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It’s become something of a routine by now. Creeping along the town’s skyline, jumping gaps between rooftops and skirting round sleeping chimneys, illuminated only by the light of the moon. There’s no real risk, being that he can’t die, but somehow it’s yet to take the thrill away. Something about the night air in South Park has always felt otherworldly .
Kenny knows all about otherworldly . He’s been to Heaven and to Hell, shared a beer with Satan and played PSP with Jesus Christ. He’s met aliens and leprechauns, battled eldritch horrors. Still, he rarely feels quite as strange and out of place as he does each time he climbs the picket fence into the Stotches’ neatly manicured front yard.
The fence is slippery tonight, freshly melted snow leaving it damp and icy, and he tumbles, landing on his butt in a pile of Mrs Stotch’s geraniums. Cursing under his breath, he quickly moves to the shadow of the large tree in the center of the yard. He stays there a moment, holding his breath, hyper-alert for any noise from the house. When nothing comes, he scales the tree and settles down to wait.
He used to knock on the window when he first started coming here, until one night Mr Stotch, having come in to check his son was sleeping, heard the noise and pulled back the curtain. Kenny had only escaped discovery by jumping from the tree and sprinting back to his house on a sprained ankle. Butters had been punished anyway, and they’d vowed to be more careful since then. Since, they’ve developed a routine. Kenny works two jobs nowadays, and it limits the time for their late-night rendezvous to the dull glow of dawn twilight once or twice a week. If he misses it, he likely won’t get to talk to Butters until the next time- they’re banned from talking to each other at school, because Linda Stotch has got it in her head that Kenny is a drug dealer and all-around bad influence. Butters’ parents still check his phone several times a day, and Kenny’s often too broke to afford SMS anyway, so they can’t even text each other. It’s a frustrating arrangement, to say the least, and he’s died more than once trying to climb in and out of the window, but Kenny still makes the effort to be here every time. There’s a certain peace he finds in these stolen hours that he’s never found anywhere else.
Sure enough, after a few minutes the curtain lifts, and there’s Butters, in all his dopey, pajama-clad glory. His smile when he sees Kenny waiting for him is so genuine that it’s embarrassing. Kenny smiles back, feeling his cheeks warm a little beneath his hood, and waves.
He clambers over the windowsill with practiced ease, tossing his hood back and shaking out his hair. Butters giggles as he closes the window behind him.
“You look like a puppy when you do that,” he says fondly. Kenny shakes his head again for emphasis and barks. Butters shushes him, but there’s a huge, lopsided grin across his face as he pulls Kenny off the windowsill and into his arms.
“I missed you,” he sighs. Kenny nuzzles into him and breathes in his scent. Butters smells like soap, and some kind of nice, fresh herb that Kenny wishes he were fancy enough to name. Rosemary, perhaps, or sage. It’s good- cleansing and healing.
Or maybe that’s just Butters.
Woah. Slow down there, gay thoughts.
Kenny pulls away just enough to stare up at Butters and give him his best gap-toothed grin. He’s the shorter of them, growth stunted by years of subsisting on Pop-Tarts and half-empty cans of beer. Still, it’s not by much. He’s counting on his teenage years to even out the difference.
“You saw me yesterday,” he says, but he knows what Butters means. Kenny has missed him, too. “I know I’m a sexy beast, but you could do to be a little less obsessed with me.”
It’s always fun to watch Butters react to comments like that. He used to go bright red, stammering something or other about how he ‘ain’t no queer’. It always made Kenny laugh, because out of everyone Kenny flirted with, Butters was the only person who really seemed to take him seriously. Somewhere along the line he’d caught onto the joke and stopped protesting, but he still flushes a lovely shade of pink each time that for some reason makes Kenny want to touch his soft cheeks, pet his hair. It’s because Butters is so innocent, he tells himself; pure and somehow unscathed by the cruelties life has thrown at him.
Kenny has never had the luxury of innocence. He was born into dirt and decay, life and death conspiring to strip him of his purity before he was old enough to even know he had any. He chose to revel in it- find amusement and enjoyment in his superior knowledge of the adult world and a sick kind of escape in the freedom rock bottom gave him.
He doesn’t know how Butters is different. He’d thought, when they first met (that fateful year when Kenny had been gone, and the awkward reconciliation that came later, learning his friends had tried so hard to replace him) that he must be sheltered and privileged, had even resented him for his ceaseless, seemingly easy optimism. He knows now that he had been wrong. Fate has left the two of them stuck on the sidelines together enough times for Kenny to notice the signs, and he’s been forced to admit to himself that Butters wasn’t born into innocence, but is choosing it. He clings to it like a starved dog, fighting for its kill.
