“Yeah. You can’t just go around picking on people”, and there’s Kyle, because where there is one, the other is not far behind. But what are they doing here ? They’re kind of, almost friends, but what the heck do they want from him!?

Confused and angry beyond belief, skin prickling with the feelings until he isn’t sure what they are anymore or what them mixing together is actually supposed to feel like, he unlocks the door and storms out.

It’s not just Kyle and Stan. Eric. Kenny. Somewhere behind a wall of other fourth-graders, the top of Scott’s head. Ugh. Ugh .

Kyle is still talking about how Butters shouldn’t beat up people, but it sounds so matter-of-factly. Butters interrupts at one point, his own voice unfamiliar to him.

“You think you know frickin’ everything, don’t you!?”, the words erupt out of Butters like venom, and Kyle’s mouth snaps shut.

“Butters, what the fuck are you-”, Kyle frowns.

“No, you know exactly what I-I’m sayin’!”, but it’s hard to put it into words; Butters hates the way he stutters, despite how angry he is, “Leave me alone! Just- Just leave! ”

But they don’t. Kyle’s frown only deepens and he scoffs:

“Dude, whatever your problem is, you can’t just do this. What got into you?”

“I don’t have any problem!”, admittedly, Butters screeches when he answers. It’s an embarrassingly high sound.

“No, then what the Hell is all this? You're just causing chaos for the sake of it, or what? For attention?”, Stan asks.

Butters looks at him. Then he walks up to him and grabs him by the front of his shirt.

“And you , Stan”, Butters says, “All you really care about is your own image. Newsflash! The world ain’t revolvin’ around you!”

He only lets go when hands make to grab at him. Butters can see a blur of orange from behind him, but the way the touch makes his skin crawl is very real. And very different. It feels like a different moment, but it’s there. It’s not in his head, it isn’t .

Butters lets go, because he’s pulled back, but he shrugs off the person touching him and he nearly gets in Kyle’s face when he walks in front of Stan.

The other boys are still looking.

“Y’all think that Cartman’s the only selfish piece of cr-crap in this school? You’re all, all fake an’ stuck up an’ cowards, that’s what!”

But Kenny moves from behind him, and Butters has to stop. ‘Cuz Kenny ain’t like that, is he? He hasn’t talked to Kenny or any of the other guys since before Christmas break, because his parents didn’t let him out. For once, it was Mom that kept telling Butters to just stay inside for the day. So they washed and cleaned and did chores together. Butters hasn’t seen anyone else since… Since.

And Butters can’t hold onto anger well. His knuckles sting and his eyes start to as well. But he wants to be tough, maskless and costumeless though he may be at the moment, so he walks back into the bathroom, ignoring perhaps his only friend.

The door is slammed shut. The lock clicks closed. And Butters feels weak and small and quiet again, like he’s poured everything out and there’s nothing else there.

It’s supposed to be the last class for the day. Back home, joined by Aunt Nellie recently, Butters’ family are still over. He wishes he could stay in this bathroom forever, even as he hears the footsteps of the little crowd petering out.

He can’t stay here, no matter how much he wants to.

Kenny walks home with Kyle and Stan and Eric, which Butters expects, if he’s being honest with himself. Butters’ parents come to school to pick him up an hour or so later after they leave, since that's when his parents finish work; Principal Victoria called them over because of Butters’ ‘bad behavior’.

The repercussions are strange.

They’re:

Dad pulls Grandma aside, then his own brother, though Budd seems bored if nothing else, while Grandma throws Butters an icy stare. He’s with Mom in the kitchen though, so she can’t really get to him with pinches and slaps like she sometimes does.

Mom makes Butters wash the dishes by himself while she dries them. Her nails look brittle and uneven. She keeps muttering something under her breath. Don’t worry, we’ll clean everything up, sweetheart. It will all be clean, all for you, Butters.

A rewards card being pressed into his hands after Aunt Nellie demands to know what exactly is going on, despite how tight-lipped everyone gets at the question. They don't tell her, ‘cuz nobody's supposed to know. Almost like it didn't happen.

They tell Butters to go, they tell him what to say to book himself a little vacation.

…Dad says that he expects Butters will be calmer. He spins some sort of tale about rituals and coming-of-age and about how all this anger will go away once he goes to the place where he was born. But Butters knows what he’s trying to do.

Mom tried to drown Butters when she found out what Dad had been doing. Dad’s more subtle and less radical, just this once.

Butters kicks one of the walls in his room after nodding and taking the card.

Word somehow gets out that Butters is leaving South Park for a few days. Butters doesn’t know how, or why it matters, since for the most part, he isn’t particularly popular with his classmates. Especially not after the last few days. Shamefully, Butters knows that what he did and said was wrong, but he doesn’t know how to fix it.

It’s an accidental meeting with Kyle and Stan at the store that solidifies the guilt, but with the way Kyle glares at him while Stan prefers to pretend like Butters isn’t even there, there isn’t much room for apologies.

Butters isn’t sure he has it in him to say sorry, because the uncomfortable feeling that made him act out before is still there, tickling at his skin and making him breathe a bit harder. Maybe Dad was right after all and not just trying to trick Butters, maybe there really is something in Hawaii that will fix him…

He waves at them, though, and that’s that. They don’t wave back, though Kyle does look towards Butters with narrowed eyes until he’s out of their sight.

In the airport, all on his own, he feels just like he did before Eric tried to use Butters as a replacement for Kenny - alone. Maybe scared. But Dad doesn’t want him to be a coward.

When the lady at the front desk doesn’t let Butters get on the plane, he kinda does exactly what he’s been trying to avoid lately, but Butters doesn’t know how to control his anger outbursts, despite the icky feelings they leave him with after, because his anger isn’t consistent.

She says something about being intoxicated, since Butters does have parental consent for the trip and that's not what the problem is. His brain gets all sorts of hazy when he’s home, so he has to go, that's what Butters knows. He has to. Dad's going for a temporary solution. Butters will be back when the rest of his family leaves. Or no, after his ritual, that feels better to think about, so that’s why-

“Butters?”

The voice is muffled, but familiar. Kenny. Why is he at the airport?

Butters looks up from where he’s buried his face in his raised knees, but then he has to turn his head away and run the sleeve of his button-up shirt over his face to dry it properly. He tries to glare when Kenny comes closer, hood pulled up and covering most of his expression.

“Wh-what do you think, what do you think you’re-…”, Butters tries to go for a more angered tone, but when it falls flat, he sighs and looks at the shiny airport floor instead. This really sucks.

“Butters, come on”, Kenny says. There’s an empty seat beside Butters, so he sits down, “I heard from the other guys you’re trying to go to Hawaii.”

Butters has seen Eric Cartman while on the bus to the airport. Had he told Eric anything? He hopes not, but he must have, if Kenny knows.

“...I’m not”, Butters mumbles, knocking his fingers together again. The raw skin from before hurts when he does it, but it’s distracting enough.

Kenny places one of his hands over Butters’ to stop him. He’s still wearing his winter gloves, and the texture is a bit rough, but it does make Butters’ hands still.

“You’re not?”

“I’m supposed to”, Butters explains, wishing he were angry again, and not just kind of sleepy, kind of blank like this, “But they won’t let me get on the plane. I can’t…”

Can’t what? He can’t keep being like this. Bad. It’s not even that he’s afraid of being grounded this time. He’s scared of how his emotions get. Leaving, even if for a little while, might be for the best. Butters remembers the boys gathered outside of a locked bathroom at school and he remembers Kyle glaring at him.

He can’t, he really can’t, not until his grandmother and uncle leave. And even then…

Kenny grabs his hand, glove on skin. He drags Butters to his feet and looks into his eyes, gray meeting blue. Then, after staring at Butters’ face as though he were looking for something, Kenny’s eyes crinkle and he takes Butters towards the reception desk again.

“I’ll help you, c’mon”, Kenny says, muffled, but lacking any sort of hesitation. He’s brave, and Butters thinks he wishes he were brave like Kenny too.

They buy two tickets. There’s enough credit on the rewards card Dad gave Butters, and Kenny doesn’t seem too miffed about missing a few days of school, though he does ask for a phone to call back home, just to let Karen and Kevin know where he’ll be. Butters finds it weird that Kenny’s parents would be lenient enough to just not even care, but Kenny is different. Kenny keeps holding his hand while they board the plane

Kenny is Butters’ best friend.

Dad’s booked Butters a room at a local resort, using fancier words than that to describe it, and he’s asked a few friends currently visiting Hawaii to keep an eye on him. They seem surprised that, instead of welcoming one child at the airport, there’s two, but Butters is clinging to Kenny. He still doesn’t know why Kenny doesn’t seem to mind it so much. He’s kind like that, probably.

They arrive sometime during the afternoon, so Dad’s friends lead them to their room and leave Butters and Kenny there for the day.

Kenny doesn’t unpack the clothes Butters lends him as much as he dumps them in the wardrobe. At the way Butters laughs, Kenny smiles.

There’s even a TV in the room facing the large double bed. They’re watching cartoons on it, lounging on the bed together with the window open beside them. Outside, the view is nice, the setting sun casting an orange-red glow over the whole room.

And as the sun slides lower and lower, barely an edge of it still visible over the horizon, Kenny speaks up, voice a lot less muffled with the way his parka is only strung over his shoulders, the hood up, but not pulled tight over his face:

“What’s up?”

It’s such a casual question that, for a second, Butters doesn’t know how to answer, so he stares instead.

“Nothin’”, he says.

Kenny shakes his head.

“Your parents ship you off to Hawaii after you beat up a guy. That’s just… Really not like you, dude. Or like them either. So. what’s up?”

The TV is loud enough that the silence feels less awkward.

Because nothing is up. Butters is just… He’s being bad. He can’t be home, and for some reason, he’s been weird after Christmas, after… After. He can’t be home.

“I don’t mean to… I really, really don’t, Kenny”, Butters whispers.

Being unable to control himself like this is scary. Being so angry is scary. Being home is scary. Butters can’t be home, but Kenny shouldn’t know why. Shouldn’t know that Butters did something bad, wrong, tempting, that Grandma’s been glaring at him, and it’s both worse and not than when his friends do.

“To beat people up?”, Kenny scoffs, but his smirk softens when he sees Butters flinch.

“It’s somethin’ wrong with me, Kenny. ‘S why I’m here. Only until- Just for a lil’ while.”

“Is this some weird way to ground you?”, Kenny asks then, suddenly. Butters blinks. Kenny blinks back. Butters thinks about it. No, because Dad doesn't like it when anyone else sees how naughty Butters is being, so this and the Uncle Budd stuff isn't like that. Plus, even if Grandma knew it was Butters’ fault, she seemed surprised nonetheless.

And making him leave is so he doesn't cause more trouble, that's all.

“I ain’t bein’ grounded, I-I don't think.”

Kenny takes longer to answer this time. He doesn't speak much usually, but since getting closer, their talks haven't been this stinted. Vaguely, Butters feels guilty about this too.

“Is something… You know, is something wrong at home? I mean, I know your old man grounds you a lot”, which is why they meet much more rarely than Butters would like; there's always a fifty-fifty chance that he’s grounded when Kenny asks him if he wants to come over or if he wants to go hang out and play board games at Kyle’s or Stan’s, “But if there's something else… Butters, we're friends. You can tell me.”

Butters keeps blinking.

Kenny chuckles quietly, pulling his hood down and looking at Butters with earnest, gray eyes.

“I'm the last person to judge a shitty home life, you know?”

Thing is, Butters does know. He wishes Kenny's parents were kinder. He wishes his mother was there more often and that his father was less aggressive, he wishes Kenny’s older brother was to him what Kenny is to Karen. He wishes he could do more than just tell Eric to stop when he's making fun of Kenny's house or clothes. He wishes Kenny didn't have to go through so much.

Butters wishes he weren't adding to the burdens in Kenny’s life just by existing around him.

“It's not that”, because it isn't really. Besides Dad being less giving with his punishments since that darn Christmas Eve dinner and mom being a bit quieter, everything is as it always has been. “Things are… My-my parents are just tryna help. I think.” And still, Butters is acting like this. “I'm real sorry, Kenny… For… I know how I've been ain't right, I just dunno how to stop.”

Kenny takes his hand again.

Mom’s been hugging and kissing Butters, but it feels more distant than this little gesture right now. With her, it feels almost like it did when she told Butters she loved him before locking the car.

“Are you sure they're helping you? ‘Cuz, I mean…”, Kenny says, one eyebrow raised.

Butters rips the metaphorical bandaid.

“There was a, uhm… We have some relatives over”, he says, slowly, so he doesn't stumble over his words too much, “But I… I made a mistake and there's- A fight”, he mumbles under his breath, eyes flicking over to Kenny, then away again, “I think I made everyone real sore with me.”

Kenny hums.

“But then why are you all…?”, Kenny sounds confused when he makes a so-and-so gesture with his hand, the one not holding Butters’.

“I don't know”, Butters exhales. 

Why is he, indeed? He's not a liar. And he's not angry like he was when Eric fired him as Not-Kenny.

“Butters? Dude?”

“I don't know”, Butters says again. He's so far away now. Well, his thoughts are, but also literally. They're in Hawaii.

Holy heck.

Holy heck , did he just drag his friend all the way to Hawaii because of something like this? Oh, hamburgers, Kenny must hate him right now, oh no, oh no-

“Bu-?”

“I'm sorry”, he gasps, and Kenny’s mouth slams shut, as if taken aback, “Oh, I'm so sorry, Kenny, for all of this! I've been- I've acted like a complete meanie for no reason and now you-”

He chokes on a sob. Oh, golly, this is embarrassing. Oh, no, no, no.

“I'm just- I don't know what's wrong with me. My parents been tryin’ to fix it too, but I am not getting any better, and now this. Oh, I'm so-”, he rips his hand out of Kenny’s and wipes at his face aggressively, until the tickling sensation of his skin vibrating right off of his bones gives way to pain, and the wounds on his knuckles are opening up again.

Butters should stop now, but he isn't , he can't -

Kenny shuts him up with a tight hug.

Butters quiets down immediately. His shoulders still shake, but with his eyes squeezed shut, the pressure is all Butters can feel.

They stay like that for a long moment, Kenny’s arms thrown around Butters’ body while Butters clings to the askew parka on Kenny’s shoulders.

Eventually, the sobbing fades away too, until Butters is all quiet tears and shaky sighs.

“One Hell of a fight”, Kenny mumbles.

Butters pulls back only enough to look at his friend.

“If it got to you this bad”, Kenny clarifies a moment later.

“I didn't mean to”, Butters confesses, “To make them fight. But I couldn't anym-anymore. I didn't want it. And now everyone is sore with me and I've been acting like a complete b-butt.”

“It's ok”, Kenny says, letting Butters bury his face in his shoulders.

“Isn't tho. Not really.”

“You can say sorry”, Kenny says, patting Butters’ back. His hands are warm even without the gloves. Or it's just Hawaii. Maybe both, at once. “Kyle may be all frustrated and angry sometimes, but he takes apologies seriously. And if Kyle isn't mad, Stan sure as fuck isn't gonna be.”

Butters almost laughs at the swear word.

“I want to apologize. ‘S the right thing to do. I just want to feel”, no, that isn't it, even if Butters wishes it were, “I want to be better. I wanna be good, honest.”

“Butters”, Kenny does pull back, but only so he can look into Butters’ eyes.

“Kenny?”

Kenny smiles.

“You're maybe one of the best guys in our town”, he says, finally.

Butters blushes, remembering how he's been lately, and before that, all of his misadventures as Professor Chaos, and all throughout his childhood, all the mistakes he's been unable to stop making. All the things that he's tried to do better and failed, even after being punished for them.

“It's not-”, Butters tries to say. He wants to be a good boy, but he isn't.

But Kenny waves him off.

Puffing his chest forward and grinning, he says:

“Nah. I said what I said, and I mean it too. Karen can totally vouch after that tea party before Thanksgiving. Butters, you're amazing .”

Butters wishes he was braver, so he'd tell Kenny that, if one of them is the amazing one, it's him. But Butters isn't brave. He lets Kenny hug him again.

They continue watching cartoons.

How does the saying go? To have a weight lifted off of your chest? That’s what it feels like anyway, Butters thinks to himself.

Days pass in the blink of an eye. Dad’s friends come to check in on Butters sometimes, but for the most part, he and Kenny are out adventuring on their own. On the beach, most of the time m, once at the hotel pool, and more than a few times following tourists after Kenny had the brilliant idea to follow a group or another and see how long it takes them to figure out that the two boys aren’t actually a part of their group.

Butters doesn’t think he’s laughed so much or so loudly in his life, and after their talk on the first day, it’s easier to just push things aside and have fun with his friend.

It ends when he’s handed a phone by one of his parents’ friends and Mom’s soft voice lets him know that he can come home now. It’s just a bit too soft, but she doesn’t repeat herself and she doesn’t mention cleaning even once.

Kenny, upon hearing this, bemoans the loss of seeing women in bikinis. Butters just giggles at this, but while packing, he realizes he’ll miss it too (not the women; Hawaii). He’s never felt so light, and Butters isn’t sure if it's the place or Kenny or just being away from everything for a bit. He’s even been a good boy, making sure to follow his parents’ rules about bedtimes and mealtimes and being polite and undoable acts (screaming, breaking things, etc.)!

It’s just- It’s been so nice that Butters almost doesn’t want to go back home either.

But he does miss going to school. And he misses Mom and Dad. Maybe even his other friends. Butters’ guilt has kind of simmered in the background, but he thinks he’s ready to apologize now, and the other boys in fourth grade (especially Scott, goodness ) deserve it. And Butters can tell that, despite his more crude jokes that he uses as reasons to stay, Kenny misses his family too. His siblings, at any rate. The guilt Kenny feels is one that, Butters thinks, is different from his own. He’s always taken care of Karen, and in the last few months, Butters has seen just how far Kenny would go for his little sister. Even his older brother, if it comes down to it.

So they fly back to South Park, where the cold feels almost like a slap in the face after the pleasant weather of Hawaii (not quite as sharp, but more thoroughly chilling than an actual slap, though).

At the airport, Kenny hugs Butters again, then they bump their fists together and Kenny leaves. Butters feels even colder without his friend by his side, but he knows he has to put that feeling aside when a blonde woman runs towards him. His mother.

She takes Butters in her arms and Butters is a bit embarrassed at still being lifted in a hug like this at the grand old age of ten, but he’s also missed her. Even Dad hugs him before they climb into his orange car! Then, they’re off.

The house is empty when they get there. Butters smiles when Mom takes his backpack and brings it to the washroom, and she smiles back.

Dad, despite his earlier warmth, is a more complicated situation. He takes Butters to the study and closes the door carefully. Instantly, Butters’ expression falls, but he isn’t surprised. After what he’s pulled… No, it makes sense. He knew this would happen.

When it’s over, it’s really only bruises, and Butters is still thinking about Hawaii, so it feels like it’s happened in the blink of an eye. He’s not even crying! Well, maybe Butters is a little teary-eyed… But no more than that!

Dad works a bit on the fireplace, but the warmth here isn’t nearly as cozy. Butters feels even sadder when he thinks about Kenny, because he remembers him saying that their heating was cut sometime last summer.

“Butters”, Dad says, ripping Butters out of his train of thought.

Butters stands up straight, hands behind his back, fidgeting with his hurt knuckles again. Luckily, they’ve healed up somewhat while he and Kenny were away.

“Yes, Da-”, Butters coughs; he knows better, “Yes, sir?”

“I don’t ever want to see you touch men like you did on Christmas ever again. It is a sin, and you are already… The way you are. Am I clear, mister?”

He looks down at his own socked feet and nods. A hand grips his jaw and Butters nods again after being forced to meet his father's eyes, hurrying to add:

“Yes, sir. I-I won’t, sir.”

Butters hadn’t wanted it either, so it makes sense to him that Dad would ask him not to do something like that again.

For some reason though, Dad doesn’t let go of his jaw for a moment longer, and his face twitches into some sort of expression that Butters doesn’t recognize.

Until he does.

He’d worn that same sort of uncharacteristic shock when Butters had told him what he’d seen him do when he was out shopping and that he’d told Mom as well. Just for a second. Maybe Butters imagined it.

Dad lets go, turns to face the window (it’s started gently snowing outside) and dismisses Butters with a wave of his hand.

When he takes a bath, just before they eat dinner, Mom is still in the bathroom sorting out clothes, looking away from the bathtub. She’d spared one glance at the bruises, then she’d kissed Butters’ head and told him there’d be some cream he should put on them before bed on his bedside table.

They’re quiet, but it’s not the bad kind of silence. Butters doesn’t think it is. He’s got some rubber toys in the tub, and a giant duck monster is just about to sink one of the battleships when she speaks up.

