Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

When Butters closed his eyes, he was in class. In what seemed a literal blink of an eye, he was in bed at home. He couldn't recall any time inbetween the two moments. The sun was dipping behind the mountains, which clued him in on just how late it actually was. Had he eaten dinner? His stomach felt empty, so he supposed not.

Maybe he had fallen asleep. But, how did he get home in the first place? Wasn’t he just in school? Downstairs, his mother Linda was washing the dishes. His father was nowhere to be found.

“Hiya mom.” Butters said, his voice sounded strange coming out of his mouth.

“Oh, Butters, why didn’t you come to dinner?” Linda asked him, eyes darting between the plate in her hands that kept her busy scrubbing, and her son’s face.

“I don’t know, I guess I was tired. I just woke up.”

“Well there aren’t any leftovers, but you can have a snack. And make sure to do your homework, you don’t want to fail any classes.”

Butters was already looking through the fridge for anything to eat before his mother finished speaking to him. “Yeah, I will.”

Linda turned the running water off and dried her hands on the towel on the counter. “And I know you just woke up, but get some sleep. Don’t stay up all night like you’ve been doing recently.”

“Hm?” Before Butters could ask her to elaborate, his mother had disappeared out of the kitchen.

He settled on a cup of yogurt and a banana for his late dinner. The house was quiet when it was just him and his mother. He didn’t know where his father was at this time of night, and he didn’t like to think about it. He knew, at one point, what exactly he’d caught him doing at night. But he didn’t like to reflect on memories like that. He didn’t like to reflect on memories at all.

After eating, because it wasn’t that late, Butters left the house himself through the back door. He debated taking a walk to a friend’s house, maybe even staying the night if their parents would let him. The last thing he wanted to hear when his father did eventually come back was the inevitable argument his parents would have.

Where have you been all night? You’re lying! You can’t keep doing this, Stephen! This isn’t right! This isn’t fair to me… to Butters! He could already almost hear his mother’s voice in his ears. They played this same show every night, it was getting old.

Sometimes, Butters wished that he could switch lives with someone like Eric Cartman. His mother always seemed so kind, and her love wasn’t conditional. She loved her son because he was her’s. And there was nothing else to it. And lucky Eric Cartman didn’t have a father who came home with lies in hand, ready to throw them at anybody who questioned him. Eric didn’t have a father at all.

He supposed his friend Stan Marsh was lucky too. After his parents divorced, Stan spent most of every week in town with his mother, in the very same house he’d grown up in. However, the weekends were reserved for his father, Randy. With what Butters knew of him, he was shocked the man was still allowed around his kids. And he still lived on Tedgridy Farms, which meant at least an hour away from the rest of the town, and shoddy wi-fi. Sometimes, saying goodbye to Stan when school ended on Friday felt like saying your last words to him. You just never know what could happen.

Perhaps, the luckiest of all was Kyle Broflovski. His parents were still together, still debatably in love. And he had a little brother to spend his time with when his parents weren’t around. Butters always wanted a little brother. Or a baby sister, like Kenny. Or even an older sibling, like both Kenny and Stan had. That way, he’d have somebody to watch over him. Maybe an older brother would take the fall for him, and he wouldn’t get grounded as much. Or he’d give him the strength to fight back against his parents.

He didn’t know. Butters inhaled deeply, taking in the cold mountain air. Sometimes, he just needed to be reminded he was still alive. That sounded dumb.

Then he noticed a familiar set of headlights that shone from the front of the house and hit the backyard fence. He couldn’t even be bothered to shut the back door or turn off the lights in the kitchen before jolting upstairs to his bedroom.

The front door clicked open, Butters slipped under his blanket and pretended to sleep. Heavy, possibly angry, footsteps ascended the stairs, thankfully skipping past Butters’s room before reaching the one they belonged to.

His parents’ bedroom door creaked open and slammed shut all within the same second. It was time for the show to start.

▸

It was cold in class, so Butters always wore a sweater. Aside from when he didn’t, which was apparently today. He was freezing, and everyone around him could tell. Kenny even offered up his own jacket.

“No thanks, Ken. I’ll be alright.” He shivered. “I don’t know how I forgot my sweater.”

“Dude, you forgot everything today.” Stan pointed out. “You didn’t have the homework for Mrs. David’s class either.”

“Yeah, I guess I’m just a little all over the place is all!” Butters brushed it off, he was just having an off day, it was fine.

None of his friends looked quite convinced.

He ate with Craig and those guys during lunch, looking on in silent jealousy at Tolkien’s home-cooked meal he’d brought. He ate his school lunch of some stale pizza and a handful of tater tots without saying a word. Slowly throughout lunch, Clyde stole a few tater tots from his tray. He didn’t even notice until he looked down and they were all gone. He didn’t get what Clyde and Jimmy thought was so funny either when he went to place his tray in the pile of dirty ones.

When the school bell rang, Butters boarded the bus with his friends. And then Eric Cartman joined them. He made Kenny move out of the aisle seat he was sharing with Butters and further to the back. “Poor people have to sit in the back, Kenny!” He’d said in his annoying inflection he’d had since early childhood.

“Dude, fuck you!” Kenny tried to fight back, but he was easily overpowered by Eric yanking him out of the seat and slamming his large body into it. Kenny was a lot of things, but he wasn’t exceptionally resilient when it came to being pushed and pulled around. Growing up malnurished does that to you.

Eric had all but crushed Butters on the inside of the seat, he didn’t even see him there. “Oh shit, sorry Butters.” He scooched over and moved his backpack to the floor.

“It’s alright Eric, I should’ve said something.” Butters straightened his body out but still sat pressed against the side of the bus. He was content to spend the entire ride home like that.

When he got home, he went straight to his bedroom. Things had been hard lately, but if there’s one thing that he was grateful for it was that he saw Eric Cartman less and less. The bad part about this was that every time he did see Eric, a jolt of pain hit the middle of his chest. He knew why, but he didn’t at the same time. He couldn’t recall a reaction similar to this when he was younger, and things had gotten better after they entered middle and high school. In middle school they didn’t share a single class but gym, and, if Butters was lucky, he’d only see Eric during lunch or on the bus.

So far, the two of them didn’t have any overlapping classes or activities in high school. It had only been a few months though, things could change at any moment. Butters prayed that they didn’t.

While in his room, he attempted some meditation that Tweek once told him about. Breathe in, breathe out. In through your nose, out through your mouth. Think of a happy place, think of a safe place. You are safe. You are safe.

“BUTTERS!” A yell knocked the boy out of his meditative state. Not long after it, his bedroom door flung open. “Butters, I called your name five fucking times!”

“I-I’m sorry dad!” Instinctively, Butters stood up as fast as possible, but his legs were so numb he felt like a wobbly baby deer.

“When your father calls you, you answer him!” Stephen continued to yell.

“I-I-I know, I’m— I’m awful sorry dad-!”

Stephen was perhaps very lucky himself that his son was still much smaller than him. It was easy to intimidate him. Grab him by the face, dig his nails into his cheeks. Grab him by the throat like a wolf who'd caught his prey. And he could shake him around until the soul in his body drifted away.

“Who do you think you are, leaving the backyard door wide open in the middle of the night?” Stephen’s hand clutched Butters’ wrist when he tried to hide his face. “You left the lights on in the kitchen too, do you pay the fucking bills?” He squeezed harder.

“N-No…” Butters squeaked out.

“I’m asking you a question, do you pay the fucking electricity bill in this house?!”

“No!” Butters yelled back, his throat closing in anticipation of the tears threatening to fall from his eyes. He’d gotten pretty good at not crying in front of his father, but that probably just made Stephen angrier.

“I didn’t think so!” His father finally let his wrist go, but his beratement was far from finished. “You waste your mother and I's money, and your room is still a mess!” The man kicked a toy train that Butters couldn’t even remember playing with.

In fact, when did his room get so messy? It couldn't have been that way earlier. “I’m sorry.” He apologized meekly nonetheless.

“Clean up this goddamn room before your mother gets home. And, you’re grounded.” Stephen slammed the door on his way out, it made his son flinch.

Butters just stood there, shaking. He couldn’t stop shaking. The tears that he finally let fall ran cold down his cheeks, and he just lost it.

His father, Eric Cartman, the fact that he couldn't remember fucking anything recently… it was all adding up to something. He wouldn’t be able to deal with it much longer.

▸

On Friday, Butters made sure he remembered his sweater. He felt pretty awful about how'd he reacted to things the previous night. Although nobody would even think to lift the sleeves, he held them down whilst walking in the hallway between classes anyway. It was his fault for doing it in such an obvious area, if anybody saw, even for just a second… they’d make some pretty harsh judgements about him.

It wasn’t that bad, really. He’d only used a scrap of tin foil he'd found in his bedroom and fashioned into a triangle with a sharp point. He didn’t even bleed. But the marks were there, and somebody would notice.

Despite feeling sick to his stomach after doing what little he did, Butters felt like he needed to do it more. Worse. Or else he was just pretending. Somebody like Tweek, he’d really done it. Everyone could tell, because his scars clung to the pale skin on his already emaciated body like caterpillars. All raised and everything. They sometimes made Butters too nauseous to even look at the boy. That was rude to think about, even moreso to actually do.

Even Butters’ own friend Stan had once confided in him about harming himself. It wasn’t to the same extent as Tweek, but if you looked closely, pale scarring could be found on the very top on his shoulders. During basketball season, you could almost see them peek out from under his shorts. Nobody brought it up because, likely, they didn’t even notice.

Unlike Stan, Butters would rather somebody notice. He'd want someone to bring it up, ask if he’s doing alright. If there’s anything they can do to help. And unlike Tweek, he doesn’t want to be pitied for it. Because everyone looks at Tweek and their first thought is that he’s suffering. He is not suffering! He’s got caring parents, a boyfriend, and extensions on his homework! But Butters should keep an open mind. He doesn’t know what Tweek could possibly be going through.

A thought ran through his head during class, one that startled him. It made him question, what kind of person would think something like that? He had disgusted himself. In trying to understand what Tweek might be going through, his brain concocted the idea that maybe, just maybe, the other boy was getting molested at home. Yeah, every afternoon when he gets home, he eats his dinner. And then at night, his dad comes into the room to touch him. And to cope with it, he slices his wrists open.

Butters knocked himself in the head. What a horrible mental image. How could he even think something like that about another person? Someone he considered a friend, no less! He wanted to bury himself into a deep, dark hole. And before long, he had.

The next moment he can remember, Butters was on the school bus headed home. He didn’t recall a large majority of the school day, which was probably fine. At their stop, he waved goodbye to Stan and wished him a good weekend. Randy was already parked across the street, waiting to pick him up.

It always hurt seeing the smile fade from his face when Stan stepped into his father’s car. Butters pushed away yet another horrendous, uncharacteristic thought that had popped into his head.

When he got home, he ran straight to his bedroom. He knew his father was home, the man never could hold down a job and at the moment he was between them. Thankfully, Stephen wasn’t in the living room or kitchen, but that just alarmed Butters more at the thought that he could be in the bedroom next to his own.

Butters wanted to cry, and because nobody was around, he did. He threw himself onto the floor and tears flowed out before he could even try to stop them. Stupid dad, stupid Eric Cartman, even though he hadn’t done anything too horrible to him lately. Stupid Tweek Tweak, he probably just wanted attention, that’s why he flaunted his scars. And he’s skin and bones, what, does he want to make everybody else feel fat?! Stupid dad, stupid Eric Cartman, stupid Tweek… stupid mom stupid dad stupid Eric Cartman stupid Tweek.

He lost it when he remembered he couldn’t trust his mother either. She’d tried to kill him, she’d tried killing herself. She turned a blind eye to his father’s physical punishments, if she didn’t join in as well. She’d ignored his cries and screams for help multiple times. She’d fed him to the wolves in LA.

That part was the most unforgivable. He doesn’t even remember it fully, if it happened once or twice or every time, but the point is that it happened. She’d sent him away to his aunt and uncle’s house for days at a time. She’s not all to blame, of course his father was in on it too. And he could almost swear they knew.

Because how couldn’t they? Butters was nine years old, naïve enough to not understand that what happened was wrong. That what was happening was wrong. So he wasn’t afraid to blurt out about it when there was a situation that seemed relevant enough. When he was even younger, he used to say some pretty outlandish things about his life to his classmates. He wondered, sometimes, why nobody reported it. He could have been saved a little grief. Or been saved at all.

Butters’s nails began to claw at his arms through his sweater. He wanted to… to do something drastic. Or maybe he could calm himself down and take a nice hot shower. But he couldn’t risk his father seeing him like this. He’d give him something to really cry about.

So in a desperate need to escape, he crawled to his closet to remove the aluminum foil triangle. And he dragged it across his arm in a quick, repeated motion. One he could recall seeing on TV, that he imagined many others attempted replicating as well. Except where the movie or show's character had a real razor, he had a piece of alluminum foil. In movies, their slits pricked with blood, but that wasn't possible with what Butters used. Whether good or not, though, the end result looked similar enough to ones he’d seen on the screen.

▸

Butters sat in the nurse’s office with tissues stuffed inside of both of his nostrils. It might not have been bleeding anymore, but he wasn’t going to take the chance and take them out. He didn’t even know what happened. Apparently, Wendy punched him. He hadn’t seen Wendy all day. And he thought she liked him, so why she would attack him unprovoked made no sense.

Maybe it was an accident. She could have elbowed him, accidentally kicked him when he was crouched down… anything.

He stayed in the room for the rest of the period. Towards the end, the nurse checked his nose and determined that he was okay. He could go back to class when the bell rang.

So he gathered his backpack and began walking the halls. Until it hit him that he didn’t remember what day it was. If it was an A day, he had Biology next. If it was a B day, he had Geometry. Why couldn’t he remember? What class had he gone to before ending up in the nurse’s office?

Was he even real right now?

He sat down at the kitchen table. When did he get home? His mother placed a full meal in front of him.

“Glad you could join us for dinner for once.” She said, smugly.

“I… what time is it?” Butters asked her.

“It’s seven, that's the time we have dinner every night.” The woman cut into her steak as if it did something to personally offend her, "You'd know that if you cared enough about your parents to come down and eat with us, as a family."

Butters wasn’t sure if he was even hungry, but he knew what would happen if he didn’t eat. The mental image of Tweek’s boney body flashed before his eyes. But Tweek didn’t just not eat, he ate during lunch. Maybe he just had a high metabolism. Or maybe that was all just for show. He probably purged it all when he got home after school. Nobody could maintain that sickly figure if they ate even one meal a day.

“…day? Butters!” He was knocked back into the present. His father sat across from him, vying for his attention. “I just asked you, how was school today?”

Butters swallowed, he wasn’t sure if it was food or just saliva. “Uh, good.”

“Did you learn anything new?” His mother asked.

It felt like an interrogation. “Well, not really.” Truthfully he had no knowledge of the entire day.

It could have been because Linda was around, but dinner all in all went by smoothly. She wasn’t an amazing cook, or even a good one, but Butters had long learned to tolerate it. He volunteered to wash the dishes, but his mother insisted, and he had to go to bed soon anyway. So, without hesitation, becuase he was a little nervous about his father trying to stop him, he went up to his room. It seemed like he’d been spending a lot of time there lately.

He slipped off his sweater and took a look at his arm. No scars, but there were the faintest lines that maybe only he could see. Nobody else would even think to look that closely. His phone buzzed in his pocket, which caused him to almost jump out of his skin.

A message from Stan, what could he want?

Hey Butters, just checking that you’re alright. I do think Wendy was right for punching you, but there's no hard feelings. Hope she didn’t break your nose.

Oh yeah. Butters had halfway forgotten that happened. Well, he didn’t know what actually happened at all, but it was clear he was in the wrong. Somehow. He texted back, “I’m sorry for what I did.”

Stan read it, but he didn’t respond. Butters felt his stomach drop.

He had to remind himself that things are alright. His dad hadn’t yelled at him yet, Stan wasn't mad at him for whatever he did to his girlfriend, he hadn’t even seen Eric Cartman in days. He was going to be okay. Don’t get yourself worked up! He heard his mother’s voice say in his head.

He wasn’t going to get himself worked up, he was going to brave through it. Because nothing was wrong. Everything was perfectly fine.

He needed a nap.

Chapter Text

“Butters, do you have everything packed?” Linda calls from the bottom of the stairs.

A little blonde haired boy toddles out of his bedroom rolling a suitcase behind him, “Yeah mama, I got my toothbrush and my toothpaste and my clothes and my blanket…”

“That’s great, we’ve got to go now, your father’s already in the car.”

Butters carries, to the best of his ability, his suitcase down the stairs. Then he’s able to roll it out the front door and into the car.

Stephen is in the driver’s seat, he smiles back at his son, “Are you ready to fly on a plane?”

“Yeah, I’m gonna fly so high up! I’m gonna say hi to the birds like- hi birdie!” Butters imitates waving out of an airplane window, which makes his dad laugh a little.

After Linda finishes locking up, she gets into the passenger’s side of the car. And then off they go, from one airport to the next, until they finally land at their destination.

A couple are awaiting them there with a sign reading “WELCOME STOTCH FAMILY.”

Butters recognizes his father’s brother immediately, and runs to hug him at the waist, which is about as high up as he can reach.

“Woah! Hey, I’ve missed you too, Leo!” His uncle says before sweeping him up into an actual hug.

After a few giggles, Butters’s laughter dies down when he sees the woman next to his uncle. “Who's her?” He asks.

“Don’t be rude, Butters, that’s your Uncle Budd’s fiancée.” Stephen attempts to answer nonchalantly.

“Nellie.” The woman speaks for herself. She waves at Butters, who just hides his face in his uncle’s neck.

He doesn’t recognize her at all. Who is she?

After a few more pleasantries, the family takes a walk to a car Butters has never seen before. It doesn’t take long for him to realize that it’s Nellie’s car. That didn’t really make much sense to him, because his daddy drove the car at his house.

Nellie and Budd drop them off at a large hotel. Butters is still unsure how he feels about the city. Despite his hesitation, his parents pull him inside of the elevator and up to their room. It has two beds, so Butters gets his own. And a television, and a mini fridge. There’s even a divider so that Linda and Stephen have privacy. It’s the first time Butters has ever stayed to a hotel so nice.

It takes until the next morning for Butters to learn the reason why they came to LA in the first place, his beloved Uncle Budd is getting married. The adults were talking all about it during breakfast at some fancy restaurant Butters has never heard of. The wedding is tomorrow, and mom and dad are coming tonight, and are you getting Leo a suit here, or did you bring one for him?

Butters doesn’t have any cousins to hang out with, so he’s stuck by his parents’ side every step of the trip. This includes the boring things, like looking at and trying on clothes. Or helping to set up the venue. Butters doesn’t care about the wedding, to be honest. He doesn’t even like Nellie. Well, he doesn’t really know her either.

He sees his grandparents during dinner. He never liked his grandmother, thankfully he isn’t forced to sit next to her. Like the rest of the day was, dinner is long and droning. But tomorrow is the wedding, so Butters looks forward to cake.

Linda and Stephen force Butters awake early in the morning to get him into a stuffy midnight blue tuxedo. “Don’t get it dirty, we’re going to return it after the ceremony.” His father says.

At the venue, the place is suddenly filled with a bunch of people Butters has never met. “They’re all from Nellie’s side.” His mother explains.

There’s other children running around, playing with bubbles outside. Uncle Budd is talking to a stranger in a suit, and Nellie is nowhere to be found. “Uncle!” Butters calls to him.

Budd averts his attention to his nephew, “Hey, Leo!” He excuses himself from the man he was speaking to in order to pick Butters up for a hug. “You look so cute, are you ready for the wedding?”

“Mmm…” Butters shakes his head no. “Don’t want you to marry her.”

“What? Budd laughs lightly. “Why not? You don’t like Nellie?”

“Nuh-uh.”

“Well I like her! I’m sure you will too when you get to know her.” The man notices Butters is still pretty upset. “...Look, do you want to play outside with the other kids?”

Butters shakes his head again. “I wanna play with you.”

Budd smiles and hugs him tighter, “Alright! We can play together before the wedding starts.”

“Yay!” The boy cheers. Even though the games are a little confusing and the rules are silly, his uncle likes them, so he does too.

Little did he himself know, Butters is actually the ring bearer for the wedding. He didn’t have much practice, but to be fair Linda and Stephen assumed it wouldn’t be too hard. All he had to do was stand there and hold a pillow. And honestly, he did a great job. He was maybe a little wobbly, but overall very good.

The best part is the cake. Butters has eaten wedding cake before, and it’s always the most awaited part of any wedding. Some unknown kid from Nellie's family tries to steal icing from his plate, which causes him to move so quickly that he ends up spilling a couple dollups of it on his suit. It doesn't easily wipe away with a napkin, and the younger child, no older than two for sure, is completely undetured from his original mission. The whole situation nearly causes a full blown meltdown.

Initially, Stephen and Linda are highly embarrassed, one of the few members from the Stotch side of the family at the ceremony and he’s acting like this. Budd assures them that it’s fine, he’ll help Butters clean up while the two of them continue to enjoy their time.

Butters is crying silently as his uncle carries him into the bathroom. The man locks it to make sure nobody barges in unannounced. “Hey, it’s alright Leo, you don’t have to cry. It’s just a slice of cake.”

The boy sniffles, “My mama and daddy said they need to give it back to the store.” His voice whined with every word.

“That’s fine, we’ll just clean it really well, alright?”

Budd removes the jacket and the little tie, both are mostly unscathed. But the suit pants and nice white shirt are covered in frosting and crumbs. He removes those too and gets to work scrubbing them down in the sink. Curiously, Butters doesn’t feel at all uncomfortable standing there in just his underwear. In fact, he’s most comfortable around his uncle anyway.

After cleaning the clothes as well as he can, Budd hangs them atop the toilet stall to dry. “Did your parents bring any other clothes for you?” Butters shakes his head. Budd mutters under his breath, “Yeah, sounds like Stephen to not plan ahead.”

“It’s okay.” Butters says.

“Yeah. They’re drying now so you can put them back on, eventually.” The moment of silence between them sparks an idea in Budd’s head. “Do you wanna play together? While we wait, of course.”

Butters’ eyes light up, “Yes!”

“Alright, you go first.”

Excitedly, Butters leans forward towards his uncle, who had kneeled down to his level, and plants a kiss on his cheek. Then it’s Budd’s turn, so he does the same and it makes Butters giggle. Whoever dares to kiss the other person on the mouth first wins. They’ve played this game a lot before, and Uncle Budd is really good at it.

▸

Butters jolted up in bed, sweat sticking his hair to his forehead and dampening his sheets. He hadn’t had a nightmare in a while. Although, he was unsure on whether it was just a nightmare or something he will never fully remember. Something playing back in his subconscious to him.

He checked his phone, it was already almost time to get ready for school, so he dragged himself out of bed. He wanted to shower before putting on any clean clothes, but he was too nervous to turn on the water early in the morning. His parents might yell at him and ground him for showering so early. Instead, he just opened his bedroom window to let some cool air in, and hoped it would dry the sweat off his body.

After getting dressed, he still had time to think. That nightmare he had… he’d had it a few times now. There’s no way his brain was just making up the scenario to torture him at night. Right? Well either way, he didn’t have any memories of it really happening, so it might just be a dream after all.

Half an hour before he was meant to leave for school, Butters fixed himself a simple breakfast of some bland cereal his mother was convinced was good for him. The flavor, or lack thereof, didn’t matter. The worst part of the cereal was that it got soggy so fast. Before he even got a chance to sit down and eat it, it had already practically turned to a wet mound in the bowl.

Right before he was about to finish his meal, quick footsteps went down the stairs, which caused him to freeze up. “Butters? What are you doing?” His mother’s tired voice questioned aloud.

“I-I’m just havin’ breakfast mom.” He kept his face in his bowl as he spoke.

“This early?”

“Well, yeah, I gotta get to school in a little bit.”

“Butters… it’s Saturday.”

The words made his stomach drop, he almost threw up all the cereal he'd just ate. “What do you mean?” He asked, hoping that he could conceal the quiver in his voice.

“It’s Saturday. Turn the lights off when you’re done, and please, be quiet. Your father and I are still trying to sleep.” As quickly as she had appeared, his mother left back up the stairs.

How was it Saturday? His mother had to have gotten the days mixed up, because there was just no way… wasn’t it just Monday? Butters frantically looked at his phone to see that his mother was correct, it was in fact Saturday.

It was getting worse. The memory problems, that is. He’d been noticing it, it was impossible not to, but there had never been such a big gap in time before. A few minutes? A couple hours? That was manageable. Normal, almost. He assumed. But an entire week? What happened in all that time that he lost? Was he even conscious for it? He had to have been, right? There was only one thing he thought to do.