(It reminds him just a little of his sister, who he once found humming to herself, drawing butterflies on her bruises in purple marker pen to make them into something pretty.)
He pulls back completely to look at him, and finds himself smiling. Butters still wears footie pajamas to bed- tonight’s ensemble is fuzzy and blue, patterned with a cute spaceship design. Butters smiles back at him, ears still tinged with pink.
“Why don’tcha take off that coat?”
He usually wouldn’t. His coat is his armour, like a hero costume he can wear to school. It’s Butters, though, and over the past year or so they’ve reached a sort of silent agreement about the things which do and don’t leave the room when they’re alone together. So he takes it off. Butters doesn’t comment on the angry bruises up his arms, the cigarette burns, and Kenny is thankful for it. He folds up his parka and passes it to Butters, who places it on the end of his bed and sits down beside it, gesturing for Kenny to come sit down too. He does, and feels some of the tension leave his body almost immediately. Butters’ bed is so much softer than the lumpy mattress in his own room, and it smells like Butters, which for some reason is even more comforting than its softness.
For a few moments they sit in companionable silence and watch the light shifting over the walls. It’s still pretty dark outside, save for the headlights from the occasional passing car. Butters’ bedroom looks out onto the street, which is why Kenny only visits him at night, certain that Linda and Stephen watch the street outside like hawks during the day. Kenny suddenly remembers his less than graceful fall over the fence and winces.
“I crushed some of your mom’s flowers,” he says mournfully. Butters sucks in a breath, like he always does when he thinks he’s going to be in shit for something. “Do you think she’s gonna notice?”
Butters tries to smile, but he’s looking down at his hands and fidgeting in a way that Kenny is pretty sure means ‘yes’. He feels like a dick, and glances guiltily at the floor.
“I-it ain’t your fault, Ken,” says Butters. Kenny thinks that he looks almost apologetic, as if this is somehow his fault instead. “M-maybe she’ll just think it was a cat or somethin’.”
Kenny doesn’t say what he’s thinking- that even if it had been a cat, Butters’ parents would find a way to blame him anyway- but sighs regretfully. “I’m sorry, man,” he says, with sincerity.
“Don’t you worry none,” says Butters, “I-I’ve been real good lately! They probably won’t ground me too long.”
Kenny sighs again, leans back a little. Pushes the palm of one hand against his forehead.
“You don’t even get how fucked up that is, is the thing,” he mutters. Butters fidgets uncomfortably, wringing his hands and knocking his knuckles together. “I worry about you sometimes.”
“Well,” says Butters, biting his lip, “you’re one to talk, mister.”
Kenny looks at him. “What does that mean?”
Butters frowns, but doesn’t meet his eyes. “You’re a-always comin’ in here all beat up, and you just act like it’s nothin’, like you want me to pretend I don’t notice you’re hurt. Well, I do notice! An’ I worry about you too.” He glances up anxiously, defiant eyes darting to Kenny’s face and quickly away again, searching for a hint of anger. He flinches when the bed shifts, but Kenny only folds his arms, self-consciously covering some of the bruises.
“I know my home life is fucked up, Butters. You’re the one who goes around acting like everything’s fine . ”
It’s not that he doesn’t want to talk about it, although he doesn’t. He knows that, out of everyone in the ensemble of weirdos he calls his friends, Butters is the least likely to react with either righteous outrage or meaningless pity. Sometimes, in the safety of daylight, they even talk about it; hanging out behind the school, Kenny with his back against the wall and a cigarette between his teeth, Butters trailing his fingers on the ground, drawing patterns in the dust.
Night is supposed to be different. Night has always been Mysterion’s time, and something in Kenny feels like laying himself bare in the dark of Butters’ room is taking something from him. As if Butters doesn’t realise that this dark angel who comes in the night is really just scrappy, dirty Kenny McCormick, who lives a few houses down across the train tracks and spends his weekends getting high off paint fumes in the garage.
He doesn’t say any of this. Butters, who amazingly only winced a little at Kenny’s words, seems to take the following silence as permission to push.
“I-I just,” says Butters, the careful edge to his voice making Kenny’s gut churn, “I just think we should be able to talk about it, is all.”
Kenny feels like a spring is winding in his stomach, and he’s afraid that at any second it might snap.