“Butters, did you lose one of your shirts while you were away?”

Butters thinks for a second, shakes his head, then blinks.

“Uh… Wait, actually, I don’t know, Mom. Sorry”, he says, even though he does know. He gave Kenny some of his clothes because for Kenny, the trip had been unexpected and he hadn’t brought much with him. Butters bought him a toothbrush, but they decided to just share clothes, since Butters’ were loose enough to fit Kenny anyway. Kenny must have been wearing one of them when they went their separate ways at the airport. Aw.

“Oh, that’s alright. But you have to be more careful, alright?”, she says, standing up and brushing invisible dust off of her skirt. 

Before she leaves the bathroom though, she looks at her son one last time.

“Hurry up now. Dinner will be ready in just a bit. And… Don’t tell Daddy about the shirt, alright?”

Butters nods and grins. The ache of the bruises is the last thing on Butters’ mind when she smiles back, warm and gentle.

The next day, Butters goes back to school.

Butters asks Mom to help him with a recipe for low-fat, low-sugar muffins, which he gives Scott Malkinson during lunch, telling him about all the ingredients because Butters remembers vaguely that Scott almost always has to look at things like that before taking his medicine at lunch.

“I’m really sorry, Scott”, Butters is proud of himself for not stuttering. He’d rehearsed what he would say in his head, but Scott doesn’t seem too sore, and in fact, he smiles after Butters hands him the lunch box filled with muffins, staring at the treats and possibly forgetting Butters was even there in the first place.

Scott runs off to sit with Clyde and some of the other boys after, and Butters is happy, truly, but he’s still a bit shocked that that’s all it had taken. The guilt is still there, rumbling low in Butters’ belly, but he’s happy that he did this for Scott at least.

He shakes his head and tries to remember what he is supposed to do now. Lunch. Eat? Where to go sit… That’s a question. Maybe-

“So you’re back, huh?”

Uh oh.

“Uh. Uhm. Why, h-howdy, fellas?”, Butters knows they’re behind him, Kyle, Stan definitely, because they’re always together, and maybe Eric. Maybe Kenny. 

That’s Kyle’s voice though, and he doesn’t sound too happy, no, not too happy at all.

He makes the very un-brave, very Butters choice of not turning around. Instead, he raps his knuckles together. He’s kind of scared to say anything more than what he’s already said, but Butters knows he has to apologize. He wants to, it’s the decent thing to do. But for some reason, he’s kind of scared.

“Uh huh. Did you calm down, then?”, Kyle asks. Nope. Not happy.

It’s the right thing , he tells himself. Be a man, Butters .

“I’m really sorry, y’all”, Butters says after a deep breath, “For- Really, for bein’ a meanie and yellin’ at y’all. I really shouldn’t have done that.”

A hand grips his shoulders (ouch! The cream Mom gave Butters isn’t that fast-acting, probably) and turns him around. Kyle is glaring, yes, but it’s honestly not the ugliest look he’s ever gotten from one of his classmates, even before Butters started acting out.

Kyle looks him in the eyes for a while longer, as though he were searching for something. Then, he sighs and backs off. Then, he smiles .

“Well, it’s good to see you being yourself again”, Kyle shakes his head. Kenny was right! He really isn’t as mad as Butters expected him to be after the apology!

“It’s good to… Be back?”, Butters says with a bit of uncertainty nonetheless.

And Kenny is nowhere to be seen, but Eric and Stan are standing behind Kyle, Eric already digging into a sandwich.

“Well, if you assholes have had your gay reunion, can we finally eat?”, he says around a bite.

Stan rolls his eyes and Kyle’s expression immediately morphs into one of annoyance, though not directed at Butters this time.

“Shut up, fatass.”

They even let Butters sit with them, and with the seat next to Cartman empty, Butters has to ask:

“Fellas, where is Kenny…?”

“Well, last we know, he was with you, getting his dick sucked or someth- AY”, Eric jumps when Stan punches him in the shoulder.

“You know how he is”, Kyle says, unable to not giggle a little as Eric starts (or tries to) start a fight with Stan. Stan seems unbothered. “Maybe he’s sick or something?”

“Aw, okay”, Butters says. He’d been looking forward to seeing Kenny, if he’s honest.

Butters has a dream about Kenny that night. There’s a truck and a lot of blood, and he wakes up shaking, even if he finds that he can recall the dream less and less the more seconds that pass.

At school, the next day, Kenny is back, and even if he looks tired, he looks happy enough to bump fists with Butters. As for Butters himself, he’s smiling so wide that his whole face hurts and hey, this is just as cozy as Hawaii had been, even if the weather is all cold winds and falling snow.

Chapter Text

As any boy knows, twelve is the sort of age where things change. Physically, mentally; it’s a whole thing. Or so Butters hears. He doesn’t feel any different on his twelfth birthday. Sure, he’s been growing a little taller, and he can do more in P.E. class nowadays, even if he's still not really as strong as the other boys in his class (though, playing around as Professor Chaos on occasion has improved Butters’ agility), but it’s a gradual thing. Whatever sudden shift Eric Cartman is always waxing poetic about, Butters just doesn’t see it for himself.

If anything, there are things that remain painfully unchanged in his day to day life: Butters’ favorite foods, hugging his parents good night, his supervillain persona, hanging out with the guys after school to do homework sometimes, going over to Kenny’s, the way Eric can still get under his skin and- Oh dear, this is just like that, isn’t it? Maybe Eric is trying to trick him again. He's mellowed out now, after seeing some doctor or another, Butters isn't really sure which kind…

Or Butters is reading too much into things.

Yeah, no, he doesn’t feel very different.

And because he doesn’t feel any different, when the whole quartet of Eric, Kyle, Stan and Kenny show up to Butters’ house to show off some weapons they’ve gotten at the county fair (Butters is pretty sure his mother is there right now, looking for a new decorative vase), Butters feels like it’s only fair to go to his closet and pick up his Professor Chaos costume.

To heck with the elite ninjas, Butters can do his own thing, even if Eric doesn’t want him to play with them!

(For a second, with aluminum wrapped around his hands, Butters wonders if, since he’s the first in their grade to turn twelve, they see him as too old to play, but that’s silly!)

“Forced to live a life of evil”, Butters says to himself, pinning his cape in place, “I have made people pay before for casting me out, and will do it again! Let’s see how those ninjas like dealing with Professor Chaos !”

Butters races down the stairs and, before leaving, he looks to see if Dad is home too, but no. He must have gone directly to the fair after work.

And just like that, Professor Chaos is off.

He finds his friends- Er, his ninja enemies a few streets away from his own home, and after a few lines of presentation, the battle (game) begins.

And it’s fun!

The weapons the ninjas use are very shiny, and from how they’re being used, they actually look heavy. Pretty authentic! No match for Professor’s control over pure chaos though.

Bu- Professor Chaos laughs in a mixture of genuine glee and something else, mischief, evil-ness, when he sees Kenny. It tickles Professor Chaos, to see him actually struggle to hide his own smirk, despite having most of his face covered, from all of the other ninjas.

Then something happens, and Kenny isn’t smirking anymore, he thinks. It takes Professor Chaos a moment before his laughter fades too, and it’s because, suddenly, his helmet is gone, knocked right off of his head and exposing him to the others.

Professor Chaos stumbles back and away from those fiends.

There is something trickling down Professor’s face and, for a mortifying moment, he thinks he’s started crying, but no.

The pain takes one more moment to set in properly.

Butters screams.

He doesn’t mean to, but it’s just so-

It hurts, it hurts, it hurts , like nothing before, and for a second, the world blacks out around him.

Then, it's nothing but pain for a bit.

Butters wonders where exactly he is, that his eye, his whole face, feels like it’s on fire. Standing still helps, but the slightest movement sends a shock of sensation through his nerves. Is he… When opening his eyes shows nothing but black nothingness and flickering white spots, Butters decides he must be home. In bed, or still in his father’s study.

Dad’s never gone this far though, it’s never hurt this badly though, and Butters wonders what he did.

Then, his vision clears enough to make out smudges of color. The green and the red and the brown make sense, the walls, the chair, the floor. But the orange is so out of place and it isn’t cold enough, not today, for Dad to have the fireplace lit.

Butters blinks. Isn’t it just a little too cold for this to be the study anyway? Especially if the fire is going.

“O-ow”, he whimpers, then sobs. The floodgates are all open now, it’s too much, just too much. What did Butters do this time? Why can’t he see properly?

He keeps on sobbing, his chest shaking with the breaths he can’t take properly.

“Butters, shhh!”

Dad? No, it doesn’t sound like him!

“It hu-hurts”, Butters’ teeth are clattering too, and it gets even harder to breathe when he chokes on a sob.

Orange fades to blue and brown, and whoever is speaking, they’re louder this time.

“Not so loud! It’s- It’s okay, you’re okay! It’s not that bad, really!”, the voice says again.

There’s a hand over his mouth, his own, but it doesn’t do as much as it should to muffle the sound. The ringing is still loud and clear in Butters’ ear.

Still, it helps him catch his breath and the voices start to make more sense. He’s outside. He’s outside with the guys and his eye hurts and he still can’t see properly, and his eye hurts. He’s outside. It hurts .

“But I-I”, he tries, swallowing his own spit, “I can’t see nothin’.”

There’s only ringing before anyone else says something, and even then, Butters can hear his own voice even worse than anything else happening around him. His words are shaky and stuttered out between the crying.

“I need’ta go to a hospital”, he says, wincing, and the movement makes the pain even worse, until he nearly screams again.

“Oh no, no, our parents would kill us!”, in a strange moment of clarity (sort of, Butters’ vision is still blurry as heck), Butters recognizes Stan’s voice. He whimpers at the urgency of the other boy.

The orange is back in the next blink, and gentle hands push him to stand down onto the grass on the side of the road. Butters complies mostly because his legs are shaking so hard that he thinks he would have fainted otherwise.

The liquid on his face keeps drip-drip-dripping.

“Butters, I-”, Kenny says, so muffled and quiet that, if Butters hadn’t spent so much time with him, he would not have understood what he was saying, “I’m so sorry, I-I didn’t mean… Fuck, fuck .”

Butters thinks he tries to say something, but the pain flares up, and suddenly, he’s muffling sobs and whines again. His sight is going in and out, switching between speckled black and blurry orange.

“-know we were using real weapons!”

“As I said, our only solution is killing him and-”

“Shut the fuck up, Cartman!”

“Kenny, c’mon, this all falls on you if-”

“Guys?”

“Ow… Ouch…”

“It’s my fault, so I say we should bring him to the hosp-”

“-nd all of us are just-”

“K-Kenny…?”

“Guys…”

Even when things are supposed to be different, at twelve years old, Butters still clings to Kenny.

The words are all a mess now and Butters can’t make sense of it all, but Kenny still lets Butters hold onto the sleeves of his parka with pale, shaky fingers, so it’ll all be ok.

“Guys!”

Oh, Stan is really loud. But it’ll all be ok. Gosh, Butters is dizzy. His eyes are closed and trying to move his eyelids hurts, or the left one does at least, again and again, so he doesn’t. Maybe a little nap will fix it all up? Sometimes he feels better after sleeping.

The other boys keep arguing while Butters drifts off.

When Butters wakes up, he isn’t sure what he recalls. Coming to, using someone’s arm as a crutch. But it’s not the way to the hospital, so when he finds an opportunity, he walks away from whatever had been holding him up.

Then more walking.

Pain, though the feeling is softer in his memory. Smoother.

And then more people. A crowd? Eric… What?

Butters tries to blink, but one of his eyes is glued shut, or so it feels.

He’s still shaky and it feels like his bones have been wrung dry when Butters lifts a hand to feel around the bandage over his left eye, and that’s what it is. Bandages and gauze and medical tape.

“Leopold! Oh, sweetheart”, someone shrieks, then Mom is hugging him. Reality crashes into him just as his mother’s arms squeeze him of all the breath he can’t catch properly.

The white room he’s in is a hospital room.

The bandages over his eye are there because he’d been playing ninjas with his friends, or they had been ninjas and Butters had been… Professor Chaos, that’s right! And then…

Then it had hurt because…?

“Mom?”, Butters asks in a quiet voice. There’s no one else in the room, he observes. She pulls back and meets Butters’ one uncovered eye with her own teary ones.

“What is it, son?”, she tries to put on her best smile, but it’s clear she’s been crying for a while.

“What happened?”

“We’d like to know as well, mister”, Stephen Stotch speaks up.

Butters had been wrong, or kind of. Dad hadn’t been in the room before, but he must have been waiting outside, because he walks inside with a hard-to-read expression. Butters draws in a sharp breath and stands up as straight as the tubes (oh, hamburgers) in his arm and the hospital bed allow.

“Dad”, Butters says by way of greeting.

“Butters”, Dad says back. Then, he sits down on the side of Butters’ bed, right next to where Mom has pushed herself, one of Butters’ hand held between both of hers.

“Butters”, Mom says it too, though she sounds a lot less apprehensive and just - more tired, if anything, “How did you get - that - stuck in your eye? Who did that to you…?”

Maybe something does change when a boy turns twelve, because, as Butters looks between his mother and father’s faces, he thinks about that discussion from years ago, before Mom had tried to… Before she snapped. He thinks about Dad’s little, white lies.

“I…”, Butters starts.

Like finally remembering the name of a song that you’ve been humming for days, or maybe like catching the end of a thought train and remembering the initial idea, Butters’ brain seems to just click.

And he remembers playing with his friends, not really taking the frustration of being the lamest to heart, and instead channeling Professor Chaos.

Butters remembers how much fun play-fighting had been. Shouting out the names of moves, trying to one-up each other. He remembers how realistic the other boys’ weapons had looked and then, finally, he remembers feeling how realistic those had been too.

Kenny had thrown a star at him, and, hey, Butters had always known that Kenny’s aim was good.

Oh, but they’d all been silly. Real weapons, and Butters hadn’t even realized it!

Mom and Dad are still waiting for an answer.

“You what, Butters?”, Dad asks, crossing his arms over his chest, “You’re not in trouble…”

He’s not!?

“...But we need to know who did this.”

Ah.

But then…

“We, uhm…”, Butters says, raising one of his hands up to the bandage over his eye, swallowing hard, “Well, I went out to, uhm, play with my friends.”

“Which are?”, Dad raises an eyebrow.

“Er, well, you- You know them, the usual, I mean, who I usually hang out with, so-”

“Names, Butters. And speak up.”

Butters looks at his hands where they’re folded in his lap over the hospital blanket. Even now, there’s a bit of dirt stuck under his nails. His eye still hurts.

Butters isn’t exactly sure how he got here, what the other boys did. But he knows they were scared, and Butters is too right now, if he is being honest. He’s scared, tired, maybe a little hungry, and he’s feeling very awkward.

“I-it doesn’t matter, sir”, Butters shakes his head, and to stop his knuckle bumping, he clasps his hands together instead, like he does when they pray, “I did this.”

“You did this?”, crap (oops), Dad doesn’t sound very convinced.

“How do you mean, Butters?”, Mom asks.

It had been fun for a moment there. He doesn’t always feel like he’s fully there, because Kenny is Butters’ good friend, and for his sake, Kyle and Stan and Eric tolerate him, he knows , but sometimes, they just have so much fun that he forgets who he is. That he shouldn’t really even be there, wouldn’t be, if it weren’t for Kenny inviting him along so often.

Butters knows other boys, and slowly, he’s made a small circle of friends for himself, but this is different. Even though he’d been a replacement, these guys had been the first friends Butters ever made.

It was fun. Butters doesn’t wanna ruin this for everyone else, like he always does. And maybe it’s a selfish gesture, doing this so he doesn’t feel so distant. Maybe. He can’t tell right now, the pain has been coming and going, and it’s really coming right now. His fingers tense into claws against each other.

“I found it, the-the thingy, Mom, on the- On the street, somewhere. I found it, an’ then I threw it at the ground, b-but it just came right back, ya see?”, Butters finally blurts out.

That seems to leave both Stephen and Linda Stotch flabbergasted. Where Mom looks worried, her hands clenched over her chest, Dad’s eyes narrow. He opens his mouth to say something, but that’s when a doctor comes in.

Even though Butters is 70% sure that Dad doesn’t actually believe Butters’ story, he only grounds Butters for two weeks for injuring himself like this. And after what the doctors have said, Butters knows he would have had to mostly stay in bed anyways. Now he just has a few extra chores to deal with while he’s grounded, but Mom takes time off work and they kind of just do them together. She’s being distant and echo-y and a bit strange again, but she doesn’t call Butters into the bathroom or drive him anywhere so there’s that.

The doctors also say that, whether or not Butters retains vision in his left eye, that’s still up for debate. He’d been lucky enough that his eye had been clenched shut when the star had hit him, and he’d been even luckier that it impaled itself into the ocular orbit of the cranium before digging deeper into his actual eyeball.

But for two weeks, Butters is practically blind in one eye. His bandages are changed and he has some pills to help with the flare-ups of pain, but even the medicine is supposed to be taken in certain doses due to its risk for dependency.

It’s a very woozy handful of days for Butters, but he tries to do what he has to.

Something different comes along at the beginning of the third week, when Butters finds himself quickly approaching the date where a doctor is supposed to take the bandages off to check on the stitches and on the still healing eye injury to determine whether Butters can leave it open. 

Regardless of that medical opinion, it’s Friday now, and on Monday, Butters is going back to school, and he’s freaking out a little.

He’s become more and more invisible where, in the past, he used to be a target of some of his classmates. He wonders whether showing up with his bandages or with some sort of still healing dent in his face is going to impact that.

No, it definitely will impact Butters’ status. He just doesn’t know how and he doesn’t want to find out either. But Dad is firm in his decision. If Butters misses any more days of school, he’ll end up dropping out and then he’ll live under a bridge and start doing drugs and get AIDS. It’s more than a small exaggeration, but Butters won’t say that in front of his father. He’s not sure he can handle being slapped with the way he is right now.

This is what Butters thinks about as he peers over at the papers some of his classmates dropped off from him, notes and assignments from the classes Butters missed. His parents wouldn’t say who it had been.

He tries to focus on the notes for a new algebra lesson when something hits his window. For a moment, Butters thinks it’s the wind, that it’s picked up and that the branches of the tree outside his window are slapping against the glass because of it.

Then it happens again, three more times in quick succession, and when Butters looks over, he blinks his one eye at the sight of pebbles being thrown at his window.

Butters scrambles up and nearly stumbles into the window (ah, depth perception, how Butters misses it - but he’s been a clutz even before taking a ninja star to the eye, so who knows?).

Opening it reveals a sight that leaves Butters flapping his mouth like a fish, his eye wide and his heart speeding up in his chest.

Down in their courtyard, below his window, is a very familiar figure dressed in a very familiar shade of orange.

Over the years, Butters has very often wondered how Kenny finds a new parka whenever he outgrows his old ones, because honestly, it just looks like his jacket grows with him with how seamless the transitions always are. Or maybe he sews and he can do some minor changes. Kenny hasn’t hit a major growth spurt yet, and he and Butters are about the same height, though Butters swears that, on a good day, he’s a proud fraction of an inch taller than Kenny.

Butters can’t hear him properly from up here when he speaks, and the bandages are also covering up most of his left ear, but he swears he hears Kenny say something like:

Oh, Rapunzel. Let down your hair!

Butters laughs.

“Hiya, Kenny”, he says, still smiling.

More clearly this time, Kenny says:

“Hi, Butters.”

“What brings you around here, mister?”, Butters leans into the window frame, trying to get a little more comfortable. The bandages keep his tender left eye a lot warmer than the rest of his face.

Kenny is quiet for a long moment. When he does speak, he is no longer looking up at Butters’ window and is instead staring at the ground.

“Butters, I…”

He does this a few more times starting and ending his sentences until he just sighs and kicks the pile of pebbles he gathered before Butters opened the window.

“...Can I come in?”

Butters blinks, then looks behind him at the door to his room. It’s locked now. He’d have to ask Mom and Dad to let Kenny in, and they never do that, not when Butters is grounded. The digital clock on Butters’ bedside table also shows the hour, and he thinks they might have already gone to sleep anyway.

“I, uhm… I can’t let ya in, Kenny. I’m sorry”, and Butters really is. It’s been lonely these past few weeks. It’s been all it hurts and lonely and let me out, let me out, let me out , which is a new one for him. He didn't use to mind the groundings as much as he does this time around. Maybe because staying in his room when he’s like this, with not much else to do, leaves Butters to only focus on the pain, when it comes and when he’s already taken his dose of medicine for the day and he isn’t allowed to take anymore.