Butters stood in the backyard of his house, it was freezing, but he didn’t pay the weather any attention. He paced around nervously as the other end of the line rang repeatedly. He didn’t really expect anybody to pick up, partially assuming that they’d see his name calling and decline. But he actually got an answer. “Hello?” It was Stan, his voice still tired and groggy. He must’ve just woken up.

“H-Hey, Stan!” Butters breathed heavily on his side of the phone. “Good morning!”

Stan sighed, Butters imagined him placing his fingers on the bridge of his nose like he always did. “What is it, Butters?” He asked.

“Okay, this is going to sound weird, but I need you to tell me what happened this week.”

“What? Like, all week?”

“Yes, anything, anything at all.”

“Uh…” Stan cleared his throat. “You called Wendy a bitch and she punched the shit out of you.”

Butters’s mouth fell open, “Oh.” He definitely couldn’t remember doing that.

“I haven’t seen you in person since. Other than that… nothing else interesting happened. Well, on the bus ride home Wednesday, Kenny was telling me and Kyle that Powder said that Bebe said that she saw Heidi and Cartman hanging out again.” Stan scoffed, “Fucking yikes.”

“Heidi and Eric?” Butters repeated.

“Yep.”

"Heidi... Turner? And Eric Cartman?"

"How many other Heidi's are at our school?"

Good point, Stan. It was just hard to believe. “But… Heidi… She was…” Butters swallowed hard, Stan probably heard it over the phone. “I thought she knew how bad Eric was.”

“We all thought that, but maybe she thinks he’s changed again. As fucking if.” Stan’s words all had a light, entertained tone to them, like this situation was funny.

But it wasn’t funny. Not to Butters. Because he had seen how badly Eric’s abuse had affected Heidi. She still had emotional outbursts when she felt like somebody was trying to control her. Not to mention her body image had completely shifted. Back when they were little, she was able to lose a majority of the weight she’d gained while in the toxic relationship, but ever since middle school she’d slowly been gaining it back. And it made her hate herself.

This was a person Butters didn’t need to speculate on, because he knew Heidi Turner. And she was one of the only people who really knew him, too. Because where everybody else had conveniently forgotten about the things Eric did to Butters, she hadn’t. Heidi was the only person he truly confided in. No, they weren’t best friends or anything… but he felt the most comfortable with her than with just about anybody else in the whole school.

So then why on Earth would she betray him like this? She listened to every gorey detail of the shit that Eric put him through, she'd hugged him when he cried, and he did the same for her. When she told him about her mother’s comments on her weight making her feel worse about herself, or how her father refused to acknowledge her depression, among other issues, he was there to hold her and give her a shoulder to cry on. He thought they were close.

It couldn’t be true that Heidi would do this to him.

“Heidi can’t take him back.” Butters forgot he was even talking on the phone for a moment.

“She can, and she might.”

“Why would she do this to me…”

“What? Are you in love with Heidi or something?” Stan laughed. It wasn’t funny.

Butters tried his best to hold back his anger, but it was near impossible. “Not everything is about being in love with girls, Stan! Can’t a guy be friends with a gal without people like you making assumptions?!”

“Woah dude, it’s not that serious. I was joking.”

“That doesn’t matter! This is really awful for me, why can’t you understand that?!” He sniffled and wiped his eyes, although Stan wouldn’t really be able to tell that he was crying.

“Uh, alright… I don’t know what happened with you two, but I guess I won’t ask.”

Butters felt awful for going off on his friend like that. Really, Stan didn’t seem to remember the extent of Eric’s horrific torture that he put him through. He did have his own problems to worry about, it wasn’t his job to patrol the lives of his friends to know exactly what was going on with them at all times. “I-I’m sorry, Stan.”

“I mean you seem pretty upset about it, I can’t blame you. Sorry for bringing it up.”

“No… Thank you for telling me.” After another sniffle, Butters decided to let Stan go. “Well… alright, Stan. I’m sorry for waking you. Thank you for talking to me, though.”

“No problem, Butters.” Stan yawned on the other end of the call, “Goodnight.”

It was seven in the morning. “Yeah, night.”

After the call ended, everything was quiet. Not actually, because there were plenty of birds chirping, but that all sounded like white noise to Butters. He couldn’t stop thinking about Heidi. Why would she do something like this to somebody she'd treated like a close friend? And why wouldn’t she tell him herself? He had to learn this life altering information from Stan, who had heard it from Kenny, who had heard it from Powder, who'd heard it from Bebe. Absolutely fucking ridiculous. He’d have to talk to her, if he could stomach it, sometime within the coming week.

Right then, though, Butters felt like he was going to throw up and pass out. He might never be able to see Heidi Turner the same way again.

▸

When Monday finally came back around, Butters knew he had a mission. As soon as he set foot on school property, he was off to try and locate Heidi, and hopefully she wouldn’t be anywhere near Eric Cartman. He only had around twenty minutes to find her, so he went to the places he’d seen her most.

She wasn’t sitting on the steps by the drama room, or in the cafeteria. He checked the basement that was only accessible via elevator too, and he didn’t even feel comfortable in elevators. She wasn’t in the library, or one of the private study rooms within it, and he was running out of time.

Until he spotted a group of girls leaving the auditorium. Wendy, Bebe, Red, Powder, Annie… “Heidi!” He called when he saw her finally appear.

Initially, Heidi pretended that she didn’t even know Butters, possibly out of solidarity for Wendy, who was still mad at him. But after he ran up to her, she had no choice. The rest of the group walked away while Butters pulled Heidi back into the auditorium. It was empty and it was private, that’s all he needed.

He was pretty out of breath as he tried to speak, “Heidi… I’ve been looking for you everywhere.”

“For what?” She asked.

“Are you mad at me? I’m sorry for calling Wendy a bitch, I-I didn’t even know that I did that!”

“I am mad at you for that, we all are.”

“I’m sorry… I already apologized. But that’s not why I need to talk to you.”

Heidi peeked at the time on her phone, “Hurry up, I gotta get to class.”

“Okay… um. Are you getting back together with Eric?”

Suddenly the girl’s face fell. What was previously an expression of general irritation shifted, and she almost seemed pale. “Who… where did you hear that?”

“Stan heard from Kenny who heard from Powder who heard from Bebe…”

“Oh those backstabbing bitches!” Heidi nearly crushed her phone into dust in her anger.

“So, is it true?” The silence between them said it all, but he still wanted to give her a chance to explain.

“It’s… not like that. Eric has changed, we’re not ten years old anymore. We have some of the same classes, and at first we wanted nothing to do with each other but… I mean, he bought me McDonalds yesterday.”

“Heidi…” Butters’s voice broke, he felt the tears well in his eyes, but he tried his best not to cry. “You can’t…”

“Butters, you might not know him anymore, did you ever think about that? You haven’t spoken to him voluntarily since the fifth grade, you told me that yourself! So how do you know what kind of a person he is now?”

By now, Butters was already sobbing, and there was no going back on that. “Please.” He begged her. “You can’t do this, Heidi.”

“Who are you to tell me what I can and can’t do?!” He’d made her angry as well as defensive, and there was no going back on that. “I’m sick and tired of people like you trying to control me, you think you know what’s best for me? I know what’s best for me! And what’s best, is you staying out of my goddamn business!”

And with that, Heidi left the auditorium, slamming the door as hard as possible behind her. Butters didn’t have the energy to run back to her and attempt to argue further, perhaps she was already a lost cause.

Really, Butters felt bad for her. He felt bad for himself, mostly, but her too. She didn’t seem to see that Eric was pulling the same tricks he had been when they dated the first time. It broke his heart. He thought he’d gotten through to her, all the past few years of talking about what had been done to him by Eric… but apparently not.

Maybe Heidi was just desperate enough for somebody to love her as she was now that she would take anybody. That she would even take Eric Cartman back. Just thinking about the two of them together made Butters curl into himself. Heidi holding hands with Eric, kissing him. The images in his head made him dizzy. The thought of Heidi putting her lips on Eric’s made him vomit.

He managed to make it to a bathroom to throw up, but if the issue didn’t stop there. He’d have to go home, which meant that he’d have to be picked up by his father. And he wasn’t quite sure about being in a car alone with that man. Maybe he could go on the rest of the day like that didn’t happen. Nobody had to know.

Chapter Text

Butters had English with Kenny. They sat next to each other because Kenny liked to catch up on his late work for other classes, and the teacher would never suspect anybody close to Butters to be up to something. Kenny didn’t mention it often, but he liked to watch people. Ever since he was little he enjoyed people watching and just being along for the ride of everybody else’s lives. Except for Butters’s. While they were meant to be writing their personal essays, he scooted closer to him.

“Are you okay?” He whispered.

Butters could feel Kenny’s breath on his ear and neck, it made him want to cry. “I’m fine.”

“No you’re not. If you want, I can get us out of class.”

That was a tempting offer. “How?”

“Watch.” Kenny stood and went over to the teacher’s desk. Butters couldn’t hear what he was saying to her, but once he turned around, he flashed him a thumb up. “Let’s go.” He whispered as he picked up his backpack from the floor.

Once they were out in the hall, Butters was able to ask how Kenny managed to do that. “Did you say we were sick?”

“No. Her husband buys crack from my parents and I threatened to report them both to the cops if she didn’t let us go.”

“Oh… really?”

“Yeah, Butters, I wouldn’t lie about that.” To be fair, he would. “Anyway, you wanna get something to eat? I stole a twenty from my dad’s wallet.”

Butters nodded and followed Kenny’s lead out the back doors of the school. Nobody was patrolling the area, and even if they were, it’d probably be easy to lie about having a free period. The only ones in that area were the goth kids, oftentimes sans Firkle if he couldn’t manage to sneak out of the elementary school and somehow make his way to the high school. They sat in a secluded corner, smoking like they always had.

“Where are you two conformists going?” Pete Thelman called to Butters and Kenny as they passed.

“We’re gonna smoke weed and slit our wrists together!” Kenny shouted back while continuing to walk. Butters noticed Pete’s eyes roll as he flipped his hair out of his face, he definitely didn’t believe it.

“W-Why would you say that to them?” Butters asked once they were far enough away.

“It’s a joke, they know that. You’re too good and pure to do either of those things.”

He didn’t say anything about how he could least do one of those things, with a sharper object and a lot of courage, he could really do it. Kenny wouldn’t like to hear that information, it would subvert his expectations of Butters too much. To everyone else, Butters was a sweet little baby who could do no wrong, he probably didn’t even think of things that normal teenage boys thought of. And he had a lot of friends. Right?

Well, ever since Stan yelled at Butters some time in middle school that he could never understand what he was going through, how he was lucky his parents cared about him and each other… he didn’t feel comfortable telling his friends anything. He never held that against Stan either, he knew he was just feeling hurt. Sharon and Randy were still barely together back then, they’d fight even when Stan had friends over. And Shelley, being the big sister, was delegated to stopping it.

Butters never told Stan about how hearing his parents argue reminded him of his own home. He didn’t want to make Stan’s pain all about himself.

Back in the present day, Kenny lead Butters into a small corner store. He had completely zoned out on the way there. “Since everything is so cheap, we can get a lot for twenty dollars.” Kenny explained. “Grab anything you want.”

The two of them split up, with Kenny beelining for the drinks and Butters focused on the little cakes and chips available. Along with some pieces of hot fried chicken from the back from the store, the two of them left with bags full of snacks and drinks. They sat on the curb near the building to eat.

“Thank you.” Butters said quietly before biting into a jam filled pastry.

“Mm, you’re welcome.” After they had their food, Butters suggested going back to class, but Kenny had other ideas. “Let’s just go home.”

“Uh, my dad might be home.” He wasn’t sure about that, but it could’ve been true.

“We can go to my house.”

Butters was a little apprehensive about that idea as well. “But… are your parents home?”

“Who cares?” Kenny stood and grabbed his bag, half full of unopened food and the greasy empty box where the fried chicken used to be. He extended a hand to Butters, who took it gratefully. “If they’re not home, Kevin probably is.”

“He’s not in school?”

“Butters, he dropped out a year ago.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

While the trek to the McCormick residence was fairly long, Kenny kept it interesting with jokes and stories and things that probably weren’t true. Butters would never be able to dispute it. Once they crossed a set of dilapidated train tracks and set foot inside of the corpse of a once gentrified area, they knew where they were at. “Home sweet home.” Kenny said sarcastically as he unlocked the front door.

Once inside, the overwhelming smell of cat pee and alcohol hit Butters’s nose. He wanted to be nice, though, so he didn’t say anything. Kevin was on the couch in the living room watching something on TV while nursing a can of beer in one hand. He gave a nod of acknowledgement to the two boys as they passed. They reached the hallway containing the bedrooms and immediately Butters could tell which room the cat pee smell stemmed from. He tried not to, but he covered his nose and hoped Kenny wouldn’t be able to tell.

Unfortunately, however, Kenny did notice. “I know. Karen took in a cat she found outside and tried to raise it without our parents knowing. She didn’t know they needed a litter box, so it just pissed all over the floor. Eventually, our dad forced her to throw it out.”

“...Sorry about that.”

“It’s fine, it’s probably better off in the wild.”

When they finally made it inside of Kenny’s bedroom, with the door closed, Butters felt like he could breathe again. He meant no offense, but the rest of the house seemed uninhabitable in comparison. In Kenny’s room, he had not much. His closet door was broken off the hinges and even his curtains were ripped up. Butters honestly didn’t know how somebody could live like this. He would never judge, of course, but it was just sad to see that this was his friend’s reality. While he went home to a comfortable two story house with properly working electricity and a nice warm bed, Kenny went home to… this.

Kenny sat on his bed, and Butters followed suit. From his bedside table, he removed a little bag full of colorful gummy bears. “Do you want one?” Kenny asked, a hint of a partially held back giggle in his voice.

“What are they?”

“They’re gummies.” Kenny struggled to keep his composure with his smile.

“I mean, I guess so, if you don’t mind sharing… there’s not a lot in there.”

At that point, Kenny couldn’t hold it anymore, and he burst out laughing in Butters’ face. He didn’t get what was so funny. “Okay, Okay… I’m sorry. They’re edibles. I was just joking.”

“Ah. Well, that’s okay.” Butters didn’t know what he was more embarrassed about, the fact that he was really about to have one, if not multiple, as a treat. Or that he didn’t get the joke in the first place. But why was it so funny to imagine him eating an edible? Why was the concept of Butters getting high so outlandish and crazy that the mere thought of it put Kenny in stitches? It just didn’t make any sense.

Kenny popped three of the gummies into his mouth, chewed, and then swallowed them. Butters was a little amazed at that. “I would usually smoke, but all I have left from what Stan steals from his dad’s farm for me is the gummies.”

“Stan gives you that stuff?”

“Yeah, it’s like our trade. I give him beer, he gives me weed. My parents and brother drink less, and I get high. It’s a win-win.”

“And your parents never find out?”

“Seriously, Butters, my parents are massive addicts. They wouldn’t notice if one of us left to join the circus, let alone if one of their mistakes is smoking a bowl in his bedroom.”

Butters’s voice was soft as he spoke, “Oh, you’re not a mistake.”

“That’s very sweet of you, Romeo.”

“…Father Maxi always told me that God created everyone for a reason, and God doesn’t make mistakes. So you can’t be a mistake.”

“Then God must have a fucked up sense of humor to put me here. Over and over again.” Kenny spoke that last part more to himself.

Butters smiled away the negativity, “He made you so that you could become something awesome. Like an astronaut.”

“Or a scientist.” Kenny suggested. “I’ve been… thinking about something like that.”

“Yeah, or a scientist!”

Kenny stood up, “Alright, Romeo, stop trying to dine and wine me. You don’t need to keep at this, I know you don’t believe in God.”

Hm? Was that true? “Yes I do… maybe not, like, crazy like other people, but I believe in him.”

“And you never ask yourself why, if God is so great, he allows terrible things to happen to children like us every single day?”

“W-What do you mean by that?”

“Butters, I know your dad beats you. Cartman… told all of us after what he did to you that one time in fourth grade.”

“…H-Huh?”

“And with my parents being the way they are… why would such a good God ever put children in our positions in life? Do you ever wonder that?”

Oftentimes, Butters did wonder that. But he pushed the question aside, because it was heresy to want answers like this. “Well, yeah, but…”

“And I don’t mean to attack your religion, I’m sorry about that, but really… God has a million choices and he chose for me to look like this.” 

Butters saw nothing wrong with Kenny’s appearance, he was shorter, he had a bit of a mullet growing out… he seemed very regular. Maybe he referred to his freckles, or the gap in his teeth. “I think you look good.”

That was very sweet. Really, Kenny appreciated it. But Butters didn’t really know what he was talking about. “Thanks. I’m not sure you get it, but… thanks.”

“What don’t I get? You can just tell me.” Butters was tired of people tiptoeing around what they really meant and expecting him to understand.

“It’s not about my looks… It’s more like… the inside doesn’t match the outside.”

“Explain. Please.”

“…You have to promise not to call me a fag or something.”

Butters was slightly taken aback, he would never! “I promise.”

Kenny sighed before revealing, “I still dress up like a princess, sometimes.”

“Oh.”

“And not just when playing with Karen or something, on my own. I wear the long pretty dress and wig with braided pigtails.”

“But… why?”

“Because I don’t want to be a boy. There, I admitted it. Ever since we were… eight! I wanted to be in Home EC with all the girls. I had wigs and dresses and skirts on standby just in case I needed to dress like a girl. I was Princess Kenny, and I took that shit seriously!”

“So why don’t you… be a girl?”

Kenny sat back down on his bed, the effects of the gummies were finally kicking in. “I don’t know. My parents wouldn’t let me.” He spoke hypothetically, of course.

Butters patted his friend’s back with his hand, “Sorry…” That was all he could say in response.

Unexpectedly, Kenny moved even closer to Butters. It happened so fast neither of them really saw it coming. One second they were just hanging out with each other, and the next Kenny had his lips on Butters’s. And Butters didn’t know what to do, to reciprocate or to push him away… because his brain was getting clouded.

Almost from third person he could remember being hounded for a kiss goodbye from his uncle. It lasted for longer than just a little peck on the cheek. But it always did with Uncle Budd.

Butters opened his eyes to find himself huddled in the corner of Kenny’s bedroom. His face was wet, so he had started crying at some point, but he didn’t know what had landed him there. Kenny was on his bed still. “I don’t know if you’re ignoring me, but I said I’m sorry a hundred times, Butters.”

He sniffled. “Uh, s-sorry… It’s okay.”

“No, I’m sorry, I should’ve asked. I have… problems with stuff like that.”

“It’s okay. You didn’t mean it.”

“I did mean to kiss you.” Kenny ran a hand through his hair, “I wanted to… you know, do other things with you. As long as I’m being honest, here.”

“What?”

“I really like you, Butters. I think you know that. I think everyone knows that, even fucking Cartman. And I thought it was obvious why I wanted you over.”

Well it wasn’t obvious. Again, how many times did Butters need to explain to people that they should literally spell it out for him to get it. “I didn’t know that.”

“That’s my fault. Sorry.”

Silence fell between them for a few seconds. “I forgive you.”

“I’m sorry for making you cry.”

Butters wiped his face and managed an uncertain smile, “It’s alright. That wasn’t… because of you.”

“Yes, it was. It was literally my fault. You don’t have to blame anybody but me.”

Oh, Kenny was being too kind. “Really, though, it’s not your fault.” Butters sighed and put his head back against the wall. Kenny had been honest with him earlier, so the least he could do was be honest back. “I have… a problem too. It’s nothing to do with you but… I mean, don’t you remember?”

“Remember what?”

“I uh… I mentioned it only once, I guess.” He swallowed. “My uncle m… he… he used to do that.”

It didn’t take a genius to understand what Butters was trying to say. “Oh. Okay, no, I didn’t remember that. I’m sorry.” Kenny put his head in his hands, “I’m really fucking sorry.”

“I forgive you. Honestly, I forgive you.”

No matter how many times Butters said it, Kenny still felt like apologizing. “I know you do. I just didn’t know that happened to you, I’m sorry.”

“Okay, Kenny. It’s fine.” Butters was getting pretty tired of saying it. Kenny didn’t know, he was sorry, and Butters forgave him.

“…Do you want me to walk you home?” Kenny offered.

“No, I think I can do it.” Butters stood up, balancing on his wobbly legs by holding on to the doorknob.

“Okay. Sorry.”

And Butters didn’t say anything. He just left.

Things were weird with Kenny when Butters went to school the next day. And every time he saw Heidi, she was still clearly angry at him. He didn’t even know what for anymore. Was it because of the stuff with Wendy? Or because he cried and begged for her not to get back together with the guy that abused them both?

Either way, it didn’t matter. He didn’t want to see her anyway. And she seemed to not notice that nobody was on her side with the Eric Cartman thing. Butters knew that just meant that Eric would have an easier time manipulating her, with no friends around to care about her anymore, she was a goner. But there was nothing Butters could do. He wanted to avoid Eric at every possible moment.

He ate lunch with Craig’s gang, during which somebody pulled the fire alarm and caused Tweek to have a panic attack. Craig comforted him, held him tightly all throughout the drill. Jimmy and Clyde didn’t care, they were having a conversation among themselves. And Tolkien had gone to talk to Nichole, who was grouped together with the other cheerleaders.

Butters stood alone. Awkwardly. For the entire duration of the drill.

By the time they could all go back in, lunch was over. Butters didn’t even get to eat his slice of pizza and unseasoned French fries. He went the rest of the day pretty hungry, until a teacher allowed him to grab a snack from the inside of her desk to avoid him completely passing out in class. He didn’t even want to ride the bus home, too afraid to see Kenny again. Not that he believed Kenny had done something wrong, he didn’t necessarily feel violated, but he just didn’t want to look at him for a while.

So he sat in the front of the bus for once. At first it was okay, until Eric Cartman had decided to ride the bus as well. “Oh, Butters, what are you doing at the front? Did the others kick you out of the group?”

“No.” Butters responded softly.

“Maybe you want me to sit with you today.” Eric teased.

“No, that’s okay.”

“I was just joking, don’t get all mad now.” After berating Butters, Eric finally walked to the back of the bus where the rest of the guys were sitting.

Butters lifted the left sleeve of his sweater and pinched the skin on his arm between his fingernails. He was trying hard not to cry. Although nobody would have really noticed, he didn’t want to walk into his house with his eyes red and puffy. If his father was home, he would see it. And if he saw it he would question him to the ends of the Earth about why he was crying. Tell him no son of his was going to emasculate himself in public like that. And then he’d probably hit him. Or maybe Butters was over exaggerating, letting his mind run wild. He was too scared to test it.

Chapter Text

Linda opens the door to a woman and her child, and upon seeing them she calls up the stairs to her own son. “Butters! Your little friend is here!”

The little boy in question appears at the top of the stairs and waves down. “Hi Eric!”

“Hey Butters!” Eric says back, a falsified friendliness in his tone of voice.

Liane Cartman, the other boy’s mother, tells her son to go play. The women go inside of the kitchen for girl talk and wine. Eric climbs the stairs and Butters leads the way into his bedroom. Eric had been there many times before, possibly more than any of the other kids in their class.

“Do you wanna play legos? My dad just got me a new set for christmas!” Butters comments while rummaging through his closet for the aforementioned toy.

“Can we play a game first?” Eric asks.

“Uh, well, sure!”

“Okay, it’s a restaurant game. I’m the server. And the chef.” Eric instructs Butters to sit on the ground in front of a small box, which would be the table during their game. “What would you like to order?” He asks in a bad french accent.

“Uh… can I have chicken tenders?”

“You need a drink first, Butters. God, have you ever been to a restaurant.”

“Yes! My mom and dad take me to Bennigan’s all the time!” Butters retorts.

“Then play the game right, order a drink first!”

“Fine!” Butters pretends to look through an invisible menu. “Ice tea.”

“Good choice, good choice.” By now, Eric had already lost the fake french accent. The boy leaves the room and returns with an opaque plastic cup. “Okay, now drink it.”

Butters is a little confused, “What do you mean? It’s my drink, I decide when to drink it.”

“Butters just play the goddamn game right and drink your goddamn drink!” Eric yells.

Reluctantly, Butters downs most of the contents of the cup. “That didn’t taste like ice tea.”

“Very good sir, now what would you like to eat tonight?”

After ordering chicken tenders, Eric leaves to go “cook” them. Meanwhile Butters sits alone in his bedroom with an upset stomach and a foggy head. Eric doesn’t come back for what feels like an hour, and minute after minute Butters feels worse. Finally, Eric returns with a plate full of real microwaved chicken tenders.

Butters is already half asleep on the floor when Eric sits the plate of food down. “Your food is done, sir.”

“Huh?” Butters can barely keep his eyes open.

“Oh, are you tired Butters? Go ahead, take a nap, I won’t be offended.”

“Mmm…” Butters closes his eyes with the final image he can recall being Eric eating the chicken tenders overtop of him.

