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The crackling of a heater kicking into effect breaks the silence that otherwise hangs heavy in the dank basement of the Cartman residence. There are no lights except the orange gleam slipping through a small rectangle of window, showing the empty, suburban street above. It's by this light that Eric works, dragging a heavily loaded chair to the center of the room, which had otherwise been cleared of boxes and any necessary memories. He rubs his toe over the circular drain he’d settled the chair over, apparently pleased with its abilities and location, a deep grunt leaving his chest.
“You don’t need to fucking tell me twice, I know about the goddamn drain,” Eric mutters to himself. A beat of silence replies, then him again, “Well, yeah it works. It has so far. No- No, no, fuck off! It’ll be fuckin’ fine. If not I’ll just hire some fucking mexicans to do it. Like they speak fucking english, anyway--”
Cartman is drawn short as the chair creaks, burden shifting in its trappings of rope and plastic ties. Slowly, he shifts, squinting over at his prey.
“Oh, you’re awake,” Cartman drawls, crossing to that one visible window and lifting a box to fit perfectly into the sill, extinguishing any natural light, and any hope that they might be seen. Reaching up, Cartman takes a moment to locate the thin string dangling from the center of the room, before finding it and pulling. A lightbulb flickers into existence above them, yellow light obscured by a brown rust caused by years of dust and grime.
The light casts a sharp relief on the real scene Eric had staged. A thick wooden chair standing alone atop a grated drain, a burlap-coated figure-- plainly a man-- secured at the chest, ankles, wrists, and neck with a knotted, fraying rope and reinforced with plastic zip ties that dig painfully into the tender skin at each joint.
A small pocket knife is all Cartman needs to slice the rope holding the burlap bag on his head. Tugging it off, Eric tilts his chin up, eyeing the man he reveals and tossing the bag aside. “Hello, Colton,” Eric drawls, his voice is an indulgent coo. He smiles and flips the blade closed with a sharp, metallic snap, and when he does, it's all teeth.
The man-- Colton-- chokes at the sudden freedom from musty air and muted arguments he’d been hearing for the past hour. “Kid?” He asks groggily, “What- Where am I? Who’re you talking to? This something for Liane?”
Funny. He still thinks this wasn’t a scary situation. But, no, he wouldn’t. The past few hadn’t either. Cartman loved his mother but she had a very specific type, and they were all douchebags. “No, Colton," Eric sighs, "This isn’t for my mom. This is for me, see--”
“Alright, kid," Colton interrupts, chair rattling as he tests his restraints with jerking motions of his hands, only to find zipties biting deeper into his skin, "I’m sure you’ve had this entire thing planned, but--”
And Cartman roars, cutting Colton off, "AY!" He booms, hand raising and colliding with the older man’s cheek. “You don’t interrupt me,” His voice is a snarl, holding a finger in Colton’s face, “Strike one, fuckweed.”
There's a moment of silence as Cartman collects himself, taking a deep breath in, then out. “As I was saying!” the words burst from his lips as if they had built up for years, “Colton. This is for me. Because I wanted to like you, I really did, but--”
Another sudden rumbling has Cartman cut off again, the worn rope creaking in use just as much as the chair squeaks on its hinges. If that hadn’t torn him from his speech, Colton fucking would have. Again. This time he talks louder, with more authority, but Eric can't miss the way it tremors just a little in the back of his throat. He savors it like ambrosia. “I’m gonna forgive that slap, alright, kiddo? I’m gonna forgive it ‘cause I’m a nice guy. But you keeping me tied here is gonna make me do something I don’t like, okay? So let me go, and we’ll keep this talk going, how’s that sound?” He's not scared enough. He still thinks this is a dialogue.
It really was a shame. Cartman could see a lot of himself in Colton. Except for the faggoty name, but he could have changed it.
Oh, and also he was a fucking scumbag.
“Well, gee, Colton,” Cartman says, voice high and innocent, “It sounds like you don’t understand SIMPLE,” Cartman slaps him across the face again, “FUCKING,” another slap, this time with the back of his hand, “INSTRUCTIONS.” There's a third hit to emphasize his point, and both hands came down hard on the arms of the chair. Cartman leans into the man’s space, nails dragging into the wood arm rests, and the chair groans under his weight. “You talk again, I cut off a finger. Simple as that. I don’t like wasting time, bitch.”
And that apparently hits him right in the giggle dick, because of all the things to laugh at, Colton chooses to laugh at that. “Eric, kiddo, we both know--”
Snapping open the knife, Cartman feels the crunch of metal through bone before he even really hears it. He was getting good at removing fingers. Colton’s words die on his tongue, and they're followed by a scream, eyes wide and staring in horror at the stump where his pointer finger had been, now where sluggish red blood seeps into the wood and races down the chair leg in thick rivulets.