“Oh”, Kenny exhales, mutters something that’s lost on the wind, and then speaks again, a little louder, “I get it if you’re mad at me, Butters, I really do. I-”

Butters shakes his hands wildly around, gaping as he realizes what he’s just implied.

“Oh, no, no! It’s nothin’ like that, Kenny! I just- Well, really, I’m grounded again so I can’t let ya in, and u-uhm, my parents are asleep, so… Yeah!”

It goes unspoken, but in his head, Butters hears it very clearly.

I would never be mad at you, Kenny. You’re my bestest friend .

“You, uh… You locked in there?”, he sounds perplexed when he asks, and he looks even more so when Butters nods.

Kenny scratches his head over the hood of his parka, then he looks around himself. At the garage, at the fence, at the tree, and when he voices a different plan, he sounds like he does when he and Eric plan a scheme to get some quick bucks. Those situations always end up going horribly, hilariously wrong. Butters has seen (and felt) that firsthand on quite a few occasions.

“I could climb up”, Kenny offers.

Butters stares down at him.

“Wouldn’t that be kind of dangerous?”

Kenny smiles and gives Butters a thumbs-up.

“Well, what’s life without a little adrenaline?”

That being said, Kenny climbs up the tree much faster than Butters would have expected him to be able to do, and in no time at all, Kenny is swinging to make the leap from the closest tree branch. Butters almost doesn’t step back in time before he finds himself faced with the Kenny-shaped heap that’s just landed in the middle of his bedroom floor. The carpet muffles most of the thud, but Butters still looks at the locked door for one panicked second.

Kenny gets up and dusts himself off, hands rubbing at his face, a muffled groan that sounds so miserable that Butters can’t help but laugh at it a little.

“No, yeah. That’s enough adrenaline for me.”

“Kenny”, Butters wheezes, then clears his throat, “Are you ok?”

Kenny gives him another thumbs up.

Butters smiles even wider, already cheery again at the thought of having a friend over. That it’s a secret meeting makes matters more bittersweet, but he’s never had someone over, besides Eric when he filled in for Butters that one time, so Butters can only keep grinning.

“Well, then. Hiya again, Kenny!”

Kenny’s gray eyes crinkle. He meets Butters’ eye and then, suddenly, something changes.

Kenny drops his hood down and Butters catches a glimpse of a strangely tense expression on Kenny’s face.

“Fuck”, he says, matching Butters’ cringing at the word, though probably because of something else, “I’m so sorry, dude.”

“Oh - what for? I don't mind this too much, I think it’s nice to have ya over! We just gotta be quiet, haha-”

“Butters. Your eye. I… Shit, is it… Will you be able to see with it?”, Kenny takes a step closer, brows knitted together.

Butters purses his lips and lays his hands on his hips. He makes a thoughtful humming sound and then meets Kenny’s eyes. Kenny himself just looks worried-guilty-miserable and Butters hates seeing his friend like this.

“Well”, Butters starts, lips curled up in a small smile, “Not right now, no”, he points at the bandages, “But I got lucky too. The doctors think I’m healin’ up real good.”

Kenny looks a little less green after hearing that, but Butters can tell he’s still out of sorts.

It feels like it was both a long time ago and yesterday when Butters dragged Kenny along with him to Hawaii, and the memory of the other hugging him real tight is crystal clear in Butters’ memory. He thinks, Kenny has nothing to be guilty about. It was an accident. He thinks, Kenny didn’t mean to . Butters remembers, they tried to get me help, but they were kind of scared .

And Kenny shouldn’t have to feel guilty, not about this, not for Butters.

Butters is twelve and he is the first to be twelve in his grade, so he knows how to be all grown-up!

So Butters takes a few more steps towards the other boy and then he hugs Kenny. It’s a bit of a fumble ‘cuz Kenny stiffens up at first, but then he wraps his arms around Butters too.

“I forgive ya, Kenny. There ain’t nothin’ you have to worry about with this little injury of mine, alright?”

He feels Kenny nod.

Soon after, he has to leave, but the occasion marks the first (and not the last, oh, not at all) time Kenny visits Butters in secret while he’s grounded.

And on Monday, when some of the other kids point and whisper behind their hands at the, albeit less excessive, bandages Butters still has to wear, Kenny starts swearing at them and it’s the funniest thing Butters has ever seen.

At lunch, he finds out that the notes were from Kyle, and he makes it a point to thank him too. Butters knows his parents have their reservations about Kenny, but it’s weirder for them to be all secretive about people like Kyle, Kyle , who Butters more often than not shares the spot for best grades.

Weird.

But Butters is glad to be back.

Butters can tell that, even in the weeks after he has escaped any and all bandages, Kenny is still dealing with some guilt. He makes it a point to reassure his friend that he doesn’t blame him and, actually, it doesn’t affect Butters’ vision that much either.

“I get a pretty sick scar out of it! Why, I think I-I look pretty cool with it”, Butters shares at lunch.

“Honestly? It’s pretty badass”, Craig nods while passing by and heading for his own usual table. Tweek is by his side with one of his boyfriend’s arms thrown around his shoulders, and he makes this twitchy sort of nodding gesture.

“Yeah, Kenny. I mean, all’s well that ends well”, Kyle says. He’s pretty distracted, still scribbling something in his notebook for their next class.

Butters can’t blink as quickly with his left eye, but the swelling will go down further, just as the mark of the cut and the stitches will fade over the years. Otherwise, it stopped hurting days ago too.

He smiles wide and bumps himself into Kenny’s side.

Eric groans.

“I can’t believe I am surrounded by homosexuals”, he says.

Kyle whacks him with his notebook, then goes back to writing in it as if nothing even happened. Stan gives Kyle another pen when he holds his hand out.

Kenny also groans.

“Still, though. You sure it doesn’t hurt anymore, Butters? I think I’m gonna keep hearing your scream in my nightmares for the next decade”, the last part is said more softly. Their arms are still touching and Butters leans his head onto Kenny’s shoulder.

“Positive, mister. Ya ain’t got nothing to worry about, I told you”, Butters reassures him softly.

Kenny makes a noncommittal sound.

“I guess…”, he finally says and Butters pats his back. Then, he looks at his lunch tray and the cookie left on it. “Say, Kenny, want a cookie?”

That snaps Kenny out of his mood (and makes Eric protest, because how come he doesn't get a cookie!?), because he likes sweets even more than Butters himself does.

“Oh, gimme, gimme”, Kenny grins and Butters mirrors his expression.

Though, looking at Kenny’s face as he happily digs into his cookie, Butters feels his stomach twist.

It's almost like nausea, but it's also not… Bad.

His ears feel a little hot when Kenny smirks too, all teeth and crumbs.

Butters has to ask Mom if being off the pain meds and antibiotics is supposed to have side-effects like these, for sure.

For now, Butters stays close to Kenny, touching elbows, while Stan asks him and Kyle about their essays in English class.

Butters is twelve and it's summer and the guys (not only Kenny this time; Butters had been shocked too when Stan approached him with a slip of paper in hand!) invited him and, like, half of their grade to go swimming at Stark’s pond.

He's twelve and he's sitting on the side with some of the girls. They talk about wanting to get tanned. When asked, he tells Bebe Stevens he doesn't know how to swim (he does, but he'd rather not. They’re just a bit too close to the dock), and she scoffs, but she does lend Butters some of her sunscreen anyway.

He's twelve and it's summer and he looks over at his friends where they're having fun in the water, yet his eyes keep following the form of a certain blond, feeling his stomach rolling. It's the not-bad nausea again. Butters has felt it before, but it's never been like this, and it's why he didn't recognize the feeling immediately, because he's felt it for a while now.

Maybe everything does start to change when you turn twelve.

It's summer and Butters watches Kenny as the realization that he may have a crush on him explodes in his head, leaving his thoughts scrambled.

And suddenly, the pink scar over Butters’ left eye means something else too.

Butters hates secrets and he hates lying, but this feels more precious and he thinks it would tear at his throat and gums on the way out if he were to act on it.

Kenny is such a good friend, and though Butters is not as alone as he might have been once, the mere thought of losing him feels like a fatal blow. Worse than any ninja star to the eye, of that, Butters is sure.

Highschool brings with it a multitude of new, more complex rules. They don’t always make as much sense as they used to when Butters was younger.

Not playing in the streets or doing his chores before going out made sense, even if the repercussions were harsh. One chair not being dusted in the living room is the sort of thing that used to earn Butters his mother’s silence and a slap from his father. Playing where he isn’t supposed to would have had him grounded for weeks on end.

But the new stuff seems weirder.

To dress himself a certain way, to carry himself a certain way, to never be out past sunset after he turns fourteen and starts going out on his own, even if all the other guys his age are allowed out until much later. The trend of his parents wanting to know exactly where Butters is at all the hours of the day continues all throughout highschool.

When Butters gets a phone at fifteen, they install a tracking app on it.

There’s the talks about drinking and parties and drugs, and worse than that, sex.

When Butters thinks about sex, he thinks of two things: a pornographic movie and his uncle’s touch. They’re not ideal thoughts for when he wakes up in the night with an erection, so he tries not to think about it too much.

Butters thinks he’d be ok going the rest of his life without any sex at all, despite how other boys and some of the girls are talking about it as though it were some sort of holy experience. Maybe to them it is? He doesn’t get it, but he’s fine with not getting it.

Parties and booze and drugs always seem to go together when Dad lectures him about them, but Butters is rarely invited to parties, and though he likes chattering to anyone who will listen, being surrounded by sweating, dancing bodies of questionable sobriety isn’t… It’s not his thing. He’s never tried it.

No, maybe there is sense in his parents’ worries. What doesn’t make sense is their paranoia. Like Butters will sneak out to a party whenever they turn their backs on him.

They start to lock Butters’ door at night even during the few weeks when he isn’t grounded, and Mom starts checking his eyes and his breath when she gets home.

That makes Butters’ worst, newly-developed habit harder to hide.

One need only take a look at Butters to realize that he doesn’t have much in common with the Goths at South Park High, yet, somehow, after a project in Geography, he’s struck up a tentative friendship with Henrietta.

Sometimes, Butters gives her pens when she forgets hers.

Sometimes, Henrietta gives him cigarettes when Butters gets into one of his weirder moods.

The moods remind Butters of how he got during fourth grade after Christmas, but also completely different. It’s like a very mild, but very persistent sense of panic that keeps him on edge for the rest of the day. Smoking helps.

It’s bad, it’s really, really bad and unhealthy and against his parents’ wishes and Butters has to chew gum all the way home and then brush his teeth and change his clothes so Mom doesn’t smell the smoke on him, but Butters finds that smoking helps keep him a bit more present.

He doesn’t know why he feels like this, because highschool is a bit more difficult but manageable, and Butters is doing well socially, even given his awkward tendencies, and it’s been months since his last punishment, weeks since he was last grounded. He’s doing well , so these feelings he gets don’t make much sense.

For goodness’ sake, he’s even been fine around Kenny, despite…

Well, Kenny likes dating around. It started with an incredibly lucky game of ‘Spin the Bottle’ during one of the parties Butters didn’t go to (Kenny had made the rounds kissing most of the girls that were playing, and even one of the guys). Butters’ crush on him makes it harder to bear, but he bears it, because he loves him, as a friend first and foremost, and as more.

They still meet: at lunch, in classes and at Kenny’s home when they hang out.

Once, at Butters’ house, doing homework while Mom watched them. That had been the first time Kenny had been invited to Butters’ home, climbing through a window and hanging out with Butters at night after his shifts at City Wok when Butters is grounded notwithstanding.

With Karen at the mall, because she thinks Kenny has no style and, for some reason, finds Butters who has only started picking his own clothes to wear a few years ago more agreeable with what she’s looking for.

With Kyle, because Eric and Stan are on the football team and have less and less time each year. Though, as far as Butters is aware, Stan always makes time for Kyle. The rumor mill churns and churns when it comes to those two, especially after a rather public breakup between Stan and Wendy.

Behind the school, in one of the less popular spots for people looking to do exactly what Butters is doing. Because Kenny knows, of course he does, and sometimes, they share the few cigarettes Butters gets from Henrietta.

They're behind the school now, sitting on a tree stump, back to back, passing a cigarette between themselves.

“How do you define an isobaric process?”, Butters asks, his Physics notebooks open on his knees.

Kenny lets out a puff of smoke before he passes the stub back to him. He takes even longer to answer, and Butters can see him draw the pattern of the graph over the rough bark under them.

“Pressure of the gas stays constant”, he says.

“Yep, you got it. Now, how about-”, before Butters can move on, Kenny groans. “You alright, Kenny?”

“Ugh. I'm just so sick of this shit. I know it already! Got it all memorized”, Kenny leans back further, pushing Butters into a more crouched position.

“Aw, c’mon, Kenny. A little extra revision never hurt no one!”

“You sound like Kyle.”

“I’m not giving this back then”, Butters says, holding literally less than a stump of their cigarette between his fingers hostage.

“Whatever will I do without one last hit?”, Kenny bemoans, leaning further and further back until Butters is little more than another glorified bump on the surface of the tree stump, and Butters just lets him because, by now, he’s giggling too.

“If I’m bein’ honest”, Butters says through a smile, “I’m sure you’ll ace this quiz, Kenny. I think you’re better at Physics than the teacher gives ya credit for.”

Kenny laughs and turns around to actually face Butters. The lack of contact when he straightens himself leaves Butters feeling a little colder in the ever-present chill of South Park.

“Man, I better. But I am so sick of fucking graphs. Work is starting to sound fun compared to this ”, the amount of disgust in Kenny’s voice sets Butters off laughing again, “Imagine that!”

Butters can imagine it, kinda. He had that one job at Willy Chilly’s, but things got a little messy when he vouched for Eric and Eric did… Well, nothing. Mr. Sullivan had given Butters another chance to keep working after, and any teenager would like some extra money, Butters is no exception.

But his parents didn’t let him anymore, when they heard that Butters had let himself be scammed by his own friends. Nevermind that it all ended up fine in the end, especially after Butters reached out to Mrs. Cartman. It had actually been the first time he and Kenny fought, but in the aftermath, Butters came out feeling a bit more confident in his ability to stand up for himself and Kenny ended up wondering if Butters could vouch for him instead of Eric.

Then, Kenny got his job with Mr. Kim, and it’s been a constant for a while now.

So yeah, Butters imagines. He used to even have a discount on the ice cream… Chocolate chip, vanilla, mint, pistachios…

“Off in dreamland somewhere?”, Kenny suddenly says.

Butters jumps back because Kenny seemingly just teleported in front of him and he is crouching before Butters, their faces mere inches apart.

“Imaginationland, more like”, Butters says, trying to sound unbothered. He’s always stuttered before, right? His voice wavering a little is completely fiiine .

“Heh. Say-”, and now, Kenny stands up, still looking down at Butters, still smiling that awfully handsome smile (Butters’ heart is doing the thing, the beating very fast while sometimes skipping beats that leave him swallowing around nothing), “Tolkien is hosting a party next week. It’s on the weekend and everybody’s gonna be there. You and him are friendly right?” Butters nods, nervously fiddling with the edges of his sleeves at where the conversation is going. ”Well. Everyone’s kind of invited and he sure wouldn’t mind you being there. I know you don’t usually-”

They both jump when Kenny’s phone starts ringing.

From the way Kenny’s expression morphs into a more smooth sort of smile, more flirtatious, his eyes half-lidded, Butters assumes the person on the other end is one of Kenny’s partners. Suddenly, Butters gains bitterness to swallow around, but he keeps an easy smile going all the while, best as he can.

“-no, yeah. I’ll see you tonight, babe. Ah… Where were we?”

The moment isn’t what it was before.

“Tolkien’s party that I’m not going to? Gee, Ken, ya gotta keep up, mister!”, Butters says, tilting his head this way and that.

For now, digging his nails into the rough tree bark to restrict himself from the compulsion to rub his knuckles together.

Kenny’s face falls, oddly enough. The old-fashioned phone he’s sold way too much City Wok food to get is gripped tight between long fingers.

“You don’t wanna come?”, Kenny asks.

“W-well”, Butters feels his ears get hot, “You said it too. It just, uhm, it ain’t my thing. Not what I usually do.”

“Would your parents really not let you go?”, Kenny looks genuinely sad. Butters is baffled. He always is whenever someone kind of seems to care about lil’ ol’ Butters, but especially when Kenny does, which, that shouldn’t surprise Butters; Kenny is, perhaps, Butters’ closest friend.

“I don’t know, Kenny”, they wouldn’t, but they also don’t know that Butters’ already fallen prey to the vice of smoking and that of having inappropriate thoughts about another boy, “And there’d just be so many people! Why, I wouldn’t know what to do with myself”, sit in a corner? Hang off of the few people he does know like a lost puppy? Actually get drunk and hide bruises for weeks after his parents find out? These things sound pretty realistic, and not very pleasant for the most part. “No, I just… Parties ain’t for me. But…”

The hopeful look on Kenny’s face makes Butters feel all warm and gooey inside.

“But?”

“But I really hope y’all have fun, Kenny!”

If possible, Kenny looks even sadder at hearing that. With both hands going to grip Butters’ shoulders, Kenny leans over him, and they’re awfully close again. There’s a small thud . Butters’ Physics notebook has hit the ground.

“But what if we do something different?”

“Huh?”

“Come with us, with me to the party. See if you like it before you piss on it!”

“I-I’m doin’ no such thing, I didn’t mean to say that parties ain’t fun, ju-just not my sort of thing, and you-”

“C’mon, Butters”, how could anyone resist Kenny’s sparkling, gray eyes and the pout that makes the sharpness of his face that he’s still growing into stand out? Butters sure can’t. “Ask your parents and come along. Have some fun, unwind a bit. And if you don’t like it, I won’t make you go again. Pinky promise!”

Butters looks at the hand held out for him, one small finger held out invitingly. It wiggles a little when Butters hesitates.

“...I hope you know Karen’ll have your head for breaking a pinky promise”, Butters sights.

“Noted. So…?”

Butters bites his lower lip and looks away. His eyes are shut and he’s sighing as he links pinkies with Kenny.

“I suppose I can ask Mom and Dad…”

“Fuck yeah!”

The cigarette butt is thrown into the ground and stomped by one almost-falling-apart boot, the notebook is picked up and Kenny and Butters walk back to school with their arms brushing together because of how close they are. Butters wishes they were closer as much as he wishes he had another cigarette because of what he’s promised he’ll do.

There is no way his parents will let him go, and for some reason, with how eager Kenny’s been to invite him along, Butters actually almost feels like he wants to go. Ain’t the world a little twisted like that?

Mom says yes. Dad says yes, but his face twists the moment he mentions that his friends will be there, yes, Kenny too.

Limits and expectations are promptly set out for Butters to follow as soon as his parents agree that Butters has been good lately, that he should be allowed to go.

Don’t get high, don’t drink, don’t make that stupid face that Dad hates, get all his homework and chores done before the party, be back before twelve.

Back up in his bedroom, Butters texts Kenny about his parents’ answer, shaking from every joint in his body, his mouth smelling like spearmint and the inside of his cheek bloody from how hard he’s been biting at it. His knuckles are already bruised and tender, so that’s the next best thing. As his eyes scan over the string of emojis Kenny sends back, as well as some more affirmatives when he texts Craig and Pip and Kyle and Stan about whether or not they’re going too, Butters is still waiting for the other shoe to drop.

He waits as he prepares his backpack for tomorrow and as he showers. As he gets into his pajamas and then into bed.

He waits and waits and waits and the anticipation is the worst part of it all.

But Butters has a shiny new set of rules, proper gettogether etiquette, Butters, pay attention now , and a lot of the people he knows are going and Kenny will be there and Kenny had looked so hopeful that Butters would go.

Even if the fear bubbling under his skin is threatening to boil him alive, Butters knows that he wants this, now. That he wants to know what it will be like, just this once, and maybe it will work out even if it feels like a big waiting game for the opposite result.

Chapter Text

When it rains in South Parks, it usually snows. Even on their warmest summer days, Butters finds himself reaching to grab a jacket; nowadays, his mother doesn’t even have to tell him to do so.

Today, however, is a special day.

Today, it’s really pouring. The asphalt is black with water and Butters has just missed the morning bus after a night of tossing and turning.

Now, could Butters have turned around and asked Dad to give him a lift? No, of course not. Dad’s a stickler to rules and routines and Butters doesn’t think annoying him on today of all days when the party is tonight is gonna do anyone any good. And he’s started telling Butters that he has to figure his own problems out now that he’s all grown too. Butters can walk to school. South Park is not a very big town.

…Which he does.

He walks to school, gets splashed by a car on the way. It’s- It’s not a great day, but it’s fine! Butters has had way worse stuff thrown at him than dirty gutter water and- No, it’s pretty bad.