“Butters, we can’t all be as- as open as you are, like, it’s not. It’s just not what I’m used to. I don’t,” he runs a hand through his hair. Lets out a breath. “I don’t talk about that stuff, okay? You wouldn’t either, if you knew-”
How bad it is , is what he was going to say, and in a way, it’s true. Butters has never seemed to grasp the gravity of these things, even as they happen to him. After all, he’s never had the pleasure of being carted off to god-knows-where by child protection services, only to find himself somewhere worse than where he started. For whatever reason, nobody has ever intervened with the Stotch family. Kenny isn’t sure if it’s a curse or a blessing.
Butters looks hurt, though, and maybe a little angry, and it only winds the spring inside Kenny that much tighter. He can’t look at him, suddenly, and allows his gaze to drift instead over the soft sheets. He winds a loose thread around his finger and pulls until the surrounding skin goes white.
“You wanna talk about it?” he mutters, the words feeling heavy and wrong in his mouth, rat poison. “Fine. Dad caught Karen trying on some shitty lipstick she got from some girl in her class. He told her that if she wants to look like a whore, she should go out and earn like one. I told him to leave her the fuck alone, so I got my ass whooped.” His finger is going numb, but it’s grounding, allowing him to focus on something other than the fact he’s spilling his problems to his friend like a pussy. “Is that what you wanted to hear?”
Butters is quiet for what feels like a very long time. Then he says, thoughtfully, “Huh. Would he really make her do it?”
“I wouldn’t fucking let him,” growls Kenny, and Butters smiles.
“Mysterion wouldn’t neither, I reckon. An’ if Mysterion ever needed help, well, I know a supervillain who owes him a favour or two.”
The tension in Kenny’s gut eases slightly, and he’s suddenly smiling back despite himself.
“Wow, Professor,” he says in his Mysterion voice, “I didn’t think you were the type to go rescuing damsels in distress.”
Butters grins at him. “Nope, not me. Kinda the opposite.”
“You’re a damsel in distress?”
“Hey, you can’t be the princess every time. Maybe I want a turn.”
They both laugh, and for a moment the heavy atmosphere is gone, and they’re just two kids again, each happy in the company of a friend. Once their laughter stops, however, a serious expression finds its way onto Butters’ face.
He leans in, and for one odd, delusional second Kenny thinks Butters is going to kiss him. But Butters just pushes back his fringe, gently stroking his thumb over the bruised skin around his eye. Then, without another word, he gets up from the bed and moves away. Kenny can hear him rummaging around in his desk drawers. He looks up to find Butters standing over him, holding a box of band-aids and a small bottle of disinfectant.
“I’ll clean you up,” he says by way of explanation, “I know you have your hood an’ all, but this way you won’t have to worry about it slippin’.”
Kenny nods, and Butters settles back down on the bed beside him. He puts the band-aids down and pulls out a ball of cotton, spraying disinfectant over it and pinching the sodden wad between his thumb and forefinger with a practised ease.
“Close your eyes,” he says, and Kenny does. Soggy cotton brushes over his eyelid, and he winces at its cold sting.
“Sorry,” Butters mumbles, moving the cotton ball down to Kenny’s lip, gently patting away some dried blood at the corner of his mouth, where the skin has split open. “Jeez, he sure don’t hold back when he’s beatin’ on ya, does he? What if someone saw?”
Kenny laughs drily. Shrugs.
“Guess our family already has a reputation. Not like the school would do shit anyway.”
“Yeah, I guess they wouldn’t, huh,” says Butters, equally drily. “They can be real bad at- at noticin’ stuff.” Butters moves away for a second to get a new piece of cotton, and then his hand is back again, dabbing at a scratch on Kenny’s cheek. “I guess most people are.”
Between them, unspoken, hangs a mutual addendum of ‘ but not you ’.
With a final swipe over the bridge of his nose, Butters pulls back.
“Alright, all better. Now you won’t get an infection, at least.” Kenny isn’t so sure about that, but hey, as far as Butters is concerned, it might as well be true. If he gets an infection, he’ll probably die from it, and in a few days it’ll be like it never happened. He opens his eyes.
“Thanks, man.”
Butters beams at him. “No problem, Ken. Hey, hold still a second.” He picks up the bag of band-aids and rummages in it, pulling one out and carefully peeling off the backing. Kenny tilts his face toward him obediently, allowing him to smooth the bandage over his cheek. Then, to Kenny’s surprise and embarrassment, Butters quickly leans in and presses a careful kiss to the same spot. When he leans back again, he’s blushing.
“M-m-my aunt Nellie does that, when I’m, uh, when I’m hurt, and I always thought it felt real nice, so. I just.”
