Chapter Text
PC Principal might have taken the breakup the hardest.
He still didn’t believe Butters when he reminded him that their relationship was fake, and so he was left to grieve alongside them when their scheme stopped its contract. He’d asked Mr. Garrison if it would be best that the boys be separated in class. He’d pulled Kenny aside to make sure he didn’t need to investigate any domestic disputes that led to them splitting. And when he saw the two of them talking casually in the hallway, he’d physically made them go their opposite ways to avoid them starting anything.
Come day four he was more trusting of their repaired friendship, telling the boys that they were very mature for still staying friends after a breakup. Kenny suspected Mr. Mackey might’ve blamed his dinner party idea for them breaking up, but he chose the route of not mentioning it whenever he saw Kenny or Butters at school. He’d divert his attention to something else like the weather or if Kenny had eaten any good food lately. The answer was always no.
“So Butters, on a scale of 1-10, how shocked was your dad?” Stan asked from over his bologna sandwich, taking another bite while his gaze peeled back every layer of Butters’ face.
“Oh boy, probably a ten.” Butters answered with a low whistle, setting down his carton of orange juice. “My folks already believed that we broke up. But Eric was right, letting them see me move on made them happy.”
Cartman’s smirk was loud enough to go without saying, and Kenny subconsciously turned to look at him.
“My genius knows no bounds.” He sighed, sinking his teeth into a bite of fried chicken. “Parents are simple. They’re the ‘see it to believe it’ types.” Talking through a full mouth of food, he pointed a fat finger at Kyle from across the table.
“That’s why your kind doesn’t believe in Christ, right Kahl?”
Kyle didn’t respond to the taunting, but his hand did clench tightly enough at his milk carton to make it spit some up on the table.
Stan deliberately moved the conversation along, his gaze falling on Kenny who was currently trying to wedge his straw just right between his mouth and his parka hood.
“What about you, Kenny? What did your parents say about it?”
Kenny shrugged, quitting his attempt now that there were multiple pairs of eyes on him.
“Nothin’.” He answered.
Butters shot him a sympathy smile, going to speak on his behalf.
“That’s just ‘cause your parents are the progressive types, right Ken?” He looked hopeful in his pleasantry, but that level of bullshit was laughable even from Butters’ lips. He chuckled, shaking his head.
“Nah. Just too fuckin’ stupid to care.” He paused, starting up again. This conversation was really occupying his limited dialogue of the day. He could already feel himself getting winded. “Didn’t tell them. They won’t notice.”
When Butters’ polite smile turned to a concerned frown, Kenny continued.
“But Karen was sad. She likes Butters.”
“Aww.” Cartman cut in before any sentiments could be thrown around, hands clasping together dreamily under his chin. He batted his lashes at Kenny, leaning into his side far enough to falter him off balance. Kenny pushed him back to keep from falling off the bench.
“What a supportive family you have.” He cooed.
“Shut up, fatass. You’re just jealous because Karen cries every time she sees your ugly face.” Kyle rebutted, earning a snort out of Stan. It was true—the last couple times Cartman had been at the McCormick household at the same time as Karen, she’d been practically glued to Kenny’s side. She said he was “mean and smelled like glue.”
“Yeah, cause she’s a bitch!” Kenny elbowed Cartman hard for that, excusing him from their conversation for the next couple of minutes. The occasional pained groan attempted to interrupt them, but they collectively went on without him, eyes raised above Cartman-level.
Butters intercepted once he was sure Cartman wouldn’t spout more nonsense. His expression was light when he spoke, a curiosity in his smile that matched the glee of his voice
“Karen likes me?”
“Duh.” Stan muttered, giving his plate of lunch room slop an impudent poke with his fork. “Anyway, Kenny, I was thinking—”
***
Now that they had “broken up,” Kenny wasn’t allowed anywhere near the Stotch house. As soon as they got off the bus, they had to act like they were mortal enemies—no talking, no eye contact, no nothing. Butters found it a little fun to act sneaky. Kenny did not.
Suppose it was as it always had been. Before this experiment of theirs, Kenny couldn’t have told you the last time they’d hung out extensively one-on-one. When they were younger it had been more acceptable. Kenny was too young to cuss, and it was cute when his clothes fit a little frumpy. Nowadays, Cartman would get on Kenny’s ass whenever he spent too much time with Butters, and the Stotch’s treated him like he was the plague. He’d accepted some time ago that they just weren’t meant to be good friends. They knew each other, they liked each other, but the extent ended there. A hard stop.
But Butters had grown in the years he wasn’t paying attention to him. He was funny, considerate, and refreshing in a way that Kenny had never come close to. His presence compelled him in like a magnet, and if he stepped too close he risked getting pulled in forever. He had to make due with healthy doses. A reduced Butters diet, cutting back on the heartburn that came with too many smile-induced carbs.