When he opens his eyes again, it’s light outside. And Eric Cartman is gone. And because Butters’ mouth tastes weird, he goes and brushes his teeth.

▸

Butters spat the toothpaste into the sink. He didn’t really like brushing his teeth, never has, but he knew that his teeth would rot and fall out if he didn’t. Or at least that’s what he’d been led to believe. Aside from brushing his teeth, Butters didn’t actually know why he was in the bathroom. He checked the time on his phone, it was twelve in the morning on a Tuesday and…

It was twelve in the morning on Tuesday? He could have sworn the previous day was Tuesday. It was impossible that he would have gone back in time, but still, it didn’t make sense. There was no way he had blacked out an entire week again. He was going to be so screwed in school.

He tried to get to sleep as fast as possible, in hopes that when he did wake up, that it would’ve all been a weird dream. But it wasn’t. It was Tuesday again.

Butters feigned sick to get out of school for the day. His mother bought it enough to trust him and called in for him, but his father… not so much. He kept barging in throughout the day to check if his son was really sick or not. The whole time, though, Butters was just laying in bed. In the morning, in the afternoon, even almost into the evening. He just laid in bed. All day.

Stephen didn’t like seeing his son like that. Mostly because there was a growing concern within himself and Linda already about something possibly being wrong with Butters. He never remembered anything, would often lash out at school or even to their faces. It was fine as a child, but he was a teenager now. They needed to be stricter. Either that, or they needed to get him some help.

They talked it out over dinner, Butters could hear them from the stairs when he finally left his room to use the bathroom for the first time the entire day.

“All day! He didn’t leave his room once!” Stephen explained. “He’s still in there now instead of joining us for a family dinner!” He yelled those last words in hopes that Butters would hear them.

“He was sick, Stephen! You wouldn’t have believed him if he was up and about all day.”

“He’s sick but never once asked for medicine? Or threw up?” The man took a bite of his dinner and swallowed quickly. “He’s faking it, Linda.”

“Clearly, he wasn’t if he couldn’t leave his bed.”

“So I’m meant to believe him if he walks around fine after saying he’s sick, and I’m supposed to believe him when he lies in bed all day?” He scoffed. “You just keep contradicting yourself…”

“Maybe just believe him when he says he’s sick because he’s your son .”

“It doesn’t matter if he’s the family dog, Linda, if he’s sick he needs to prove it.”

“You do know that sickness doesn’t just mean throwing up, right? Have you ever thought about how school might be stressing him out? Mentally, he could be sick.”

“He is sick in the head.” Butters heard his father take a sip of his drink. “Seriously.”

“…Then we should get him checked out.”

And that was the end of the conversation. Or at least the amount of it Butters was willing to listen to. He didn’t want to confront the issues he knew he had, but that he kept deep down and locked away. He didn’t want to tell a random stranger about what happened to him. What his uncle did, or how his father beat him. And he definitely couldn’t speak to anyone he wasn’t close with about what Eric Cartman had done to him.

He was thankful to not be there when the worst part of it happened. In order to get back at Kyle, Eric showed the entire class the picture during show and tell. That was a whole classroom of people who saw one of the most embarrassing parts of his life. And he didn’t even know about it until one of the guys brought it up offhandedly. Like it was just an annoying thing Eric did once.

And to learn that there were other pictures? That the very thing Stephen had caught them doing was going to be another one of them? Made to point fingers at Butters and have him be a laughingstock? Well, honestly, that was the first time he really considered killing himself. It had only just hit him earlier at the time that what happened with his uncle wasn’t normal, and then he had to deal with the knowledge that somebody he considered himself fairly friendly with had not only continuously violated him in his sleep, but took photos of it.

There were probably pictures of him like that online. And that was a horrific thought to consider. Uncle Budd hadn’t really been one for pictures, everyone always said he loved to live in the moment. But Eric Cartman sure would back up images online. And even innocent ones, Butters had learned over time, could be added fuel for anybody who might find them.

So, to put it simply, he wanted to kill himself. The last thing he needed was for somebody to recognize him from something he never consented to. He had a plan and everything, though he was only about twelve when he thought of it. He would swallow a bunch of pills from the bathroom cabinet, and he would overdose and die. Preferably while asleep. However, he couldn’t bring himself to swallow that many pills at once. So, as disappointing as it was, he gave up.

And there hadn’t been a day that went by so far that he didn’t regret it. Not going through with it, that is. Because if he had, he would have never become close with Heidi. She would have never learned about the disgusting things Eric did to him, both asleep and awake. And he wouldn’t have lost such an important person in his life. The good news was that it could change at any time. Either things would get better, Heidi would see how getting back with Eric was terrible, and Butters could heal from his past. Or they would stay the same, or, God forbid, get worse . And in that instance, he would do it.

He wanted to jump this time, or to hang. Something infinitely less easy to backpedal on. You could throw up a majority of pills if you changed your mind about overdosing, but you couldn’t fly back up to the safety of a bridge or building. Or cut the rope that you were being strangled with. The final idea was to just use a gun. He was sure his parents had one lying around somewhere, he could easily steal it and end his suffering in only a few seconds.

Maybe it was bad to think that way. Well, he knew that it was, but he didn’t usually care until his thoughts ran too wild and he kind of scared himself. He returned to his room shivering, like all of the panic he had in his heart was so pent up it was making him shake. He grabbed the little tinfoil triangle from his closet pushed it against his chest. If it was sharper, it would have pierced him. But it was instead just a bit of pressure he needed to calm down.

By the time his parents came into his room to check on him again, he was asleep.

▸

Butters wasn’t so sure how he ended up in this office. It felt sterile, almost like he was in a hospital. “Butters!” He heard his father’s commanding voice say to him. “Tell the man how you feel.”

He didn’t… know how he felt. He didn’t even have any recollection of getting to that building in the first place. He didn’t know where he was. “Uh… fine.”

“Tell him the truth.” Stephen demanded.

But Butters really didn’t know what was happening. “I am, I feel fine.”

Stephen sighed and turned his attention to the man behind the desk in front of them. “I’m sorry about this, he’s been very disobedient lately.”

The man, who was identified by the nameplate on his desk reading “Dr. Janus”, quickly dismissed Stephen’s worries. “Sometimes kids are a little too nervous to talk when a parent is in the room. If it would make you both comfortable, I could ask you to leave.”

“That's ridiculous, Butters, do you want me to leave the room?” Butters nodded. He wasn’t sure why he was here, but he was sure that he didn’t want to see his father anymore. “Fine. I’ll see you when you’re finished.” Stephen left, clearly angry at the whole situation no longer including him.

Dr. Janus smiled at Butters, “You can talk whenever you’re ready, there’s no pressure.”

First, Butters wanted to ask a question. “Where am I?”

“You’re in my office.”

“No, the building… How did I get here?” That one was probably self explanatory, clearly his father had taken him.

“You were brought in because your parents were concerned about your mental health. Do you have any thoughts about that?”

“W-What’s wrong with me?!” Butters was getting nervous, he had never been to a psychologist or a therapist before.

“Well, nothing is wrong with you, we’re just here to talk about how things have been for you. You can just tell me about how your week has been.”

Really, truly, genuinely, Butters had no recollection of anything aside from Tuesday. So how was he supposed to talk to somebody about something he couldn’t remember? “I don’t know.”

“You can be honest with me, Butters, I’m just here to help.”

“I know… but I don’t know. I really don’t know.”

“What don’t you know?”

“…Anything. What day is it?”

Dr. Janus checked the calendar hanging on his wall, “It’s Friday.”

Butters wanted to break down right then and there. It was fucking Friday. He was losing more and more time, and it felt like he was going insane. “It was Tuesday. That I remember.”

“You last remember it being Tuesday?”

“Mhm… I don’t remember anything else.”

“So would you say you have some amnesia between Tuesday and right now?”

Amnesia felt like such a strong word… but if he was going to get any real help he did need to use those. “Yeah. I fell asleep on Tuesday… and I woke up here.”

“And you have absolutely no memory of anything that happened from Wednesday to right now?”

“None.”

“Alright… would you please stand outside for a moment while I talk to your father?”

Butters did as he was told. Dr. Janus called Mr. Stotch back inside of the office and they shut Butters out. He could only imagine what they were saying about him in there.

After Stephen left and instructed Butters to go back inside, he was hit with the same sounding questions over and over again. Until they got to one that was a little different. “Do you hear voices in your head?” Dr. Janus asked.

“Like, people?”

“Just voices, generally.”

“I don’t know.” He thought a second longer. “May-Maybe.”

“Alright, let’s think about that maybe as a yes… Do you ever hear the voices saying bad stuff about other people?”

“Um… I think bad things about people sometimes. But I know it’s bad.”

“Does it sometimes feel like somebody else is thinking those bad thoughts through you?”

What sense did that make? “I don’t… I don’t know.”

Dr. Janus continued, “Do you ever hear the voices saying bad things about yourself? Or saying that you should hurt yourself?”

Butters recalled Tuesday, how he got lost in thought about the different ways he could kill himself. “Maybe.”

“We’re going to take ‘maybe’ as a yes.” The man typed things on his computer and scribbled notes on a pen pad. And finally he asked the question he’d been dying to ask the entire time, it seemed like. “Do you ever feel like two people?”

“What? No. I always feel like myself.”

“And can you tell me more about yourself?”

Butters swallowed, he didn’t know why he was so nervous. “My name is Butters Stotch, I’m fifteen years old, and I…” He trailed off and then stopped. He had no idea who he was. “I… Have friends at school.”

“What else can you say about your personality?”

Well, when the doctor put it like that… he didn’t think he had one. “I don’t know.”

Butters would go back to Dr. Janus once every week from then on. Over time, they got to know each other more. And slowly Butters became a little less nervous to talk to him. To tell him the things that he would not have told anybody else. Aside from Heidi, that is.

“Can I tell you something really bad?” He started.

“Butters, you don’t have to feel bad about what you tell me.”

“But it’s really really bad.” Deplorable even.

“I’ve heard it all, you can talk about it when you’re ready.”

Butters took in a deep breath and breathed out through his nose. “I had a friend…” He was already starting off on the wrong foot. “No, sorry. Not a real friend. He was just somebody I was friendly with.”

“Mhm.”

“And because I was so stupid, he convinced me to do things I would have never thought of on my own.” Dr. Janus scribbled and typed some notes. “I found out, in sixth grade, one of the worst things he ever did to me.”

When Butters went quiet, Dr. Janus tried to make sure he stayed grounded. “You don’t have to keep going if you can’t do it right now.” He told him.

“No. It’s okay. I need to do it.” After a few more deep breaths, Butters was ready to keep going. “He took a picture of him… I’ve been… Can I call it that?”

“Call what, what?”

“What do you call it when somebody puts their mouth on a part of your body that you didn’t want them to.”

“What do you mean?”

“Like, my…” Butters’ eyes shifted around. He really didn’t want to have to say it. “Did he rape me, or not?”

The question threw Janus for a loop. “Uh, well, when did this happen?”

“Fourth grade. We were… Nine, ten…”

“In that case I think anything that would have happened to you could fall under this umbrella of assault, but could you be more clear on the details? What exactly happened?”

“I was asleep. I was asleep for all of these. But he would do something gross to me and take pictures. One of them was him with my… penis in his mouth.”

“Okay… well, yes, I’m afraid that is considered rape. And I’m sorry that happened to you.”

“He showed the picture to everyone in class. During show and tell, everyone saw it.” 

“That is… I’m so sorry, Butters. The fact that the picture exists constitutes as child sexual abuse material.”

“What’s that?”

“Um. Most commonly called child pornography.”

“Oh.” Butters began to tear up. “Oh, God.”

“It’ll be alright, Butters. Did you ever report him when this happened?”

“No. I didn’t know about it until two years later.”

“Is this something you still want to report? Does this other boy still live in South Park?”

Butters nodded, causing a stream of tears to fall down his face. “I still go to school with him. Eric Cartman. That’s his name.”

“Now we can report this together, if you want to.”

“I don’t know.” Dr. Janus offered him a tissue, which he took and blew his nose with. “Can anybody do anything? He was ten years old.”

“…We can at least get the word out to the police. Especially if he still has pictures like that.”

“O-Okay.”

Chapter Text

When Monday came back around, Butters was shocked to learn that Heidi was looking for him. Initially, he thought that it was a good thing, they’d patch up their relationship and go on with their day. But when he found out that Eric Cartman had been investigated by the police, he was a little scared instead.

Eventually Heidi did find him at lunch. He was unluckily sitting with Craig and those guys at the time, so they got a full show when it came to the drama between them.

“Butters!” Heidi yelled from across the cafeteria. She run-walked over to him faster than he could jump out of his seat and run, which was pretty embarrassing for him. “What did you do?” She asked him in a harsh tone.

“What do you mean?”

“Everyone knows what I mean but you.”

Butters looked around, a few people had definitely diverted their attention to the argument. “I don’t know what I did…”

“You got Eric arrested , that’s what you did!”

Clyde let out a little “Woah” at the scene, and pulled out his phone to start recording.

Butters flinched at the yelling. “I… I just told somebody, okay! I told somebody what you already knew for years!” He was starting to get nervous, but that nervousness turned into adrenaline. “Your boyfriend is a rapist, Heidi!”

And suddenly the world went quiet. And everything moved in slow motion. Heidi pounced on him, slamming his head onto the hard tile floor of the cafeteria. And she hit him, over and over and over again. Until a security officer finally managed to pry her away. Butters could see the flashes of everyone’s phones taking pictures of his battered body on the ground. And then he couldn’t.

When he came to, he was in the car with his father. Neither of them were speaking, and he didn’t want to be the one to do it first. The radio played static and noise that could barely be constituted as music. “You lost a fight to a girl.” His father finally said, matter-of-factly.

“It wasn’t a fight.” Butters whispered in response.

“So what was it then? You got beat up by a girl?”

That wasn’t any better, but it was true. “She attacked me. Out of nowhere.”

“I saw her in the principal’s office while we were leaving the school, she’s fat as a whale, there’s no way you didn’t see her coming.”

That was incredibly rude, Butters thought. “I didn’t expect her to hit me. And she just kept going while I was already down.”

“You need to stand up for yourself.”

That was the last thing Butters’ father said to him while on the ride home. It was funny. No, really, it was hysterical. The man who regularly makes sure that he maintains the power over him was angry at him for not fighting back. Not standing up for himself. If anything, Stephen should be grateful Butters didn’t fight back. He knew that, if the right switch was flipped, he could do some serious damage. And honestly, he knew that his father was scared. He talked all this big game about how Butters should be stronger and stop being pushed around… when the last thing he really truly wanted was for his son to be bigger than him.

It was so funny that the joy nearly lulled Butters to sleep the rest of the ride home. Fight back … Oh his father was a fucking joke.

▸

Everybody knew what had happened the next day at school. Heidi Turner beat up Butters Stotch, he didn’t even get a punch in! That one didn’t really bother Butters. The one that did was way more invasive. Butters called Heidi’s boyfriend a rapist! Nobody could have possibly known who that referred to… right? Well, had Eric not been getting investigated by the police, nobody would have.

Stan tried not to treat Butters any differently in class. But it was hard to pretend like what the entire school was talking about wasn’t happening. “So uh… does your face feel any better?”

Butters ate lunch inside of an empty classroom. The last thing he needed was to be sat by the same crowd he had just been severely embarrassed in front of the previous day. Almost as if he’d been searching for him, Kenny found the classroom he was in and invited himself to join him.

“Hey, I hope it’s alright to see you.” Butters didn’t feel like having an argument, so he didn’t say anything. Kenny sat across from him. “I know you don’t want to talk about it, but could we? Please?”

“Why do you care?” Butters asked flatly with a piece of bread in his mouth.

“Because, I don’t want to lose you as a friend.”

“Oh, really?” He swallowed the bread after barely chewing, it hurt going down. “Now it’s all about everyone else! People coming up to me, apologizing for having interacted with Eric in the first place. I don’t care if you want to still be friends with him! I don’t care about anybody else’s lives right now!”

“Woah woah, that’s not what I meant.” Butters have Kenny a chance to be heard. “I meant about us. The kiss.”

“Oh… And why do you want to talk about it now?”

“Because it happened so long ago and we never got to really talk.”

As much as he didn’t want to, Butters agreed to finally talk about it. “Fine. What do you want to say?”

“Well, you already know how sorry I am for what I did. I genuinely have a hard time with that sort of thing. I mean, you know what kind of stuff I’d done when I was younger.”

Did he? Butters didn’t think he was able to remember that far back. “Like… like what?”

Kenny let out a defeated sigh, “The porn magazines, prostitution… I couldn’t even escape sexualizing myself as a Princess.”

“So… are you saying…?”

“I think I have a problem. Mentally, or whatever… I have a problem. So, I think in a way, we’re kind of opposites.”

“What do you mean by that?” That he was mentally ill and Butters was not?

“You’re scared of affection, and I need it.”

That wasn’t entirely accurate. Butters took a sip of the carton of chocolate milk he’d grabbed to have with his lunch. “I’m not scared of affection.”

“Well, then, uncomfortable with it?”

“No… Listen, I don’t know if you think that me telling you about what happened with my uncle was giving you a pass to analyze my life, but it wasn’t. I just don’t feel like going around kissin’ people.”

Kenny chuckled, “Is that what you think I do? I just chase after people?”

“That is what you do. That’s what you’ve always done.”

“Wow. Really, Butters, that kind of hurts coming from you.” Kenny said he was hurt, but his tone of voice sure didn’t show it. “I’ve been promiscuous in the past, but I already told you why.”

“What? Because of some p-porno mags and dressin’ up like a sexy girl? If you’re makin’ fun of me, I’m gonna fuckin’ kill you!” The whole sentence stunned even Butters himself. Did he really say that? In the back of his mind, he could almost hear somebody telling him to stop. Or was it him saying it?

Kenny was pretty put-off by that. But nevertheless, he tried to keep his cool. “I was put in jail for sucking a grown man’s dick, Butters. I’m trying to explain to you that I get it. I’m not fucking… making fun of you, for some reason.”

“You could never understand what I’ve been through.”

“BUTTERS!” Kenny’s yell echoed through Butters’ head. “What don’t you fucking get here? I was raped too!”

Suddenly, Butters’ fingertips tingled. It was like he’d just woken up but… No he had been here the whole time. Right? “I… uh…” He had to take a moment to really digest what Kenny had just told him. Everything he’d told him. “I’m sorry.”

“Do you get it now? How I’m just here, even if you are too adverse for a relationship, as a friend? I understand you.”

Kenny was… Kenny was right. He did seemingly understand Butters in a way nobody else did. Nobody but… Heidi was a lost cause. Just because he had to lose her didn’t mean he had to lose someone that would listen to him. And how stupid was he not to see it in front of him the whole time? It would help to have someone who actually had similar issues to talk to. Butters had heard just enough of Heidi whining about her annoying parents and having to go home to his abusive ones. Plus, he didn’t need somebody who would take back their ex after knowing for years just what that ex had done to a close friend.

He needed Kenny. “Thank you.” Butters said quietly. He was feeling absolutely exhausted, for some reason.

“I’m sorry for yelling at you. I was just getting frustrated.”

“No, it’s okay. I feel like you… broke me out of some kind of trance…”

▸

Butters was in class when he got called up to the office. Everyone stared at him as he gathered his things into his backpack and left the room. Stan watched him go without a word. Not even a pity “good luck.” He felt like he was going to be sick.

He knew the day was coming. Ever since he said something… Ever since his report was taken seriously. It had been almost a week with no news aside from what everybody else already knew, that Eric Cartman was being investigated, and that’s why he wasn’t in school.

Butters’ mouth felt like he’d been sucking on cotton, he had to stop by a water fountain just to gather the energy to keep going. It was going to be quick… there wasn’t that much to the story anyway. He was dead asleep for a good majority of it.

When he finally reached the front office, the lady at the desk told him to go to the back. From there, he sat in a waiting room until he was told to go inside of the principal’s office.

Inside was nicely decorated, cute plants and one of those birds that dip into the water. A drinking bird? That was probably it. Along with full bookshelves that Butters doubted anybody could ever fully read through. The woman behind the desk was typing on her computer when he entered, and quickly snapped out of it when she saw him.

“Oh! Hi Butters, good to see you.” She said sweetly.

He gave a small, uncertain, wave. “Hi again, Principal Victoria.”

“How have you been? It’s been a few years since we really talked, huh?”

“Mhm…” Butters took a seat in front of the big desk. “So… am I here because… you know.”

“Yes, I’m sorry to ruin the mood like this.” Principal Victoria typed a few things into her computer before returning her attention to her student. “We just need to have a talk about it, very simple, you just relay what happened for me.”

He knew he’d have to do this… but it was hard. “Do I… have to give details?”

“I just need the necessary information, if that includes details then go for it.”

“Alright… uh…” Butters fiddled with a loose string on his sweater. “Well, I learned about this happening in sixth grade, but it actually happened in fourth grade.”

“Mhmmm…” Principal Victoria nodded along.

“Basically… Eric would take gross pictures of me while I was asleep. One of them was him… forcing himself on me.”

“Mhmm… alright.” The woman typed something into her computer. “And this happened when you were in fourth grade?”

“Yes ma’am.”

“Okay, just making sure. Is there anything else you wanted to add?”

“Uh…” Butters hadn’t initially mentioned this to Dr. Janus or to the police when he made his report, but maybe it was important. “Sometimes, to get me to fall asleep so he could take the pictures… Eric would make me drink nighttime cold medicine.”

“To make you fall asleep?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh, Butters, I think that might be considered drugging.” Principal Victoria tapped furiously on her keyboard. Surely she was compiling a pretty horrific account.

“I didn’t see the pictures, I just knew he took them. I didn’t know if he still had them, so… that’s why the police needed to investigate him.”

“Okay, well, I think that’s all that was needed for now. You can return to class.” After Butters stood and turned the doorknob, the principal stopped him for a moment to say, “And Butters… I’m sorry this happened.”

▸

The next time Kenny and Butters got to hang out, it was a Sunday. “I’m sure you wish you were… on your knees for the lord in church today, huh?” Kenny joked.

Butters rolled his eyes but maintained a smile, “I don’t go to church, usually.”

“I can’t think of any good Catholic that does.”

The two of them shared a laugh at that, the tree they were sitting under dropped leaves onto their heads. Stark’s Pond was quiet around this time, it was too cold for anybody to be standing outside fishing for hours. And all of the animals were getting ready for winter.

Except for Butters and his best friend Kenny, who were having a little picnic on the grass. “…I like today.” Butters said, seemingly out of nowhere. He laid his back on the blanket they had spread out.

“Me too.” Kenny joined him.

“Have you… are you…” Butters cleared his throat before continuing, “Were you dating Powder?”

“Where’s this coming from?”

“I’m just thinking about how you heard of the Heidi and Eric situation through Powder.”

Kenny stared up at the clouds while responding. “We had… something for a while. I wouldn’t say dating…”

“Would she?”

“Yeah, probably. It was more… friends with benefits.”

“Oh, god.” Ever since Butters learned what that term actually meant, he’d been disgusted by it.

“Don’t be dramatic.”

“Sorry. What uh… how long have you been doing this? I know you said you have a problem, but I never really noticed when we were little kids.”

“I don’t know why nobody thought it was concerning when we were little. Aside from, you know, Kyle. When he tried to talk me out of dating Tammy Warner in fourth grade.” Kenny scratched at his chin. “I hope she’s doing okay.”

“Yeah, but… I don’t know what I’m asking.”

“What age did this all start for me? I don’t even know. For as long as I can remember I’ve been… perverted? Is that the right word? Whatever. I think I might’ve found my dad’s porn stash when I was a toddler and it just spiraled from there.”

Butters rose up from the ground, sitting up to try to get his head straight. He was starting to feel dizzy laying on his back. “And when did you lose your virginity?”

That would have been a horribly personal question if Kenny wasn’t already pretty open about it all. “Nine.”

“Nine?!”

“With Tammy.” Kenny shrugged and sat up. “Virginity is fake, by the way. And you can only lose it consensually.”

Maybe Kenny added that last part just for himself. Butters nodded in understanding. “…I wish I wanted sex. Like every other teenage boy in the world.”

“…No, you’re better off without it. At least for now.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

An icy cold breeze blew both of their hair around. Kenny spit a chunk of hair out of his mouth before smoothing it back behind his head. Butters always liked Kenny’s hair, how he was the type of person who could pull off a mullet organically. However, the conversation they’d had at Kenny’s house weeks in the past weighed on his mind, still. Kenny didn’t want this.

Butters reached out and playfully twirled a piece of Kenny’s hair between his fingers. “You should grow this out even more.”

“The mullet?”

“All of it.”  Butters hadn’t forgotten what Kenny confessed to him that day. He didn’t want to push it, so he hadn’t said anything for a while. “Long blonde hair. You wouldn’t even need a wig.”