Kenny is smiling, a big, stupid grin creeping up his cheeks. He raises one hand and brushes his fingers over the spot where Butters kissed him.
“Damn,” he says, “you’re right. It does.”
They stare at each other for a moment, flushed, appraising each other quietly. Then, as if waking from a dream, Butters suddenly gasps.
“Oh! I know!” He claps his hands together excitedly and gets up, quickly shuffling to his desk and pulling something else from the top drawer. When he spins round again, looking triumphant, Kenny sees that he’s brandishing several sheets of glossy stickers. He laughs.
“What’re those for?”
“To cheer you up,” says Butters happily, “or maybe good luck.” He returns to Kenny’s side. The bed bounces as he flops down and holds out the stickers. “Pick one!”
They’re very… pink. A good portion of them feature Hello Kitty . The ones that don’t are all either hearts, flowers, or little colourful teddy bears. Butters even has a sheet of official My Little Pony stickers, although a lot of those have been used up already (there’s a scarcity of Fluttershy, Kenny notices- a name he only knows because he sometimes shoplifts the magazines for Karen, thank you very much ). Kenny looks at him with amusement.
“Seriously?”
“Yeah!” Butters nods, pouting a little. “These are my best stickers. I wouldn’t offer ‘em to you if I wasn’t serious.”
Honestly, it’s the kind of thing Kenny would rag on him for in school, at the very least laughing along with Cartman and the others while Butters tried to hold back shameful tears. But they’re not in school now, and Kenny doesn’t often get to spend time alone with someone who earnestly enjoys the things he’s too cowardly to without a ratty blonde wig over his hood.
“This one,” he says, pointing to a sparkly Hello Kitty sticker. The little cat has angel wings and a halo, and is clinging onto an oversized pink heart, which is covered in bandages.
Butters seems mildly disheartened by his choice. “Aw, that one’s one of my favourites.” Still, he smiles and peels the sticker off of the sheet. “Suits you more than me, though. Okay, hold still.”
“What are you gonna-” Kenny cuts himself off with a laugh as Butters presses the sticker to his cheek. Trust Butters, the best artist in their class, to turn Kenny’s battered face into an arts and crafts project.
“There! That looks real cute,” says Butters, patting the sticker down. Kenny is kind of awestruck.
“Butters,” Kenny says seriously, “please don’t take offence when I say this, but this is like, the gayest thing you’ve ever done.” Butters tenses, his face quickly draining of colour. Kenny hastily grabs his hands before he can pull away. “Do another one.”
Butters looks horribly confused. His brow furrows and his mouth stretches into a pout.
“B-b-but you said, uh-”
“Yeah,” Kenny rolls his eyes, “I know. I don’t mind. I liked it.”
Comprehension is slowly dawning on Butters’ face, as well as something that could be either wonderment or horror. It’s hard to tell in the half-light.
“Ken, are you, uh… are you, y’know... gay ?”
Kenny wants to laugh at the bright blush on Butters’ face, the hoarse, incredulous whisper in which the word gay escapes his mouth, but knows better. Instead, he merely treats him to a lazy, lopsided grin.
“Nah, I’m not gay, dude. I guess I go both ways.” He remembers the recent talk about nonbinary genders that they had in school, courtesy of one Wendyl Testaburger. It had resonated with Kenny more than he likes to admit. “Or all ways. Whatever.”
“Oh.” Butters looks like he’s on the verge of saying something, but he just shakes his head and rubs his fists together. “Well, that’s, uh, that’s real swell, Kenny, that you’ve got that stuff all figured out. A lotta people don’t, I reckon.”
“Yeah,” says Kenny, although he’s dubious. In truth, he sort of hates his bisexuality. Kevin always jokes that it makes him a slut. He likes to think that’s not true, but Kenny has been doing gross shit for cash since he was seven, and at some point along the line sex became an intrinsic part of his being. He can’t get away from that.
It’s hard to tell how much of his identity he was born with, and how much of it was thrust upon him.
These gloomy thoughts are interrupted by Butters, who giggles to himself as he peels another sticker and sticks it on the tip of Kenny’s nose. Kenny screws up his face at the slight itch.
“What is it?” he asks curiously.
Butters giggles again. “You wanna see?”
Kenny shakes his head, gesturing at his cheek with a grin. “More first.” Butters looks thrilled , and it makes Kenny’s heart leap in his chest.