His clothes dry, the stains remain. Since he’ll have to do laundry now anyway, Butters sneaks out of his first class early (bathroom break!) and goes through three cigarettes he'd been saving up in less than a minute, which probably isn't good, but you know? Otherwise, the day goes just as good as this morning did, which is to say, not very good.

Surprise Math quiz, running until he nearly faints in P.E., more homework than they’ve had in a while and that Butters has to do during lunch and other breaks if he actually wants to get anything done before going to the party.

It’s not bad bad, Butters is just really nervous already and none of this is making things better.

There’s a few other classmates doing homework during lunch though, and the solidarity is nice. Butters exchanges hello’s with Tolkien himself and when asked if he's coming over tonight, he nods with a small smile.

“Awesome, B. See you there, then!”, Tolkien says, then goes to sit with his girlfriend and some of their other friends.

Butters remains seated until the table he's at starts filling up too. Not because of Butters, mind you, but Kenny sits next to him and other people follow suit, as has become the norm.

He gives his lunch to Kenny because his own appetite is wiped, and though Kenny looks happy for the free food, he still gives Butters a narrow-eyed look. He nudges his shoulder with his own and says that - thing. That thing that's a reference to something Butters probably isn't allowed to watch, no matter how innocent and-

“What’s up, Buttercup?”

It's just so cute , and Butters kinda melts like… Well. Oh hamburgers, he's blushing, isn't he?

“Welp”, Butters tries to go for a casual tone, but it still comes out somewhat strangled, so he keeps staring at his homework. Beside him, Kenny leans back in his chair till it's precariously balancing on the two back legs and digs into Butters’ lunch. “Had a big breakfast. I'm not very hungry right now.”

The lie slips off of his tongue as easily as when he tells Kenny that - oh, clumsy me, I've gone and packed too much food. Ken, do you want some? - because things have been a bit easier since Kenny got his job and since his father had that stint in jail, leaving him trying for sobriety instead. But they haven't been easy by any means, Butters knows.

Kenny raises an eyebrow, but the rest of his expression is hidden away as per usual.

When Kyle joins them, he’s followed by a slightly woozy looking Stan a few minutes later, but the moment Stan spots Kyle and him and Kenny huddled together, his lips quirk up in this absolutely feral grin.

“Uh oh”, Kenny says, very much matching the look on Stan’s face as he takes a sip from a plastic water bottle, “Somebody’s got something planned.”

From the way Kyle remains unsurprised and unimpressed, if still leaning in to listen to the conversation when Stan sits down at the table, he already knows what’s happening.

“Dudes. This party is gonna be fucking amazing. Guess what I finally convinced my old man to let me bring”, Stan says.

“Hmmm. Surely not the shit you grew on the farm, no way. What could weed possibly be doing at a party?”, Kyle asks and, oh , that’s what Stan means! Kyle is good at guessing stuff.

Stan looks at Kyle with a very serious look on his face and says:

“Sometimes, I think you’ll actually keel over if you’re not being a sarcastic asshole.”

But the way the sentence lilts at the end shows Stan’s actual amusement. Kenny laughs silently, courtesy of his parka.

Butters sits uncomfortably between laughing and laughing , you know, the kind of laugh you fall back on when someone asks you what you plan to do with your future, or whether you’ve found yourself a special someone yet. Nope and nooope.

Had he known there would be drinkin’ and smokin’ (the other kind)? Yes. Does the confirmation leave him even more nervous than he’s been this whole day?

Well.

“I told my parents there would be no booze or nothin’”, Butters says solemnly towards the ceiling, “They wouldn't have let me go otherwise.”

He doesn’t quite get why Kenny chokes on a sandwich bite or why Stan and Kyle exchange amused looks.

“Lies? That's so sinful of you, Mister Butters”, Kenny mocks.

Butters puts his head in his hands, but he’s smiling now, just a little.

“I am becoming a rebel, just like my mom feared”, he continues.

“Next thing you know”, Kenny says, hitting himself on the sternum a few times, “You're gonna run away from home, worship Satan after you join a cult and start selling bootleg CD’s on the street.”

“All because of some weed. The terror, the shock”, Stan says.

“Totally unexpected from a bunch of highschool losers”, Kyle adds.

“Why, I don’t even know what a joint is!”, Kenny sounds scandalized, as if he didn’t have a get-high-on-cat-piss phase.

And now, Butters starts laughing.

You know what? Maybe the party won’t be so bad.

…Even if there will definitely be some unholy activities going on there. But Butters already lied to his parents; no reason not to go through with the whole charade now . And his plan had always been to stay sober.

Clothes are… Hm. Butters likes picking outfits he finds nice and cozy, but Mom has been going on and on about style and things that Butters just has a harder time getting behind. Why softer, pastel colors are apparently such a scandal, Butters doesn’t get.

So jeans and a blue-gray shirt are what he settles on and when his parents give their approval, Butters stuffs his wallet, keys and phone into his pockets and ties his shoes on the way to the front door.

Ever since Butters came home from school today, everything had felt like a test, especially after his parents got home from work (and tests have always been nerve-wracking for Butters, since he’s not good with being good and not making mistakes; by the time he’s done with his chores, there’s a stress-baked tray of biscuits laid out on the kitchen table).

It felt like a minor slip-up was all it would take for Butters to be told you know what, Butters? Maybe you aren’t ready for something like this yet. Go clean your room again and organize the pantry, alright? Properly this time!

And he would have listened too.

Thankfully, he must have passed whatever examination Dad, in particular, had in mind for him. So Butters sets out on the long walk to Tolkien’s home, kinda regretting not asking Stan or Eric if any of them would be willing to bring Butters along too, since they’re the only ones from Butters’ friend group to have gotten their license already.

As it stands, the cool air feels nice on his face, and he takes a few slower steps until he actually stops and looks up at the night sky. It’s cloudless, for now, not quite dark enough for the little dots to overshadow the light pollution and shine through, and over the horizon, there’s still a thin line of red from where the sun has set.

Butters stands there for a few moments.

It’s going to be fun, so c’mon , a voice that sounds either like Kenny’s, or with a certain sarcastic lilt, if Butters pushes his imagination a bit, like Eric’s, says and Butters nods to himself.

And if it isn’t, well, then he’ll know and that’ll be the end of his current curious streak.

The music echoing down the streets is as good a map as any. In distant, orange lamplight, Tolkien’s home seems as opulent as ever, but the way it seems to overflow with people is what makes it seem real and not just a perfectly-framed photograph in an urban design magazine.

The garden, or the glimpses Butters catches of it from between moving bodies, is beautifully maintained, and after the rain earlier today, it looks extra green and fresh, almost like it was painted to be this vibrant. Tolkien is in the garden somewhere near the entrance to his home, one paper cup in hand and a girl’s waist in the other, his girlfriend’s, Nichole. He kisses her cheek after she waves her hand in Butters’ direction when he goes up to greet them, then she simply drags him away.

“Come here, I wanna dance”, she says, giddy enough that it’s contagious.

Tolkien, seemingly more than a little excited at the prospect, throws Butters a glance over his shoulder as he is dragged away and yells:

“Bye dude, don’t forget to have fuuun-!”

Butters shakes his head with a quiet laugh and makes his way inside.

Even if Butters feels a bit awkward, like he’s intruding, he recognizes a few faces here and there, and people seem to be having fun, not really paying someone like him much mind, except for one girl who drunkenly stumbles into Butters and asks him if he wants her drink because it’s sooo delicious, try it! Try it!

He refuses politely, but ends up having the cup pressed into his hands anyway. Not knowing what to do with it exactly, and still very much aimlessly wandering around anyway, Butters decides to embark on the adventure of finding the kitchen to leave the drink there.

There are perils to be found (couples making out, some people rolling joints, a shirtless guy with aforementioned lost shirt rolled around his head like a bandana, and more!), but in the end, Butters reaches a vast room with more counter space than any one person could ever use on their own. But for so many people, it works. There’s snacks, and more than that, a whole lot of drinks. And - aha! A sink. Butters dumps the sharp-smelling drink down the drain and pours himself a cup of orange juice.

The keyword of tonight: Awkward! Or, it begins like this, at least.

Butters doesn’t really dance much anymore, though he used to really enjoy it as a kid, and since he won’t drink or get into any of the more hardcore stuff and all of his emergency cigarettes are already cinders, he’s kinda slugging along the sidelines like a particularly motivated slug.

But then, he finds a table of people gathered around a table in the vast living room, and with the rowdy noises nearly covering the music playing in the background and the way cards are flying in all directions, Butters thinks to himself, ohhh , and he goes by.

Somehow, he ends up entangled in a very intense game of cards (he’s not sure he even understands the rules), and nobody at this table is more surprised than Butters himself when he wins… Er, something! It’s anyone’s guess what Butters is playing, but it’s quite aggressive for a literal card game. His knuckles are bruising and his fingers are red by the end of it, but he's also smiling real wide.

That’s how he finally manages to loosen up some, and then, it’s easier.

Mingling with familiar and less familiar faces, letting himself be pulled into the dancing, swaying masses, it’s fun .

And then, Butters spots a head of curly, dark red hair, and he’s very much back to lost puppy as he chases after Kyle and the taller figure next to him to say hi.

He’s a little sweaty and maybe grinning a bit more wildly than would be appropriate by someone like Stephen Stotch’s standards when he reaches the two. From that far away, and since he’s wearing a beanie, Butters hadn’t even recognized Stan, but now he does, waving to his two friends. It’s lucky that there’s a lull in the music now too, so they can actually hear one another.

“Hiya, fellas!”

“Hi, Butters”, Stan greets back, taking a swing from the beer bottle in his hand. Kyle just waves, looking into the crowd, squinting.

Butters looks too, but doesn’t see much.

“Did ya lose something, Kyle?”

“‘Lose’ is a very generous word. As if anyone can lose that fatass”, Kyle says, and despite him still squinting, there’s something more lighthearted in his words.

“Oh, Eric’s here too, right?”, Butters asks.

“Well. Free food”, Stan says, nodding solemnly after another sip of beer, “That’s a guaranteed Cartman trap any day of the week. Works on Kenny too, come to think of it…”

Kyle rolls his eyes. He grabs the bottle still in Stan’s hand, his hand over Stan’s, and he drinks once before wiping his mouth with his sleeve. Stan doesn’t seem to mind.

“H-heh. The snacks are in the kitchen, but I didn’t see Eric there”, Butters says, then frowns, “But it is a really big kitchen. I coulda missed him. Did you guys plan to meet up?”

“Eh, somewhat”, Kyle admits, “I guess we’ll just bump into him at some point tonight.”

Butters smiles, then jumps in his hurry to ask:

“Oh! Speaking of - did you guys see Kenny anywhere?”

Butters has tried not to exclusively look for his best friend, but really, as much as the party’s gotten a lot more fun, he’s still kept an eye out for an orange parka and dark blonde hair. He’s not seen either.

“Huh. I think he’ll be even later than us, to be honest”, Stan says.

“Oh no!”

“But he’ll be here for sure. Free food, free booze, free pussy. It’s only right for that guy”, Stan shrugs, but he’s smiling.

Butters laughs, and it’s fine (totally, totally ) if it’s a little forced. Then, as Kyle and Stan turn to leave, still looking for Eric, Butters waves. He thinks maybe he can go back to finding something to do, but now he really wants to find Kenny. Things aren’t as awkward as they were an hour or so ago, but the constant music, the lights, the heat of too many bodies pressed together, it’s getting to Butters a little bit.

He needs a break and maybe just talking to someone else for a little bit will do the trick. Or, talking to Kenny will. Butters would lie if he said that Kenny and the thought of seeing him and hanging out isn’t a pretty big part of the reason why he came in the first place.

Outside, in the garden and just beside the pool (there’s a pool!? There’s a pool), Butters finds even more people he knows. Things are calmer here, though he does spot Jimmy showing off some very impressive dance moves with the use of his crutches. Butters stops to look and cheer him on, then goes back to his search, a bit more cheery than before.

However, looking anywhere-but-where-you-are-going is not an ideal thing to do at a party where a lot of the people are under the influence of something or just also not looking where they are going.

So. Tolkien’s family’s pool, right?

It’s a cold night so it doesn’t look like it was supposed to be used for today.

The water is definitely freezing, the shock of it against Butters’ skin when he stumbles in with an almost anticlimactic splash is, well… Shocking. No better word for it.

It makes all of Butters’ muscles lock up, the liquid stinging as he breathes it in before he slaps a hand over his mouth and nose. By then, it’s too late, and he’s fighting between choking and coughing the water out and keeping his mouth closed so he doesn’t inhale any more water.

Geez, what is up with Butters and water today? First the rain and getting splashed and now this!

Butters had bumped shoulders with someone, perhaps Wendy. The person had been wearing that particular shade of purple that she likes. The fabric is darker at her sleeves where she’s dipped her arms into the water to fish Butters out.

“Gah-”, Butters does a pretty good impersonation of Tweek, give or take some teeth clacking together from the cold.

“Oh my God”, Wendy - and hey! It is her! - says.

Butters flops against the edge of the pool, fingers blue where they hold onto the cement edge underneath him. He finally gives in and coughs out some of the water.

“I-I’m go- Ughhh”, Butters tries, coughs again, and with how scratchy his throat feels, he just compromises with a thumbs up. He's good and not-drowned.

“I’m so sorry, I didn’t- Goodness, Butters, I didn’t even see you there!”

Butters just nods.

The whole situation lasted less than a minute, so there’s not too many eyes on them, which Butters is glad for, because ain’t this embarrassing? Yikes. Except there is a certain someone approaching them that Butters would really rather not have witnessed the whole thing, because she’s scary (to Butters; most other people don’t seem as intimidated by her as he is) on a good day, and she’s even scarier when she looms over a still-collapsed Butters and Wendy, who’s crouching beside him.

“Dude. What the f-”, Bebe starts, then Wendy shakes her hands to appease her.

“I bumped into him! And he, uhm, fell into the pool…?”, Wendy explains.

Butters nods, and mouths: Hiya, gals .

“Oh.”

And that seems to be that.

The two girls have a quick conversation that Butters tunes out in favor of fully dragging himself away from the pool and squeezing at least some of the water out of his clothes. Then, he looks around some more, shivering violently, ready to just go back to looking for his friend. He would like to at least say hi to Kenny, like he did Stan and Kyle and Tolkien, before he has to go home, but by now…

Butters wonders how late it’s gotten. Wendy and Bebe sometimes look back at him as he goes to take out his phone and check the time. Except, of course, Butters’ phone had been in his pocket when he’d gone and let himself fall into the pool.

Shaking, and not only from the cold this time, Butters brings his phone up to his face, and behold, the screen is dark and it remains dark even as Butters jams the buttons on the side and shakes it a little. More water drains out of the phone because of the shaking.

Oh no.

“-bet he has some spare clothes, right? And it’s cold!”, Wendy is saying.

“Hm. Worth asking. Though Tolkien’s drunk off his ass right now. I think he’s passed out on the couch with like, three sharpie dicks on his face? Could be more by now”, Butters can imagine that, and if he weren't on the verge of a possible breakdown over what his parents will say about his ruined phone, he'd definitely laugh at the thought, “I did see Nichole hanging around outside, however… Butters?”, Bebe asks, making Butters jump from the trance he’d been stuck in, still looking at his phone.

He slips it into his pocket and tries to keep his voice from sounding too shaky. Alas, it comes out very much like a whimper. It’s quite pathetic, Butters thinks to himself, deflating further.

“Y-yeah?”

“Come with us”, Bebe says, and Wendy nods, looking a little guilty, but mostly friendly as she always does.

And, honestly? Butters kind of feels just like he did back at that one party he was snuck into in a wig and a dress, watching the girls play Light as a feather, stiff as a board . In one word - terrified. Maybe combined with a hint of intrigue.

Butters never got to know Nichole very well when she transferred to South Park Elementary, but he does know that, after a brief romantic stint together in fourth grade, she and Kyle have remained pretty close friends, having reconciled after she got back together with Tolkien. They find her next to another table of drinks and snacks set up outside, and like Butters, it seems like Nichole isn't drinking alcohol tonight either.

He'd seen her with Tolkien earlier, but she still looks very pretty in her lilac dress. The only difference is the jacket strung around her shoulders - Tolkien’s from how loose it seems on her. He probably doesn't need it where he is getting a paint job on a couch.

Butters almost laughs at the thought again, then just straightens himself out and starts fiddling his thumbs.

“Hey, Nichole”, Bebe says and she goes up to hug her.

Wendy sticks by Butters’ side, but she waves happily when Nichole spots them as well. There's a curious expression on her face when she eyes Butters, and her eyes widen at the state of him. Maybe the wet look doesn't suit Butters very well?

“H-hi, Nichole”, Butters says too, and it's only nerves that have his teeth chattering this time. Mostly.

“Leopold”, she says, and she's very much the only one to call him that besides their highschool teachers and Mom (sometimes), “What… Happened to you?”

Wendy deflates beside him.

“My fault, I wasn't looking where I-”, she says at the same time as Butters goes: “Fancied a little dip, ya know? But it ain’t nothing!”

Nichole lays her hands on her hips.

“You'll get a cold all wet like that”, Nichole says in a soft voice.

“Yeah. It's why we thought we'd go find you, since your man is…”, Bebe gestures with her hand.

One of the corners of Nichole’s lips lifts up in an amused smile.

“I can get you some clothes, no worries. He wouldn't mind”, she says, and Butters couldn't breathe out a bigger sigh of relief, “And I was going to drag Tolkien upstairs anyway. Poor dear just doesn't have the face for tattoos like that.”

Butters finally does laugh, then sobers up, bashing his knuckles again as he says, low and a bit shy:

“Thank you for the help, really!”

Nichole smiles back.

She and Bebe lift a snoring, loose-limbed Tolkien up between them, and golly, he knows they are both on the cheerleading squad, but they're really strong. 

Upstairs, there are quite a few guest rooms; some may be in “use”, given their locked doors and the suspicious sounds coming from inside. Butters keeps his eyes glued to the ceiling, the tips of his ears red-hot.

The three girls go inside a much fancier door, one that Butters assumes leads to Tolkien’s own bedroom, but he waits outside, taking out his phone and seeing if, by some miracle, he can turn it back on. It is not. He checks about four times before a hand grabs him by the shoulder and drags him inside, then before he can get a word in edgewise, he’s pushed into a smaller room - Tolkien’s wardrobe.

With a short yell and a thud, Butters is presented with a change of clothes.

“He doesn’t really wear them anymore, since they’re a bit too small, but hopefully they fit you!”, Nichole explains.

Fit him, they do not, but rolling t-shirt and pant sleeves up works well enough. Butters will have to do with wet shoes and socks, but still, he’s warmer now in all the other ways that matter. He tries to push back limp strands of his own hair, knowing that it will dry more puffy and more unruly than it already usually is.

“Thank you for the help, gals”, Butters finally says, smiling genuinely.

“It’s no problem, really”, Nichole says, ushering everyone out of Tolkien’s bedroom, the boy’s snores following after them until she softly closes the door. She points to another guest room where she leaves Butters clothes to dry.

“Yeah! Sorry again for the, uhm, whole pool thing”, Wendy winces, then brightens when she adds, “But making you over is as fun as it was in fourth grade!”

Butters flushes and rubs the back of his neck. He enjoyed that too, if he’s honest.

“Makeover?”, Nichole asks and the little group stops before reaching the stairs leading back down to the party, which sounds like it’s only gotten rowdier.

“Oh, wait. I think you only came to our school after, right?”, Bebe looks up in thought, like she’s moving the months in her head, and then, to Butters’ red-faced mortification, she grins (at least, she and Wendy don’t seem angry about Butters sneaking into an all-girls sleepover - Heidi had needed some convincing before she’d believed Butters that he wasn’t up to anything naughty, promise!)

“I believe so?”, Nichole says, looking between Wendy and Bebe, then at Butters again.

All three of the girls are smiling now, especially Bebe. She tosses her blonder curls over her shoulders and takes out her own phone, swiping through it until her whole face lights up.

“There’s photos”, she says and Butters thinks to himself, heck . Then, fuck , because this little slip up will remain between him and God.

And embarrassed as he is, but way more comfortable than he’d been at the beginning of the night, Butters can only say yes to the unanswered question floating in the air when Nichole reveals that she has a makeup-kit here for when she spends the night.

Because, to Hell with it, it’s a party and it’s all new for Butters, why not do something he’s done before? His parents will already be grounding him for life for ruining his phone.

A trio of giggling girls and a nervously-chuckling-along Butters walk into a bathroom. When he walks back out and is pushed back into the crowd downstairs, Butters thinks to himself, I’ve never had this much glitter on my face .