“Oh my god, I fucking warned you- Shut the fuck up!” Cartman snarls over the yelling, grabbing the burlap sack and shoving it into Colton’s mouth, muffling his screams. Eric wasn’t afraid of the noise-- his mom was out, was supposed to be for a few days-- but it was such an annoying fucking sound.
“Shut up,” Cartman snaps then, looking over his shoulder. “It’s fucking fine, I got the fucking bag, it’s fucking fine.” He isn't talking to Colton now, his eyes focused somewhere behind him, and Colton watches him turn on his heel and scowl, bloodied knife dripping and flicking as he gestures wildly, arguing heatedly with… nothing. Eric is talking to the air.
Finally, he comes to a standstill, another deep breath filling him to the brim before Eric returns to the task at hand.
“So I wanted to like you, Colton,” Eric says, picking up the conversation from where they’d left off as if they hadn't left at all, “I see a lot of me in you, y’know. You’re a smart businessman. You like making money and you’re good at it. You don’t give a fuck about goddamn shitty fucking pussies screaming about PC or gluten. You’re white. I mean, you really hit all my checklists for a good guy,” Cartman sounds almost empathetic as he speaks, dragging the flat side of the blade against Colton’s cheek. He might have cut him with the sharp edge, but whatever. Not important. You can barely even see it in his beard.
Eric sighs, placing the tip of the now-clean knife on his own nose, thinking very hard while looking right at Colton. He sighs deeply again as he leans back, arms crossed over his chest. “I really wanted to like you,” Eric says again, quietly, as if he was really, truly disappointed. “But then you had to go fuck it up.”
A quiet grunt leaves Colton's chest, from pain or bloodloss or just plain breathing, but all Eric hears is a man trying to speak.
The blade falls like a guillotine on another finger, the middle one, and this time they can both hear it crunch. “You had to fuck it up!” Eric throws the second finger to join the first as Colton's screaming pierces the air again, muffled still by the burlap sack. “I’m a patient guy, Colton!” Eric jeers, another grating slice underscoring Colton's sobs as a third finger is severed and thrown to the floor, “You can keep screaming like a little bitch and lose your toes or you can shut the fuck up and let me talk, it's your choice!”
Either the third finger makes Colton’s hand stop hurting completely, or he gets the fucking picture, because finally, he draws himself to silence. Cartman doesn't give him a chance to change his mind.
“See, my mom is the best. And I’m obviously biased, but considering this town fucking sucks asshole, my mom is the best thing about it. And I liked you Colton but you made her cry,” Cartman steps forward until he stands tall over the man, looming high enough to cast a shadow, “You made her cry, man.” He takes a large breath, shaky, repressing the painful memories of his mother in tears. A fight, a mean word, a strike, didn't matter what it was he did, the point still remains.
Cartman laughs, but it's a dry sound, forced and strained, an actual feat of strength to manage it. “I don’t like that Colton, my man," Eric takes a breath in as his voice trembles, restraint held in check with willpower made of string.
It snaps, with a noise that is surely audible.
“I DON’T,” Cartman’s hand, fisted tight around the newly-closed knife, clenches and rises, colliding with the man’s jaw, “FUCKING,” he lands another punch, this one aimed at the perfectly high curve of his cheekbone, “LIKE THAT.” The third punch was aimed high-- Eric trying to squeeze the eye out of Colton’s face like a grape between two fingers.
Cartman perches on the arms of the chair again, panting as he feels the throb in his knuckles from his hits. Blood trickles down his fingers from the man’s face, and Eric flicks it away, the wet patter of it hitting concrete flooring joining the chorus of the radiator still groaning in the corner, and Colton's wet, gasping breaths.
Leaning in, Eric shakily presses his forehead against Colton’s, eyes closing as he exhales into the older man's face, breath hot and unpleasant, bright blue eyes staring right at the mess he'd made. “So this is for me,” Eric starts again, cheerfully pulling away to the wet gasp of Colton trying to breathe through the blood dripping into his nose via the cut Cartman had opened on his eyebrow.
“Let’s see if we can get you to see yourself crying, huh?” Eric chirps, leaning back and rolling up his sleeves, throwing the knife to the ground, “Nothing like a little role reversal to get the blood going.”