Having Butters touch his face is… nice. Butters’ hands aren’t particularly soft; the skin around his fingernails is chapped from anxious picking, his fingertips rubbed raw from the hard slog of repetitive chores. Still, there’s something soothing about the way his skin feels. His warmth is a gauze, dulling the pain beneath Kenny’s bruises in ways antiseptic never could. It’s so nice, in fact, that when Butters finishes and stands back to admire his work, Kenny whines .
Butters looks worried. “Oh, hamburgers, I didn’t hurt you, did I?”
“No,” says Kenny, “just staying in character. Dog, remember?” He lets out a little bark, then grins, moving his head from side to side. “So, how do I look?”
Butters grins, putting on a posh, nasally drawl. “Why, you look just stunning, sir, if I do say so myself.” He holds up his hands, framing Kenny’s face with his fingers as if taking a snapshot. Then he grabs a mirror off his dresser and proudly shoves it towards him.
Kenny takes it by the handle somewhat gingerly, inwardly cringing away from the glass and the mere potential of it breaking. Butters would get grounded for sure if Kenny wound up cut into ribbons, bleeding out on his nice clean sheets.
When the mirror doesn’t shatter, he raises it to his face and studies his reflection. They don’t have mirrors back home, haven’t since Carol McCormick drunkenly threw a lamp at her eldest son, missing and smashing the mirror behind him into a thousand pieces of tinkling glass. They’d had to take Kevin to the emergency room, and the cost of his stitches had the whole family living off breadcrumbs for the next month.
So, it’s been a while since Kenny saw himself in a mirror. His hair is getting long. He sort of likes it. It reminds him of the games they still play sometimes, where Kenny is a beautiful princess waited on hand and foot by her loyal knights. He lifts one hand, twirls a few strands between his fingers idly. It’s unwashed and greasy, but much softer than Cartman’s old wig.
“I like the horse,” he says, gesturing to a sticker of an orange pony whose name he can’t recall, which Butters has carefully placed over one of the larger bruises. “Why’d you pick this one?”
Butters blushes.
“Well,” he says, fidgeting, “she’s real hardworking, an’ she spends an awful lot of time carin’ for her family.” He pauses. “I guess it’s pretty darn… pretty goshdarn faggy that I know that, huh?”
“Kinda,” says Kenny, “but maybe it’s dumb to act like that’s such a bad thing, anyway.”
Butters contemplates this, chewing the inside of his mouth, and Kenny resumes his self-examination. Aside from the pony sticker, there’s also a smiley face on his cheek. His other cheek sports a little rainbow, the Hello Kitty, and several hearts. Another heart balances on the very tip of his nose, and small golden stars glint among the light smattering of freckles under his eyes. It’s messy and ridiculous and perfect .
Reflected in the glass, the huge smile on his face is a strange thing to see.
“Damn, Butters.” It’s all he can think to say- he’s in equal parts deeply touched and horribly embarrassed. Butters seems to understand, though, and reaches over to give his arm a little pat.
“I’m glad you like it,” he says, beaming. Kenny nods.
“It’s fuckin’ great. You’re fuckin’ great. Shit, dude.”
Butters flushes, but he looks happy, and Kenny’s filled with an odd sense of pride. Maybe making Butters happy isn’t exactly hard , but it feels special, here in his bed, smiling face cast in soft dawn light. He wants Butters to wear that expression forever. Wishes he could make that happen.
He can’t. They’re starting high school next year, and soon Kenny will be too big to fit through the narrow gap in his window. He thinks, wistfully, that he’d steal him if he could- grab him in his arms, leap from the windowsill and disappear with him into the night like a real superhero. But even if he could, he’d have nowhere to take him.
Butters leans against him, sighing gently.
“I wish I could protect you, Ken. Like when we play fantasy, an’ I’m this brave paladin who can do anything.” His hair is tickling Kenny’s neck. “I wish it could be like that, for real, forever.”
Kenny laughs, and though Butters is apparently too comfortable to move his head, Kenny hears the pout in his voice as he says, “What’s so funny?”
“Nothing,” he replies, “I was just thinking the same thing. About you, though.” He sighs. “Some superhero I am.”
“I guess playin’ pretend just ain’t enough anymore,” says Butters. They’re both quiet for a moment. Kenny puts his arm around Butters’ shoulders and draws him close.
“You know,” says Kenny eventually, “at one point I really thought I was happy. When we were little. Like playing make believe and laughing at fart jokes was all there were to life.”
“Well, ain’t it?” says Butters cheekily, and Kenny smiles and shoves him.
“Hey, screw you, dude. I’m trying to have, like, a moment.”
Butters laughs. “I know. Guess that was mighty rude of me, interruptin’ you. Go on.”