Kenny gave an awkward half hearted laugh. “You remembered.” He smoothed his hair back with his hand. “Maybe one day.”

“You don’t have to do everything at the same time.”

“I know. Just might be easier to do the rest when I have something to show for it.”

Butters just nodded. “Alright, then.”

Chapter Text

Stan was having a birthday party soon. Butters got the text at the same time as most of the other invites, when they were all added into a group chat with the very first message being information about the party from Stan. Everyone else had replied that they’d be there or at least try to, Butters didn’t know what to do about it.

On one hand, he’d love to go celebrate Stan’s birthday. But on the other hand… he didn’t want to see so many kids from school at once. For starters, he didn’t want to take away from any attention Stan got on his own birthday. Another reason for his uncertainty being he just didn’t want anybody hounding him about the situation with Heidi or Eric… if he was going to go, he was going to have real fun.

He sat in Kenny’s bedroom on the carpet. “Are you going to Stan’s party?” He asked him.

“Of course.”

“He’s having it out at the farm.”

“I got the invitation too.”

While Kenny was smoking, he made sure to blow it outside the window by his bed. It wouldn’t matter much to his parents, but he didn’t want Butters to be bothered by the smell. Butters picked at the carpet awkwardly, feeling a little bad that he wasn’t interested in what his friend was doing.

He glanced at the closet, “What are you wearing?”

“What do you mean?”

“Just a question. I don’t know what I’m gonna wear.”

Kenny took a second to inhale and exhale the smoke. Then he shrugged, “What I always wear, I guess. It’s just a birthday party.”

“But it’s a special occasion, right? Do you dress up?”

“Dude, you only dress nice to impress people. Who are you trying to impress at a fifteen year old’s birthday party?” Kenny snorted as he laughed.

Butters half-smiled along, but bit his lip. He was really just wondering about the… social etiquette for a party like this. It wasn’t just a birthday party, like one at a pizza place slash arcade that they’d have as little kids. It was a high school party. Before Halloween, before Homecoming, before any other big school events… There were birthday parties. Butters knew this well, he’d seen it on TV.

“Do you think Heidi is gonna be there?” Butters questioned aloud.

Kenny took his time to answer it, steady looking out the window, almost like he didn’t even hear him. “Maybe. She’s friends with Wendy so… maybe.”

Butters’ breathing hitched, only for a moment. He knew that’d be the answer, it was obvious. But it was still hard to think about. At least… at a party, she wouldn’t cause a scene… right?

“Right.” He said.

▸

School continued on like normal after some time. Eventually Eric was allowed to go back, and since then he’d been telling everyone all about how Butters lied to and manipulated the police into believing things that weren’t true. In fact, he never did anything to anybody.

Only some students even cared about the whole situation, and the ones that listened to Eric didn’t truly believe him. Nobody had the full story, Butters wasn’t even allowed to talk about it. Neither was Eric, but that didn’t stop him.

The one thing keeping Butters sane was conversing with Kenny. On some days, the two of them walked home rather than taking a bus. It was a long walk, but the exercise was good. And it gave them plenty of time to talk.

“He keeps telling everyone I’m a liar.” Butters said, a wobble in his voice as he tried to keep his cool.

“But you aren’t.”

“Well, I know that… you know it. But he might convince someone else that it’s true!”

“If anybody listens to Cartman uncritically, they’re fucking braindead.” Kenny was right. He was always right.

When Butters got home from school, he went straight to his bedroom to throw his backpack down. He had homework to do, but he didn’t have the energy to work on it. As far as he could tell, his father wasn’t home. So he made himself a quick snack in the kitchen to give him more of an excuse to procrastinate.

He was actually given a little bit of leeway when it came to his homework now that word was out about what had happened. Most of his teachers extended their support during these trying and mentally draining times. Which just meant to him that he could get away with not doing his work.

After finishing up the bag of chips, some knock-off and organically labeled version of Doritos, Butters intended to go back up to his bedroom. But because nobody was home, he wanted to get in a few hours of TV time. He had no idea what was going on recently, though his blackouts had gotten a little less frequent ever since he came out about Eric’s actions. So he sat on the couch and flipped through a couple channels until he found one that really interested him.

Embarrassingly, it was a channel for twenty four-seven entertainment for your preschool aged child. Butters wasn’t able to look away at the silly singing and dancing fruit, or the fun ponies that galloped to the beat of a catchy song. It wasn’t long before he’d just… fallen asleep. That is what happened, right?

Honestly, he didn’t know. He’d woken back up standing in the shower with scalding hot water mixing with tears that he had somehow been crying the entire time. No memory of any time before then. He thought he was over the blacking out and the memory loss… what the fuck could have caused it now?

He finished his shower and went into his bedroom to change into some new clothes. An old baggy t-shirt that definitely wasn’t originally his, and a pair of basketball shorts. He didn’t even know what time it was, it didn’t matter… he was going to bed.

Butters awoke only half an hour after he’d laid down to sleep. At first, he was pretty startled by the yelling between his parents in their bedroom. When he realized it was nothing out of the ordinary, he tried to get back to sleep. That was until he heard something disturbing and crawled over to the wall to listen in more clearly.

“You can’t keep doing this, Stephen!” Linda’s voice sounded like she was holding back tears. “If you’re going to be having sex with younger men, what do I even mean to you?!”

“You’re my wife! I’m sorry Linda, I love you. I don’t know how many times I can say it.”

“You don’t! You’ve been trying to convince everyone this for years. You don’t love me, you never have! I was just a one time thing, you know that us having a child was a mistake!”

Butters jumped back from the wall. He almost didn’t believe what he was hearing. But it was right there, clear as day. His own mother just called him a mistake. He couldn’t do this anymore. Without thinking, Butters threw on a pair of slippers and a robe, he was getting out of that fucking house. Originally, he’d wanted to go to Kenny’s house, but that was a little too far away. He texted Stan on his way out of the house.

Seeing as Stan was just down the road, it was easiest to get to his house out of everyone’s. He only had to wait on the front porch for a little bit while Stan sneaked downstairs and unlocked the door for him. Then the two of them had to be quiet until they got to Stan’s room.

“Why are you here?” Stan finally asked him.

Butters began to tear up, and he couldn’t stop it before his eyes overflowed and tears streamed down his face. “My parents are fighting.” Was all he could say between sobs.

“Oh.” The other boy placed a hand on his shoulder, for reassurance, maybe. “It’ll… be alright.”

“They—” Sniffle. “They might really get divorced this time.”

“Well… that’s not too bad. My parents have been divorced for years, and things haven’t changed much for me.”

“Your dad wasn’t—” Butters took a second to wipe his face with his hands, “He wasn’t cheating on your mom.”

“No, he was worse than that. He forced us into big moves all the time in a whim, and living out on the farm every day was a fucking nightmare. Not to mention how drunk and angry he would get, which I know is like, every dad in the world, but he was the worst.”

Uh oh, Stan was doing it again. He was talking about his own familial issues when Butters came to him about his. And because it was about Stan now, Butters didn’t feel comfortable saying anything more about his father. He didn’t want to sound combative, or like he was more traumatized than Stan. It was fine.

Butters eyed Stan’s legs, he was wearing shorts too. But he couldn’t see far enough to find any scarring. He often wondered about that. “Do you still… you know?” He asked him.

Stan shifted awkwardly and followed Butters’ eyes to in between his legs. “Listen, Butters, I’m cool if you’re gay, but stop that.”

“W-What?”

“I’m still dating Wendy, you can’t just be weird like that.”

“I meant…” Butters felt his face grow hot. “Your thighs.”

“Dude.”

To be fair, what Butters was trying to ask wasn’t much better than what Stan was thinking. “Do you still… cut there?”

That stunned Stan even further. “That’s not okay to ask.” He said, flatly.

“I’m sorry.”

“No, really, you don’t ask people that. That’s fucked up.”

“You told me about it before… I thought you could talk about it.”

“That doesn’t mean that you can just ask about something so personal.” Stan crossed his arms. “I’m sorry about your parents, but I think you should go home.”

“I-I-I’m sorry, Stan.” Butters whined.

“I get that, but you need to go.” Stan at least made the friendly move to walk him back to the front door.

When the door to the Marsh residence closed… Butters was alone. It was dark, it was cold, and he was alone. He didn’t even mean to offend Stan, he wanted to get on the topic of self harm in order to talk about how he’d been dealing with things recently. He knew Stan would understand because, well, he said so himself that he’d self harmed in the past.

But instead, Stan got upset. So Butters trudged along the sidewalk, he walked as slowly as possible on the way home. Most of all, he was scared of what his parents would do to him when they found out he ran out of the house during the night. And looking the way he did… he ought to be ashamed of himself.

Weirdly, deep deep down, he felt a little scared of the dark. It hadn’t been an issue the entire walk to Stan’s house, but now every little thing seemed to freak him out. A shadow in the corner of his eye, and he swore he saw a face in the trees. It was all making him very upset.

He was only a little down the road from his house when he heard the sound of police sirens coming up behind him. And then a car zoomed past him. He felt bad for the poor folks who were in need of police intervention that night… until he noticed just where they’d stopped the car.

Further up the street, he could see the red and blue flashing lights more than he could the actual arrest happening. But he knew who it was. He knew that the car was parked just outside of his own home. Similar things had happened before.

The closer he got, the more clear everything became. A blonde woman struggled against the grip of a police officer, while another officer questioned a brown haired man on the front porch. Butters’ stomach dropped and he almost didn’t want to go any further. But he had to go home. There was nowhere else to go.

Had there not been a fence, Butters would have sneaked in through the backyard door, but sadly he had to get up close and personal with the apparent crime scene in order to get back inside.

“H-Hey, officer, sir, can I get in my house?” He asked the man who seemed to be interviewing his father.

“Butters! What are you doing outside of your room?!” Stephen yelled.

Butters could hear the muffled cries of, “My son! Let me talk to my son!” From his mother in the back of the cop car.

He sighed and tried to ignore it, “I’m sorry dad. I just took a little walk, is all.”

“You get back upstairs and into your room, you are grounded , mister!”

“Yes sir…” Butters hung his head and marched inside of the house and up the stairs. He didn’t even turn to look at his mother as he walked away, he never liked seeing her so upset.

By the time the police finally left, Butters was still awake and watching mind-numbing videos on YouTube. He heard the front door slam shut and his father’s angry footsteps stomp up the stairs and into his parents’ bedroom. He was just happy he skipped over yelling at him more, or even beating him, for the rest of the night.

▸

The next morning, Butters was late for school. That is, he didn’t even wake up until an hour into class time. As a plus, however, when he did wake up, he noticed his father wasn’t home. Maybe he finally had a job interview or something. Whatever it was didn’t matter, because Butters was home alone. And he wasn’t about to go to school if nobody was going to force him to.

He ate another bowl full of the bland cereal, but sprinkled some sugar on top. And because he didn’t have to feel bad for eating, he had a banana as well. He made sure to clean up after himself, if his father didn’t know that he was even home, he couldn’t be tipped off by something like a dirty dish in the sink.

Despite having an okay morning, something was still eating away at Butters’ thoughts. Surprisingly, not the fact that his mother was taken away the previous night by the police. But what had happened between him and Stan. It took a lot for him not to text Stan a novel’s length of an apology. Probably wouldn’t make much of a difference in Stan’s perception of him, anyway.

Butters was already in his room when his father came back. And he prayed he wouldn’t even think to go inside of his room. But just in case, Butters had stuffed his bag inside of his closet and positioned the blanket on his bed to hang over just enough so that it would cover the gap between bed and floor. Or more specifically, hide Butters himself, who had prepared to crawl under if need be.

To his delight, the man mostly stayed downstairs, only going up periodically in order to use the bathroom. In those moments, just to be safe, Butters hid. When the clock struck a normal time that he’d be arriving home, he heard his father’s keys jingle and the front door close. He watched outside of his bedroom window as his father drove away, further into town.

Butters breathed out heavily, as if there were a weight on his chest, and only just now could he breathe correctly. Since he’d spent so much of his day in his room, he was hungry, and desperate for the bathroom as well. After alieving both issues, he gathered the courage to actually talk to somebody.

“Hello?” Kenny’s voice was on the other side of the line.

“Hey, Kenny.” Butters sounded meek, he felt a little bad for calling in the first place.

“Oh, Butters, why weren’t you in school today?”

“I wasn’t feeling good… anyway, are you busy right now?”

“Why?”

“…Can you come over?” Then Butters added. “Nobody’s home.”

After a few minutes, there was a knock on the door. Kenny really didn’t play around when it came to making sure Butters was okay. The two of them went back up to Butters’ room, where the boy in question immediately began to cry. It was as if everything that had happened last night was only just hitting him.

Kenny wanted to keep his distance, but offered a hug if Butters needed it. He took him up on it and buried his wet face into his chest. “My mom…” He sniffled, and his voice was already muffled. “My mom was arrested last night and— and Stan kicked me out of his house and I’m scared he hates me!”

“Oh, come on…” Kenny rubbed Butters’ back as he spoke. “Stan doesn’t hate you, and what’d your mom get arrested for?”

“My dad…” Sniffle. “He calls the police on her when he thinks she’s going to hurt herself. And she stays at a mental hospital until she gets better.”

“Wow. Uhhh… yeah, that’s… I’m sorry, Butters. My parents have been arrested a lot, but never for mental health reasons.”

“I’m scared they’re going to divorce. I don’t want them to get divorced.”

“Why not?” It wasn’t meant to sound like a mean question.

“They’re my family.”

That was a fair point, even Kenny had to agree. He never  wished that something truly horrible would happen to his abusive parents. And if it did, he’d blame himself to the highest degree. Because he couldn’t survive properly without a mother and father, and neither could Karen.

Kenny patted Butters’ head while allowing him to cry. “I get it.”

When Butters calmed down a little, he pulled himself away from his friend. He felt so stupid for crying like that, like a little baby. “Thank you, Ken.” He sniffed.

“It’s no problem.” Kenny shifted in his spot on the floor, as if he was unable to hold still for even a second.

“Are you alright?” Butters asked when he noticed it.

“I’m fine.” He clearly was not.

“Well… okay. I’m sorry for messing with your day, you can go home if you want to. My dad might be coming back at any time.”

“You’re gonna be okay?” Kenny asked.

“Yeah.”

“A-Alright.” When Kenny stood up to leave, Butters averted his eyes. He might not have been the smartest kid in town, but he wasn’t stupid.

Chapter Text

There was a point in time when Butters stopped being Leopold. It wasn’t when he met his friends in preschool and they gave him the nickname, it wasn’t even when his parents started calling him by it. Or when the entire town knew him as Butters. It was the last time he saw his uncle in person.

It was Christmas Eve, and for once Stephen had convinced his brother to fly out to them for the holiday. Butters was pretty nervous about seeing his aunt and uncle again, Eric Cartman had made a fool of him the last time he stayed with them. When they arrived, they’d each brought a couple presents for Butters. It was exciting, because his own parents didn’t even buy him more than one collective gift in recent times. They claimed it was because he was “getting older” and he was “too hard to shop for.” But he was only twelve. He had only been twelve for four whole months, and his interests hadn’t really shifted from when he was eleven, or even ten, at all. So it was a poor excuse.

He was granted permission to open one of them, and he chose the smallest box with the sticker that read TO: LEO FROM: UNCLE BUDD. Linda and Stephen had gone into the kitchen to make everybody hot chocolate, so only Butters’ aunt and uncle were around to watch him open it. Past the festive wrapping paper, there was a plain blue box. And inside of that box was a, frankly kind of pretty, piece of jewelry. It was silver, and sparkly, and it said his name on it. Leo. Budd offered to help him put it on, and when he removed it from the box Butters realized that it was a necklace.

His uncle placed it around his throat and clasped it at the back of his neck. It wasn’t long, so it didn’t annoyingly dangle, and overall it was a sweet personalized gift. He threw his arms around Budd, much to the man’s surprise, and thanked him. “I love it!”

Aunt Nellie giggled watching her husband be caught so off guard. “You’d better react like this to my gifts!” She said playfully.

“Yeah, I’ll try.”

After hot cocoa, a Christmas movie, and a bunch of holiday related trivia games, it was time to turn in for the night. Budd and Nellie were going to sleep on a makeshift bed in the middle of the living room. A large collection of thick blankets and the carpeted floor helped make a suitable mattress for them to share, and it was only going to be for a few hours during the night. When they woke up in the morning, they would open presents, have a nice breakfast, and eventually get the hell on the next flight back home.

When it was too dark to see anything, both inside and outside of the house, that’s when things got bad. Butters awoke to the sound of his bedroom door opening, his body had just been trained to do that, maybe. And he didn’t even say anything, he didn’t have to ask, he knew.

“Uncle Budd…” He whined, he really didn’t want to do this tonight. “I’m tired.”

“I’m just here to say goodnight.” The man’s voice drew closer to the bed.

“It’s Christmas…”

“Then Merry Christmas, Leo.”

Butters couldn’t see, so he was a little shocked to feel a wet kiss land on his cheek. A pit grew in his stomach when he realized that he really really didn’t want to do this. “My… mom and dad…” He tried to reason. “They’re right next door.”

Though the reasoning came off more like a threat. “Do you think they’re going to know?” Budd asked, his voice sounded so innocent.

“I don’t… I don’t know.”

“Well, I think…” The bed creaked with the man’s weight being added onto it. “They won’t know, if nobody tells them.”

Butters felt his covers lift, which just made him cold. “They might.”

“I’m not going to tell them.” Budd moved his hands to a place that caused Butters to jolt. “Are you?”

Suddenly, Butters couldn’t think clearly. It was almost as if his mind was trying to shut off. “N-No.” Was all he managed to get out. His brain felt like it was short circuiting.

“That’s good!”

Then Butters couldn’t feel anything anymore. His body was completely numb. Or maybe it was just his mind. He was grateful, because he didn’t have to take in every little touch. He couldn’t even see, so not feeling it was another plus. Before he knew it, it was all over. He was conscious again, but he still couldn’t feel anything.

Butters doesn’t know when he fell asleep, if he even did, but all of a sudden it was Christmas morning. And usually the child would be tasked to wake everybody up, jumping excitedly, ready to open gifts. But it was Uncle Budd who barged into Butters’ room that morning to wake him.

He wasn’t very excited about opening presents that morning.

Worst of all, however, would come just before Budd and Nellie left. When Linda noticed and brought attention to the weird spots on Butters’ pajama pants and shirt. Butters didn’t know how to explain it, but Budd did. “Ah, that’s drool, isn’t it? Yeah, I used to be the same way. My clothes and pillows would be covered in drool when I was a kid.”

Drool. Right. “Yeah. Sorry, mom.”

The fact that his mother bought it, or at least didn’t push it. That she didn’t seem to think twice about it… disgusted Butters the most out of the entire night and day combined. When she should have called the police, told his father, mentioned it to Nellie… she did nothing. And Budd got away with it.

So it was really fucking hard to have sympathy for the woman when she came home from the mental hospital.

She wailed as she hugged her son, “Oh, Butters! I missed you!”

He didn’t feel the same. “M-Me too. Missed you, too.”

It’d been years since Leopold died. And Butters knew who killed him. They walked around him every single day like nothing happened.

▸

Stan’s birthday party was on the twenty-first of October. His actual birthday was two days prior, but he wanted the party to be during the weekend. And he had to be at the farm anyway, so he let everyone know ahead of time that it would be there. On the plus side, it was a large house and a large plot of farmland outside. And Stan had convinced his father to go hang out with his own friends for the night, so everyone was just free to be a stupid, crazy, teenager.

Butters showed up in his casual turquoise sweater, alongside Kenny, who wore the same outfit he always did. Kenny’s brother Kevin had given the two of them a ride out of the goodness of his heart… that, and he wanted to see Shelley again.

When they arrived, the party was already going. Music blasted so loud it could be heard from outside, and everyone was talking as if they didn’t see each other at school every day. At first, Butters felt the need to cover his ears from how noisy everything was, and then Kenny led him up the stairs. There, the talking and hollering was slightly more subdued, and the volume of the music was tolerable. Even more so inside of Stan’s bedroom, which was completely empty.

“Thank you.” Butters whispered. He wasn’t exactly trying to be heard loud and clear.

Somehow, Kenny heard him anyway. “No problem.”

“It’s just really loud…”

“Oh, I know. I think I’m gonna tell Stan to turn the music down, at least.”

Butters sat with his knees up to his chest, “Hey, Kenny?”

“Hm?”

“Do you think I’m cool?”

Kenny bit his lip as he thought for a moment. “Like, objectively?”

“At all.”

“...You’re… well, you just don’t do much. You’re very reserved.”

“So, yes?”

“Listen,” Kenny scooted closer to Butters, “ I think you’re awesome. That’s why I, like, totally would . But you shouldn’t care about how other people think of you.”

Ignoring the gross and vaguely demeaning comment, Butters half smiled. “Guess not.”

“And you don’t need to do drugs, or drink, or play a sport, you can just be yourself. Whoever likes you, will like you for you .”

“Okay, when did you get so philosophical?”

“I’m high as fuck, I’ll be honest with you.”

That made Butters laugh. The joy was short lived, though, because soon enough somebody came bursting through the bedroom door. At first, they didn’t notice the two of them on the floor, but when they did they yelled. “What are you two doing in my room?!” Stan’s voice was full of anger and laced with embarrassment. The girl who was with him walked away due to the awkward scene.

“Sorry!” Was Butters’ initial reaction.

Kenny attempted to diffuse the situation, “It’s really loud downstairs.”

But Stan just wasn’t having it. “If you want to have sex, do it in the guest room!”

Butters’ face went hot, “No! That’s- we weren’t…!”

“Stan, Stan, chill out. We were just talking, okay? We don’t have that kinda relationship.”

“Talk in the guest room!” That was Stan’s final decree, essentially kicking his friends out of his bedroom.

His attitude was nothing to truly hold against him, even Butters could tell he was already drunk. So he and Kenny knew not to take anything Stan said to them personally. The guest room was back downstairs, in the same hallway where the guest bathroom lay. Butters clamped his hands over his ears as he and Kenny walked through the crowd of partygoers to get there.

It was a lot less quiet inside of the guest room, but it was good enough. Kenny sat on the bed, Butters paced around. “Am I really not cool?” He asked.

“You’re still caught up on that?”

“Yes. I-I know I haven’t done anything cool, but… am I a loser?”

Kenny brushed it off, “It really doesn’t matter.”

“Yes, it does.” Butters stopped pacing for a moment and braced himself for what he was about to do. “I can’t be a loser my entire life.”

Before Kenny could stop him, Butters flung the door open and walked back into the heart of the party. There were packs of beer on the kitchen counter for anybody to help themselves to, so of course, he did. He used the bottle opener somebody had courteously left next to it and took his first sip.

He nearly spat it out, it was so gross. But he kept sipping it. Little by little. When Kenny eventually showed up next to him, he didn’t even try to stop him. “You enjoying that?” He asked.

“No.” Sip . “It tastes like gasoline.” Sip .

“Then stop drinking it.”

“Nuh-uh.” Sip . “I need to stop being a loser.”

“Who cares if you’re a loser?”

“I do!” Sip .

Kenny sighed and reached for the bottle, “Just stop it.”

Before he could grab it, Butters yanked it away. “Let me do what I want!”

“…You’re going to have to go home like that if you get drunk.”

“Good.” He gulped down a good amount in one go, he was starting to get used to it. “At least I won’t be sober when I’m getting beat, then.”

“Don’t say that…” Although he didn’t like to see it, Kenny let Butters finish the rest of the bottle. It was when he went for another one that he stopped him again with a hand on his shoulder. “No. You’ve never drank before, you're super lightweight.”

Butters shook the hand off, “I don’t care.”

“You’re probably already drunk from just one bottle.”

That sounded like a challenge. After uncapping the new bottle, Butters drank as much of it as he could in one go. He barely even tasted it anymore. “I feel fine.” A hiccup caused him to stop drinking for a moment.

“Drank too fast.” Kenny opened the refrigerator and pulled out a plastic bottle of water. “Drink water upside down.”

“How do I-” Hiccup! “Turn upside down?”

“Just put the water in your mouth and bend down, then swallow it.”

Butters did as he was told, and miraculously the hiccups had disappeared. When he stood back up, to finish off his bottle, he noticed it was gone as well. Then he saw it in Kenny’s hand.

“That’s mine.” He said as he reached for it.

Kenny held it away from him, “Nope.”

“Let me finish it, Kenny, come on.”

“I’m not going to be responsible for you being black out drunk when you go home tonight.”

“It’s not that serious.” He reached for it again. When Kenny wasn’t relenting, Butters had a new strategy. “Then I’ll just open another one.”

“With what bottle opener?”

“Huh?” Just then, Butters saw that the bottle opener was nowhere to be found. “What?”

Kenny flashed it in his other hand and smiled his uneven and gapped smile. “Got it.”