They still talked sometimes in school. They would look at one another whenever someone cracked a particularly funny joke or if Mr. Garrison told them to break up into pairs. He sought Butters out on the playground where the other boy sometimes liked to color in the sun rather than play football with the rest of the boys. He watched him across the hall whenever one of the girls would talk to Butters, took note of the way he blushed or laughed. He made it a point to know the other boy, just in case he could forget him. Two weeks meant nothing in South Park, but Kenny did his best to nail down the memory of what they’d been in that small glimpse of time.
Karen still asked about him every now and then. His mom started making more gay jokes toward him whenever she’d watch her reality TV about the metrosexuals. He took down the pinup posters in his room one clipping at a time. Called it an early revelation, treated it like something to be proud of.
He asked Butters to meet him on the weekends. Suggested to the guys that they invite Butters whenever one of them calls them off to some new disaster waiting to happen. Butters refused for some time, and Cartman would never voluntarily let Butters tag along somewhere that didn’t require a fall guy, but Kenny persisted anyway. He worried that if he didn’t, they’d all move on from what they’d done. That it wouldn’t mean anything anymore—just water under the bridge he’d constructed with his bare hands and a couple loose sticks.
The Stotch’s still hardly let Butters out of the house, but he’d assured everyone they treated him better within the hours that he was home. His father was less harsh toward his softness, turning the other cheek whenever he caught Butters sewing up a new costume or practicing another dance routine. His mother lived a no more fulfilled life, but there was reward to be had in seeing her son thrive. He was less timid in the following weeks, more outspoken about himself in front of the town. He smiled bigger, cheeks regaining their rosy hue now that those dark circles had disappeared.
He looked…whole again.
Kenny saw him once more like that, exactly three weeks and two days after his staged apology in front of the Stotch’s. It was an afternoon where Butters had managed to slip away from home, convincing his parents that he was going out to play with the kids from his class. In reality, he was meeting Kenny out in the junk yard.
It had been Kenny’s idea, and really, that should’ve been pathetic with how much he’d sought out the other boy’s attention like this. But Butters didn’t seem to mind—or realize—as he’d expressed how happy he was to be with Kenny like this as soon as they’d settled in. Sat on the same car hood they had some time ago, Kenny faced him now, no Mysterion cape to hide behind, no false bravado.
They’d shared many falsehoods with one another in their youth. Being associated with Cartman would do that to you. The limited time they’d spent genuinely at one another’s sides like this could be counted on one hand, so perhaps that’s why Kenny felt a little sweaty despite the February cold.
“Is it better now?” Kenny had asked him, brows drawn in a nervous pinch. Butters straightened out against the car, fingers drawing patterns into the frost built up on the paint.
“Yeah,” he’d answered, voice all too simple. “It is. It’s…easy like this. They might have their limits still, but my dad doesn’t yell the way he used to.” He smiled to himself.
“The other day, I stepped into his office for the first time in…years.” He looked out at the junk yard, eyes surveying all the different discarded belongings that littered the ground. Most of it was covered in a layer of snow, serving to make the garbage a more tolerable background.
“He would’ve grounded me for that before, but—It’s different now. He’s different.”
Kenny was silent, taking in the sight of Butters’ face, his frost-bitten nose, his long pale lashes. He wondered if anyone else had ever considered the cowlick on his brow quite so thoroughly. He wondered if that was a weird thought.
“That’s good.” He responded eventually, once he remembered the passage of words. “I’m happy for you.” And he found himself meaning it, even if the statement was wildly out of character for the perpetually unconcerned Kenny. He didn’t think he’d ever been happy for anything, yet here he was celebrating the regained softness to Butters’ cheeks without the gaunt of stress to wear him in.
“Thank you.” Butters turned his head to meet Kenny’s eyes, tilting it slightly when he realized Kenny was already looking at him.
“You’re real nice, Ken. I don’t think anyone gives you proper credit for that.” For however stark the compliment felt when aimed at him, Butters confessed it with enough certainty that he didn’t bat an eye. He swallowed, hoping the sound wasn’t audible over the low buzz of machinery somewhere in the distance.
“Nah. You’re just a good influence.” He deflected, his smile that came through dissolving Butters’ argument before it could so much as conceptualize. Despite himself, Butters looked flattered by the statement, ducking his head to watch his fingers dig squiggles into the dash before Kenny could peel back his layers any further.
“Maybe you took something from all this then, too.”
Kenny didn’t think he needed to be told that much. It was obvious when Butters was sitting in front of him, honest words and keen smiles. He sighed, fixing his affections elsewhere when Butters began to draw absentminded hearts into the frost.
“Yeah. I think I did.”
Butters was grounded one week later on a whim. Stephen Stotch blew up after a bad day at work, sending their whole operation off course. Suddenly they were back to the same old, exchanging smiles over far-off lunch tables and spending weekends in their own divides. The days of shared whispers were behind them, and Kenny forgot, sometime come April, what that closeness had ever felt like.