Kenny rolls his eyes, but he’s still smiling, and he puts his arm around Butters again to show him he’s not really mad. Butters settles back against his side with a comfortable exhale.
“I dunno. I was never normal, I guess,” (he chuckles internally; this is most certainly an understatement), “but I thought- it could always be worse, or something. It was easier to focus on the stuff that was normal, you know? Being at school, messing around with Stan and Kyle and Cartman. Getting sucked into all their wacky adventures. All that stupid, ridiculous shit that happened to us- in a way, that was more normal than being at home.” He glances at Butters. “Maybe that doesn’t make sense. I don’t know.”
Butters sits up, disentangles himself gently from Kenny’s embrace, and looks at him.
“It does make sense, I think.” His expression is pensive. “I mean, well, I guess it’s different for me. But those adventures, they sure were a nice distraction.”
Now Kenny is curious. “Different how?”
“Oh, well, you know. I, uh. How you always knew things at home were- bad. I thought things were just like that for everybody.” He looks away. “I’m not smart like you, Kenny. Like, uhh… oh, do you remember how we had that talk in class last year? About- about sex?”
Kenny stifles a snort- how could he forget? That had been one of the most entertaining days of his life . “Yeah, I remember.”
“Well,” says Butters, knocking his fists together, “I-I guess I didn’t realise ‘til then that- that I’d done a lot of that stuff already.” He pauses, then adds, quieter, “And,you know, that it made me- dirty .”
Kenny inhales sharply. They’ve talked about this before, briefly, but he still hates to think about Butters being used like that, and knowing that Butters now feels used because of it makes him doubly nauseous. Kenny should be used to things like this, but it never gets easier to talk about, for some reason. In his gut, he feels the familiar pull of Mysterion, a flicker of dark and vengeful anger that makes him want to get up and fight the whole world.
His fury must show on his face, but thankfully Butters still isn’t looking at him. Kenny tries to compose himself.
“It doesn’t-” he stops himself, can’t say it with conviction. He doesn’t want to lie to Butters, doesn’t want anyone to lie to him ever again. There’s so many things he could say- it’s not your fault and he’s the one who’s fucking dirty and do you think I’m dirty too? - but when he opens his mouth, all that comes out is a hoarse, humourless laugh.
“W-well, anyways,” says Butters, and he finally looks up at Kenny, his tone making it clear he wants to change the subject, “stuff like that. I guess what I mean is,I think I was happy once, too. Heck, I’m still happy, most of the time. It’s just…” He trails off. Kenny waits patiently for the end of his sentence, but when it doesn’t come, he nods, understanding.
“It’s just,” Kenny says, waving a hand in the air vaguely. Butters giggles. Somehow, it sounds sad.
“Yeah. Growin’ up ain’t like what I expected, if I’m bein’ honest.”
Kenny sighs. He wishes he was wearing his hood, suddenly. “Me neither.” He looks down. “I thought getting bigger would mean getting stronger, but it turns out that teenagers are just kids with acne.”
“An’ adults are just kids with back problems,” says Butters, nodding, and they both laugh.
“I guess that’s why our parents suck,” says Kenny, “they probably have no idea what they’re doing. Man, I can’t even imagine having kids. I bet I’d totally mess them up.”
“Aw, don’t say that. I think you’d be real good with ‘em. You’re great with Karen, ain’t ya?”
“Yeah, just great,” Kenny snorts, “I can’t even keep my stupid drunk parents away from her. God, what the hell is she gonna do when I get a real job? She’ll be alone with them all the time.”
“Karen’s a big girl, Ken. She can look after herself.”
“I know that,” says Kenny, through gritted teeth.
“An’ she’s got her friends,” Butters ploughs on, “like you got me an’ the guys. She’s gonna be fine, just you wait an’ see.”
Kenny chuckles. “You think Karen climbs through someone’s window at night and lets them put stickers on her face?”
“Maybe,” smiles Butters, “or maybe she has someone climbin’ through her window.”
“Karen’s room doesn’t have a window,” says Kenny. He feels stupid, once the words have left him. Butters, however, is unfazed.
“She’s doin’ the climbin’, then,” he says, nodding to himself. “Some guy or gal out there is real lucky to have her, I reckon.” For a few moments, they’re both silent, contemplating this.
“You know,” says Kenny, eventually, “that this stuff is secret, right?” He’s never thought to vocalise this before, has always assumed that the shame this nighttime comfort brings him must be palpable. But there’s- a glow around Butters, now, as they sit and think about what they’re doing here. It’s almost cosy. He can’t help but wonder, although saying it aloud makes the shame writhe in his gut.