It’s not all Marjorine, where the goal had been to make him look like a girl, a pretty girl, but he ends up looking kinda feminine anyway. It’s all blush and sparkly eyeshadow and a lip gloss because none of the foundation colors Nichole has are light enough for Butters, but it’s kind of cute anyway, and really, where else can you get the sort of self-confidence that a makeover done by the girls gives you?

He feels cute, is the point. He’s not wearing a wig this time, though Bebe had done something to the longer middle part of his hair, and he isn’t wearing a dress but it’s still nice, and it leaves Butters all blushed-out of all his inhibitions.

He mingles and dances and he feels more free than a bird straight out of a cage!

At some point, he spots Eric pouring some awfully colorful drinks into small glasses that are then distributed to the small circle gathered around him, and Butters feels brave enough to even take one for himself.

Then a second and a third. Perhaps a fourth, but by then, Butters has stopped counting and is just enjoying the countdown before he downs the sweet-spicy beverage together with everyone else.

He’s laughing, by then, the sort of laugh that leaves Butters’ stomach aching and his head all fuzzy, though that may also be the alcohol.

He ignores a more teasing joke by Eric and, instead, accepts another shot (“on the house”, Eric says, still cackling at how Butters nearly spills it) and lets himself be spun right back into the throng of people on either side. Eric’s really lost that sharper edge, even when he’s mean, Butters thinks, still giggling, still spinning. Or the room sure is, anyway.

It’s not like Butters has forgotten about searching for his friend, either. He keeps both eyes out, one more unfocused than the other, but who’s keepin’ score?

At some point, he thinks he spots yellow hair disappearing into the crowd, but in reality, it’s only Pip. Which, Butters, that’s rude! Butters pouts at himself and pinches his cheeks, then goes to hug Pip because he’s Butters’ friend too! Then, it’s off and away again, to Pip’s obvious, astonished confusion.

“Cheerio…?”, echoes after Butters.

Still looking for Kenny, Butters starts feeling the effect of the drinks a bit more harshly.

Mom likes the occasional glass of wine and Dad has his beer on the weekends, but Butters hasn’t had alcohol before, and now, it’s a bit harder to stay on his feet; what had felt like excitement before is now slowly morphing into the shape of dizzy panic. The buzz on the inside of his skin had been pleasant before, but for the moment, the unfamiliar clothes feel a bit uncomfortable and Butters is pretty sure he has some glitter in his eye as well, and the left one has been a bit more sensitive since the accident, even after it stopped hurting.

Butters is breathing hard and fumbling, a bit lost amongst the sea of people, when he finally finds what (who) he’s been looking for - and the relief is everything he feels.

“Ken?”, he asks, face all scrunched while he tries to make out the features of the boy standing a few steps away from him. It’s no good, though, because his face is a little blurry, but when he speaks, Butters knows the voice and suddenly, he’s warm inside as well, damp socks be damned.

“Oh, hey Butters!”

The uncomfortableness is quick to dissipate - poof - especially when Kenny walks closer and Butters can grab hold of his exposed arms. Kenny doesn’t wear t-shirts that often, and even when he does, he has the parka worn over everything, but not today. His skin is warm under Butters’ fingers.

“Kenny”, Butters says with a smile, just happy to have found his friend. Elated. Joyous. Pleased? He isn’t sure what the proper word is, but it’s so niiice.

“‘Sup?”, Kenny’s voice rumbles a little, or so Butters thinks, until he realizes he must have fallen over a little, but Kenny caught him, and Butters’ ear is just really pressed into his chest, so everything sounds a bit more like a pur than actual words.

That Butters has not only his ear, but the whole side of his face, against Kenny’s chest would have him possibly exploding into a flustered mess under normal circumstances, but right now, Butters can only tighten his hold on Kenny’s forearms, close his eyes and sigh, soft and a little sleepy:

“I-I was looking for you…”

Kenny brings his hands up to Butters’ waist, then his fingers move along a little more, pinching the fabric at the back of the sweater Nichole had given Butters after rummaging through Tolkien’s wardrobe. He starts swaying a little. Silly Kenny, the song playing right now isn’t that slow. But Butters doesn’t mind, and Kenny doesn’t seem to either, and Butters feels very good-happy-comfy-niiice.

“Were you?”, Kenny rumbles, “I was just around here, but it looks like you managed to have enough fun without me”, and Butters can hear the smile in his voice.

“Wanted to find ya, Ken. It was nice… But you’re nicer, promise ya are…”, Butters angles his head up, but keeps his head where it is. Gosh, Kenny’s grown like a weed, because it’s not too uncomfortable to do this, Butters doesn’t have to bend his neck too much. He kinda likes that.

“You’ve been drinking?”, Kenny asks. One of his hands moves even higher, tousling the hair at the nape of Butters’ neck.

“You’re really handsy”, Butters comments airly.

“You’re not much better yourself, ain’t you? Are you drunk?”

Touché.

“A few shots, that's all I had. But I was being good before that, promise!”

Butters starts going on and one about playing cards and dancing a little, then almost jumps to point out the glittery makeup the girls painted on him, explaining how the pool ain’t safe, not when it’s this cold, and golly, isn’t Kenny cold in just a t-shirt?

Kenny, for his part, cracks a joke here and there, but keeps holding onto Butters, who’s only gotten more sleepy and more unsteady on his feet.

But it’s not like being close physically has ever been strange for them. It’s only that some boundaries Butters had made for himself when he was twelve and sitting at the edge of Stark’s pond have melted at the a little, and he tells himself, I like the way he holds me, even if it means something else for him , and Butters can’t make himself tell Kenny that he should let go for his own sake.

“Am I keepin’ ya, Kenny?”, Butters finally asks when Kenny brings them over to the couches set up somewhere at the edge of the room, but Buttere can only see an empty armchair, and as plush as it looks and as much as neither of them lean towards the more voluptuous end, not Butters (to his father’s disappointment) and not Kenny after stable income provided by City Wok and some physically-minded extracurriculars, they probably wouldn’t fit on it together.

“Hm?”, Kenny looks at the chair.

Butters is still holding onto his hand in lieu of a sleeve to grasp.

“Ya like partyin’, ‘n I know I’m not so… It’s fun, but I-I’m not as into it… Don’t ya wanna go dance or eat or drink or…”, he gulps at his own words, remembering what Stan had said earlier, “Ya can go have fun too, you know?”

Kenny looks back at Butters, then it takes a second for his expression to clear, as if he’s taking a decision in his mind, but Butters can’t read thoughts, and the alcohol doesn’t change that. Which is a bit sad. Butters pouts.

“I did have fun before we bumped into each other. But I wanna hang out with you too, Butters”, Kenny squeezes Butters’ hand in his.

He sits down on the armchair and it must be a testament to how out of it Butters is that he just sits on his lap when Kenny pats his legs and smiles. They haven’t sat like this since they were kids and Butters jumped at something that scared him. Kenny would catch him, but the both of them would just tumble backwards because neither of them were the strongest of the group as kids. Then they’d laugh together, all tangled up in a pile of limbs.

Butters is even sadder when he realizes that, with his back to Kenny’s chest, he can’t listen to his voice rumbling or to how his heart beats in his chest. But this isn’t too bad either.

Bare arms wrap around Butters stomach and he leans back even further.

“Did you play cards too?”, Butters asks.

“Hm, no, I can’t say I did. Smoked a little with Stan, though. He really did bring the good stuff.”

“Yeah?”

“Mh hm.”

“I saw Stan too, with Kyle. We said hi. Then I went out to look for ya”, Butters sighs, rocking a little in Kenny’s lap. The arms around him grow tense for a second, before they relax again.

“And you fell into the pool?”, if Butters could hear his smile before, he can hear the teasing smirk now. Maybe literally, because Kennys seems to lean forward until his face is pressed into the crook of Butters’ shoulder.

“I’m so clumsy Kenny, ya know that”, it’s what Dad always says too.

“Everyone is, sometimes”, Kenny adds quietly, “Glad you’re all good, though. Lucky the girls helped you out, huh? The makeup is pretty.”

Butters looks down at his own hands, smiling the goofy smile he isn’t supposed to smile.

“I like how glittery it is. It makes me feel nice.”

“It makes you look nice, dude”, Kenny says, and for this, Butters has to turn his head a little to look at Kenny’s face from the corner of his eye. His surprise would probably be more clear if the action didn’t leave Butters lightheaded.

“Ya don’t mean that”, Butters doesn’t ask, but it feels like a question anyway, because makeup is for girls, and maybe dressing up for a scheme had been fine when they were young, but now it's different. There’s nausea making Butters feel a bit faint now.

“I do”, Kenny says, and he cups the side of Butters’ face in one boney, calloused hand. Butters should really be flustered now, embarrassed and ashamed because of the satisfaction he’s getting from Kenny just trying to comfort and be close to someone he assumes to be a friend. “You look kinda like a girl, but mostly like you. You’re real pretty, Buttercup.”

“You don’t mean that”, Butters is more certain in his words this time (Kenny’s teasing, and the claim shouldn’t make him feel soft and squirmy inside anyway: it’s sinful for a boy to act the way Butters is acting!), but he can’t help leaning into Kenny’s touch. Closing his eyes again. Letting himself fall further and further into the warmth of his friend, his crush, of the best person he’s ever met, maybe.

“I do. I do . I’m so happy you’re here, but…”, Kenny’s breath when it hits the back of his neck sends shivers down Butters’ spine, “I’m happier that you’re here with me . Maybe I should have been honest about that before, B.”

“Awww… I like spendin’ time with you too, Ken”, Butters melts, melts, melts.

“Yeah?”, he hums into Butters’ skin.

Butters nods. The experience would have been wonderful anyway, more so than Butters had expected at first, but this is something else. This is everything.

“Yeah, Ken. I think you’re my favorite person”, and I really, really like you. Is it bad that I’m happy you’re not with a girl or another guy now? Even if it’s not like that, not for you.

Kenny rearranges their positions, then, until Butters is facing him with his legs on either side of Kenny’s thighs.

He smiles at Butters in that way that makes Butters want to hold Kenny and keep him safe from the world and never let go, but he settles on bringing his ear back to Kenny’s chest to listen to his heart.

Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump.

Butters drifts off for an undetermined amount of time, waking up confused and with a tongue so dry that he might as well have been drinking sand throughout the night. And still, the gentle thumps underneath his cheek and the hands slowly massaging his back aren’t calming enough to keep him from jumping and flinching like he does most mornings.

Oh God. Oh God. Oh no!

Kenny hadn’t been sleeping as far as Butters can tell, but he must be surprised enough by Butters’ outburst to look quite confused himself.

“Wh- Butters, what’s-”, he begins, voice a little rougher than usual. Butters thinks it’s sounds nice-

No! He slaps himself. Focus!

“Oh gosh, I’m- I’m so sorry, Kenny!”, Butters exclaims, jumping off of his lap. He almost falls on his butt when his knees prove unstable still. Kenny crosses his legs immediately, but his eyes are wide and beautiful and gray and he possibly waits for an explanation from Butters.

“Sorry?”, Kenny questions.

“Yeah, very sorry for- For all this”, Butters covers his burning face. He’d fallen asleep on him, what is actually wrong with Butters?

But even with the apology out of the way and the face Kenny makes being anything but the disgusted anger Butters should have expected, Butters still feels off-center. The other shoe hadn’t been meant to drop when he’d asked his parents if he could go to the party.

“Ken, uhm… Kenny, how late is it?”, Butters asks gently.

Kenny looks at his phone.

“Oh. Uh. About two and a half”, Kenny’s brows move down and together, “B, are you alright?”

Two. Two and a half. In the morning? Two and a half in the morning?

This is the other shoe and the drop steals the air from his lungs. Butters staggers back.

“I-”, he’s in so much trouble.

“Butters?”

“I pro-promised my parents I’d be home s-soon, that’s all.”

“A-ah… That makes sense… But, you really don’t sound so well right now. Maybe you-”

“I’ll see ya on Monday, Kenny! Tell the other guys I said bye if you see ‘em. A-and… Bye!”

And Butters runs away. Tries to, because he is stopped by a hand holding onto his.

“Lemme take you home, then? It’s late, Butters”, Kenny says, not unkindly.

Butters freezes, but it’s hard, because a part of him is all numb and doesn’t wanna move, and the other is all shaking with paranoia of what his father will have to say about how much Butters was out of line tonight.

“I can be by my- I can go by myself, Ken, no worries. You should stay and enjoy yourself!”, he says, quieter and less excited than he’d like.

“Not too worried, per se, just… You know. I think I might just head home myself”, Kenny smirks and gets up, quickly walking up to Butters and taking his face in both hands so he has to look up, to meet his eyes.

Feeling less drunk than he did before his nap, Butters is definitely more easily flustered now.

“But you like parties. And… Why, I thought you might stick around to… Uh, y-ya know…”

Butters is definitely too embarrassed to say that , but maybe the way he can’t speak properly right now can at least be pinned on the embarrassment rather than the blooming terror in his lungs.

“Been to one party, been to all of them. And I’ve got a shift tomorrow anyway. A night of wild partying is probably not too smart for me right now. So lemme take you home?”

Unable to come up with a good excuse, they make their way upstairs, where Butters thinks he catches a glimpse of one Kyle Broflovski disappearing inside one of the guestrooms, though Butters can’t even begin to guess with who.

No, Butters is only here to get his clothes, change and then start running again, only with the addition that, after he’s back in his clothes, Kenny won’t let go of his hand, just like when they were children. When they went to Hawaii.

The walk home is quiet, especially since Butters and Kenny tend to talk a lot when they're together. Or Butters always does. People would be surprised at how much Kenny has to say on topics he cares about, but in the silent gaps between conversations, Butters is always babbling away to fill the space. Not tonight.

Tonight, he feels like he’s been continuously climbing down a flight of stairs and falling after missing a step, so he’s barely present enough to stop Kenny when they reach the first house on Butters’ street.

“Here is good”, he whispers.

Dad once told Butters that he shouldn’t need to have someone walk him back home when it’s late and dark, he’s a man and he should act like it. And as much as Butters has wiped his face with his sleeves, he knows he doesn’t look it now and he doesn’t want to make Dad any angrier.

But Kenny doesn’t need to know all that.

“...You sure, dude?”, Kenny says, squeezing Butters’ hand.

“See you on Monday, Ken”, Butters nods.

Then, probably because tonight is already absolutely fucked for him, he leans up on his tiptoes, kisses Kenny’s cheek and then leaves the boy stunned in place as he makes his way towards his house further down the street, where the lights are still on and the silhouettes of the two people waiting inside for him can just barely be made out through the windows downstairs.

Chapter Text

It’s a good thing the party had been on Friday. It gives Butters some time to get his act together. Not enough, but it’s better than nothing, right?

He finally saw Kenny at the party, then somehow fell asleep, then the other boy led him home. And home, Butters got what he deserved for behaving as he did, he supposes. Friday night to Saturday morning is little more than a blip in Butters’ memory. He knows it happened - the marks on his body are proof enough of the aftermath - but no more than that.

Destroying his phone, dirtying his clothes, being home late, gosh, what didn’t Butters do wrong? Unfortunately, the fight caused by these misdeeds had brought Dad close enough in his scrutiny to note the smell of alcohol on Butters’ breath and the remaining spots of makeup that he missed wiping off, which means things had quickly gotten worse.

When Butters wakes up in the basement, cold and naked from the waist up, he’s only a little surprised. This isn’t the nice part of the basement, where there is a television set and a couch and a nice, warm boiler in the corner, this is the storage part of it, and Butters has only ended up here a couple of times for particularly big transgressions. But it's happened before.

He doesn’t move from the center of the room besides moving into a sitting position and pulling his legs up to his chest. Butters is happy to find that, when he leans his head against his knees, his face doesn’t hurt the same as the rest of his body does, especially his shoulders and stomach.

It’s harder to be subtle about face injuries, and that’s something Dad’s been keeping in mind for years now, but with how angry he must have been with Butters last night… He just wasn’t sure. And he still has school on Monday to attend and Mom’s makeup is good, but not foolproof.

His face is alright.

And like he does when he wakes up in his room and the door is locked and he doesn’t remember getting there, Butters waits, holding himself and, after a while of sitting in the silent dark, mumbling to himself. About the day he had yesterday and the things he liked, that still make him smile now.

“Kenny was right, it was fun”, he whispers to himself, “Even if it didn’t end up all good… But it was fun. I should tell him…”, and he deflates a little when he remembers his poor, waterboarded phone, “But on Monday, ‘cuz I can’t text him… Oh Butters, you silly goose, why'd you go and fall into the water? Are you-?”

Are you a man or not!?

Butters flinches at the words he imagines his Dad would or has actually said last night. The little moment sours the rest of Butters’ recollections, so as best as he can, Butters tries to change topics, rambling and talking and chattering as always, only a little quieter, his throat a bit raw and his breathing going funny at points where he doesn’t want it to.

Eventually, he loses track of time, which is exactly what Butters was going for. It could have been a long time, but he can’t know for sure without a phone to check the time or a clock’s ticks to count out or a window to look through.

But Butters does know that, when the basement door creaks open, it’s Mom that stands there, silhouetted by the light on the other side. She’s holding a plate and plastic water bottle in her hands. When she approaches and Butters’ eyes have adapted to the light, he can see a clean rag tucked into her apron.

He has to wait until she speaks to him first, that’s a rule when he’s grounded like this.

Mom stops in front of him and looks down at Butters with a hard look on her face. Butters can’t read anything into it.

“Butters”, she says finally, still standing, looming above Butters, looking down at him.

“Good morning, ma’am”, Butters says, trying for polite.

She looks at him a second longer before she puts the plate down by Butters’ legs, followed by the bottle. Butters does what he’s supposed to and keeps looking at her, trying to really show her he’s sorry for last night, but she remains erfectly neutral.

And for some reason, despite seeing her like this so many times, when she actually agrees with Dad that Butters has been up to no good, it grates on him this time.

Butters isn’t angry, just a little sad. Confused. When she turns to leave, Butters says:

“Mom?”

She doesn’t stop until she reaches the door again. Once there, she waits before opening it and looks at Butters over her shoulder. From her profile, Mom still looks entirely blank and Butters feels it is wrong to try again, but he has to. His body hurts, but her silence cuts bone-deep.

“Mom? Mom, please, I… I’m sorry, ma’am, just… Please say something”, Butters begs.

“Your behavior”, she starts, “Last night.”

She seems to be looking for the right words, but Butters has heard this before and he lowers his head in embarrassment, breaking the eye contact he’s been trying to uphold.

“I’m sorry”, he says very quietly.

“It was unacceptable, Butters.”

He knows.

He knows .

“I’m sorry…”

She stomps back over to Butters.

“Goodness gracious, what were you thinking !?”, she suddenly screeches in a way that mixes worry and disbelieving anger.

“Mom-”

Butters doesn’t get to push out another apology, because his mother grabs him by his stinging shoulders and falls to her knees, but it still feels like she’s the one holding up most of his weight as she shakes and shakes and shakes him.

“Drinking, breaking your phone, looking like a goddamned whore instead of the handsome young man me and your father know you are-”

“No, Mom, I-I wasn’t doin’ nothin’ wrong, e-everybody else was also…”

“Maybe your grandmother was right about you. I want to trust you and your word, sweetheart…”

But-

The words burn worse than a slap, but then she slaps him too, and it shouldn’t even hurt too bad, it’s nothing compared to the way blood beads up around her nails where she’s pushing her fingernails into the barely closed lashes on Butters’ shoulders.

“What else were you doing? What else, Butters!?”

From the sound of hurried footsteps upstairs, Dad must have heard Mom’s yelling. Butters is tearing up. Mom still looks at him like she expects an answer.

“Noth-”, Butters gulps, “Nothing, Mom! Nothing, I promise! I was… I was havin’ fun with my friends.”

But it isn’t fun anymore. Butters thinks back on the party now and he can only feel shame and regret. Why, oh why did he ever think to say yes? Why did he go?

Mom pulls back a little, gasping at the words. She then grabs Butters by his face and makes him look into wide eyes made to be terrifying with pinprick pupils, despite the semi-darkness of the basement. Her knee hits the plate and some of whatever is on it ends up on the floor.

“You are my son, Leopold, you are our son, we are”, she is speaking so fast that some of her words blend together, “We are protecting you, making sure you won’t suffer, won’t fall to your sins, we love you, we love you, I love you”, she moves his head as if he were assessing him and then she smiles , “You understand, sweetheart? I can’t”, all at once, her grip weakens and her smile turns hazy, “I won’t let you fall to sin like he did.”

Like Butters’ father.

He is standing where Mom had stood when she came in to bring food, frowning so hard that Butter is afraid the expression will stick, but at his wife’s last words, he shutters and lets out a long sigh.

And Butters can’t anymore.