Butters gave up. What was supposed to feel like a victory for Kenny felt a little more heartbreaking than he’d expected. Butters pushed past him, fighting tears in his eyes, and went back into the guest bedroom. That time, he slammed the door shut and locked it.

While inside, he was finally alone for the first time the whole night. And he cried. Unfiltered, without a care for anybody else who might hear it, he cried. And he screamed, and he kicked the walls repeatedly, and he knocked his fists onto his own skull. There was no consideration for the rest of the people in the house, and especially none for the person directly outside of the door.

He didn’t even care about the music anymore, it could be as loud as it wanted to, it just helped to fuel his rage. Suddenly, his sweater was too hot, so he ripped it off. And he sunk his nails into his bare arms. He didn’t even know why he was so angry, which made him even angrier at himself for being so upset. So he needed to punish himself. He wished he was like Tweek, for a moment.

Tweek’s lacerated body came into his mind’s view, his wrists looked like they would fall off at any given moment with how deeply he’d cut them in the past. Butters wondered if he had trouble writing in class. Or holding things in general. In fact, Tweek was more of a ball-jointed doll than a real person at this point. Butters could point out all of his joints. Articulation at the wrists and elbows, but curiously, not the chest.

Maybe Craig was like his puppet master. That’s why they were still together. Butters guessed it was hard to say no when you’ve been dating for so long. And Tweek could probably do anything in front of Craig, who would just take him and hold him like nothing had happened. Their relationship made him sick. He sunk his nails even deeper into his arms.

Craig held Tweek’s hands, he put his head on his chest for him to calm down. Maybe his resting heartbeat was powerful enough to sedate him. They had sex too, it was impossible that they didn’t. As much as he hated their relationship, Butters mostly felt a little pity for Craig Tucker. He was basically committed to fixing someone as fucked up as Tweek. If he broke it off, would Tweek kill himself? He had a hard time figuring out who exactly was truly trapped, Tweek, a weak little puppet, or Craig, an unconsenting caregiver.

Butters bit his lip so hard it bled, and when he tasted the metallic blood, he snapped back into reality. His nails had scrapped off small chunks of skin on his arms. That was going to leave some scars. After coming to, he truly realized what he had done. His head spun when he stood up too fast. He refound his sweater and threw it on, nobody had to know. From just a glance at the mirror in the corner of the room, he looked like he’d just lost a fight. It was… kind of cool.

Maybe he’d achieved his coolness status after all. His walking was a little wobbly, so the alcohol had clearly gone into effect. It was perfect. He unlocked the door and opened it, immediately he was bombarded by Kenny, who cornered him at the end of the hallway.

“Are you alright?” He asked, his eyes looked like they would pop out of his head.

“I’m fine.”

“I heard screaming, are you okay? Did you get hurt?”

“Get hurt on what ?!” Butters was getting annoyed now. “I’m fine, Kenny. You can drop it.”

“I just want you to be okay.”

Butters pushed past his friend. It was due to the intoxication, possibly, that he had this newfound confidence. He ate a handful of chips from the snack bowls on the kitchen table.

Kyle initially walked past him to grab something from the fridge, but doubled back when he noticed who he was looking at. “Butters! Hey!”

With a few mushy chips in his mouth, Butters replied, “Hey Kyle.”

“I didn’t think you would come.”

He swallowed the chips immediately. “Why not?”

Kyle’s eyes shifted. “Uh, well, some people here don’t really like you.”

“Well fuck them! They don’t haveta like me, I don’t care about them!”

“Wendy’s whole friend group is here.” And with that information, Kyle walked away.

Wendy’s friends? Butters failed to see why that would be an issue. Until he recalled that none of them even wanted to look at him a few weeks ago. And if Heidi was there… if Heidi was there…

Butters felt sick. There was a bathroom down the hall, but Kenny was over there. He could go upstairs… or he could completely involuntarily throw up in the trash can in the dining room. This was all part of being cool, right? This is what happened in the movies.

Chapter Text

When Kevin picked them back up, Butters was so tired and inebriated that Kenny refused to let him go home like that. He knew his parents were crazy, there was no way they’d react well to seeing their son so fucked up. So Kevin took them both home.

Kenny helped Butters into the house and his bedroom. He led him to the bed and instructed him to lay down. “You need to rest.”

But something in Butters’ stomach almost… fluttered. “Here?”

“Yeah, you can sleep in my bed, just don’t throw up on it.”

“…I never got to sleep in Uncle Budd’s bed.”

The sentence was so out of nowhere that Kenny didn’t believe he had heard it correctly. “What?”

“My Uncle Budd… I never slept in his bed.”

“Alright, uh, just making sure I heard you right.”

Butters giggled, “Sorry.”

“No you’re… you’re okay.”

“…I really never got to.”

Kenny had walked into his closet to put on a change of clothes. That, and to avoid any more uncomfortable uncle talk with Butters. “Uh huh.”

“Kenny.”

“Yeah?”

“What is sex like?”

Kenny went quiet for a moment. He slipped on a white t-shirt and left his closet. “Uh… good?”

“But what is it… like?”

“It’s awesome, okay. Or boring, whichever answer will get you to stop asking.”

That made Butters laugh again. “I want to try it, I really do.”

Kenny kicked his pants off and tried to ignore him. “I’m going to turn the light off now, you should get under the covers to go to sleep.”

Butters did as he was told, but he just kept droning on about the topic. “Tweek and Craig have sex.”

“No, they don’t.”

The light flicked off and the room was completely pitch black. “How do you know?”

“Because, Tweek would never be in the right mind for it.” Kenny joined Butters inside of his bed. “You know that coffee is drugged, right?”

“Woah…”

“Go to bed now, my parents could come home at any minute, and if you’re asleep they can’t pull you into their arguments.”

“Okay…” Butters’ shoulder snuggled against Kenny’s back. “Goodnight.”

“Goodnight, Butters.”

Realistically, Butters couldn’t sleep. He laid on his back and shut his eyes, but he didn’t actually fall asleep. At least, not immediately. When he did eventually begin fading into unconsciousness, he was quickly re-awakened by movement on his side. In his heart, he knew it was Kenny, asleep but still moving to more comfortable positions. But his brain released a slew of horrific images.

It was too dark in the room to see anything, so he couldn’t undoubtedly say that what he felt was happening wasn’t . He suddenly felt a sharp pain in his stomach, and he wanted to vomit. But he couldn’t move. It was like he was being held down. And although he knew it was nothing more than a horrible flashback, he couldn’t stop his brain from thinking that it was happening again . He was being victimized by his uncle again.

He knew full well he was in Kenny’s house, but part of him believed they were in his bedroom back at home. Or in Uncle Budd and Aunt Nellie’s room. Or the guest room that he always slept in at their house. Or his grandparents’ house. God he fucking hated the dark. Somebody touched his shoulder, but he couldn’t be sure if it was real or all part of the replayed memories in his head.

“...tters? Butters, hey, are you okay?” He opened his eyes to see Kenny next to him, illuminated by phone light. “Butters, it’s just me, Kenny.”

Butters’ eyes welled up with tears, “Kenny… I-I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to apologize, are you alright? It felt like you were seizing or something.”

He kind of always wondered what it looked like to other people when he was trapped in his mind like that, so Kenny kind of answered the question. “I’m okay… sorry.”

“What happened? Can I do anything to help?”

“No… um…” Butters sniffed and wiped the tears out of his eyes, “I just had a bad dream.” He didn’t have the heart to tell him what had really happened, or how it was triggered.

“Well… alright. Try to get some rest, if you can.” And the phone light turned off.

The room was fully dark again. “Kenny.” Butters started.

“Hm?”

“Do you have nightmares too?”

“Mmm… not really.”

“Oh… okay.” Another moment of silence passed before Butters spoke again. “Hey, Kenny.”

“Mm?”

“Are you scared of it happening again?”

Kenny shifted and turned towards Butters, giving more of his attention than he had before. “What?”

“Being… you know.”

“Well… no. I put myself in that situation. I realize that what I did was wrong now , I was, what, eight or nine? But also… I was offered money.”

“Would you do it again, for money?”

“...I don’t… this isn’t a fun hypothetical.” Kenny turned back around, effectively ignoring anything Butters would say to him next.

“Well, I’m a little scared. I-I haven’t seen my uncle since C-Christmas years ago.”

“Just try to go to sleep.”

▸

“I’m sorry, I haven’t been coming to you recently.” Butters sat on the chair in front of the desk he’d sat at many times before.

The man on the other side smiled kindly, but looked a little confused, “What do you mean by that?”

“I haven’t seen you since we reported Eric Cartman to the police.”

“Oh, Butters, that’s not true. You don’t remember seeing me at all after that?”

No, he really couldn’t. “I-I mean… maybe I did…”

“Are you still having issues regarding your memory?” Dr. Janus sat ready to write in his notepad.

“I didn’t think so… but I guess I am.”

“Aside from not recalling meeting with me for weeks, what other examples do you have?”

“Uh… the other day…” Butters gulped, it was really embarrassing, “I think I fell asleep while watching some baby cartoon and woke up in the shower.”

“Standing?”

“Mhm.”

The man scribbled the information down. “Anything else?”

“Not really… that’s all, I think.”

“Alright. And how has your control of your anger been?”

…Huh? “What anger?”

“Your issues with anger, saying things you don’t mean and accidentally hurting others. You remember our talk about this, don’t you?”

Butters’ head shook side to side, “No… and I don’t have anger issues.”

“Hmm…” Janus looked through his notes to clarify. “Yeah, this information is all under your name. I definitely remember speaking to you about it just a few weeks ago.”

“Mister… doctor… sir… I don’t remember that at all.”

“Well, then, I guess we should get to the bottom of these memory lapses, hm?”

“Guess so.” Butters shrugged.

“Alright, I’m going to ask you some questions you’ve been asked before, just answer them entirely honestly. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“Do you ever hear voices?”

Butters bit his lip. “Kind of.”

“What do you hear them say?”

“It’s mostly just… whispers? It’s not often, usually when I start to fall asleep.”

Dr. Janus nodded as he wrote some notes. “And do you ever feel like two people?”

“No, again, I always feel like myself.”

“Are you sure? Would others say that you have frequent mood swings?”

“No. I don’t know.”

“Do you ever get told about things you did or words and phrases you said that you don’t remember?”

Actually, yes. In fact, it had just happened. “Yeah.”

“And one last thing, do you believe you had a traumatic childhood at all?”

Butters fiddled with his sweater sleeves, he didn’t want to look the man in the eyes. “Uh, yeah.”

“If you’d feel comfortable… you can tell me about it.”

In multiple ways, this was worse than what happened with Eric. Butters tried to get it over with as fast as possible. “I have an uncle, um, my dad’s brother. He did some… stuff to me when I was younger. I think since I was ten? Maybe before?”

“I’m sorry, your uncle?”

“Yes.”

“Do your parents know about this?”

“No!” Butters’ heart was pounding in his chest. “No, they can’t know about it!”

“Butters, your parents have to know about this, you can’t get any help if they don’t know.”

“You can’t tell them!” Along with the elevated heart rate, Butters began crying uncontrollably. He slammed his fists into his own head as hard as he could, “I shouldn’t have even said anything!”

Dr. Janus attempted to calm him, “Hey now, it’ll be alright. Please, don’t hit yourself.”

“Don’t tell my mom and dad!”

“I’m not going to! I have nothing to tell them, you haven’t even given me any details.”

Oh yeah. Butters tried to calm himself, deep and steady breaths. It was all going to be okay… “Please don’t…” His voice sounded like his mouth was full of mucus.

“If you are not in any danger currently, I don’t have to tell anybody.”

He wasn’t so sure about no longer being in danger… he just hadn’t seen his uncle. It wasn’t like he was in jail or anything. He sniffled. “It was only a few times, and it was years ago, okay?!”

“Okay.” The doctor nodded.

“And he didn’t… I mean… I don’t know.”

“What don’t you know?”

“…I don’t remember.” Butters went quiet. His eyes fixated on a spot on the carpet. At first, he could hear the doctor’s voice, but soon it faded into nothing.

▸

When Leopold Stotch is brought to his new home in Colorado, it’s such a shift in environment it takes the toddler days to get used to it. The cold, mostly. The first four years of his life he was raised beachside, always playing in the sand and ocean with other children around his age. In Colorado, his tanned skin had quickly become pale, and he always wondered when they were going to go back.

When he started pre-school, he met a group of other children who seemed to be friends already. He introduced himself as Leo, the nickname his family and everyone back home had given him. The other boys called him Buddy. Over time, that became Butters. He wasn’t sure how. None of them were.

And before long, the only person who regularly called him by his old nickname was his uncle. Budd was Stephen’s younger brother, not by much, but it was something Stephen held pride in. The first Thanksgiving in their new home, Uncle Budd ████████ . Leo thought it was so much fun.

When he was six, his uncle got married. The rest of the family were relieved he’d finally decided to settle down, but not Leo. It was almost like he was jealous . He did not like that Nellie woman. But it was okay in the end, because the marriage ██████████ .

For the next couple years, whenever Leo would visit, he’d know what to expect ████████████ . He’d grown a little fond of Aunt Nellie, she was no longer a stranger there to steal his uncle from him. Sometimes, he much preferred her rather than her husband. Even though Budd would play ███████ with him , it was just as fun to sit and watch cartoons with his aunt.

Strangely, one day, ██  couldn’t remember his uncle, or his aunt… or his parents. He wasn’t even sure if he was ██ .

Butters woke up in bed. He wasn’t sure what had happened the previous day, but he was saddened to learn that he was going to have to go home to his mother and father. He wanted to stay with his aunt and uncle forever.

▸

Write some notes, that’s what Dr. Janus had suggested. “Write notes to yourself, so that way if you don’t remember you can read a note that will get you up to date.”

Butters wrote out a simple first note and stuck it on the door of his bedroom. Somewhere he would have to look at every day, but would naturally be hidden when the door was opened. The note read, I am going to school today. It is 7:30 am on a Wednesday.

When he got back from school, he noticed another note had somehow been placed next to the first one. “I’m going to school today, it’s seven-thirty in the morning on Thursday...”

He nearly jumped out of his skin, why couldn’t he remember that note? He had to have written it early that morning, right? He wrote himself another note, I do not remember writing that. But it is 5 pm on a Thursday now, I just got home.

After sticking the new note to his door, he turned to his phone. Although he felt bad for doing it, he rang up Kenny. “Kenny, I’m really scared right now.”

“Why?! What happened, are you hurt?!” Kenny’s voice immediately sounded protective, almost heroic.

“No, not that… but I think something is wrong with me. I… I keep forgetting things.”

“What kinda things?” Kenny shuffled around on the other end of the line.

“Uh… the doctor told me to make notes for myself. But now I don’t even remember making one of the notes.” And now that he thought about it, Butters couldn’t remember a majority of the day either.

“I’ll come over right now if you need me to.”

“Oh, you don’t have to do that.”

“No, really, I’m supposed to be there for you. It’s fine by me.”

“My um… My parents are home.” That stalled the conversation for a bit.

Kenny cleared his throat, “Well… will you be okay?”

“Mhm… I just needed to tell somebody.”

“Let me know if you change your mind, I’ll climb through your window.”

Butters gave a fake giggle, he knew Kenny wasn’t bluffing either. “Okay. Thank you.”

When the call ended, Butters sat in the silence of his empty house. His parents weren’t home, that was just a lie he’d told to avoid Kenny coming over. Mostly because he didn’t want a repeat of last time. Nobody gave him credit for what he could understand, they all treated him like he was stupid. But he could tell when somebody was getting riled up while looking at him, and maybe that was a curse in itself.

He turned his attention back to the notes on the door. There were only three now. One from Wednesday morning, and two from Thursday. But curiously, he hadn’t written a note for when he came home on Wednesday. That was going to be his new rule. A note in the morning and a note in the afternoon. Surely, he’d get to the bottom of it eventually.

On Friday morning, Butters put up another note, I am leaving for school at 7:30 am on a Friday. And later that same day, I am home at 5:30 pm on a Friday. Maybe at some point it would help to start putting the date in the corner, including month and year. For now, though, the note making was just a test run.

By the beginning of the next week, he’d written plenty of notes, and when he saw Dr. Janus again, he took them with him. “I’ve been writing like you said, I just don’t remember making this one.” Butters placed the previous Thursday morning note on the man’s desk.

After a quick read, Janus asked, “You don’t remember this one?”

“No, not at all.”

“Do you remember last Thursday?”

Butters was hesitant to be honest, but he knew that he had to. He shook his head, “I remember the latter half of the school day… and getting home. And then seeing that note.”

The doctor took a look at the other notes Butters had written. Then he noticed something. “Hey, Butters,” He started, “did you know that you always write your notes without contractions?”

“Hm? What do you mean?”

“Like, look at this one.” Dr. Janus placed a note from earlier in front of Butters on his desk. “ It is seven-thirty, I am going to school. It is a Monday. See?”

Butters nodded. “That’s just how I write clearly.”

“Yes, well, look at this mystery note,” Janus put the notes side by side. “ It’s seven-thirty in the morning, I’m going to school… you don’t write your notes like that.”

“Yeah, that’s what I’ve been saying!”

The man sighed and leaned back in his chair. Butters grew a little apprehensive. “I’ve been trying to hold off on this, but I think it’s time I bring it up with you.”

Butters’ palms started to feel clammy. “What?” He tried to hide his wobbling voice.

“I think, and this isn’t a final diagnosis or anything… that you may be suffering from a dissociative disorder.”

“What is that?”

“I can give you a few papers to read through when you leave. To put it gently, it’s when your mind sort of… stops for a little while. You may see these as blackouts or suddenly not remembering what you were doing. Maybe even something more like zoning out.”

“So, what, am I crazy?”

“You’re not crazy, Butters, we don’t say that word here. Janus offered a box of tissues, he could see how hard the boy was trying to stop himself from crying. “I think, once again this is just my opinion based on observation… that the specific form of dissociative disorder you suffer from has to do with identity.”

Butters took the entire box of tissues and used one to dab at his eye before he even started to cry. “What does that mean?” He sniffled.

“Dissociative Identity Disorder is very similar to what I explained before, but with the addition of other… identity states. For example, if there were a little girl who had an identity different from her own, whom she blacked out and turned into, so to speak, that would be… the disorder.”

“So… you think I have another person in my head.”

Dr. Janus sighed deeply, “It’s not that simple. What causes this disorder is repeated psychological trauma at a young age… when you talked to me about what that other boy did to you, you were in the fourth grade, correct?”

“Yeah.”

“That could have contributed to it. However, most studies show that it typically forms far sooner than nine to ten years old.”

“So, what are you saying?”

“...Are you comfortable telling me about when your uncle’s abuse started?”

Chapter Text

Butters is eight years old. That’s about as far back as he can remember. He’s in the guest bedroom at his aunt and uncle’s house, he has no memory of the previous day, or even the previous night. He remembers, though, that he doesn’t want to go back home.

At home, his father yells at him for every little fault. He grabs his arm so hard that sometimes it bruises. His mother only sometimes helps with a “Stephen, stop it.” that the man doesn’t even listen to half the time.

But at his aunt and uncle’s house… oh they were the sweetest. He watched cartoons with Aunt Nellie, and in the mornings she’d make him breakfast. And he played a bunch with Uncle Budd, one of his favorite games was tossing a football around. And tag, and hide and go seek… but, those were more fun with at least three people. Overall, he’d been having such a wonderful time with his aunt and uncle, it felt impossible that it was already time to leave.

The door to the guest bedroom opens, and inside pops his uncle. “Hey Leo, I wanted to catch you before breakfast.” The man sits on the edge of the bed and motions for Butters to come closer. “You can’t say anything about our game last night, okay? Pinky swear.”

Butters doesn’t exactly know what he’s talking about, but he interlocks his pinky finger with Budd’s anyway. He wonders what kind of late-night secretive gaming they could have been doing, maybe a violent video game he would never be allowed to play at home? Or the game of life, his father thought that one was too inappropriate as well.

He’s pulled out of his thoughts by his uncle shoving his face into his. Lips are on his and he can’t do anything about it. What could he do about it? Finally, when Budd moves away, he can breathe again. He swears his heart stopped momentarily.

Uncle Budd stands up, bright cheerful like always, “Now let’s eat some pancakes, huh?”

▸

“I remember thinking… that I wish I could just run away from the situation. That someone would take my place and sit in front of my aunt and could convincingly pretend that it didn’t happen. And I guess, I had to become that for myself.”

Dr. Janus nodded slowly, “And this first moment of abuse happened when you were eight, correct?”

“Yes.”

“In your recollection, you couldn’t even remember what had happened before you woke up, right?”

“I remember…” Butters messed with a loose string on his sweater. “I remember playing games and watching cartoons. And I didn’t want to go back home.”

“But… nothing from the day before? Nothing from when you were… say, seven?”

Butters shook his head. “I… I really don’t remember that.”

The doctor looked through his notes and scribbled something new down. “Butters, your real name is Leopold, isn’t it?”

“Um. I mean, it’s… nobody calls me that, so…”

“I’ve been meaning to ask, if it’s not too much, why the strange nickname?”

“It’s uh… just my name.” Butters felt like he was beginning to sweat. “I’ve always known it as my name. All of my friends call me by it, my family does too. They always have.”

“But it’s not your real name.”

“It is… it is my name.”

Dr. Janus looked at his computer screen, “You were one of the best tap dancers in the country, there are articles about you. Leopold, Butters, Stotch.”

Butters cupped his hands over his ears, “Stop calling me that, nobody calls me that…”

“I’m not trying to push you, I'm simply just curious about the origins of the nickname, and why you’re so attached to it. Does it pain you to hear your legal name?”

That was it, Butters had had enough. “I’m not Leopold, Leopold is dead!”

The entire office went quiet. If the lights weren’t on, and Dr. Janus wasn’t sitting in front of him, Butters would have assumed the power went out and everybody died. But everything was working perfectly.

The doctor cleared his throat, “Could you… elaborate on that sentiment?”

Butters’ voice shook as he spoke, “Leopold is dead. I feel no connection to that name and I never have.”

“...When you say dead—”

“Dead.” Butters’ face was hard as stone. “The day my mom saw the stains on my clothes and didn’t help me, when she listened to my uncle’s bullshit excuse, that name died.”

“And why so?”

“Because only my uncle called me it.”

▸

When everybody had moved on to “Butters”, there was only one person allowed to use the name “Leo” on him. He’d made an exception for his uncle, because he loved him so much. He’d never once felt any real connection to the name. As far as he was concerned it was just some nonsense on a birth certificate.

Deep down, he always believed that what he’d gone through would have never happened if he were… a little girl stares up at him. It only hits him then that he doesn’t know where he is. “Do you wanna play ponies?” She asks him.

Though he’s a little stunned by the whole ordeal, he nods. Through a strange place he’d never been to before, like walking in the woods, they came to a beautiful opening. A sandy beach and a large glistening blue ocean like something out of a storybook lay in front of them.

“Where are we?” Butters finally asks, he’s a little surprised hearing his own voice.

“At home!” The little girl skips as she speaks. She leads him to the very edge of the sand, where the tide comes in periodically.

When Butters looks back, there’s nothing but sand behind him. And when he turns to the little girl, she has seemingly materialized pony toys out of nowhere. He finally took it to be that he was dreaming. A strangely vivid dream, but something that wasn’t real nonetheless.

“You can be Pinkie Pie, I’m Fluttershy!”

“Hey, I’m sorry but… who are you? What’s your name?”

The little girl continues smiling as she states, “Marjorine.”

Butters awoke with his heart pounding. He couldn’t even fully take in the surroundings, he was still only half conscious. He had no idea what that dream meant, but recently he’d been advised to write them down. So he opened the notes app on his phone and typed, a little girl on a sandy beach named… Marjorine.

He couldn’t get to sleep after that. He remembered that name well, it was the one he’d used to go undercover at the girl’s sleepover in fourth grade. It was pretty, he always did like it. But did it have a deeper meaning?

At school, he talked privately with Kenny in a pretty dead hallway. “You feel like a girl, right?” He asked abruptly.

“Uh, yeah- yeah… why?”

“What if… what if I felt like a girl inside?”

Kenny’s eyes widened, “Are you coming out to me?”

“No… I don’t know!” Images of the beachside and little girl flashed behind Butters’ eyes. “I don’t feel like a girl but… it’s like there’s a girl… inside me?”

“So are you… a girl?”

“…I think I have a little girl inside of my head.”

Butters half expected Kenny to walk far far away and never associate with him again, but instead he just cocked his head to the side and asked, “Are you okay?”

“The doctor told me that he thinks I have a disorder… something to do with my identity.”

“Which means…?”

“I think that there is another person in my head. Or Identity… whatever you call it. And it’s a little girl.”

“Just to… make it clear. You’re not trans?” Kenny sounded a little sad.