Butters doesn’t seem perturbed. He just nods his head, giving Kenny a meek, sheepish smile.
“I-I ain’t gonna tell nobody, Ken,” he says, his voice soft and low like they’re passing in the hallway, brushing shoulders or fingers lightly enough to look like an accident, “not about this, or about your folks. You know that, but maybe- maybe you should.”
Kenny scowls and fiddles with the drawstrings on his parka. If his hood were up, he’d pull it closed.
“What, like you should be telling someone about your uncle? Or your grandmother? About being chained to the god damn basement wall?” He snorts. “Butters, nobody gave a crap when your mom tried to kill you, remember? You know just as well as I do that trying to tell someone is more trouble than it’s worth.”
“That’s-” says Butters, wincing, but he drops it, picking worriedly at a seam on his pajamas. Kenny flops backwards onto the mattress, sighing.
“I didn’t mean that,” he says, softly. Butters gives him a look which suggests he knows otherwise. He leans back against the headboard, knees drawn up to his chest, and exhales quietly. He looks up at the ceiling, contemplating his next words.
“You’re right though, ain’t ya? I guess I got no right to talk to you like that. I’m just a big ol’ hyp- ah, hypocrite.” He’s still looking at the ceiling as he speaks. His expression is resigned; he looks a little like Stan does when he pinches the bridge of his nose. It’s a strange thing to see, on Butters’ childlike face.
Kenny can’t help but laugh- it’s not funny, but some awful part of him is so impossibly glad in that moment to have Butters here, beside him, suffering with him in this wretched way that only the two of them know. He lets one hand flop onto the bed, twitching in what could be interpreted as invitation. Butters hesitates, then moves carefully so that he’s lying down next to Kenny, their shoulders brushing. He takes his hand and squeezes, tight.
“You ever think about getting out of here?”
The words surprise him, and it takes him a second to register that Butters hasn’t opened his mouth, and is now looking at him with his brow furrowed deeply, his lips pulled into a contemplative pout.
Kenny isn’t unused to saying things without thinking. It happens the most when he’s protecting the town as Mysterion, or playing dolls with Karen as Princess Kenny. It sometimes happens after he dies, too, or when his parents get into a particularly nasty fight that finds him seething quietly, face-down on his mattress upstairs, covering his ears with a dirty pillow and pretending he’s somewhere else. His parents think he’s got a smart mouth, and his friends think he’s funny, a weird, contradictory troublemaker that they’re proud to hang out with despite the fact he always smells of cheap beer and often has dirt under his fingernails. He couldn’t tell any of them how it scares him; how he sometimes feels like a ventriloquist’s dummy, all strung up and filled with words that aren’t his own.
He’s told Butters before that he can’t leave this town. Wouldn’t want to for anything, at least not until Karen has moved out and he doesn’t have to worry about leaving her behind. Butters once confided in him a similar sentiment, knocking his knuckles together as he admitted that he’s too afraid of what his mother might do to herself if he up and disappeared. Besides, neither of them have anywhere to go. Kenny’s only friends live just a few blocks away, and Butters, as far as Kenny knows, has no real friends to speak of.
Except for Kenny.
“I just mean,” he says, too quickly, “like, a fantasy, or something. Not like running away, not for real.”
“Not for real,” Butters repeats softly. He’s looking at Kenny like one might look at a wounded animal. Kenny’s chest feels tight, suddenly.
“Forget it,” he mutters, and turns away from Butters to stare at the wall. The paint looks so new and clean compared to the dingy, peeling walls of his own bedroom at home, yet he knows these walls have seen tragedies, too. He thinks of Butters’ sweet face and perfect smile, and the vice in his chest squeezes a little tighter.
“No, Ken, I- I do think about it.” It’s stuttered out like it’s a shameful secret. Kenny twists his neck, shooting Butters a surprised look, but Butters is staring at his hands. “It’s only natural, ain’t it? I mean, bein’ that I’m such a bad son an’ all, I’m only gonna get in more and more trouble for the rest of my life, ‘til I die, and, well, that’s not a very nice feelin’. S-so I think to myself, Butters, if you can’t change, then you should just get up and leave for good, mister! An’, an’ that way mom and dad couldn’t ground me, and the kids at school wouldn’t pick on me no more.” He pauses mid sentence, laughs. There’s no humour in it. “Why d’ya think I started dressin’ myself up in tin foil and pretendin’ I were a supervillain?”