Suddenly, today, he thinks to himself, no. You’re wrong .

“You’re wrong, Mom”, he says it too.

He’d said these same words to Dad once, after attending that awful, awful camp. Butters had thought his father had understood him back then, because at fourteen, after seeing another boy dangling from a bridge, Butters hadn't really stopped thinking about what he'd do if he was in Bradley’s position.

Jumped, maybe?

But Butters had told Dad and everyone watching-

“We’re all made from God, ain’t we? He didn't make me wrong, I'm just- I'm just me and that-”

That is okay.

But it isn't really. Butters is here in this basement after all. The other boys, the other people, though, if they're doing something wrong, it's still forgivable. They're good people, even if Butters isn't. They're his friends . It makes sense, or Butters makes it make sense.

“I did wrong, b-but it's not so bad, is it, Mom and Dad…?”

Mom turns to look at Dad and it's like a whole conversation is exchanged in the glances between them.

“I suppose your son is just as unfixable as you are”, Mom spits. She stands up, taking the water bottle and plate with her and she leaves, slamming the door so hard behind her that some of the paint and spackle cracks and falls onto the floor.

Stephen is quiet for the better half of a minute, the silence only broken up by the sound of Linda cleaning upstairs, her movements rougher than usual.

Butters is looking at his father, hoping, praying for that rare hint of understanding on his face that Butters can count the appearance of on one hand

But no..

There's nothing besides anger, and in the reddened tips of his ears, a different kind of shame.

If Butters stays silent, he knows what will happen.

He says, voice cracking, his nausea hitting him full force, so that Butters has to swallow the bile back:

“I'm sorry for how I acted sir. It won't… It won't happen again, I promise I’ll do better.”

Nothing.

“I promise”, Butters says again.

His mother's slap won't leave a mark that lasts for more than an hour or so, and the brand of her nails on his shoulders or the way she's reopened some of his wounds there will be easy to hide.

When Dad takes Butters up by the neck, squeezing, Butters thinks to himself, I'll wear a turtleneck on Monday.

“It won't happen again, mister. A damn faggot and a troublemaker is no son of ours.”

He squeezes harder and Butters croaks. Dad would usually let go after a few seconds, just before Butters’ hearing would start to become distorted and his vision would darken. Today, he keeps going, snarling and spitting in his son’s face, lifting him with both hands as Butters clings to his father’s wrists, wordlessly begging to be let go. Butters has never been very physically gifted.

“You will have a family one day, you will be a respectable member of this community.Will you let your perversions ruin you then too ? Answer me!”

It doesn’t feel like Dad is talking to him, necessarily, but as Butters starts losing feeling in his fingers and is on the verge of going limp, he nods as best as he can, pushing the words no sir past blue lips.

Dad’s voice shakes, is congested somehow when he says:

“That’s right. You’re going to live a correct life. We’ll take care of you, Butters, don’t you worry,” and he lets go.

Butters crumples to the ground, body too numb to break his fall, and he stays there.

There’s a sharp inhale in the dark basement. Not Butters’, though he is panting too, trying to get some air into his lungs to clear the stars in his eyes.

Dad doesn’t move to help him, but Butters can feel him staring, and just before he goes, there is a hand rubbing his back, expertly avoiding sore spots and barely dry, bloody crusts.

“We will see you tomorrow, mister… I expect you to think about what you’ve done until then. This is all for your own good, do you understand? You have to be better than this, son… You have to. We love you so very much, Butters”, are Dad’s last words.

He goes to the door, opens it and then closes it much more gently than Mom had.

In the dark, all the happy thoughts and positive self-talk aren’t quite enough to stop the way he bursts into tears. Butters lets out one sob, then clamps his hands over his mouth and tries to hold his breath, but his shoulders still shake and his eyes still sting something awful.

“It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay”, is the mantra he repeats to himself, but it still takes Butters a long time before he manages to calm down a little, and even then, there’s these little hiccuping noises he can’t do much about.

It’s okay.

Butters doesn’t know what else had been on the plate Mom took with her when she left, but there’s a couple of crackers on the floor. This is good, because Butters is hungry, but his stomach is still kind of sensitive, so something bland is better for him anyway.

It’s okay.

Tomorrow, he’ll be back in the house, and he’ll definitely be grounded, but he’ll…

“What do I do…?”, Butters whispers, horrified when the obvious answer gets stuck in his throat.

He should apologize and promise to do better. He should review every mistake he’s made at the party and verbally prove to his parents that he understands what he did wrong. He should be prepared for more consequences or for new rules to be set in place for him from now on.

Yet all Butters can think about is that he regrets ever coming home. Why doesn’t he feel bad about what he did? What is wrong with him that there is still fondness in his chest for the very actions he’s been punished for?

His own fingers creep towards his neck, cradling the tender flesh at first, then gripping and clawing and squeezing when he still doesn’t feel the way he should. It doesn’t help, not really.

He wishes his parents were here so he could ask them. They’d hurt him and Butters doesn’t like that, but they’d tell him what he should do. How he should feel. They know what’s best for him and they would… They would…

The crackers come back out, coated in bitter stomach acid.

One more night in the basement and then it’s Sunday. His parents get dressed up for church and Butters has to button up his shirt right up to the last button. The tie around his neck is extra tight, just so that the dotted red marks around his neck don’t make any unexpected appearances.

To his credit, Butters doesn’t react much to the way his mother checks him over, making sure he looks pristine, and when he smiles back at her after she says, proudly, that he is done, and that, oh, what a handsome young man you are , it’s more reflex than anything else. He can’t stomach breakfast so he doesn’t eat, and thankfully, they drive to church instead of walking. It seems that the rain has been a constant the past few days.

The words of the priest and the usual rituals feel to Butters like a movie, like something a little more distant, but personally, he isn’t paying attention, even though he knows he should. He can’t, not really, because the half-formed, nonsensical gatherings of words spinning around in his head just won’t let up, and they’re loud.

If Mom or Dad notice anything, they don’t say so. For once, Butters is glad. The gentle happiness that comes up whenever he’s feeling down, too down to pretend otherwise, and Mom giving him an extra tight hug and Dad telling him that he’s been doing well lately and to keep it up, is not something Butters thinks he could stand right now. He feels too off-balance, like he’d fall under that sort of emotion.

This confused haze isn’t much better, but he can bear it at least.

Sunday, Butters doesn’t do any chores since it’s a day meant for rest, but he does go up to his room for the first time in days and, since he can’t lock himself in, he hides under his bed, dragging his backpack with him.

I might as well do some studying, right? Since I already finished my homework. That would be the correct thing to do.

That reasoning makes sense to Butters, so he takes out textbooks and notes and pens and pencils and markers, but they all lay around him in piles under the bed. Butters stares and stares, not moving an inch to do what he’s planned to do. He’s not too sure why.

His stomach hurts a little, but so does most of him, and Butters doesn’t want to throw up again. He just wishes his hands wouldn’t feel so heavy and that his eyes would focus on the pages before him, but none of these things seems plausible at the moment. Butters stares.

It’s okay .

Butters can (this time) hear the ticking of the clock in the hallway, and one floor below him, he can also hear his parents talking and laughing at whatever show they’re watching, so he knows that he’s not been lost for a long time, no more than, maybe… Half an hour? So after half an hour, Butters’ parents call him down for lunch.

No studying has been accomplished but Butters tells himself that he has the rest of the day to be at least somewhat productive.

As the Stotch family sits down to eat together, an awkward hush falls over the room. Butters would talk, but he doesn’t know what he can or should say. The plate set up in front of him lets out steam until it doesn’t and, by the time his father stands up to put his plate into the sink, Butters still hasn’t said or eaten anything.

Weird thing is, he does feel hungry, but there’s this aftertaste in his mouth that makes the mere idea of Mom’s usually delicious cooking into a bad gameplan.

“Butters”, Mom says, “You should go ahead and eat.”

If Dad had been the one to say it, he would have yelled it, ordered it, but when she says it, her voice is a deadly quiet suggestion.

Butters lifts a shaking hand and clasps his fingers around the fork.

His father is still in the kitchen, but Butters’ chair has its back turned to the sink; he can’t see him and the water is running.

The food, when he brings it up to his mouth, tastes like ash, but Butters thinks that he’s eaten things he didn’t like before. He chews. He tries to swallow.

He’s just barely fast enough to spit his mouthful back into the plate as his throat convulses and he dry-dry heaves, hands gripping the edge of the table. Butters thinks his parents start screaming, but his vision is all blurry and his head is pounding and he can’t hear anything right, but he can make out the smudged shapes. There’s teeth showing but without the smiles and hands pointing and grabbing and it hurts again.

When Butters runs out the door, he’s still in his church clothes and he’s breathing fast, or trying to. He’s not really breathing, because that would make noise, but his shoulders are shaking with it anyway.

Butters stays crouched in the middle of the street, not-breathing and then gasping when his body gives in and gulps down as much air as possible at once. There shouldn’t be any clocks nearby, but Butters can hear the ticking anyway.

Tick-tock. Tick-tock. Tick-tock.

His thoughts aren’t making sense, but he knows Mom and Dad are angry, are still angry, so he can’t turn back, and so long as they don’t come out of the house, he’s safer here, even when the yellow lights of a car heading towards him blind Butters, leaving blue shapes imprinted on the back of his eyelids when he blinks.

It’s so weird. It had been noon just seconds ago, but now it’s a lot darker and the car that’s screeched to a halt in front of him is only a shadowy blob, it’s headlights the only thing Butters can make out properly. When did it get so late?

“Wh-what time is…”, he murmurs to himself, frowning at the asphalt, straightening himself up, only to bend at the waist again because of the way the skin on his chest pulls and burns and his stomach gurgles. He’s gonna be sick again. Something wet dribbles past Butters’ lips.

A door is slammed. Butters looks back at his own house, but the lights are off. In front of him, the lights of the car switch off suddenly.

“Butters, you asshole! Are you trying to get me to commit vehicular assault!?”

Although Butters isn’t able to stand up, he can look up, and he sees the large shape of Eric, hands on his hips, scowl firmly in place, next to the car.

“Oh!”, is all Butters can say, voice scratchy. He wants to continue, say sorry, Eric! Really glad you didn’t turn me into a speed bump though, buddy , and laugh, then move out of the way, but that one little exclamation seems to be all Butters can get out momentarily. He tries to step back, but his legs don’t move. Obviously, he is capable of movement, since his shoulders are still shaking, but it seems it’s not as easy to do as usual.

“What the fuck are you doing?”, Eric asks, maybe a little less angry and gradually slipping towards irritation. An annoyed Eric used to scare Butters when they were younger, but now, he doesn’t think Eric will hurt him.

But when Butters hears the voice of his father calling out, that same confidence is not present. Dad yells, probably leaning out the window (Butters still has his back to him):

“If you’re done having your little tantrum, you’d better get inside now unless you wanna be in more trouble, mister!”

Dad would hurt him. And Butters would deserve it, but he really doesn’t want it, despite the knowledge that he’s behaving just horribly .

“Should I get the popcorn?”, Eric asks. Faint amusement is good. It means Butters can laugh along too if Eric is.

He smiles.

“I’ll be tellin’ y-your therapist that you sti-still find that funny, mister”, he tries.

“Meh, I never liked that old hag.”

That’s not quite true, Butters knows. She’s the only one who’s tried something else before making Eric take some pills in the morning and evening, Eric told him so. He doesn’t talk about it much, but sometimes they manage to have deeper conversations. This would have been unfathomable to a ten-year-old Butters, but it seems more real now.

“I should go back inside.”

“Why? Going out tonight someplace fancy?”, Eric points at his clothes and Butters closes his eyes. He wraps his arms around his own stomach.

“No. I h-hope not.”

A second passes without a reply, then another. When Eric speaks, he’s as condescending as ever.

“If you’re still hungover after two days, you’re a bigger pussy than I thought, Butters.”

Butters isn’t sure if he means it, but he thinks he’d rather that be the issue than the fear leaving him sick and weakened.

“‘m a lightweight, I think…”, Butters says. He opens his eyes. Eric opens the door to his car, but it’s one of the doors in the back and Butters is confused until the boy reemerges, throwing something towards Butters’ head.

It’s a half-crumpled pack of cigarettes. Mostly full too.

“I’m not gonna pity the likes of you. Mom isn’t home and I have a whole night of KFC deliveries ahead of me. See you never, asshole”, Eric says, then jumps into his car.

There’s something in the way he says it, but Butters can’t text to ask if Mrs. Cartman would mind Butters coming to their home for a sleepover while she’s gone, and he’s grounded anyway. Sometimes, when Butters is feeling real sore with himself, Eric invites him over. Butters does his homework and then does Eric’s too as thanks, because the company is nice and Eric is nicer now, even if all Butters does is watch Eric play video games on his computer. The company is nice. Butters is grounded though and he can’t leave.

He goes back inside.

On Monday morning, Butters wakes up crying into his pillow, voice muffled by the stuffing. In his dream, he had seen Kenny laying face-down on a sidewalk, bloodied glass shards scattered next to his head, and Butters can’t text him the way he’s gotten used to doing after his nightmares to make sure his friend is fine.

On Monday morning, Butters has his first real meal in days, even if it’s mostly just toast and tea. He’d spent the better part of the night going through the cigarettes Eric had given him, praying none of his parents would open their window to get some fresh air into the room, only to be greeted by the earthy smell of tobacco and smoke, and somehow, it’s managed to calm him down some and his stomach is more agreeable after sleeping in his own bed.

His parents have already left for work by the time Butters comes down, and besides a note on the fridge telling Butters to buy a few things for the pantry after school and to head right back home after, since he’s still grounded, there is no sign of them.

It’s sunny outside, so walking to school should be a brief affair, and that’s why Butters decides he has enough time to assess himself in the mirror before getting ready to leave.

And he does. The bloody crusts on his chest and shoulders and upper arms are buckle shaped and dark, the skin around them red and tender, with purple lines filling the empty spaces between, but nothing seems infected, so Butters pulls his turtleneck sweater on. He looks at his neck before arranging the neck of it. The red dots in the shape of fingers have gone purple and spread out a bit.

Butters considers using his mother’s foundation to cover it up, but it would get smudged on his clothes and that would be embarrassing. The neck of the sweater isn't particularly tight, but if no one looks too close, it doesn't seem like there's anything hidden underneath.

Butters isn’t happy with how he looks, but he decides he is presentable enough. He takes more toast and some leftovers with him. They’d had roasted potatoes and steak at noon on Sunday (he hadn’t even noticed), which Butters usually loves, but yesterday, it had all tasted wrong. Today, he hopes Kenny will enjoy it. He’s always liked any food meat-adjacent, even if his family can’t afford it often.

Kenny isn’t at school and Butters definitely isn’t sulking, he is not .

Pip asks if he’s feeling alright and Butters says, sure! Only, he isn’t talking too much. His voice isn’t so croaky anymore, but he’d rather not risk it. Then, Pip asks if it’s because Kenny isn’t here and, ohhh, he’s asking so innocently, but Butters can tell he is being teased.

“N-No! He’s… Maybe he’s got a cold, yeah”, Butters is looking away as they walk towards their next class.

Pip is wiping some unknown substance, possibly grape juice, off of his backpack with wet wipes that Butters always carries around. Going to the principal about these sorts of pranks won’t do much, it never does, so Butters gives him another wipe.

“I’ll bet! I’ve been sniffling for days myself. It's all this rain, I tell you”, Pip nods earnestly.

Butters nods too, just glad that he doesn’t look as needy as he knows he shouldn’t be and-

“But you, dear sir, sure do miss him, don’t you?”

Pip is grinning now. There’s a wet patch on his backpack, but it’s relatively clean now, so Pip slings it back over his shoulder and readjusts his cap. Over the years, he's forgone his bow, but never the hat.

“W-well, he’s my best friend, of course I do… And I can’t really text to ask if he’s good or if he don’t need nothin’, now can I?”

“Oh, well, you know how Kenneth is. Sometimes he’s just away for a bit, but he’ll be back in no time. Although… Since we’re still on the subject. I hear you were with him before you left the party on Friday?”

People who don't know him wouldn’t believe it, but Pip is a huge gossip. He just likes knowing stuff and talking about stuff. Usually, Butters finds his snooping to be quite entertaining, but not when it’s about Butters and Butters’ itty bitty crush that he’s trying to keep on the low-low! Today of all days, too…

Alas, Pip never backs down without at least somewhat of an answer.

“It was”, Butters starts, “Yeah. I really wanted to hang out with him too, but it was late by then, so we didn’t do much, and then we left to go home ‘cuz Kenny had to go to work the day after. It was nice though”, Butters flinches; he’s spent a night in the basement because he valued fun more than correct behavior, and for what? “I just thought I could see him and the rest of ya fellas today at school.”

“You really like him, don’t you, Butters?”

Because Pip is a gossip, he learns to pick up on things. Butters doesn’t say nothing, but he does tug at a zipper on Pip’s backpack to close it properly.

“Oh. Wait, if you don’t have a phone, then you don’t know about movie night?”, Pip asks, suddenly, changing topics.

“Movie night?”

“Yeah. Clyde’s parents agreed to get him that very neat telly set up in his room and he’s invited us and the other lads over for a superhero movie marathon!”, Pip seems really excited, even if he usually prefers fantasy. Just last summer, he and Pip watched the whole extended Lord of the Rings trilogy with one of Pip’s step-cousins (yes, the actual trilogy).

Butters likes superheroes a whole bunch, though, and he gets excited for all of three seconds before deflating.

“A-ah, but I couldn’t go anyway. ‘M grounded”, Butters sighs. They’re standing in front of the classroom door now.

“Aw, that is a shame”, Pip says with a shake of his head, “Next time, then?”

Butters smiles and nods, then they enter the classroom and the conversation dies down.

At lunch, Butters sits down next to Eric only because he really wants to thank him for his kind gesture last night, but he finds that Eric seems quite into pretending he didn’t see Butters last night. He does, however, claim to have run over a particularly large rat. Like, New-York-type-of-large rat.

Kyle argues that there’s no way they have rodents that big in South Park and so begins another Kyle-Eric argument. Stan rolls his eyes in the background, then takes a sip from his soda can.

Butters leans forward a bit.

“Hey, Stan?”

Stan looks at him, still drinking his drink, blinking slowly. Ah, Mondays.

“Yeah, dude?”

“You didn’t happen to get a hold of Kenny this weekend? It’s just that he ain’t at school and I was wonderin’ if…”, Butters says.

“Uhm… No, not really. I mean, Kyle mentioned something; Kenny did apparently go to Cartman’s to raid his house for some hangover meds, but he seemed pretty alright. Must just be sick or something”, Stan says simply.

You see, Butters kind of knows he shouldn’t worry. Kenny is known for his disappearing acts. But he still is because Butters has always been a worrier.

“Oh, I see… Well, thanks for answerin’ anyway though”, Butters smiles awkwardly.

But Stan is still looking at him and for some reason, it’s similar to how Pip was teasing him earlier. Hamburgers, does everyone know something Butters doesn’t (want to) know?

The rest of the day goes on as normal, but when P.E. rolls around, Butters stands in front of his gym locker after all the other guys have long finished changing, looking at the short sleeves of his t-shirt and the short legs of his shorts.

Usually, after a punishment, Butters would take some long-sleeved, long-legged clothes from home to wear, because it’s embarrassing to have his classmates see and know that Butters still had problems behaving, enough that his parents have to punish him for it, but lately, he’s been feeling something else along with the shame.

Everyone gets bruised or gets scratched up sometimes, but lately, Butters has been toying with the awful-wrong-no-good theory that maybe… Maybe his parents shouldn’t really be doing this. There’s this book they’ve been reading in English and sometimes the teacher talks about the main character's violent tendencies being shown by how he beats his children.

Butters doesn’t think that applies to his father, since Stephen Stotch isn’t a violent man in nature, but Butters has just been thinking about it, is all.

And it’s not like people don’t know that Butters’ parents are strict. Just not that, for as long as Butters can remember, Mom caring for his wounds has also always meant that she’d be schooling him on what is and isn’t appropriate to show in class, or what he’s allowed to share about his family.

He tries not to think about these things much because they make Butters’ heart feel heavy and because it feels like he’s just making a big deal out of nothing. The solution to stopping the groundings and the punishments is easy anyway. Butters just has to behave. It’s not Mom and Dad’s faults that he is too naughty of a boy to follow simple rules.

Butters looks down at the t-shirt he is holding again. His legs are fine and his shoulders and stomach and chest will be covered, but his arms and neck are fully exposed.

Does it matter? If he’s a little worse for wear? Tweak is always wearing bandages because he tends to bump into stuff, so it really shouldn’t matter, right? Plus, maybe they’ll play dodgeball today, and that always leaves Butters with a few extra marks.