Butters shook his head, “I’m not, Butters isn’t… but there’s a little girl, I saw her in my dream, her name is Marjorine.” He fumbled trying to find his cellphone in his backpack.

“Marjorine?”

“And she lives on a beach. Or… I saw her on a beach.”

“Hey, Butters,” Kenny grabbed the boy’s hands with both of his own. “I’m concerned for you.”

“Why?”

“This doesn’t sound… real.”

Butters scoffed, “Well, it was in my dream! I saw her, you can’t tell me I didn’t!”

“But it’s not real, is it?” Kenny wasn’t trying to be rude, it’s just that it all sounded like crazy talk. “Is it possible that you’re just… trans and in denial?”

Denial? Why would that be something he’d have to deny about himself? “I’m not.” He shook his head slowly, “I’m not trans.”

“You think it’s more likely that you have a little girl living in your head than it is that you’re just a trans girl yourself?”

“No. Well, yes, I’m not a girl. My doctor told me I might have this disorder…”

“Dysphoria?” Butters shut his mouth. Kenny’s face looked full of pity. “You know, there’s a name for when you feel like a different gender trapped in your body.”

Kenny was just pissing Butters off now. “I’m not a fucking girl, Ken!” His lip quivered as he spoke, “I’m sorry that you feel a certain way and want to push it onto me, but I’m not a girl.”

“Pushing it…” Kenny whispered in disbelief.

Butters turned to leave, “You clearly have some issues you need to work on yourself, maybe you can actually help me after you do.”

As he walked away, a feeling of dread lingered over him. Was it fucked up to say that? Did it matter? Kenny was ignoring every point he was making, but he probably shouldn’t have gone to him with the information in the first place. Kenny wouldn’t know what to do to help, he was just as much of a mentally ill child as Butters himself was.

▸

That night, Butters listened to his parents’ argument through the wall that connected their rooms. He’d grown somewhat immune to the sound of muffled yelling, and he believed a large majority of the neighbors had as well. He sat on the floor against the wall, his parents’ voices vibrated against it.

Butters snaked his own hand up into his shirt, to his chest, and he closed his eyes. He continued moving it as if it had a mind of its own, like he was pretending it was something, or some one, else.

When he next opened his eyes, it was because somebody was banging on his bedroom door. He stumbled getting into his bed, there was no time to turn the light off, he just hoped he could pretend to be asleep long enough for it to look real.

The door opened, but instead of Stephen yelling at him like he’d expected, Butters felt a freezing breeze enter the room. It whispered something when it got closer to him.

“I just want a kiss goodnight.”

Then he could feel it, freezing all over his body, it was like he was getting possessed by it. The lights had seemingly shut themselves off, because everything was pitch black. And he couldn’t hear his parents arguing anymore. It was just him and the breeze that overtook him.

“No no no… this isn’t real.” Butters whispered. “It’s not real…”

Unfortunately, it felt real. Very real. His insides were cold as ice, but his stomach still turned. He could hear a familiar voice repeatedly inside of his ears, or inside of his head. Or inside of his entire body.

I just want a kiss, here’s a fun game to play, you have to be quiet when we play it, shhh, don’t tell your mom and dad, I sure won’t say anything, it’s fine, Leo.

And then all of a sudden, the cold dissipated. Instead, a warmth hit Butters’ skin, and when he opened his eyes he was standing on a beach. His toes were in the sand. The little girl from before was standing by the edge of the water, she looked out into the endless ocean. Marjorine!

She turned to look at him, it was then when he got a good look at her. She was blonde, though most of her hair was covered by a beach hat. She had glistening blue eyes, just like the sea in front of them. And a tan.

“Mar…Marjorine.” Butters stuttered out.

“Hm?”

“Hi…” He walked forwards, strangely it didn’t feel like running or walking within a dream. “Who are… who are you?”

The little girl giggled, “I’m Marjorine!”

“I know, but… why are you here?”

“I live here.” She motioned across the entire beach, “This is my home.”

Butters took another look around, it really was beautiful. “I like it.”

“I want pancakes!” Marjorine skipped towards a hut that Butters had somehow not previously noticed.

He followed her, and inside smelled like freshly cooked pancakes. Two plates full of them sat on a familiar kitchen table. It was almost a little overwhelming. Marjorine sat and started eating with her hands, Butters used a knife and fork.

“You really like pancakes, huh?” He asked her.

She nodded, “The best food ever!”

Admittedly, the breakfast food had been a little spoiled for Butters. But he took a few bites anyway. “Marjorine, I have to ask you…” The girl gave him her attention. “How old are you?”

“Uh… fi- six!” She smiled, there were no crumbs in her teeth. “I’m six!”

So what did that mean for him? Did Butters truly believe he was a six year old girl on the inside? Or was there just… a six year old girl inside of him?

“Oh, I haven’t introduced myself.” He realized. “I’m Butters. I’m fifteen.”

“You’re old.”

“No, I’m not.”

“You are, you’re so old!” Marjorine hopped out of her chair and ran out of the hut.

Butters followed her, he ran just as fast as she did, despite clearly being dreaming. It was kind of fun, running around with each other. Until Marjorine fell. She landed face first into the water and wet sand. Initially, Butters wanted to laugh. Tell her to get up and they could keep playing. But she didn’t move.

The tide came in, Butters was scared that she’d drown. And the tide didn’t retreat, it just steadily rose. Although he didn’t want to touch the water, he also didn’t feel right leaving the little girl under it. So he reached out and grabbed her.

As if she had been playing dead the entire time, Marjorine shot up in an instant, and the water level went down. She stood on her own, and as if no logic applied here, her clothing wasn’t even wet, let alone dirty from the sand.

She looked up at Butters, her eyes pierced him somewhere deep in his soul. “This is your job.” She said, in a tone unlike she’d ever used before.

Marjorine began to walk away. Butters shouted after her, “What do you mean?!” When she didn’t answer, he asked again. “What do you mean it’s my job?!”

Butters woke up in class. Was he really asleep? He raised his hand shakily, “Can I go to the nurse?”

The dream was far too vivid. He could still feel the sand between his toes. When he got to the nurse’s office, he immediately ran into the bathroom to throw up. Something was wrong, he was sure of it.

▸

“What do you want with dinner?” Linda asked.

Butters was sitting at the kitchen table. “Tonight?”

“For Thanksgiving.”

“Oh. Um. Green beans.” He tuned out the rest of whatever his mother began saying to him after his answer. Honestly, he didn’t even know that Thanksgiving was so soon. It almost felt like he’d missed a whole month.

But that's never happened before. A few hours, or days… or weeks. Sure, but never a month. According to the calendar in the kitchen, thankfully he hadn’t missed as much time as he was worried he may have.

“I’m tired.” He said aloud to excuse himself.

When he got into his bedroom, he took a look at the notes on the back of his door. They were nonsense to him, then. He didn’t write a single one. He’d taken to figuring it all out on his own, he hadn’t spoken to Kenny in… he didn’t know how long.

It felt lonely, it really did. He had nobody he could talk to about his newfound problem. Well, it wasn’t new, but it was manifesting itself more recently. He wished he could just solve it already. He was exhausted.

Butters picked up the pen and sticky notes he kept on his desk, and he wrote another note. My name is Butters Stotch. I am fifteen years old and … He didn’t know what else to write. His sense of person had all but fully deteriorated, not like he had much of a defined personality beforehand. He crossed out the last word of his note and stuck it on the desk. Whoever was writing the others would be forced to read it and respond. At least, that’s what he hoped.

It may have seemed like a good thing that Butters’ emotions had numbed. He wasn’t over-emotional, not at the moment, and usually that would have been a plus. But that just made him long for any emotion. Any feeling possible. The easiest to achieve was pain.

He’d slam a notebook against his forehead just for the millisecond of pain it provided. The tinfoil triangle that he’d used in the past was still plenty good, and though it didn’t break skin, the feeling of it sharply running over his arms and legs was good enough. It left some welts, it stung. Sometimes, Butters wished he had the strength to actually cut his skin. To deeply dig a razor into his wrists or his thighs. Then he thought about Tweek again.

At least Tweek had someone to fall back on, he thought. If Butters were to slice his arms open and have to be hospitalized, who would sit by his side? Not Stan. Not Kenny. Especially not Heidi. He had nobody. If he had to come up with the biggest way he and Tweek severely differed… that would be it. Tweek always had somebody looking after him. Butters didn’t.

Chapter Text

“My name is Victor.” Butters read the note in front of him out loud, “Professor Victor Chaos.”

He dropped the paper back onto his desk, and he felt queasy. His embarrassing childhood coping mechanism had come back to haunt him, it seemed. And if this identity disorder thing was true, then his second personality was a supervillain. What did that mean for him? Was he secretly evil?

He brought the note with him when he saw Dr. Janus again. “Professor Victor Chaos…” The man repeated. “What a name.”

“I made him up.” Butters replied flatly, his eyes on the carpet instead of the doctor. “Professor Chaos.”

“You did?”

“When I was, like, ten.”

“For what reason?”

“The uh… abuse. From everyone. Professor Chaos was like my way of getting revenge on them all.” He gulped. “But he’s the villain. What does it mean when the other personality is evil?”

Dr. Janus wasn’t exactly sure how to approach this. “For starters, you weren’t officially diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder, that’s just my personal observation. And second, another identity has no bearing on you yourself.”

“And what does that mean?”

“You are still your own person. One of the main diagnostic criteria for Dissociative Identity Disorder is the existence of at least two identity states. So how another identity might feel about something may not be the same as how you feel.”

Butters nodded slowly, “So I’m not a bad person?”

“No, of course not.” Dr. Janus slid the note back to Butters, “And since you’ve opened up a form of communication, keep at it. You’ll be able to learn more about yourself on your own.”

But Butters hated learning about himself all alone.

At school, Kenny avoided him. It didn’t feel very nice from the other side of being ignored. Kenny sat in the back of class instead of his usual spot next to Butters. They tried to avoid eye contact as well, that would have made it even more awkward.

On his way walking home, a car pulled up next to him. He recognized it immediately as his own family’s car, so he stopped. The person inside rolled the passenger’s side window down and asked, “Do you want a ride home?”

Considering the fact that it was clearly his father’s voice, Butters hopped in with no question.

“YOU FAILED!” His father yelled in his face. “You never get in the car with a stranger. You could get kidnapped and raped and murdered, you know that right?”

“Yeah, okay, sorry.” Butters wasn’t in the mood for his father's random life lessons, he just wanted to get home.

“You could be dead right now.” Stephen continued to hammer in. “Be smarter about who you get in a car with.”

“Dad, are you gonna fuckin’ drive or not?” That kind of language earned Butters a smack on the mouth.

Stephen was next to furious, “Don’t talk to me like that.”

“Sorry. Just drive the car—”

“You have had the worst fucking attitude lately, you know that?” Stephen’s hands weren’t even on the wheel anymore. In fact, the car was turned off. “The most disrespectful attitude I have ever seen.”

“Okay.”

“So you think it’s funny to disrespect your father? Your mother?” When Butters turned to look out of the window, Stephen grabbed the back of his neck. “Don’t fucking roll your eyes at me!”

“I didn’t!” Butters yelled back.

His father tightened his grip on his skin, “I’m gonna need you to remember to treat adults with some respect.” When Butters didn’t respond, Stephen dug his nails in deeper. “Do you understand me?”

“Yes!” Butters pulled away, “I understand!”

It took everything in his power for Butters to not jump out of the moving car. He didn’t even care if it killed him, anything would have been better than getting home and facing the full brunt of his father’s rage. Thankfully, his mother was home when they arrived, but that didn’t change much.

He ran straight up to his bedroom and slammed the door out of anger. He wished it had a lock still, but his parents removed that years ago. They claimed it was too dangerous, that Butters was too emotional to be trusted with it. God knows it would have protected him against his uncle.

Stephen bursted in only seconds later, like the fuse had been reignited. “Who told you that you could slam doors in this house?!”

Butters didn’t reply, he sat curled up on his bed. Until something caught his attention.

His father had moved his door enough to see behind it. To see the notes. “What is all this shit on my door?” He ripped off the notes in handfuls.

“Stop it!” Butters jumped up from his spot on the bed. “Stop, I need those!”

“You need to clean this fucking mess up!” Stephen tossed the balled up sticky notes onto the floor. “Don’t you ever put some shit like that on my fucking doors again.”

Butters was so mad he could cry. Or he was crying. “They’re sticky notes!” He screamed, the hot tears poured out of his eyes so much he could barely see. “They don’t even leave a mark, they’re fucking sticky notes!”

The language. Oh, he forgot about the language. His father grabbed him by the collar of his sweater and forcibly yanked it off. It was probably going to be stretched now. Underneath, it was easier to see who Butters really was. Frail and weak. Not quite skin and bones, but noticeably small. Even the undershirt he had on he was practically swimming in.

Stephen went for his throat next, his boney throat. Nearly his whole hand could fit around it. “You do not swear at me.” As if to get the point across better, he walked him back over to his bed and slammed his body down, hand still on his throat. “You have been nothing but a disrespectful child your entire life. You’re going to learn how to respect your elders.”

It was a bad thought, a really bad one, but Butters couldn’t help that it came to mind. His father and uncle, being brothers, looked so much alike. And from the angle he was at, he got a little scared. More scared than normal. It’s possible his father could feel his racing pulse in his neck. Aside from the regular fear of his father killing him, a new one had emerged. Is he going to rape me?

The answer was no, because seconds later Stephen removed his grasp and left the room, slamming the door like he’d just told Butters off for doing. But the boy still lay flat on his back, his legs hanging off the side of his bed. He disgusted himself with the thought he’d had. What kind of fucking weirdo thinks like that? Had his mind been too poisoned by his uncle to realize that being assaulted by a family member was not a normal fear to have? That wasn’t something everyone thought about every once in a while, like hurting another person, or kicking a puppy.

Usually, very few things were keeping Butters from killing himself. But now that Kenny hated him, Heidi hated him, Stan hated him, his father ruined his attempts at understanding what the fuck was going on inside of his mind… there wasn’t really much of anything keeping him from it.

He stood up, his legs wobbly from so much stress, probably. And scribbled a note to leave on his desk. My name is Butters Stotch. I am fifteen years old, and I am going to kill myself.

▸

There was an internal countdown, but no set date. No set method. Butters just knew that when he went, he would need everybody to see it. He wasn’t too hellbent on revenge like he had been in the past, but he might as well have one last moment.

For Eric Cartman, who repeatedly and horrifically took advantage of him. For Heidi, who knew about it and still decided to get back together with Eric. For Stan, who wasn’t a real friend in the first place. For Kenny…

For his father, who never loved him. For his mother, who never wanted him. For his uncle, who ruined his life before it even got to start. For his aunt, who had to have known. For the entire town, who had to have known. How did nobody know? How did nobody know?!

He was going to be the face of the town’s greatest tragedy. The boy who was failed by everybody.

Butters often imagined what the world would be like with him gone. Maybe it was selfish, but he liked to believe his death would shake the world. Or at least the tiny hick town he once lived in. He could see it now, the biographies, the documentaries. His mother sobbing violently on the news just for it to come out days later that she knew about the abuse the whole time. That she saw the things her brother-in-law had done and said nothing.

He couldn’t wait for the tide to turn against his family. If it took his suicide to get the world to know what he’d been through, then so be it. He’d be a martyr for children like him everywhere. He was okay with that.

The bathroom door was nearly knocked down by the hard knocks on it. “Butters! I have some news for you!” His father’s voice was muffled behind the door, but he knew it was his.

When he opened it, he felt cold. The chill of the house against his post shower body he had yet to dry off. “Yeah?” He asked.

“We’re having dinner at Grandma’s this year.”

“Thanksgiving dinner?”

“That’s right.”

“Why?”

Stephen crossed his arms, “You know why. Your grandma is getting older and can’t travel, plus we haven’t had a real family Thanksgiving in years. So we’re going to her.”

Butters couldn’t believe it. It was ridiculous, but he couldn’t argue. His throat was still hurting from the last time he and his father fought. “Okay, cool.”

Really, he couldn’t care less about his grandmother’s health. She was abusive herself, so why would he? He never forgot all those times she used to hit him for seemingly no reason. Perhaps she was different now, she was older, and in the past couple years had lost her husband. Either way, Butters wasn’t excited to see her.

When Butters went to his room, he sat on the bed. He kind of didn’t feel like drying off. He pulled his phone out from his pillowcase, he hid it there because it’d be harder for his father to find if he decided to sneak into his room while he was separated from it.

He had no missed calls, no unread text messages. Clearly nobody cared about him anymore. He was starting to doubt anyone would care when he was dead and gone. Would they celebrate instead?

Butters’ contact list was a graveyard. Aside from the aforementioned people whom he dedicated his suicide to, there were others he just… stopped being friends with. Dougie O’Conell being one of them. He and Dougie fell out of friendship not long after Butters graduated fifth grade and entered sixth. Because Dougie was still a little kid, and Butters was growing up. He couldn’t care less about what nonsense was going on at South Park Elementary anymore.

He felt kind of bad. Dougie had never done anything wrong to him. He narrowly resisted the urge to message him for the first time in years. He couldn’t be that desperate for company.

As much as it pained him to admit, Butters wanted to talk to Kenny. It’d been weeks upon weeks since they had their fight. He didn’t even avoid Kenny for that long after the kiss. Perhaps, he was just not used to being treated as he sometimes treated others.

Butters closed his eyes and tossed his phone to the side. He really didn’t want to go to school. He didn’t want to visit his grandmother for Thanksgiving. He just wanted the world to stop for a moment. Nobody expecting anything from him, nobody actively upset with him, and no reason to leave the house.

He’d given up on the sticky notes for now, his father would just attack him again if he kept it up. But at least he got some kind of communication out of it. And he could still place them on his desk so… that was something.

Reluctantly, Butters lifted himself from his bed to finally get dressed. Shorts and a large t-shirt again. He looked in the full body mirror on his wall. He hadn’t noticed before, possibly because he didn’t like looking at his body anyway, but he had gotten really skinny. Not like Tweek, it was a miracle that boy was able to stand, let alone walk, with his toothpick legs. Butters imagined his knees buckling beneath him when he passed by him in the halls at school.

That was really mean. What had Tweek ever done to him? He wasn’t a bad kid. Maybe Butters was just a little bit jealous of him. Just a little.

Butters snuggled his body into bed. He’d turned the ceiling light off, but he wasn’t anxious due to having his phone on full brightness. He scrolled endlessly through various areas of the internet. And he took notes on what others suggested when it came to the correct method of following through with his plan.

He was going to kill himself, and there was no going back on that.

▸

Butters’ eyes fluttered open, but instead of seeing his bedroom, like he’d assumed he would, he looked around the inside of a laboratory. It must’ve been one of those vivid dreams he’d been having lately, right?

Somebody was standing in front of him, separated by the large boiling vat of acid below the floor. There didn’t seem to be any glass covering the hole, so Butters had to step carefully around it. When he reached the other side of the room the person snapped backwards suddenly.

“Who…” The person looked a little older than Butters. In fact, he looked just like Butters but taller and with a weird scar on his left eye. His face softened as he took in the view of what was essentially the kid version of himself. “Why are you here?” He asked.

“Uh, I don’t know. Why do you look like me?”

“I don’t know. If you’re here then… who’s up there?”

“What?”

The older figure moved around the lab quickly, expertly avoiding the giant hole in the floor. “You need to get back up there, that little girl needs you.”

“What are you talking about? Who are you?!”

He sighed. “I’m Professor Victor Chaos, you can call me by any shorthand you want, it doesn’t matter. What does matter, however, is getting you back up there.”

Honestly, Butters had always seen Professor Chaos as way more muscular in his head. “I don’t even know where I am!”

“You’re in my lab. Mind the gap.”

Butters looked down at said gap, the gaping hole in the middle of the room. “What is that, anyway?”

“It’s a physical manifestation of the memories we all hold individually.” When that didn’t explain it well enough, Victor stated, “The bad memories.”

“Your bad memories are kept in a vat of acid?”

“Yes, where are yours kept?”

Well… Butters didn’t have a designated spot in his room for the bad memories. They were mostly just in his head. “Don’t have one.”

“We all have one.”

“Who is we?”

“All of us.” Butters’ face looked as confused as ever. “You do know why you’re here, right?”

“In this lab? No!”

“In this body.” Victor looked him dead in the eyes. “This is not your body.”

Butters scoffed, he couldn’t hold back a bewildered smile, “Last time I checked, I was Butters Stotch. So it kind of is my body!”

“Look.” Victor almost towered over him now. And he seemed angry. “You have a job to do. Get the hell back up there and do it.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

“Protect that little girl. You have one job. Do. It.”

When Butters’ eyes opened again, his body was drenched in sweat. He had been asleep, so there was no question about the strange dream. Or was there? That was the second time somebody in his dreams had told him about this apparent “job” he had. Only this time, it was more specific.

Protect that little girl. He could hear the gravelly voice of the Professor ring in his ears all day. What was he doing so wrong? And was the girl in question… Marjorine? How was he meant to protect somebody who… he couldn’t even see outside of his dreams? Who he even doubted truly existed at times?

Who was he to become somebody’s protector? If anything, he needed the protection! Nobody ever helped him! Nobody ever saved him! How was it suddenly his job to do so for someone else?! Oh that’s really bad, you shouldn’t say that.

…But if it was real. If Marjorine was a real child who needed his protection… would he not be a horrible person for not doing it? Would he be comparable to his own parents? Standing by and letting their child get hurt? Even if he was just being insane… it would be way more beneficial not to ignore it.

Maybe he was just fucking crazy.

Somebody slammed into him while he stood still in the hallway. That was his fault, probably. They were some seniors a thousand times bigger than him, so he didn’t say anything. Even though you really want to. He bit his tongue and continued to drag himself to whatever class he had next.

For the first time in a while, Butters decided to take the bus home. He sat at the front, because as soon as he got on he noticed the group of Stan, Kyle, and Kenny in the very back. He hoped they didn’t see him. He turned to look out of the window. To his surprise, somebody thudded down next to him without warning. Butters didn’t even have to look to tell who it was. His stomach lurched.

“Oh, Butters, I didn’t see you there!” The annoying voice of Eric Cartman rang out. “You’re sitting in my seat.”

Butters repeated to himself in his head like a mantra: don’t engage. Do not engage. It didn’t really work.

Eric must’ve been just joking, because he was going to stand and walk to the back… until the bus started running. It was hard enough for him to walk on the bus when it was still, let alone when it was moving. “Well, I guess we’re stuck together.” He said to Butters, who kept his attention to the world outside of the window.

The start of the ride was nothing special, neither of them said anything. But about halfway to the bus stop they’d get dropped off at, Eric poked Butters on the shoulder. And he kept pestering him until Butters finally gave him the attention he wanted, “What?”

“Why aren’t you sitting in the back with the rest of them?” Eric asked.

“Why aren’t you?”

“Well, I was going to, before the fucking bus pulled off.” No response. “And uh… that stuff you said about me got to their heads.”

Something in Butters’ soul wanted to start screaming. “Uh huh.”

“Yeah… you should just tell them you were lying. You know, clear that whole thing up.”

“I wasn’t lying.”

Eric kept smiling, like he was winning this argument. “You don’t have to lie to me, Butters, I know what I did and didn’t do. You should tell everyone else about how much of a liar you are, though.”

Butters looked the other boy in the face intensely, “I wasn’t lying.”

“You can keep telling yourself that, but the truth will always come out eventually.”

“That is the truth, Eric, and you know it.” Butters knew that he shouldn’t give the boy what he wanted, but it was so impossible not to defend himself.

“The police arrested me, Butters. They searched my house, my room, and they found nothing. All that you have against me is your own word.”

“No, what I have against you is Stan, Kyle, and Kenny’s words. They told me this years ago.”

“You don’t even have actual proof then?” Eric laughed. “You have nothing! There’s no real evidence that I ever did anything to you!”

“You won’t be laughing if I take it to court.” Butters spoke flatly and seriously. “Have a restraining order put against you… and everyone in town will know you’re a rapist.”

“Court? Seriously? You honestly think you could afford that?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

The bus came to a halt at the stop in which the regular group of kids would get off. Eric spoke one last thing to Butters in a whisper, “I don’t think the person who fucks their uncle should threaten anybody with anything.”

And then Eric left. Butters didn’t even want to get off the bus. He looked at the faces of Stan and Kyle as they left, and averted his eyes when Kenny passed. He was the last one off. As soon as he was far enough away from the bus stop, he involuntarily vomited on the sidewalk. There was absolutely no way Eric knew about that. There couldn’t be.

Unless he was the one person who had listened all that time. Who had taken Butters’ cries for help and jotted them down to use against him later. Unless he had… seen it. That thought almost made Butters sick again. So there really was nothing he could do. He couldn’t get actual justice for what Eric Cartman did to him, he couldn’t even keep the stuff with his uncle a secret. He never thought it was that big of a deal when he was little, but nobody ever actually cared. He didn’t think anyone noticed.