It's three in the morning when Kenny finds himself outside the Cartman residence. An insomniac stroll had turned into a pointed mission to find his best friend. If he got properly baked and fed he could probably get to bed in time to wake up and slip into his house before his parents even noticed he was gone. Cartman was always down for a good time, so where was the harm in stopping by to say hello?
Except when Kenny arrives to the Cartman residence there's no familiar glow from the living room or even from Cartman’s room. His calls and texts are met with silence, as is his attempt to Romeo and Juliet his way into Cartman’s room-- Namely, throwing rocks at the window. Now, granted, it was three in the morning, so there was a chance he was just… asleep, like normal people would be. But if Kenny knew Cartman, that was unlikely.
That's when he sees it; The bright yellow glow silhouetted against a black something blocking the window to the basement. Weird, since the basement had been used for storage since Cartman got tired of people getting to use his basement for bases without him. But maybe he brought back the man cave. Gay, but alright.
Sneaking to the door, Kenny plans for a surprise, trying it and finding it unlocked. Nice. Slipping inside, he makes his way to the basement, winding through the house carefully to avoid the creaky floorboards or knocking anything down that might have been valuable. There was talking coming from downstairs, making Kenny raise an eyebrow-- Had Cartman gotten another TV without inviting him over? Fucking rude.
“...See, the problem with people like Dexter or Dahmer is that they take trophies, see? I don’t need anything like that because I’m not some goddamn faggot that has to jizz all over blood or skin or whatever the fuck,” After only a second of listening, Kenny realizes it was Eric speaking, talking to what looked like Liane's most recent mistake. Or... what had once been him.
Colton was pretty obviously dead. The burlap sack he'd been stashed in was sliced open from chest to stomach, and he had one eye hanging to the socket by a thread. There was a large rope of intestines wrapped like a fashionably long scarf around his neck, and surely pulled too tight to be comfortable, if Eric's rummaging in his open chest cavity hadn't been bad enough.
Meanwhile, Cartman was hosing down the ground and the chair, talking as if to a captive audience. Well... “And I know what you’re thinking-- ‘You’re still psycho! Anyone could pin this on you! You’re the only person it could be, trophies or not!’ Heh, I know. And usually you’d be right, Colton. Usually I’d go through this whole thing where I’d convince you to kill yourself, or convince that hot, schizoid neighbor of yours that you were the reason she was hearing voices and she had to stop you-- I would!” Eric insists, shaking his head as if he was tired of his own goofy antics.
“But you hit my mom, you know? You made her cry. That… whew… that deserves special treatment,” Cartman stands back, surveying his work, watching blood race down into the drain. He looks... disgusted. “Well, not special. You’re hardly my first, Colton,” Cartman spits, shaking his head, offended by Colton's implication of... something.
Hard to tell what a dead body was implying.
Still, Cartman pushes on, even as Kenny makes his way downstairs and stops at the top stair, able to see into the horrors of that basement. The stairs don't creak, but it would seem he didn’t need them to announce his arrival.
“Kenny’s here,” Growls a low voice in his ear, and Cartman glances over in the back corner, where Mitch Connors hovers, stoic as always, arms crossed, cigarette hanging lazily out of his mouth.
Cartman sneers, “I noticed, thanks, Mitch,” he snaps before brought to pause, glancing up at Kenny only after turning down the power on his hose.
“He hit your mom?” Kenny drawls from his spot at the top of the stairs, tone unreadable.
“She’s staying with her sister until she gets better,” Cartman answers, voice deadpan. There wasn’t enough left in him to be ashamed.
A long silence follows Cartman’s words. Eric doesn't know what Kenny's thinking, or if he's panicking, or just too scared to talk, period. He'd never tried to hide what he was, not from Kenny, and he wasn’t an idiot to where all of Liane’s ex-boyfriends had gone to some degree. But this was the first time he was seeing it live. It was one thing to assume, another to know.
“...Shoulda made him eat the eye,” Kenny finally suggests, shifting a bit on the stair. There's another beat of silence then, before Kenny further prompts, “You good?”
It's hard for Cartman to believe how lucky he was, how entirely blessed he was to have someone like Kenny in his life. “Will be in a bit," He replies, voice warm.
“Need help?”
“No, no, I got it.”
“‘Kay. I’m gonna make a pizza and hit some, that cool?”
“Make two, man, I’m fucking starving.”
Kenny’s grunt and subsequent exit back up and into the kitchen is drowned out as the hose is flicked back on and Cartman continues his speech.
“So where was I? Oh, right-- So the benefits of burning your bodies, y’know, should really be more widely known…”
Later after Eric finishes, they eat four pizzas total and watch the entire set of Bourne movies. It was a great night, honestly.