What happens in this house stays in this house . That’s what Dad always says. If Butters says nothing, no one will assume anything either.

But…

You have to be presentable, Butters. Don’t pull your sleeves up and be good at school today, alright, sweetheart? , is what Mom says.

These aren’t rules -rules, but Butters knows there would be consequences. He doesn’t want to embarass himself either. His chest is feeling all tight again now and Butters has some of the cigarettes Eric gave him last night stashed away in his backpack, but he isn’t sure he has the time to go outside now.

Instead, pulls his jacket on and zips it up to his neck after changing into his gym clothes.

When the gym teacher asks, Butters tells him he is cold and that is that.

After school is done, Butters looks over the note again, memorizing what he has to buy from the store, but in his mind, a devious, devious plan starts to form.

He has to head right back home after getting the groceries, and it’s awful of him to rush though that and then lie to his parents later that there was a line so he has an excuse to be out longer.

Even though they should still be at work when Butters arrives home anyway, delays or not, and they can’t call now…

But Butters knows how his parents are, he has to have his excuses straight just in case.

All that is to say, Butters doesn’t go to the store right away. Instead, after a brisk walk, he’s walking over the tracks and looking at the old, little, green house like it’s an oasis in the desert. Judging by the lack of a car in the driveway, Butters hopes that Kenny’s parents are just at work and not away doing something else that will leave Kenny and Karen feelin’ bad again.

It’s been better lately, but relativity is important for this statement, because Kenny opens the door and he’s bleeding .

But then Butters blinks and he isn’t, anymore, though there are a series of tiny off-white scars on his chin and Kenny looks exhausted. Goodness, his parents won’t be too happy with Butters if he starts hallucinating too.

They stare at each other for all of two seconds before somebody else joins them at the door. Karen, hair done up in buns with her backpack still on her shoulders, comes up to stand in front of Kenny, her face angry, or well, as angry as a tween girl’s face can get.

It softens when she notices who’s come to visit, and for that, Butters is glad, because if she ever decides to fight him after a punishment, Butters would definitely lose.

“Butters?”, she asks, “What are you doing here?”

He babbles a little, mumbling to himself as he tries to come up with a valid answer. Finally, he summarizes:

“Wh-why I, well. Ken didn’t show up to school, so I decided to check on him, is all!”

Then, because Kenny still hasn’t said a word and Butters is starting to think this was a bad idea, he takes a step back and starts rubbing his thumb over his inflamed knuckles.

“...You, uhm… You had school ‘till this late, Karen?”, change topics, yes! That’s smart! It's the second time today.

Karen jumps, looks at her backpack and gestures with her hand.

“Oh no, I’m just going to Tricia to meet up with some friends. We’re going to the cinema!”

“Ohhh, that do-does sound fun!”

Karen’s smile is adorable, really, and even Kenny’s blank face softens at the excitement in her voice.

“I know, right!? We got the ticket, and it’s gonna be in 3D too! And- Wait, how late is it? I don’t wanna be late”, she pouts.

Butters takes a few more steps back and grins.

“Well, don’t let me keep ya, miss! Have fun Karen!”

“Thanks, Butters. Bye! Bye Kenny!”

And she’s off.

Butters stares at the ground hard. He feels awkward, but the rising level of his concern overrides that, so he looks up and meets Kenny’s eyes. The gray looks a bit more like a sickly blue due to the pale hue of his face.

“Can I come in?”, Butters says a few seconds later.

Kenny moves aside and Butters closes the door behind him after.

“Is anyone-”, Butters starts, but already, Kenny is shaking his head.

“No, just me”, Kenny’s voice sounds a bit off. 

Butters frowns when Kenny stops looking at him.

He walks up to him and cups Kenny’s face with his hands, looking at the little scars on his chin and at the bags under his eyes.

Kenny seems to relax a little at the touch, but he’s still very quiet, and it’s not quite how it usually is when Kenny doesn’t feel like talking. Butters wonders for a second if he did something wrong at the party, but then again, Kenny isn’t pushing him away either and, anyway, Kenny needs a friend now, that’s what Butters thinks.

“What’s wrong, Ken?”, the question is soft enough that maybe Kenny didn’t hear it, because he hesitates.

Butters is about to ask again when Kenny sighs and leans a bit further into Butters’ touch, looking down at him.

“...I’m fine, if that’s what you’re asking”, Kenny says, spreading his arms out. If Butters wasn’t still holding his face, he thinks Kenny might spin around to show off that he has all his limbs and stuff; as it stands, he cocks his hip to the side a little, pulling an unexpected guffaw out of Butters. “See? All whole and shit.”

But he ain’t fine, though. It’s not a cold, but it’s something else. Butters has seen Kenny like this a few times, though it’s always been on a smaller scale. Falling asleep during classes and choosing to stay quiet during lunch break. Keeping to himself.

Butters hugs Kenny and he can only feel relief when Kenny not only lets him, but actually melts into it.

Only… It doesn’t stop there. Kenny’s shoulders begin to shake and when the first little sob breaks the silence, Butters is reminded of how easily Kenny used to cry when they were children. All Butters can do is let him and rub his back and keep holding him, whispering these little words of encouragement to him when the volume of the cries goes up. There, there. It’s ok. Let it out, Ken .

Eventually, when it seems like it’ll be easier, Butters looks around the house and notes that the sofa set up in front of the television is covered in beer bottles and cans. Some of the bottles are cracked, the shards embedded in the material. Butters flinches before he changes the direction in which he is taking Kenny.

To Kenny’s room they go.

The embrace changes into more of a side-hug to make walking alongside one another easies. Once Kenny’s bed comes into view, Butters coaxes him gently into sitting down before he seats himself beside Kenny as well, his arm still slung over Kenny's shoulder while Butters’ free hand moves on top of both of Kenny’s.

Relatively, Kenny’s family was doing better, but maybe that’s not accurate. Not in the ways that matter.

Butters doesn’t want to force Kenny to speak, but when they look at each other and Butters gives Kenny his best, most supportive smile, Butters is glad that Kenny starts to talk all on his own, even if he’s jumping around in his sentences and Butters doesn’t understand it all.

“I thought… I really thought everything was gonna be fine, you know? But like, shit. They’re never… They’ll never fucking change”, beer bottles and not-bloody shards on the sofa - Butters knows what they mean, “And then this on top of everything, I can’t, I can’t fucking do this anymore. Again”, Kenny whispers, voice cracking. He touches the marks on his chin and Butters thinks of his dream before it vanishes from his thoughts completely, leaving him only to feel a little uncomfortable and a lot sad. “Butters, it hurts. ”

“Are you disappointed?”

The way Kenny’s hands, larger than his, just a little rougher but so warm, move to cover Butters’ own make Butters ask himself who is comforting who, but he’s done his fair share of clinging. He squeezes as best as he can around long, bony fingers.

“Yeah. Fuck, I know I shouldn’t be. Fucking- God knows it’s still better than before…”

Yeah, relativity. But it ain’t fair.

Kevin’s out of the house and working, sending Kenny and Karen money in secret because neither of the three McCormick children trust their parents with any financial decisions, sobriety streak or not.

“You can still be… Be angry. And hurt by it”, Butters says back, “This ain’t fair on ya. It ain't right .”

“I used to get over it easier. I don’t know why it just, why it knocked me down like this this time”, Kenny confesses, moving his head so it rests on Butters’ shoulder. Butters, with his arm around Kenny, holding him even closer, moves his hand up to brush against unkempt strands of dark yellow hair.

“You just wish they were gettin’ better. Nothing wrong with that, Kenny.”

“But I want to be over it. Or… Or I want to not care. Like I used to before.”

Butters looks at the room instead of Kenny’s dejected face. More so because it hurts to see him like this and Butters has a hard time seeing people cry without breaking down a little himself. Tears are still slowly rolling down Kenny’s cheeks. They fill the crevices of every little scar on Kenny’s face, even though most of them aren’t even visible from further away.

“Maybe ya didn’t get over it before either”, Butters says, as gentle as he can.

From the way Kenny’s head shoots up, it’s not gentle enough.

“Dude, wh-”

“No, I-I mean… Listen. You maybe feel a bit further away ‘cause… ‘Cause it’s easier to get distracted when you’re young and don’t know how the world’s spinnin’. But now you do know. And keeping hope is… That sure ain’t an easy thing, Ken.”

Kenny looks like he wants to say something, but he listens instead, and for that, Butters smiles and tucks a stray piece of hair behind Kenny’s ear.

“For what it’s worth… I’m sorry. That things ain’t getting better. That you’re hurtin’. I wish nothing could ever hurt you, Kenny, I really do. You ‘n your siblings deserve better.”

“White trash deserves better than white trash?”, Kenny asks, not without a sense of humor.

Butters still smacks Kenny as lightly as he can on the shoulder, watching closely. Butters knows how to look for injuries after a few close calls. But Kenny seems unharmed, and he only shoves himself against Butters in retaliation, which justles a few of his own good ol’ bruises.

“Now, don’t sayin’ mean stuff about my friends, or I’ll have to really give it to ya, mister”, Butters says, trying to sound more like Professor Chaos than Butters.

That seems to be enough to really get Kenny going, because he bursts out laughing.

He falls back against the bed, giggling, and it’s such a contagious noise that Butters has to snicker along.

He watches Kenny as he does, though. Kenny is handsome, there’s no doubt about that, but it’s something else that makes him seem to glow a little as he wipes drying tears off of his face with the collar of his shirt. Butters can’t stop watching. He sure hopes Kenny doesn’t mind. Much.

Even if this crush goes nowhere, he’s still… He’s my best friend. I love hearing him laugh , Butters thinks, a smaller, more sentimental smile pinching the corners of his lips.

As Kenny’s laughter dies down, Butters thinks about the glass shards in the living room and the apparent lack of injuries from earlier. There’s a thought going on and on in his head about it. Kenny seems better now, after their little talk, but Butters still worries, so he asks:

“Did ya get hurt after they…?”

Kenny gets the gist of the question and he’s left to stare back at Butters in slight bafflement.

“I’m all good now, no harm remaining”, is Kenny’s peculiar answer. Butters’ brows are drawn down now, though.

“You sure? Because, if anythin’s wrong, we’ve gotta treat it, you know?”

“You always assume that.”

Butters blinks.

“That they’ve hurt me after drinking or getting high or whatever fucking else”, Kenny clarifies.

“I mean”, Butters tries to be casual when he rolls his eyes, but there’s a wave of ice spreading through his body. His fingers and toes go numb with it. “It happened a few times, so I just… I just worry and- Now, why are ya questioning me, mister!?”

“You always assume the worst”, Kenny shrugs, and while Butters is trying to come up with an answer, he yelps as Kenny grabs him by the shoulders and drags him down to lay on the bed alongside him.

“N-no, I’m an optimist. Just… I just…”

“You worry?”

Kind of? Butters nods. But it feels normal to ask too. Butters is lucky that he only gets hurt after doing something bad, but for Kenny and, now, only Karen, things aren’t like that. They don’t deserve it and their parents aren’t as predictable as Butters’. So Butters has to ask, just in case. It makes sense!

“You know I do, Kenny.”

“I do know”, Kenny sighs, drawing Butters closer until they’re really just cuddled up together, side by side.

Butters has to go soon.

“You feelin’ any better?”, Butters says after a while. His hand finds Kenny’s mostly on instinct, and he’d be embarassed, but casual touches have always been fine between them. Butters can’t help but remember the party.

“Yeah, I”, Kenny smiles, “Yeah.”

Then Kenny jumps up, and he and Karen look remarkably similar when they are surprised by something that’s just occurred to them.

“You never texted me back on Friday”, Kenny says suddenly, then adds, “And you weren’t in your room on Saturday.”

“Wh- Ahem, my phone stopped working after the whole takin’ a dip in Tolkien’s pool”, Butter says sheepishly (he hadn’t even known Kenny texted him! Truth be told, all he’d thought about the phone situation at the time had been his parents’ reaction, but now, Butters is noticing how un-practical it is to not have a way to contact his friends), “So that’s why- Wait. You were… How do you know about the- On Saturday. H-how?”

Butters isn’t amused anymore, but Kenny doesn’t notice at first. Oh heck, if Butters gets sick and throws up again, that won’t be doing anyone any good.

“Well, I was up to my usual, that is, er”, he clears his throat and then plays up a deeper, rougher voice, “ Mysterion was doing the rounds and I asked him to do a wellness check on you after I- ”, and he changes his voice again, “Kenny McCormick, asked him to. After I got off of work, of course.”

Oh, and his delivery is great, so why can’t Butters laugh along right now?

Because there’s these tiny level-with-the-ground windows in the basement and Butters is scared that someone saw him. That anyone knows how awful he’s been, and how he’s not behaving much better now by being here.

The skin on his throat is itching, itching, hurting, burning and Butters can’t breathe properly, but he tries to pretend that he can.

“You - checked my room?”, Butters asks.

“Uh. Mysterion did, yeah. But you weren’t in and… Butters, are you okay?”

“Ya didn’t see me at all? On Saturday? O-or Sunday?”

“No, I was… Here all day yesterday… With Karen…”, Kenny is looking confused as all heck as Butters sighs, relieved. Or tries to. He feels like he’s just run a marathon and is still fighting to catch his breath. Maybe Butters really should exercise more…

“Oh, okay.”

 But Kenny’s serious now too. Good job on ruining the mood after trying so hard to help Kenny feel better, self!

“And you were where, exactly?”

Kenny’s question has an easy answer and an honest answer. The easy answer is inspired by Eric.

“I was hungover. So I stayed… Out of my room, y-yeah.”

“Uh huh… Your old man is a strict fucker, was he mad at you after you got home or…?”

“A little.”

“Well, ‘cuz after you didn’t answer my texts, I assumed you were grounded and all that”, Kenny says.

“I am. I’m, heh, I’m not following the rules properly right now, but I hope you’re not gonna tell on me?”, Butters laughs weakly. Why isn't Kenny laughing along?

“Butters, did they… I don’t know, did they get really mad, or like”, Kenny looks awkward right now, and it would be cute, but all day long, Butters has tried to keep things discrete and he’s continuously failing, so he can’t even enjoy the moment, “Did they hurt you ?”

It’s such a direct question.

“We only talked. They only grounded me.”

Butters wishes he were a better son.

“Butters”, he says, then, with more emphasis, “Dude. Your parents can get insane about the smallest crap. You got home drunk and with a broken phone. Can you…”, Kenny licks his lips.

“Kenny, don’t talk like that about them”, Butters tries to be casual. Kenny just rolls his eyes, but Butters can tell that he’s trying to be more careful with his wording when he continues.

“Can you be honest with me? Did they do anything after I dropped you off? Besides ‘talk’ and ‘ground’ you?”

Is Butters really so incompetent that he implied something without meaning to? But he's not that clever.

“We talked, I just told you so, Ken”, Butters says. He really wants to scratch at his neck now, to drag down the collar of his turtleneck and dig his nails in, because his skin is itching.

But that would be improper so he rubs his knuckles together until it stings.

Butters can’t see Kenny’s expression since he’s not looking at him anymore, but he can feel Kenny jump up and out of the bed and he sounds angry when he exclaims:

“B, why are you like this?”

Butters doesn’t know. He’s trying not to be like this. He’s trying to be good but he never succeeds.

When Butters doesn’t say anything, Kenny kneels in front of him and takes hold of both of Butters’ hands.

“Butters, I’m not blind. I know they do shit to you. I can’t-”

Then, because of the angle, Kenny’s eyes move lower, following the neck of Butter’s top, widening, and that’s it. Butters fucked up again and Kenny knows. Maybe he’s always known. Maybe everyone’s always known how much of a fuck-up Butters is and it’s only Butters that’s been out of the loop this whole time. Only him who’s still failing to fall in line, and maybe he should have stayed in the basement longer. Then, he wouldn’t feel like this, he’d feel and think correctly and things would be fine.

Kenny reaches out with one unsteady hand towards Butters’ neck. For a second, Butters can see his father’s face before him, but Kenny’s touch is too gentle when he brushes his fingers over a purple mark just barely showing above the fabric.

Butters jumps up too.

When he runs towards the front door, he yells out hurriedly, sorry, Ken! Got chores to do!

He runs until he’s home, and after putting the groceries away in a gasping panic, Butters goes up to his room and bars the door with his nightstand because he can’t lock it from the inside.

Butters falters before he draws the curtains shut too.

Then, all alone and feeling like nothing will ever be fine again, because Kenny needed him and Butters somehow managed to make things better before messing them up further and leaving them worse , he cries.

Butters, it hurts , he remembers Kenny saying, and it really does.

Chapter Text

Butters remembers kissing Kenny’s cheek on the night of the party, after Kenny brought him home because Kenny was sweet and he’d been worried about Butters, so he walked with him.

Dad is banging on the door, yelling at Butters to open it. The wood creaks and groans and the door is made to be sturdy because Butters is grounded a lot and it wouldn’t do to have a door that’s easily broken. Butters can’t even speak from how hard he’s crying, though, let alone stand up to move the nightstand.

He remembers the kiss because, although Kenny had looked surprised, he hadn’t looked angry or nothin’. Just in shock. And Kenny likes boys too. And Kenny is great, Butters has always thought so. Liking boys can’t be so bad then, but maybe that rule only applies to Butters. There’s a lot of rules that only apply to Butters.

The yelling stops for a bit only to be followed by Mom’s voice, deceptively soft.

Let her in, she’s gonna help .

But she hasn’t helped in years, not really.

She slapped Butters and left him in the basement and Butters swings between regret and anger. Anger, because he’s different and he doesn’t wanna be and his parents just won’t explain why and Butters doesn’t wanna be bad anymore, but he can’t figure it out on his own and the rules aren’t helping anymore ( Drinking, breaking your phone, looking like a goddamned whore instead of the handsome young man me and your father know you are- ), and regret because he’s being bad and he’s hurting his own family ( Do you really believe that brat over your own brother? ).

He can’t move and open the door, so Butters keeps crying, choking on it, and it’s never felt so bad before.

He looks at the window and at the drawn curtain, but from only this high up, he’d just break his legs.

Kenny’s parents get violent sometimes, but people seem to agree that it’s pretty hecked up. Butters thinks so too. Kenny isn’t like him, he’s a good boy.

Butters needs his rules but they ain’t helping anymore.

He wants out, out, out .

“You wanna stay locked up in there!? FIne! See if we care, mister!”, Dad screams, so hard that the walls seem to shake with it.

The locks click in place. Butters is still crying.

Butters has been toying with his awful-wrong-no-good theory and it’s not helping, it’s making him feel worse.

Butters never used to smoke in his room. He hopes/prays this doesn’t become a trend. He lights himself a cigarette.

Or he tries to. His hands are shaking so hard that he can’t even use the lighter. It takes him a few painfully clumsy tries, but Butters needs it. The room fills with smoke quickly. Butters should open the window.

He won’t, because for some reason, the idea of it terrifies Butters. Luckily, there are no smoke detectors upstairs.

They are hurting him, but it’s the right thing to do, isn’t it? Isn’t it? The doubt is slowly killing Butters.

Someone is knocking at the closed window. They aren’t as insistent as Dad had been before, or else they’d have broken the glass, but instead, they keep knocking, softly, every few minutes.

Butters stops when he has one more cigarette in his pack. He feels drunk as he stands up, only the nice buzz isn’t there and everything hurts. P.E. had been rough on his wounds and running back home hadn’t helped them stay closed either. The sticky sensation of blood almost knocks Butters out. He’s already swaying because of how off-kilter he feels, this isn’t helping, none of it is.

He digs his fingers into the curtains and, for a full minute, does nothing but stand there, listening to the gentle knocking.

He’s talked to some of his friends from his window before, when grounded, but only one person actually sneaks into his room through it and Butters doesn’t want to face Kenny after the act Butters pulled earlier. He feels weak and ashamed.

“What’s up, Buttercup? I know you’re in there, B…”, someone says. Definitely Kenny.

There’s tears welling up in Butters’ eyes again.

“Last I checked, there was no lock on your window, but if-”, Kenny doesn’t get to finish his sentence, because Butters all but pulls the curtains off of the rod.

It doesn’t feel like Butters saw Kenny today, but rather days, months, years ago.

Butters opens the window and that’s about all he has energy to do before he promptly sits back down in the middle of the room. At least, the tears don’t fall. Kenny kneels in front of him. He keeps moving, trying to meet Butters’ eyes despite how Butters is trying to avoid looking. It’s almost funny, and he can’t help a wet, little giggle, especially when Kenny makes a face and speaks.

“You look like shit, Butters.”

Only Kenny could say something like that and not make it sound like an insult.