Kenny can’t think how to respond. His neck is starting to hurt, strained from the odd angle, but when Butters looks up as he finishes speaking, eyes defiant and surprisingly sharp, Kenny doesn’t want to look away.
“Quit lookin’ at me like that,” says Butters, breaking the eye contact to inspect his fists again. “You said it first.”
That childish remark breaks Kenny out of his stupor. He wants to say something intelligent, maybe even poetic, but-
“Don’t go without me,” he croaks out. He doesn’t know why that feels so important, suddenly, but the words hang in the air between them, an invisible tripwire.
“I’d never,” says Butters, solemn. His single real eye is burning with intensity, the glass one reflecting Kenny’s frightened expression, strange and silly with the stickers covering his skin. He reaches for Kenny’s hand again. Kenny gives it to him, and Butters takes it in both of his own, squeezing gently.
It’s not a plan, or even a promise. But the dream is nice; Kenny and Butters, years ahead, on the open road somewhere far from here with Karen asleep in the backseat. Driving without a destination, some jolly tune on the radio blasting through open windows as the landscape whips past them. Butters will sing along, and Kenny will stick his head out the window, laughing delightedly as they pass the state border: “ Woo-hoo! So long, Colorado, and fuck you to hell!”
Kenny isn’t naive. He keeps his fantasy humble. They’ll stay in rundown motels, eat cheap dessert for every meal. Maybe they’ll end up in New York, or California, or Washington- it won’t matter, not really, because after a lifetime in South Park, anywhere seems glamorous. Kenny will work to pay for Karen’s education, and Butters will work to pay the rent on the dingy apartment they start to call home. Maybe they’ll have a balcony. Maybe Kenny will keep plants on it. It would be nice, to watch things grow. Fill his life with life, for a change.
Butters’ voice breaks him out of his daydream.
“Um, Ken?”
Kenny turns and faces him fully, propping himself up on one elbow in a position he hopes is comically sexual.
“What’s up, sweet cheeks?”
Butters freezes mid knuckle-mash, flushing bright pink, and Kenny knows it’s done the trick. The heavy atmosphere that’s been hanging over them dissipates as Butters stutters around an awkward laugh:
“K- Kenny! ”
The other boy shoves him playfully, still laughing, and Kenny laughs too, hearty and full. The sound tinkles in the quiet room, their voices weaving through the dust motes and entwining, giving life to the air. In that moment, happiness once again seems like something tangible. Something he could reach out and grab onto, pull close to his chest and keep there, safe.
He doesn’t know what force of nature brought them together, but he’s glad he met Butters. Death after pointless death has made him cynical, and for a long time now the future has seemed an impossible prospect, not worth thinking about when every waking moment was ruled by an urgent mantra of survive, survive. Kenny thinks, not without some bitterness, that for the better part of his childhood he was rather like a feral animal; all instinct, no time for hope or regret. Protecting his home and family. Guarding his heart with his teeth.
Butters isn’t a problem that can be solved in the moment: he’s not Kenny’s to protect. It’s a mundane yet effective torture, and sometimes, he even thinks the burning pain and frustration of it might just be worse than death. Kenny has always protected himself by holding the things that matter close to his chest, but Butters is out of his grasp. Before he can help him, Kenny has to grow and change. Before he can help him, he has to help himself , and therein lies the wonder of it. His desire to help Butters has given Kenny a new and overwhelming desire of his own. Not to survive, but to live .
He can’t be sure, but he thinks Butters might feel something similar about him. That, too, is a strange new feeling- as far as Kenny knows, nobody has cared about him in a long, long time. He supposes some subconscious part of his friends must remember his deaths, because they stopped crying over him around the third grade, and Karen (though an eternal comfort) is still too young to understand half the things which haunt him at night. He can confide in Butters.
(At this point, he’s not sure what he’d do without him.)
There’s still a long way to go before they’re out of the woods. High school stretches before them like murky ocean water, and Kenny worries that their rickety boat won’t make it out intact. It’s going to take a lot to keep them both afloat. Yet when he looks over at Butters, smile still playing around the edges of his mouth, he feels for a delirious moment like he can do anything- even spark a miracle.
In his opinion, the universe owes him at least one.
Together, as if in sync, they lie back down, fingers once again intertwined. Kenny will have to leave soon, run back to his run-down house and peel the stickers off his face, but he still has a little time, and he wants to prolong it. Butters doesn't tell him to leave, so he knows that he feels the same. The desire to pretend for a few more moments, and the calm they find in one another that makes it possible to hold back the fear.
It’s true that there’s not much he can do- but, he can at least stay here, in this twilight stillness, until the sun comes up.