When he got home, Butters rinsed his mouth out in the bathroom sink. He couldn’t stop thinking about the scariest part of it all. If Eric knew, who else has he told?

Chapter Text

A.W.E.S.O.M-O is laying in bed next to Butters. The boy’s arm is wrapped around the cardboard box that is the robot’s stomach. But because A.W.E.S.O.M-O is not really a robotic hunk of metal, he can hear the door squeak open. He feels Butters stir next to him, too.

Through the box on his head, A.W.E.S.O.M-O hears a voice. “Leo…” It’s pretty unrecognizable.

Butters must have woken up, because he sleepily responds, “Not… Not right now.”

“Come on, it’ll only be a minute.”

“A-A.W.E.S.O.M-O is right there…”

“That’s alright, just come over here.”

The right side of the bed moves as Butters seemingly does too. Through the holes in the cardboard for his eyes, A.W.E.S.O.M-O can see the light in the connected bathroom blink on. There’s only a toilet and sink in there, he knows.

It’s blurry, but he can see what’s happening. He can see everything. In fact, at that moment, A.W.E.S.O.M-O downloads a new file to his memory card.

He was going to use this to his advantage one day.

▸

Butters stood at the edge of the water at Stark’s Pond. When he looked into it, he didn’t want to believe that the reflection he saw was truly his own. He wanted to step in, take the leap into the lake, and never come back up. But that wouldn’t be good enough. You’ve gotta really make it hurt!

It was days out from Thanksgiving, and Butters was kind of running out of time to do the deed. He didn’t even want to make it to Thanksgiving. The thought of seeing his family all together, pretending to laugh and smile, made him sick to his stomach.

The worst part was he didn’t even doubt that, to his father, seeing family again after so long would be nice. There might be genuine hugs and laughter between them. And that was even more sickening. Instead of throwing himself into the lake, Butters turned around. He reasoned that it would be too cold anyway.

He started his trek home, the pond was closer to his house than the high school was. He passed South Park Elementary on his way and felt a rush of nostalgia, for only a moment. He didn’t like to dwell on things that happened in that school. Besides, it was closed for Thanksgiving break. It wasn’t like anybody would be hanging out around it waiting to talk to him.

He passed the homes of people who probably still hated him, most notably Wendy and Bebe, and finally made it to his own. For whatever reason, neither parent was there, so Butters snagged a banana from the kitchen and took it up to eat in his bedroom. He’d throw the peel out of his window when he was finished. Maybe he’d throw himself out as well. Ah, that was a bad thought.

Lately, Butters had forgotten a lot again. Possibly it was because of what Eric Cartman had said… however many days ago. Or it could have been the stress of Thanksgiving, for some reason. The holiday always made him nervous, and he didn’t know why. At least this time around he had some idea.

He looked at the back of his bedroom door and found it covered in sticky notes yet again. First, he freaked out because they were back up there. And his second instinct was to actually read them. “It’s a week from Thanksgiving, we need to be on guard.” Butters read aloud. He picked up another one, “It’s only six days until Thanksgiving. Where is he?”

Who is he? Butters asked himself mentally. The notes kept going, each one numbering the amount of days until the upcoming holiday. “He” was mentioned multiple more times. More and more notes were created in one day, starting at four days away. Three days away, they looked more panicked… and then they stopped.

It was two days away now. Butters gathered all of the sticky notes and tossed them in the trash can by his desk. The absolute last thing he needed was his father getting angry at him again for them.

His phone buzzed in his pocket. For the first time in such a long time, somebody had texted him! He yanked it out and the elated look on his face slowly fell and soured as he read the message. It was just his mother, reminding him to pack some clothes for the trip. They would leave the next day on a plane and spend the night at his grandmother’s house. Then they’d spend the day of cooking, until the big dinner. And they’ll sleep over one more night before leaving the following morning.

So that was at least three outfits Butters was expected to pack. Two to sleep in, one nice one for dinner. Maybe even a fourth for a day in town if he’ll be allowed. Aside from turkey, his father didn’t do much cooking for the holiday, so it was possible they would be able to hang out a little before dinner. Butters would pack four outfits.

He packed enough clean underwear for two showers as well. One when he got there, and one before he left. He liked to be well prepared for moments like this. It helped him de-stress, folding the clothes and placing them inside of his suitcase was almost therapeutic. He wasn’t excited to go, but admittedly he liked packing.

▸

The morning of the day before Thanksgiving, Stephen bursted into his son’s room. “UP! UP! GET UP, BUTTERS!” He flicked the ceiling light on and off repeatedly. “GET UP!” He continued to shout.

The boy woke up suddenly. “Okay!” He yelled back, rubbing his eyes. “I’m up!”

When Butters sat up, Stephen finally stopped with the lights and kept them on when he left the room. Butters flopped back down on his bed and groaned. He did not want to do this. But after a couple minutes of relaxation, he forced himself to get up out of bed.

Because he was already packed, he just threw on a somewhat presentable outfit and combed through his hair to make it look neat. Then he dragged his suitcase, which he had also filled with his phone and its charger, down the stairs. He propped it up against the wall and went into the kitchen for a little breakfast.

The sound of his parents arguing about how much time they had, and their footsteps as they stomped around, was starting to give Butters a headache. He found relief in the cold handle of his metal spoon being pressed against his forehead as he ate his cereal.

Butters was thankfully able to finish his meal by the time his parents ran down the stairs. He didn’t have the time, however, to wash his bowl. “Butters! Car, now!” His father shouted at him. He ended up just leaving it in the sink, full of water.

In the car, he didn’t have enough time to nap, so instead Butters looked at various things on the internet. From harmless videos and pictures of cats and other animals to even more suicide methods to consider, he kept himself super busy until they reached the airport. They weren’t late at all, so he had no idea why his father was rushing so much. Stephen had calmed down by the time they got on the plane.

“Yeah, we’re on the plane now, about to take off.” He sat down next to his wife. “Talk to you soon, bye.”

Butters watched the call happen from the seat across the aisle from them. He had to sit with a random person, which made him a bit nervous and uncomfortable. But they didn’t talk to him, so he didn’t talk to them. When the plane finally took flight, he tried to get some sleep in. He’d been woken up far too early. The flight wasn’t too long, being only three hours, so even the time he couldn’t sleep passed by quickly.

Did you forget who was going to be there? What? What do you think is going to happen?

When Butters opened his eyes, the plane was landing. His head hurt, it felt as if he hadn’t slept at all. Everybody slowly stood, gathered their things, and began leaving the plane. His parents were already outside by the time he got out. While walking, Butters checked the time on his phone. He couldn’t believe it was already noon. But then again, there was a pretty large time zone difference between Colorado and Virginia. It should be ten o’clock, it felt like he’d lost two whole hours. Which, truly, he did.

As they stepped into the airport, Butters’ stomach tied into knots. He felt his hands get sweaty on the handle of his suitcase. But why? For what possible reason could he be so upset… Then he saw it. The sign read STOTCH FAMILY boldly, and it was being held by a familiar pair of people. “Hey!” Stephen said upon seeing them. He brought in the other man for a hug, and Linda gave half a hug to the woman holding the sign. “When did you guys get here?”

“Last night!” The man Butters’ father was speaking to placed his eyes on him. “Leo! Don’t you want a hug, too?”

His throat was dry, so he shook his head. His mother goaded him on, “Give your uncle a hug, Butters, don’t be rude.”

So against his better judgment, Butters stepped forward and hugged his uncle. One arm only. His uncle hugged him back with both. When they pulled away, the man smiled down at him. “I’ve missed you!” He said.

“You too.” He mumbled in reply.

After catching up, the family gathered into a large car together. It wasn’t one that belonged to any of them. In fact, it used to belong to Stephen and Budd’s father. The drive to his grandmother’s house wasn’t excruciatingly long, but it sure felt like it. Maybe the entire trip was going to feel that way.

Grandmother’s house was large and old, it was obvious just from looking at it that she had money. Butters’ father and uncle came from that money, yet didn’t live luxurious lives themselves. The old woman was kind of frail, but she answered the door anyway. She excitedly gave Linda an air kiss on both cheeks and acted shocked at how tall Butters had grown.

Due to the size of the house, there were a lot of rooms. A couple guest rooms by themselves, but also the childhood bedrooms of Stephen and Budd stayed untouched, just as they had left them. Both rooms were stuck in the last few years of their teenagehood. Stephen had moved out for college, which he attended in Hawaii. Budd went to a film school in LA and had stayed there ever since. It almost felt like walking into a painting. With two couples there, who would occupy both of the guest rooms, Butters had a choice in either his father’s or his uncle’s old bedrooms.

He went with his fathers and sat his suitcase down beside the bed. It was large, way bigger than his own. His father had put up a variety of posters from bands he enjoyed as a high schooler to movies he thought made him look smart. Probably to impress whatever girls he brought over, if any. There was still plenty of daylight to do some exploring of the town, but that could wait. He was tired. Butters hopped up into the bed and was immediately enveloped in just how soft the mattress and blanket were. He was probably going to have the best sleep of his life in that bed.

When Butters woke up, hours later, it was already getting dark out. His stomach rumbled, he really hadn’t had much to eat all day, had he? The house was dead. Or at least that’s how it seemed. In the kitchen, his mother and aunt had started making food that would just be refrigerated until Thanksgiving dinner. Deviled eggs, a sweet potato pie, macaroni salad. The living room was being used by his father and uncle, who were watching and arguing over the local college football game. Butters wanted to smile, he wanted his first thought to be how sweet it was to see two brothers interacting like that… but it wasn’t.

And anyway, he was still hungry. Because his mother and aunt were busy, he walked over to his father and uncle. “Hey dad, uh…” He attempted to avoid eye contact with either man. “I’m hungry.”

“Well, your mom’s making food, go ask her for something.”

“That’s… Thanksgiving food…”

Stephen rolled his eyes, “What do you want me to do, go out and get you a happy meal? We all had dinner together hours ago, you should’ve been awake to join us.”

“I was tired…”

“Go find something yourself, then.”

“But-”

Uncle Budd stood up out of his chair and stretched. “It’s fine, I can take him to get something.”

Butters’ stomach dropped. “Uh… no, that’s alright.”

“Look, if you’re so hungry, then you’ll take someone up on the offer to feed you.” Stephen told him.

It almost felt like bile was crawling up his throat. “Okay…”

After putting back on their shoes, which were right by the door, Butters and his uncle left the house and got into the car together. It was cold, but Budd turned on the heat. Initially, the car ride was very quiet. The radio must have been broken, because his uncle didn’t even try to turn it on. “What do you wanna eat?” He asked him.

“Uh… anything. Doesn’t matter.” Butters religiously rubbed his hands together, in a motion akin to warming them up.

He had no idea where they were going, it was already very dark out and he was in an unfamiliar state altogether. Finally, the car stopped in a pitch black parking lot. Butters had left his phone at the house by accident, so there was nothing that could light the inside of the car either. His seatbelt unbuckled itself, it seemed. And he was imagining the hand on his thigh, that’s what his uncle would claim.

To do this in the car was uncomfortable, at least in the two front seats. “Get in the back.” Budd demanded. He wasn’t as sugary sweet about it as he had been before. Maybe it was because they were in public.

Because the man sounded angry, and Butters was a little scared, he obliged. When the backseat doors were open, he could see his uncle’s face for just a second. He wasn’t too used to that for moments like this. When they were both in the back, it amped up quickly. Budd’s lips mashed against his and wouldn’t pull away until the man decided to get a breath in. Butters didn’t know what to do, so he just did what he had done in the past, and reciprocated.

“I love you, Leo.” His uncle said through heavy breaths.

“Are we… still getting food?” Because he hadn’t yet clocked out or drifted off or whatever it was that he had done whenever this happened, Butters focused his mind on that one thing.

“Yeah, yeah… of course.”

The moment Budd tugged his pants off, Butters started to feel dizzy. He couldn’t see anything anyway, but it was almost like he was going to blackout. His body felt both heavy and weightless, and everything went blank.

It’s alright. He heard somebody say into his ear, but it didn’t sound like his uncle. You can let go.

As much as he didn’t know what that meant, he allowed his mind and body to be overtaken by a fuzzy, warm feeling.

▸

Butters wakes up in a field. It’s severely windy, and if his hair was longer, it would be blowing all over the place. He’s led by a trail of bubbles to a person sitting cross legged in the middle of the aforementioned field. The place is somewhat sunny, not as warm and inviting as where he’d seen the little girl Marjorine before. He takes cautious steps towards the figure, who spies him out of the corner of their eye.

“You’re here!” They announce, back still turned to him.

“H-Huh?”

The figure fully turns around, “Have a seat.” They pat the ground next to them.

Confused, Butters does as he’s told. “Who are you?” He’d learned to ask about identity before location.

They smile, their face scrunches up in a cute way. It distorts their freckles. “I’m Star, nice to, like, meet you.”

Star… alright. “I’m Butters. Uh, where am I now?”

Star stops blowing bubbles to explain, “I know this is hard for you to take in but, like… this is just where I live when I’m not, like, front and center.”

“...Huh?”

“Well, because you’re usually up there. You’re, like, our primary person.”

“...What are you talking about?”

Star blows another large bubble, it stays afloat in front of the two of them. “Ok look,” They move the bubble around seemingly magically. “Imagine there’s just this one big bubble, right? And like, something bad happens to it, I don’t know, like a car crash or something, right?” They swipe a finger through the bubble and it splits into two. “That crash was sooo bad that, like, it turned into two little bubbles, you see?”

Butters had no idea what any of this had to do with bubbles. “Huh?”

After an eye roll and another few swipes, breaking up both of the bubbles into even smaller bubbles, Star continues to explain, “The bubble keeps getting tinier and tinier, see? That’s just like us.”

“How?”

“Marjorine was the bubble, duh.” Star says, as if it were really that obvious. “We’re all here because of it. And, like, just because the bubble keeps getting smaller and turning into tiny bubbles doesn’t mean all of the tiny ones aren’t, like, part of the same bubble.”

Butters wants to claw his face off listening to them. Aside from their valley girl accent, their metaphor made absolutely no sense. “...Can I ask you something?”

“Ya, go ahead.” They blow a few more bubbles into the air.

“What is your job? Or… do you have a job?”

“Hmmm…” Star taps the bubble wand against their chin. “My job is, like, to enjoy sex or something? What’s yours?”

“Uh, well, I keep being told my job is to… protect the little girl. I guess that’s Marjorine, right?”

“Oooh yeahhhh, that would explain why you’re always, like, the one doin’ stuff.”

“Another question… why do you talk like that?”

Star exhale-laughs, “I’m from Cali! Have you never met a Cali girl before?”

“You’re a girl?”

They lay down on their back. “I’m whatever you want me to be.”

“Okay… final question.”

“Shoot!”

“If I’m here… who is, uh, up there , as you said?”

“I dunno, you wanna, like, go look?”

Butters thinks for a moment, and then he lays down next to Star. “No… I think I’d rather just go back.”

Chapter Text

“Hey! Wake up, sleepyhead.” Butters opens his eyes to a bright light. The world around him is… strange. A familiar voice calls out to him, “Get up, we’re having a party!”

When he sits up, he can more clearly look around him. He’s sitting in the grass, and his hair blows around in front of his eyes. “Uh… huh?” He rubs his face.

A person moves in front of him, they’ve got long bleach blonde hair and a freckled face. They almost look like a mermaid. “Get up, oh em gee!” They grab Butters by both of his hands and pull him to his feet. “Marjorine is throwing a party for everyone!”

Butters is turned around forcibly, he almost feels dizzy. As he’s being dragged along by the mermaid, who he identifies as Star, the view of a small table comes into his vision. Around it sits five chairs. And within those chairs he sees Professor Victor Chaos and Marjorine herself. They both look very out of element in Star’s world.

Upon seeing his face, Marjorine jumps out of her chair to rush Butters with a hug. “Hi!”

“H-Hey!” He says back.

“This is my party!” The little girl instructs him to sit in a chair closest to her’s. “I always have a party!”

“What’s it for?”

Victor elbows Butters in the side, he whispers, “For whatever she wants.”

Star sits across from the boys and Butters notices a chair remains empty. He’s about to ask about it before Marjorine taps on her teacup and announces, “The party can begin!”

Before his eyes, little cakes and cookies appear in front of Butters. The tiny cups fill with tea. It was a strange dream world, but logic didn’t need to apply to it. Star eats five cookies at a time, Victor just sips on his tea, and Marjorine rips apart the cake with her hands, shoving it in her mouth. Butters… doesn’t touch anything. The professor next to him digs his elbow into his ribs yet again.

“Ow! Why?!” Butters cries.

“Eat something. You’re no different from the rest of us.”

“Why should I? It’s not real anyway, this is all a dream.”

Suddenly, everyone stops. Marjorine’s eyes well up with tears, and Star pulls her aside to comfort her. Victor stares Butters dead in the eyes like he did something wrong. Had he done something wrong? “If you don’t want to be here, then go back up and do your job.”

“There you go again with that job stuff! What is this job that I have?!”

“You’re a protector. It’s your job to make sure that Marjorine never ever experiences what she did when the body was younger. You protect her.”

“Well, I’m not very good at it, am I?! My- My dad hits me all the time!”

“That is exactly your job. Our jobs are all different, Star protects against the sexual abuse, you know they switched with you last night.”

“And what do you do?” Butters scowls at the older man. “What are you doing to help her?”

“I’ve been keeping you from failing school!” Victor grasps Butters by the collar of his sweater.

“STOP IT!” The voice of the sobbing little girl rings out. “Stop fighting!” She’s rubbing her eyes as tears stream continuously down her face, and she hiccups as she speaks, “I just wan…na have my party!”

Star looks over to the boys with a frown on their face, they didn’t seem like the type to ever get upset. Slowly, the group gathers back around the table properly, and they begin to eat the treats in front of them. “Why a party?” Butters whispers to Victor again.

The man replies back, “She has one around this time of year, every year.”

“Why?”

After a sip of his tea, Victor says, “Because it makes her feel happy.”

▸

Butters was in bed. That was just a factual statement. When his eyes opened, he was laying in his father’s old bed with the covers hiked up to his chin. He barely had time to calibrate before somebody waltzed into the room unannounced. “Hey, look, I brought you a piece of pie.” It was his uncle, Budd. The man closed the door behind him, which was never a good sign.

He dragged the chair from the desk and brought it to Butters’ side. The pie in question was sweet potato, and Aunt Nellie had made it the previous night. As much as he didn’t want to eat at the moment… Butters couldn’t resist pie. He took the plate and sat up. He ate it with his hands.

“Look,” Budd started, his hands clasped together and shoulders slouched. He almost looked regretful. “I didn’t mean what I did and said last night. You understand that, right?”

No. Butters really didn’t. “What happened?” It was more of a demand than a question. More of a tell me what happened.

“Well I don’t want you to get mad at me again for it, I said I was sorry.”

“I don’t even remember what you said.”

“Then… it’s not important!” Budd hit Butters on the back encouragingly. “Enjoy your pie.”

As the man stood and walked towards the door, Butters called after him, “Wait!” He swallowed all the sweet potato in his mouth, “Can we talk? We haven’t talked since I was little and I would stay over at your house.” He released a heavy sigh from deep within him, “And I just need to talk to somebody.”

Budd sat back in the chair, it creaked when he did so. “Yeah, we can talk… what’s up?”

“Um… what-what are you doing now? For work?”

“Uh, well, still working on that screenplay. But, I’m a coach in the summertime. Little League.”

Butters nodded and sniffled, he didn’t know why he felt like crying. “My dad did that before… little league coach.”

“Hey, maybe coaching runs in the family.” His uncle joked.

“…Can I ask you a weird question?”

“How weird?”

“Extremely.”

“Go ahead.”

Butters pulled his knees up to his chest, he had long finished the pie and sat aside the plate on the nightstand. “What is sex like?”

Budd bit his bottom lip and turned away, he wasn’t so prepared for a question like that. “Well, Leo… we’ve had sex before.”

He wasn’t expecting that answer. He meant with a woman, or man… or somebody other than a family member! “That’s not true.”

“Since you were… five, right?” Budd placed a hand on Butters’ knee. “Don’t you remember?”

He didn’t. His heart was beating a mile a minute. “That’s… not true.”

“You had a fascination with it first, Leo. And you always enjoyed it, why wouldn’t you remember?” The hand slid down Butters’ leg. “It was a good memory for you.”

Butters shook his head furiously, “That didn’t happen!”

“…If that doesn’t count to you, then it started when you were ten. Do you remember that?”

“No!”

“You and your little friend stayed over, and you didn’t want him to see.”

Butters’ breathing quickened and it felt like his heart was going to explode out of his chest. He started to slam his fists into his head like he often did when overwhelmed. “That isn’t sex!” He yelled. “I was too little, it doesn’t count!”

“It does count!” His uncle started to get loud as well. “You fully wanted it!”

“I said no!” He gripped a handful of his hair inside of his fists and pulled. “It doesn’t count, I said no! I said no!” He must have been screaming now.

Budd threw his hand over Butters’ mouth to muffle him, “Why the fuck are you yelling?!”

“Why did you do that to me?!” Tears stained his face. “Why did you do that to her?!”

“If you’re talking about your aunt, I love that woman more than anything-”

“THEN STOP HURTING ME!” Butters screamed with full force, which earned him another hand covering his mouth. He was tempted to bite.

Maybe it was a good thing that the house was so big that it was hard to tell that there was anybody else in it if you weren’t pressed against the doors. But for Butters, it just made things infinitely worse. All he could do was scream as loud as possible, but there was no guarantee it’d hit the ears of anybody on the first floor. He would get up out of bed and run if he had a sure chance of getting downstairs before his uncle caught up to him. Or if he wasn’t in too much pain to move.

That’s another thing Budd had done to him, he couldn’t even fucking move. He thrashed his upper body around and tried his best to keep screaming, but all it did was hurt his throat. Soon, he couldn’t even thrash anymore, his arms were pinned to the mattress. And he became much more concerned with the possibility of the worst of the worst.

There would be no love there, not like there had been in the past, but at least Budd would act like it. It wasn’t anything horrible, it was just a kiss. Or a game. Just a fun little game. The information that this had been going on for longer than Butters himself could remember scared him. Honestly, it scared him. He had guessed eight, but he would have never assumed five. He was just a baby. She was just a baby…

He’s snapped back into the present by his uncle’s voice and form looming over him. The man was clearly still very upset, but Butters was done fighting. It was clear that there was no use. All he was doing was delaying the inevitable. It always happened Uncle Budd’s way. It always did.

The man gave him a sick smile, “You give in so easily. Does this happen at home?” He whispered closer to his ears, “Does your daddy fuck you at home?”

“No.” Butters couldn’t help the tremble in his voice.

“Really…”

“…Please stop.” New tears slowly dropped from each eye. “I can’t move, please, just stop.”

“Nothing’s started, we’re just talking. That’s what you wanted to do, right? Talk?”

“I’m sorry… I’m sorry.” He didn’t even know what he was apologizing for anymore.

“You’d better be.”

After that, surprisingly, Budd removed himself from overtop of Butters’. And he finally took his leave out of the bedroom. Butters laid still in bed, half conscious. Was this something that somebody could fix? Or did he have to keep doing his job? Did he have to be the one to face the brunt of it all? Was that all he was? A little… sock monkey to throw around? A punching bag? Did his feelings matter at all?

All of this for some little girl in his fucking head?! What about him? Why didn’t he have a protector?! God, he wished he could just… disappear.

▸

The snow on the ground didn’t fully melt. It never does, in South Park. Colorado is naturally cold, afterall. The winter freeze was going to stick around for at least a couple months. Kenny McComick, who wore a pair of large snow boots, knocked lightly on the front door of the Stotch residence. When the door opened, Kenny was invited inside.

“Butters is upstairs, if you want him.” Linda said sweetly.

Kenny climbed the stairs to Butters’ room. It was dark, gloomy even. But Butters was in there. There was no doubt about that. “Who is it?” He asked.

“It’s um… it’s Kenny.”

Suddenly, it was like Butters had broken out of a trance. It was Kenny… It was Kenny! He opened up his curtains to let some sunlight into the room. He hadn’t seen his best friend in so long… and it was Kenny! It was… Kenny dressed in layers. Snow boots and baggy low waist jeans. A puffy winter jacket thrown over a cropped tank top. And hair long and blonde on every side. It was… Kenny?

Kenny smiled, it was gapped and missing teeth, that was a familiar feature. “It’s been a little while…”

“Why do you… look like that?” It wasn’t meant to come out sounding so horrified.

“You told me to work on myself before I try to help you again.” Kenny shrugged. “So I did.”

Butters nodded slowly. “Are you… do you still go by…”

“Kenny? Yeah, it’s gender neutral. Or do you mean my pronouns? “

“Uh, yeah, those.”