“You don’t feel like talking yet, huh…?”, Kenny licks his lips. Butters tries to shrug, but the movement is a little stilted.

Kenny shimmies closer. Both of them on their knees on the floor of Butters’ bedroom, they’ve been in this position before, but with Butters being so silent and without anything to do between them, the mood is different. Butters feels his hand move without his will, but he doesn’t forcefully stop himself from moving it into Kenny’s. When Kenny’s hand squeezes back, Butters feels the weight pressing against him from all sides lighten.

“Can I ask a few things? You can nod or shake your head or whatever, Buttercup”, Kenny asks. Butters nods. Kenny grins. “And you won’t run away this time?”

Butters says the words and Kenny must read his lips, I’m sorry , because no sound comes out, but Kenny still tightens his grip. His thumb moves over Butters’ knuckles, so gentle that he can barely feel a thing, despite the irritated skin.

“Did I say something wrong when you were at my house earlier? Scared you or something.”

A shake of Butters’ head. Butters is a coward, but Kenny can’t really scare him even if he tried. He’s too much of a sweetheart.

“You made me feel better, but… Are you feeling any better now?”

Another shake. If Butters could, he’d lie right now, but the energy just isn’t there, you know? He holds onto Kenny’s hand and that’s grounding enough for him.

“I”, Butters says, slowly, so he doesn’t stutter, “Am always happy to see ya.”

Always, always.

“I thought something was wrong even before. There is something, isn’t it?”, is Kenny’s suspicion.

A very hesitant nod.

“Are you grounded right now?”

Butters nods. His voice is raw.

“Since Friday. After the party.”

“Oh, Butters…”, Kenny looks sad, “But you weren’t in your room?”

Right. They’re continuing the same conversation from earlier. The panic is muted now and Butters is tired. So, so tired. And if Kenny hates him because of what he gets himself into, then… Then Butters still has the memories. And Kenny went through all the trouble to come here. If Butters bites his tongue any longer, he feels he might as well just snap it off.

Butters’ eyes flicker down.

“Living room?”

He shakes his head.

“The… Basement?”

“Wouldn’t let me out. I didn’t”, deep breath, Butters , “I didn’t like it. They said stuff ‘n I… I can’t hear it no more. ‘M being a real bad fella, ya know?”

“But, like. They kept you there? ‘Till Sunday ?”

It’s not the worst thing they’ve done. Even the dark spots of sticky, drying liquid on Butters’ stomach aren’t the worst thing. Because they’re not bad things, the punishments, no! They’re for Butters’ own good, even when they hurt.

Butters doesn’t know the answers, he never does.

“I should know better by now.”

Anger flashes across Kenny’s face, so quick only to be gone before he can process if that Butters wonders if he really is hallucinating.

“You didn’t do anything wrong”, Kenny says cooly.

It’s this defensive instinct that kicks Butters into speaking, loudly, more clearly.

“I messed up my phone.”

“It was an accident, I heard about it.”

“You weren’t at school, though…”, oh, Kenny shouldn’t blame Wendy. If Butters had been paying more attention, she wouldn’t have bumped into him.

“No, but the guys told me.”

“I wasn’t supposed to be home so late. Or drink, or let the girls put makeup on me. I was… I wasn’t bein’ proper.”

“Proper? Dude. It’s a party”, why does Kenny sound so outraged?

“Yeah, but they’re trynta help. They want what’s best for me and I-”

In one quick move, Kenny hooks the fingers of his other hand into Butters’ collar and pulls. He’d seen a hint of the marks earlier, but now, anger melts into terror and Butters just doesn’t know why.

“Who…”, Kenny asks, dazed.

“I was bad.”

And now it’s back to anger.

“Butters, what the fuck!? ”

“I was bad, Ken.”

“So they fucking strangled you!?”

“Dad just got a little too sore with me, that’s all”, Butters dismisses.

“ Butters! ”

Butters has never heard Kenny yell like that. Suddenly, Butters looks back at his barred door and is about to shush Kenny when the boy simply drags him back down by their held hands, forcing Butters to look at him.

“They were already gone when I snuck in, they won’t hear shit. Jesus Christ!”

“They… Gone?”

It’s both a reassurance and a disappointment.

“Yeah, of course they are. Neglectful, abusive pieces of shi-”

Butters moves back, suddenly and too fast. His vision swims.

“Don’t you dare, Ken”, he says, warningly. Angry, sad, scared, Butters can’t decide which emotion is stronger.

“What? You know I’m right!”, Kenny says, crossing his arms over his chest, “Everyone knows it. Dude, why the Hell are you trying to defend them? After what they’ve done to you?”

Butters raises his hands in front of him, not offensively, but more so Kenny stops talking like that. Kenny huffs, but he does stop.

“Not another word out of you, mister. My parents a-are doin’ all of this to help me because they love me. I ain’t ever been pu-punished without deserving it”, Butters rushes through the explanation.

“Deserve- Butters, deserving it?”, Kenny’s volume rises again, “Shit, fuck. This is fucking abuse! And you think they’re right to do it!?”

“Of course they are!”, Butters yells back, “They’re helping me ‘cuz I can’t do nothing right!”

“Helping you? The fuck they are!”

“Ken, shush it-”

“No! You think any of this is right?”

And it’s not just fingers pushing his collar down, it’s Kenny standing up, stomping over to Butters with his hands held out, making to grab for him.

For a second, just a millisecond, he thinks Kenny is going to punch him.

When Kenny fists his hands into Butters’ turtleneck and draws it up, ripping at the wounds that have glued themselves to the fabric because of the fresh-ish blood, Butters thinks Kenny's going to do something else (he wouldn't, he said wouldn't ), and instantly, Butters rears back, walking back, moving back, looking at Kenny but seeing someone else, taller, older, scarier.

“No”, Butters whimpers, “I don’t…”

He doesn’t want this.

“Butters…?”, Kenny’s voice is small and shocked, but it’s his voice, not someone else’s. He doesn’t follow after Butters, but he does look down at his own hands. There’s small smears of dark red on his fingertips from where he accidentally gripped at the blood stains.

“They love me. They hurt me because they love me”, Butters insists, feeling fragile, just on the verge of breaking.

“Butters…?”

“There’s something wrong with me. Everyone knows that too, don’t they?”

Kenny still isn’t moving any closer, but by the way his eyes get shiny and his voice cracks, Butters thinks Kenny might as well have stuck a knife through Butters’ heart.

“Butters… You know that’s not true, right?”

“They love me. My Mom and Dad love me”, Butters says, “Even if there’s something wrong.”

His father hurts him and his mother watches and covers the bruises when she has to.

“Buttercup… There could never be anything wrong with you. You… You’re one of the best people, like, ever. There’s nothing wrong with you.”

Why does Kenny sound like he’s gonna cry again? Good job on pushing him far enough to do so twice today, Butters. You’re a real swell friend! Butters flinches.

“They love me, and I love them”, Butters says again.

“If someone loves you, they wouldn’t hurt you. Not like this. No matter the fucking excuse”, Kenny says. He takes a step towards Butters and Butters lets him. He lets him when Kenny wraps his arms around him.

“They love me, and I never listen. I always disobey. I don’t follow the rules. But they still love me”, he cries into Kenny’s shoulder. His face was already a mess after his earlier fit, but he’s making a mess of Kenny’s shirt now too.

“Love that hurts isn’t good love, Butters. Family is never meant to do that”, Kenny says. He means it. Butters knows some of what Kenny’s had to endure over the years, he knows he means it.

It’s all coming down now.

Butters can’t unthink it, the idea that this isn’t how it’s supposed to be. He’s been trying, but he can’t.

“But I love them”, Butters sobs. It hurts so much. Kenny holds him and it keeps hurting but if Kenny lets go now, Butters thinks he’ll fall and he won’t be able to get back up ever again.

“That just makes you a better person than you know”, Kenny whispers in his hair.

And Butters’ final confession of the night worms it way past his ribs, leaving a touch of acid behind, and still… He says:

“I wish it didn't hurt so much, t-to be good for ‘em...”

Kenny doesn’t let him fall and just keeps holding him.

When he kisses Butters’ cheek as he gently lays them both down on Butters’ bed, there’s the question of what it means for each of them, but for now, Kenny just holds him and Butters lets him.

In the morning, they’re still cuddled up together in bed, comfortable in all the ways that matter, despite the clothes not being the best for sleeping in. It took Butters hours before he could fall asleep, but just like at the party, Kenny had let Butters lay his head down on his chest to listen to his breathing and heartbeat. They’d talked some more.

Just whispers in the night.

The way Kenny’s voice rumbles in this position doesn’t seem to have been just Butters’ drunk brain making stuff up.

The exhaustion of the night and the way Kenny kept talking to him in quiet tones, more so when they heard the screech of tires on asphalt, had left Butters to feel more calm than he’s felt in years. Butters felt light.

So when the first rays of the morning sun slice past the half-open curtains, Butters wakes up. Slept enough, he has not, but it’s the first time in a while that he doesn’t wake up to his own whimpering, sleep-muffled screams or to another nightmare about Kenny. Kenny follows after him with a groan, blinking and then shutting his eyes tight against the offensive light.

“You up, B?”, Kenny asks, voice adorable groggy and his hands still holding tight onto Butters’ waist.

“Yeah.”

“Jesus, what time is it…?”, he yawns.

Butters looks at the clock on his nightstand, only to remember that it’s not there anymore since the nightstand is somewhere else. It must say something about how much calmer he’s feeling that he laughs weakly at the fact instead of spiraling back into panic. Kenny smiles too, gently, then he leans down to check out his phone, only to also press a kiss against Butters’ forehead when he lays back down against the pillows.

“Early”, is Kenny’s reluctant conclusion, “But we’ve got school soon, so if we wanna get ready…”

“You didn’t go yesterday, Ken. Do you feel like going today?”, the little kiss leaves Butters flustered, though he tries not to show it.

“Gonna go with me?”

There’s nothing Butters would like more, so he tells Kenny exactly that. Kenny laughs.

They both sit up in bed, but for a few long moments, they only sit and stare at each other. Kenny then reaches up and takes hold of Butters’ face, studying it like he’s checking for marks. But Kenny already saw Butters’ injuries yesterday, so there isn’t-

Oh. Kenny is looking at Butters’ left eye.

And before Butters can try to gouge whether or not Kenny is still feeling bad about it and how he can go about reassuring him that really, Ken, it’s been years, Butters doesn’t hold it against him, not one little bit, Kenny leans down and lays his kiss against the thin line of raised skin.

“I think I like you”, Butters blurts out. His cheeks are red and hot and his heart beats a wild beat from where it’s climbed up right into his throat.

That Kenny looks a little stunned, but then smiles , is something Butters doesn’t expect. Kenny leaning down and pressing their lips together - this, he expects even less.

“Kinda figured”, Kenny giggles, actually giggles, “But I wanted to wait. To be sure.”

And that’s that on that. Butters feels like he’s just exploded, but maybe that’s ok. Maybe everything will be ok. So, hoarse and a little dazed, he asks Kenny back:

“Wanna go to school with me?”

Kenny nods happily and kisses him again. On the lips. Goodness gracious .

“But… Buttercup, your parents…”

And the third kiss must be the charm, because it’s Butters’ turn to kiss Kenny into a daze. At least, until the kiss drags on for longer and the feeling of movement against his lips makes Butters shiver.

Kenny tilts his head a little for some reason, and Butters makes a confused humming noise, still tingling all over because of the soft slide of spit-slick skin. Kenny opens his mouth and that answers that. He was looking for a better angle.

Hesitantly, Butters follows Kenny’s lead and opens himself up for deepening the kiss.

It’s soft and gentle and hot and when it’s done and they part, Butters is panting, moving a little to follow after Kenny’s lips, which Kenny seems to find a little funny.

Butters needs a moment before he feels human again and not like just a pile of goo.

“I’ll be okay. I… It was a lot, last night, but maybe I”, he takes a deep breath, “Maybe I really did need to hear it. And I’ll be alright. You go and I’ll meet you by the train tracks?”

The suggestion leaves Kenny a bit more somber. He’s still holding Butters’ face. They’re so close that their lips touch when they speak. Do these count as tiny kisses as well? He wants them, all of them, and Kenny seems to as well.

“You’ll be ok? You promise?”

“Pinky promise.”

The most difficult aspect of being home during his last year of highschool is that nothing changes. Oh, other things around Butters change, of course they do. So many of his friends make plans, most of them preparing to leave South Park while off to college, and the town itself always changes - in the smallest ways, but it adds up. Butters has a boyfriend now (secret! But Kenny understands and that’s what really matters; plus, gossip spreads like fire in their school, and by the second week of their relationship, Eric already has an arsenal of some of the worst jokes and insults possible for them. Luckily, they’re mostly harmless).

But home life doesn’t change on the surface, the ripples of Butters’ own revelations not reaching that high up, but it’s the foundation that shifts.

There’s still fear, yes, but nothing feels as set in stone as it once did. Sometimes, Butters can somewhat stand his ground or stop his father physically during another punishment; he's older now, it's not as hard to as when he'd been a weak, little kid, but it's still not easy. Other times, Butters feels himself drift and lets it happen like always. When it's like that, it takes a while before he can think about words besides his own telling Butters that it shouldn't be like this.

When he was younger, Butters would sometimes think that he would stick close to his parents for the rest of his life. Trying to imagine a future without them felt futile and, as the years passed, imagining a future for himself at all became little more than an unrealistic joke too.

Nowadays, Butters meets up with Kyle after school sometimes because Kyle still hasn’t decided what he wants to do after highschool either, or how he should plan ahead, and they do share in this confusion. Plus, Kyle is nice to hang out with. He doesn’t get so fired up when Eric isn’t there to fight with him.

Slowly, the future becomes a possibility for Butters again.

And… Though it started as Kenny keeping an eye out for him and always seeming to be able to tell when Butters has been hurt again, Butters started to tell him. Whether that means using his phone and a few code words because Dad has decided Butters cannot be trusted with a new phone freely and he cheeks Butters’ messages every night himself or that Butters sneaks out of his own house to go over to Kenny’s, the bottom line is that it’s not such a lonely way of life for him anymore.

Good days, average days, bad days, really bad days when Butters doesn’t dare leave his room in fear of even just catching sight of his mother or father, it doesn’t seem as extreme anymore when he isn’t all alone through it all.

Does Butters still get paranoid when breaking a perceived but unspoken rule? Maybe. But he starts to do things that he wants to do regardless.

And the biggest defiance Butters goes through with is when he applies for a job at Denny’s instead of college.

His parents think he’s applied already, but the letters Butters was supposed to send have been shoved at the back of his backpack.

It’s one more month until graduation, and the decision to start working again because he’s technically an adult now has more repercussions than just Butters trying to do something besides what his parents expect of him.

Truth be told, he doesn’t see himself in college.

Truth be told, Butters thinks he’ll need to take a break from all of this after he graduates highschool. Dad’s violence and bigotry, Mom’s deceiving gentleness, all of it.

A clean cut? No, Butters doesn’t think he’d be able to do that, and he tells Kenny as much one night. They’re naked under the covers, but it doesn’t feel so awkward (Kenny listens, Kenny pulls back when Butters asks; there's a safety there that Butters hadn't felt before, in doing something like this). Kenny is mouthing at his neck and Butters is playing with the unruly strands of dark blonde hair tickling his collarbones.

“Maybe they’ll change, I don’t know”, Butters says, “I wanna close that door, but not… Nothin’ is set in stone, I think.”

“I can’t tell you what to do, B. I can only be here for whatever you decide”, Butters can feel his lips quirk up in a smile against his skin.

“Mmmh… Enough about me, though… I’ve been hearin’ that a certain someone has been accepted for a science degree.”

Kenny’s laughter is just a little bashful, but Butters can feel only pride. He isn’t surprised, but to be able to point at this proof of Kenny’s abilities when Kenny doubts himself does leave Butters feeling pretty smug. It could also be that he’s always in a good mood after Kenny has his way with him, but that’s neither here nor there.

“One day”, Butters whispers, the movement of his hands gentling, lulling Kenny to sleep as their talk quiets down further into hopeful plans, both for each other’s future and for this , this precious thing between them, “You’ll do amazing things, I just know it.”

“Yeah?”

Kenny’s eyes are closed and there’s a small smile on his lips. Butters kisses that little smile and stays there for a bit.

“Yeah.”

“I want you there when I do, then.”

“Really? Well, I suppose I’d better work hard to be worth standin’ by you.”

“You’re already worth it”, Kenny stifles a yawn, “You’re always worth it.”

“You’re sweet, Ken.”

“You’re sweeter. I should know. I think I’ll”, Kenny yawns again, “Get me another taste after a nap…”

Butters thinks he’d like that very much.

Kenny leaves Butters behind for college, but by then, after a summer of working at Denny’s and spending all other free moments with his friends and his boyfriend and everyone that Butters has learned to love over the years, Butters has already cut off most contact with his parents and has moved in into a rather barren little apartment where he can exist without feeling wrong for it. Or being made to feel wrong for it.

It matters to both of them, since Kenny is protective, always has been, and he’s only gotten “worse” as they’ve grown older, and knowing that Butters will be relatively safe while he’s away is something Kenny’s confessed to worrying about.

Butters doesn’t tell him, but he’s glad too. Glad that, from his new home, he can call Kenny without being afraid that his parents will overheard. Glad that he’s out, it’s done, he’s out .

Kevin is the one who drives Kenny to his new college, and the trip has been planned for weeks now, but Butters joins the McCormick siblings when they come together to say goodbye to him.

He doesn’t feel like an outsider, and ain’t that nice for a change?

Karen and Kevin give them their privacy for a bit, waiting inside of the McCormick residence, but Kenny rolls his eyes and takes Butters’ hands, dragging him a bit further away into their backyard where they can't be seen from the windows of the house, mumbling something about spying and nosy assholes. But he’s smiling as he does.

Butters smiles too and both of them nearly fall down when Butters jumps his boyfriend and litters his face with kisses. They’re both giggling by the time Kenny just smushes their faces together and really kisses Butters.

“Say, Ken-”, Butters mumbles before moaning as Kenny bites at his lower lip, pulling on it, “You tell me if you find a-a, mnh , prettier girl or boy and leave me when you’re off to college, will ya? Don't, o-oh , keep my hopes up, mister…”

“Someone prettier than you? Now, don’t be silly, Buttercup”, he bites at Butters’ neck, leaving marks. He’s a bit more aggressive with that than usual, was last night too, and Butters can’t really blame him. If he could, he would probably hide himself into one of Kenny’s bags and sneak himself off to join his boyfriend. As it stands, there’ll be marks on his skin for days, marks that Butters wants , and that’s good enough.

“Don’t break my heart if you’re gonna take it with ya, Ken”, Butters whispers, halfway between actually pleading and whimpering.

“Same goes for you, babe. You know?”

Butters bites Kenny’s lips until they’re red and raw, making his toothy grin all the brighter when Kenny pulls back.

“You think long-distance’ll work for us?”

It’s more Butters’ insecurity talking, they’ve talked about what this means for their relationship and they’ve talked about how Kenny shouldn’t miss his opportunity and how Butters can learn to live his own life and that doesn’t mean their bond will break. It just takes work.

“I’ve been pining after you for years. I don’t think I’mma let you go now”, Kenny says, “Not ever.”

Butters kisses him again.

“I’ll be waitin’, then. Maybe I’ll work my way up to a promotion. Maybe a transfer. You’ll wait for me too?”

“Until the day I die for good”, Kenny says, and despite the strange statement, his eyes are dead serious. Until Butters pulls him down, low enough that Butters can kiss his forehead sweetly.

Two days later, Kevin drives back in an empty car and with one less passenger and he stops by Butters’ apartment in the middle of the night.

“Kenny forgot to give you this”, he says before waving and sleepily getting back into his car to go back home and finally sleep, and Butters stands in his doorway, blinking and staring down at the fabric in his hands.

A child-sized shirt is clasped between his hands, one that Butters remembers to be vaguely his, but no, in his mind, he sees someone else wearing it.

A hundred years ago (less than a decade, actually), Kenny followed Butters to Hawaii because he was worried and Butters returned home with one less shirt. Thinking about it now makes Butters smile in spite of the tears gathering in his eyes. They’re good tears. He misses Kenny already, but there’s this hopeful little nuance to the twinge of longing inside him.

So.

On his third night without Kenny, after spending maybe a bit too much time on a call with each other, when Mom calls Butters, he answers.

He doesn’t talk much, and when she asks him to come back home, Butters thinks it feels almost liberating to tell her no .

She says goodnight and that she loves him and Butters says goodbye. It’s the first time he’s talked to either of his parents after moving out. Maybe things will never change, but you know what? That’s just how life is.

Butters is learning to be ok with that. With himself.