“She. And her. And… only Stan and Kyle can still say he or him. It’s… it’s easier for them.”

“You look… good.” Butters smiled softly.

“Well, I came to see how you’ve been doing. Since… you know. You haven’t been… at school.”

“Oh, I… have a doctor’s appointment later.”

“Ah, okay! Sorry, I’ll let you get ready.” Kenny turned and was about to leave the room before stating, “You can always text me. I have a phone, you know.”

Butters watched from the top of the stairs as Kenny left through the front door of his house. He wanted to chase after him- or, her . That couldn’t be the extent of their interaction. It had been months since they last looked at each other, let alone spoke. But he didn’t follow.

Dr. Janus’ office was cold. It was almost spring, so the heat was turned off. He sat across from Butters at his big desk as he always did. “How have you been lately?” He asked him.

“Fine, I guess.”

“I hear you’ve been missing a lot of school recently.” When the boy looked confused, he followed up with, “Your parents told me.”

“Oh, of course.” Butters said under his breath. “Yeah, I haven’t gone in… I don’t know how long.”

“And why is that?”

He shrugged. “Haven’t felt like it.”

“Why not?”

“I just haven’t. There’s nothing else to it, I just don’t feel like going.”

“Is it because you’re scared to face your classmates?”

“No, why would it be?”

Dr. Janus read his notes from his computer screen, “You told me that Eric Cartman boy has been harassing you at school, right?”

“I mean… not really. He’s been lying about me to other people but I barely see him at school.”

“Then is there anybody else that you’d be uncomfortable seeing?”

Butters shifted in his seat. He could think of several. He shook his head, “Nope.”

Janus wasn’t buying it, but he let it slide anyway. “Well, then, how about a lighter topic, hm? How was your winter break and all its holidays?”

That… he had to think on. He couldn’t really recall… anything. At all. In fact, past Thanksgiving he had fully forgotten everything. Aside from some moments here and there, the entire past couple of months had been entirely wiped from his memory. He didn’t know what to say.

“Good.” Was what he settled on.

“That’s great, what kind of stuff did you get up to?”

Butters gulped. “Christmas… party. And um… presents.” He was sure neither of those things were even sort of true.

Dr. Janus frowned. It looked like he truly pitied the boy. “Are you telling me the truth?” He asked him.

“Yes. Why do you even care?”

“...How was your Thanksgiving?”

Initially, Butters was stunned. But he was able to power through enough to squeak out, “Huh?”

“It’s a family holiday, with your… family history… I’m just wondering how it went for you.”

“Uh.” Butters’ eyes stayed locked on the carpeted floor of the room. Things were coming to mind that he did not want to remember very much, if at all. “I had dinner… at my grandma’s house.” That wasn’t a lie, so he managed to keep a steady voice as he said it.

“That’s great, is your grandmother a nice woman?”

No. “Yeah.”

There was a palpable pause between the two of them, Butters looked at the clock on the wall, and he wished it was closer to the end of their time than it actually was. Butters knew what Dr. Janus wanted to ask, and Janus could tell Butters was anticipating it. He was readying an answer in his head.

Dr. Janus sighed, a deep, heavy, sigh. A part of his soul may have just died. “You don’t have to answer if you’re uncomfortable…”

He didn’t get to finish, as Butters abruptly shouted, “No!”

“Butters, if you’re comfortable,”

Cut off again. “Nothing happened, okay?!”

“If you feel comfortable to do so, could you please tell me if your uncle was at Thanksgiving dinner with you?”

Butters’ eyes were already hot with tears yet to fall. He didn’t want to answer the man’s question. That, and he couldn’t. Because he didn’t recall the actual dinner. He woke up with a gap between being in the backseat of the car and being in bed.

“I don’t know!” He ended up saying. The tears vacated his eyes and slowly cascaded down both of his cheeks.

“You don’t know if your uncle was there?”

“I don’t remember dinner!” He sniffled.

“Then, don’t think about dinner. Was he at your grandmother’s house at all?”

Butters tried to calm himself somewhat, but he was still having a hard time breathing deeply. “Y-Yes…”

“You only have to tell me if you feel comfortable doing so, okay?” Dr. Janus handed the boy a box of tissues. He waited until he blew his nose to continue speaking. “Did he do anything to you?”

Among the tears, a strange expression grew on Butters’ face. A smile. But he wasn’t smiling smiling, now was he? He felt a grotesque uneasiness in his stomach that forced a laugh out of him. The situation wasn’t anywhere near funny, but his body wouldn’t allow him to react any other way about it.

He barely covered his smile with his hand as he answered, “We had sex.” Another burst of laughter shot out of him, almost maniacal. Then he sniffed back the tears once again.

“Oh, Butters…” Dr. Janus was almost sick to his stomach now. He’d been in this line of work for years, but it never got any easier to witness something like this. “That was… that was rape. I’m so sorry…”

Janus must’ve thought Butters was stupid, of course he knew what it was! He was just using the alternate terminology his uncle had subscribed to. “Nope, it was just sex! I wanted it! I always wanted it!”

“Butters…”

“At-At five years old, I-I apparently wanted it! And I liked it, Dr. Janus!”

“You were a very young child.”

“That didn’t matter.” The smile stayed plastered on Butters’ face despite the steady stream of tears surrounding it. “He was my uncle, we were playing a game, and I liked it.” He sniffed. “That’s just how it was.”

Dr. Janus removed himself from his seat to squat down next to Butters’ chair. “Butters, I need you to listen to me, that was not okay. You understand? What he did to you at five years old, what he did to you during Thanksgiving, that was not okay.”

But Butters knew that. Didn’t he? “I’m… I’m a bad person.” He sputtered out.

“No, you aren’t.” Janus ensured. “What happened was not your fault, okay? You did nothing wrong.”

And that did it. The false, uncomfortable, smile disappeared. And Butters sobbed even harder than he had been crying before. He was free to scream to release all of the pent up emotions he felt, and he did. He screamed until his throat was raw and his head hurt more from dispelling the pain than it did from his fists hitting against it repeatedly. Screaming wasn’t enough, however. When it stopped, and there was quiet for just a moment, Butters was once again overcome by a wave of horrible sadness.

It was worse than anger, because it seemed like it would never end. The doctor extended his kindness, but Butters refused it. He just wanted to sit there and feel it. Feel all the unending pain. It was like he could physically sense his loss of innocence. Hell, that word never even existed for him.

When he got home, he continued metaphorically drowning in his literal sadness. It was closer to grief than it was a simple symptom of depression. He had to grieve the version of himself that never got the chance to live. Butters looked in the bathroom mirror at his tear-stained face, and he wanted to punch it. Further punish the crying child within him for daring to have emotions. He reeled his fist back and slammed it against the glass. Again and again and again and again. Until finally, he noticed red blood smudged against the now severely cracked mirror, and his own hand.

He didn’t even care that his parents were going to kill him for doing that. It made him feel infinitely better. He punched it some more and managed to wriggle out a single glass shard. It was so much sharper than aluminum foil.

Chapter Text

Butters didn’t wear his sweater to school again. He’d gotten to the point where he didn’t care about how he looked anymore. In fact, he didn’t want to look at himself at all. He was only in school because his parents were sent a letter, if he didn’t go, they would have child protective services visit their house. Butters tried to fight it, but ultimately, he lost. So there he was, sitting in class sweaterless, his bare arms shown off to the world. Finally, everybody would see just how sick he really was.

His arms were skinny, his whole frame was skinny. It had only gotten worse in the past few months after Thanksgiving. He was sure he had eaten, at some point, but he couldn’t remember the last time he did so. Every time he looked at food, of any kind, it just made his stomach hurt. Along with the size of his body having heavily decreased, his left arm was covered in various cuts. Big, small, up and down… they were littered all over the place. Somebody would notice. They’d see it, but they wouldn’t say anything. Because that was rude. But Butters wanted somebody to say something, he wanted them to be concerned about his well-being.

Except when that somebody happened to be Tweek Tweak. “Hey, Butters,” He startled him. They stood in the hallway by the lockers, most people had gone home or were on the buses already. “I’ve just, uh, seen…” Tweek’s eyes involuntarily blinked, hard. “Are you doing, ah, okay?”

“Why?” Butters kept his guard up. How could he be sure this wasn’t going to be a joke that Clyde and Jimmy were behind?

Tweek cracked his neck when it jolted to the side, “Augh! Ow!” He shook it off. “L-Looked at your arms, dude!”

Butters gulped and took a step back, he didn’t know why he wanted to run from Tweek, of all people. It wasn’t like he was an imposing figure. Or was he? “That… whatever.” He couldn’t think of a good enough lie. “Why do you care so much?”

“Seriously?!” Tweek shouted. He did that sometimes, it was nothing personal. His hands jittered as he rolled up his own sleeves. “Look at me, man! I-I have these forever now!”

Seeing the scarring on Tweek’s arms for the thousandth time, Butters rolled his eyes. “I know that.”

“So why would you do that to yourself?!”

“Because I want to!” Butters raised his voice right back. “People don’t care until they can see how bad things are for you!”

“What could-” Tweek’s body twitched again, “What could possibly be a-a good reason to do that?!”

“Why did you do it, huh? If you wanna get so personal?!”

“I WANTED TO KILL MYSELF!” Tweek fully yelled. Thankfully, nobody was around to hear it. “You-You only do that if you want to kill yourself!”

“That is not true!” Butters bit back. Though he couldn’t help but think… was it? Maybe… he did want to end his life.

“Don’t k-kill yourself! That’s all I wanted to say!”

Tweek started to walk away, Butters couldn’t tell if he had upset him or not. “Wait! Wait a second…”

“I-I have to get to work now!”

“We can walk together!”

And so they did, much to Tweek’s dismay. Usually he walked with Craig, but he wasn’t there now. It was Butters. His voice was a little gruff when he asked, “If you don’t want to kill yourself, why are you c-cutting yourself?”

Butters didn’t know whether or not to tell the truth. “W-Well… you have to tell me why you wanted to kill yourself first!” Yeah, that’ll buy him some time…

“UGH!” Tweek’s eyes rolled back before quickly shutting tightly against his will. “I-I just did! There was no one reason, I just wanted to!”

“There has to be a reason… did you get tired of being made fun of or something?”

“What?! Who is making fun of me?!” He tugged at his hair.

“Nobody! It was just an example…” Butters cleared his throat, and hopefully the awkwardness between them. “Well, has anybody done anything to hurt you?”

“Like what?!”

“I don’t know… does…” The image he had conjured in his mind months and months ago welcomed itself back into his head. His lips trembled as he spoke. “Does your dad hurt you?”

“W-What do you mean by that?!” Tweek twitched as he spoke. “Like beat- does he beat me?!”

“Uh. Yeah…”

“No! M-My dad is way too calm, he barely even gets angry!”

How lucky for him. “Then why? What made you want to kill yourself if nobody was hurting you?”

“To just stop it all, you know?” Tweek shivered, it was kind of cold. “I-I’m so fucking paranoid, I can’t even s-stomach my food half the time!”

That explained why he was a walking talking bag of bones. “So you just don’t eat?” Butters looked him up and down.

“...The other day, I bit into my lunch and there was something hard in it. I tried to ignore it, but had to throw it all back up. It was clearly m-microchipped! The government could have been trying to possess my body, man!”

“Through… school lunch?”

“Yes!” Tweek jerked his head to the side, “Ah! Ouch!”

Finally the two of them came up on Tweek Bros. Coffee, Tweek’s family owned business. Tweek enters, and Butters doesn’t follow him. Maybe now was the time to go home.

▸

Butters woke up in the middle of the night completely soaked in sweat. He opened his bedroom window to let in the cold air. His heart was pounding. He wasn’t sure if that was just a nightmare or… something else. He felt around every sopping wet part of his body.

Then, without warning, he started to cry. He could still feel the way his body was being touched in his dream. It made him sick. There was no reason in denying that it wasn’t just a dream anymore. He knew the truth now.

In the dream, or nightmare, he was little. He didn’t know how little, but he was younger than any time he could remember himself. He and his uncle were playing a game, it seemed. He watched his body be subjected to it, he couldn’t help, he was like a ghost. Just floating there, standing by as it happened.

And in the dream, Little Butters was laughing. He was having fun. Budd’s mouth was blowing raspberries on his exposed stomach, and he wasn’t wearing any clothes at all, but he was having fun. He didn’t even know what he was doing.

Then he faded away. And then he woke up. And now he was frantically typing into the notes he made about his strange dreams on his phone.

Butters was getting really really sick and tired of having nightmares. They made him want to die even more. What’s worse, he knew by now they couldn’t just be nightmares. After what his uncle had told him… he knew.

At school, he had to fight his own stomach to not throw up. As well as finally release even more pent up anger and rage from deep within him. Eric Cartman tripped him up in the hallway in the time between classes, and usually that was something Butters would ignore. But he couldn’t do that now. He didn’t care what the consequences were anymore.

“STOP IT!” He yelled in Eric’s direction.

The entire hall quieted down as people turned to look at him. Eric just smirked and backed up, closer to Butters than before. “Stop what?”

“You’re always messing with me, just stop it!”

Eric laughed, “Come on, Butters, it was an accident.”

“It wasn’t a fucking accident, you tripped me on purpose!” Tears began to well in Butters’ eyes but he held them back. “You are so fucking obsessed with me, just leave me alone!”

Multiple people had pulled out their phones to start recording and taking pictures. Eric wasn’t backing down from the belief that he was about to win this argument. “I’m obsessed with you? Which one of us lied to the police about a serious accusation?”

“You have! A lot!”

Eric shrugged. “Alright.”

“And I never lied, you’re a fucking manipulative abusive rapist, Eric Cartman!” The tears fell now. Butters couldn’t help it. He was sure it made him look pretty weak.

“No, I’m not!” Eric was in Butters’ face now, almost like he was going to choke him.

Despite how scary it seemed, Butters shouted as loud as he could, “ERIC CARTMAN IS A RAPIST! HE MADE CHILD PORN OF ME WHEN I WAS TEN YEARS OLD!”

A few students gasped, and at that moment security officers finally arrived, as well as teachers who got curious and flooded out of their classrooms. Eric punched Butters in the face so hard he could have seriously injured himself as well. He managed to get him down and began tearing at his face with his long and sharp fingernails until he was escorted away, which took multiple security officers to accomplish.

But instead of Butters laying flat on his back alone again, somebody helped him up. Through his tears he could tell that it was a girl with long black hair. Wendy Testaburger. He grasped her hand and she brought him back up to his feet. His face stung all over.

“I’ll take you to the nurse, come on.” Wendy said as she picked Butters’ backpack off the ground as well.

They held hands on the way there. And Butters couldn’t get himself to stop crying.

Wendy may have hated him, but she was a kind enough person to help him when nobody else did. He could see familiar faces in the hallway as he fell backwards. Tweek grasped Craig’s arm, Nichole hid her face in her pom-poms, Kevin Stoley looked even paler than usual. But nobody came to his rescue aside from the girl he believed was one of his biggest enemies at the moment.

She didn’t just drop him off at the nurse’s office, she stayed there with him until his father came to pick him up. They didn’t talk much, but the gesture was there.

Above all, the day taught him that he could stand to speak up even louder. Even if it meant receiving a fair bit of backlash… he just wasn’t sure if he was ready for the kind of backlash he’d get from his entire family.

▸

It was therapy day. Butters walked into the office of Dr. Janus quickly, like he was just dying to speak. So when the man asked him, “How are you doing lately?” He erupted.

“I need to tell someone about my uncle.” He said bluntly.

“Oh! Alright… are you comfortable doing that right now?”

“His name is Budd Stotch, he lives in the suburbs of Los Angeles, California.”

“Okay, okay…” Dr. Janus began typing down exactly what Butters was telling him.

“And…” Butters’ words catch in his throat for a second. He swallowed. “He started to abuse me when I was five.”

“I’m so sorry, Butters…”

“I had this nightmare, or dream, or memory, I don’t know. I’m just watching myself in third person as it happens. Like I’m having an out of body experience.”

The doctor nods. “Mhm…”

“And for the first time ever… I can remember being seven.”

That was momentous. It wasn’t full memories, but there were moments in his life that Butters could have never remembered before. Like how his father attempted to teach him how to play basketball, and just how badly he wanted a bike for Christmas that year.

“That’s amazing!” Dr. Janus replied with his eyes wide open. He typed his notes even faster.

“Not really.” As Butters stared at the carpet, he started to feel a little… fuzzy. “I um… I’m remembering more of the bad stuff too.”

“The fact that you can remember anything at all is amazing, not so much the individual memories.”

“I…” He gulped, his head was swimming. “I don’t… no, that’s not what I wanted to say.”

“Take your time.”

“I want to tell somebody… what happened. But I’m scared.”

“What of?”

“My parents’ reactions. And people at school.”

“Why would those things deter you?”

Butters bit his lip, he was having the hardest time trying to concentrate on his own words. “The… I don’t want the kids at school to pity me.”

“Butters, I’ll be honest with you.” Dr. Janus put his hands together as if he was about to start praying. “Sometimes, people feeling pity for you is a good thing. You deserve for people to treat what happened to you as the horrible thing that it is.”

“…But I hate that.”

“Sometimes, that’s the only way people know how to react.”

▸

The next time Butters saw Eric again at school, he attempted to just ignore him. But when Eric saw Butters… “Hey Butters, how was your Christmas?”

It seemed like a normal question, but it clearly wasn’t one in good faith. “Leave me alone.”

“I’m trying to be nice to you… unless you don’t want me to be.”

“I want you to leave me alone!”

“Suit yourself.” Eric said before walking off.

Butters grabbed his basic school lunch, a slice of pizza, some tater tots, and a carton of chocolate milk to wash it all down. When he sat down at a table he thought was going to shield him from Eric’s wrath, he quickly realized he was wrong. Very wrong.

It didn’t take long at all for Eric to find him and sit his fat body next to him. “How was your Thanksgiving, Butters? See a lot of family, hm?” He asked condescendingly.

“Fuck. Off.” Butters squeezed his milk carton so hard it almost exploded. He knew exactly where this was going.

“How was it? Did you cuddle afterwards?” There was a sick smile planted on Eric’s face.

“You don’t even know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh, yes I do.” Without warning, Eric began to speak louder, “Was it good? Was it fun?” And even louder, “Did you come?”

“Shut up, Eric!” Butters picked up his tray and tried to stand to leave, but Eric grabbed hold of the back of his shirt as he walked away and yanked him back. His tray slipped and fell out of his hands, along with his only lunch.

That action had alerted a few more people to the situation, and everyone was anticipating another brawl between them. “Did you like fucking your uncle again?” Eric said so loud that even the lunch staff turned to look at what was going on. “Huh? Did you?”

Butters just wanted to cry. Fully sob his eyes out. He had no lunch, and he was being publicly humiliated again by Eric Cartman. The worst part was, he wasn’t even entirely wrong about the situation. Things had happened with his uncle during the holiday… but it wasn’t like that.

“That never happened, let me go!” Butters swiped at Eric’s hand until he finally did so.

As Butters stormed away, Eric wasn’t quite done with the battle yet. He cupped his hands over his mouth and yelled, “BUTTERS STOTCH IS AN ACTUAL UNCLE FUCKER!”

That garnered a few laughs across the entire cafeteria. It might not have been more than a couple people, but for Butters, it was everybody . To him, they were all laughing at him. At his misfortune. At his abuse. Every single person found it funny. So Butters snapped.

He rushed Eric and slammed his body to the ground, but because his fists weren’t the strongest, he relied on his legs. It was easy to literally kick him while he was down. But he was getting nothing from hitting his side and stomach, so he moved on to his head. To his neck. And he stomped. Other students managed to pull him away before the security even got there. A person can only be kicked and stomped in the head so many times before they die.

But Butters wanted Eric to die. He struggled in the grasps of the other students, but they held him back long enough for security to come check on Eric. One of them led Butters to the principal’s office.

“I’m surprised, you don’t seem like a violent person.” Principal Victoria said as Butters entered her office.

“I’m not.”

“You’ve been getting in a lot of fights lately, is there a reason for that?”

“Eric Cartman deserves to be attacked.”

“Wow, alright, um… well, we don’t accept threats in this school.”

“It’s not a threat.”

There was a sound of sirens that Butters expected to pass in a couple seconds, but it didn’t. It only got louder. And it pulled to the front of the school building. “Eric Cartman is going to have to take a trip to the emergency room.” Victoria mentioned.

“Alright.”

“You could get in serious trouble for this, Butters. I might have to expel you.”

His heart dropped. “Expel me?! Eric started it, he attacked me not that long ago, too!”

“You’ve sent him to the ER…”

“He— He was telling everybody about what happened to me!” Butters started to cry now, he wasn’t even given a chance to hold in the tears.

“What happened to you?” Principal Victoria asked.

“…My…. My uncle r….” He felt sick trying to say it. “He told everyone that I had sex with my uncle.”

“I’m sorry, what?”

“But I didn’t! I swear to God, I didn’t!”

“Why would he even say that?”

“I was…” He was still a little scared. If people already thought that what he’d accused Eric of was just a lie, then why would anybody listen to another similar accusation? 

Thankfully, Principal Victoria could tell from his face that he was having trouble talking about it. “Did your uncle do something to you?” She asked.

Butters nodded. He wiped the wetness off of his cheeks. “He um… uh….” There it was, that fuzzy feeling again.

“Was there… sexual abuse?”

“Mm…Mhm.”

“So was he making a joke? I don’t understand what’s so funny about that topic.”

“It wasn’t a joke. He was just telling everybody that I had sex with my uncle. Which wasn’t even true.”

The principal nodded along as Butters spoke, “Because it was abuse, right?”

“Yeah.”

“I see… alright.”

There was a small silence between them, Butters watched as the ambulance loaded up Eric’s body and drove away, sirens blaring once again. Principal Victoria eyed the phone on her desk, unsure who exactly she should call. The police? Or his parents? And either way would it be right for her to talk about it when Butters was right in front of her?

She cleared her throat, “Do you want to talk to your parents about this?”

Butters shook his head, if anything they were the last people he wanted to know about this. “Please don’t tell them…”

“Well… I have to tell somebody, Butters, I’m a mandated reporter.”

“Please. It-It was a long time ago now, he doesn’t even live in Colorado… I’m never going to see him again.”

“Even if you aren’t in direct danger, there might be other children that are.” The woman dialed a non-emergency number. “Hello? Hi, I’m Principal Victoria at South Park High School. I have a student here who has just told me about the abuse they’ve faced from a family member. I have to report this out of concern for the student’s safety.”

The voice on the other end of the line was too muffled to understand. Butters just kept crying. This was not how he wanted it to go. But to be honest, if not like this… would he have told anybody? He wanted to, but wanting and doing are two very different things. When Victoria got off the phone, she let him know that the police were going to look into it, likely that they would be contacting his family for further information.

“You can go back to class, now.” She said. As he walked away, he could sense the look of pity on her face.

He didn’t remember much of the rest of the school day. And he was in no rush to make it home. He turned his phone off already, too nervous about his parents attempting to call and text him about the whole police situation. As he hung back in the bathroom, somebody else showed up.

“Hey, Butters.” He turned to see his friend Kenny come through the door.

Butters’ first question was, “Are you allowed to be in here?”

Kenny laughed, “It’s the end of the day. And also, yes, I am. I can use whatever bathroom I want to.”

“Sorry…”

“That doesn’t matter, okay, just talk to me. I saw what happened during lunch, I heard about how Cartman scratched your face up the other day too.” Kenny stepped forward and touched Butters’ hand, “You can talk to me.”

“I know… it’s just… hard.”

“Do you want to go to my house? We can talk there, or on the way there.”

“No.” Slowly Butters slid his back down until he was sitting on the tile floor of the bathroom. “We can talk here.”

“Alright…” Kenny joined him on the floor. “Whenever you’re ready.”

Because Kenny was a friend and not an authority figure, Butters had a way easier time talking to him. Her. He sighed in preparation for what he was about to admit. “Thanksgiving break… It happened again.”

“It?”

“My uncle. He raped me again.” He sniffled and wiped the tears that hadn’t even fallen from his eyes yet. “And I don’t remember anything since.”

Kenny’s mouth hung open, unsure how to respond. “R-Really?”

“Yes. And-And lately I can remember more stuff that happened, things that he did when I was even younger.”

“That is… horrible.”

“And you wanna know the worst part?” Butters gulped and let out a shaky breath, “I have more people inside of my head.”

▸

Stark’s Pond had unfrozen, but still nobody bothered to go stand outside for hours fishing in it. Butters and Kenny hiked past it and up into the forest that surrounded the edge of town. It wasn’t quite warm enough for shorts and skirts, but that didn’t stop Kenny. Her skirt was obscenely small, but Butters didn’t say anything. Maybe it wasn’t his place to. He shouldn’t try to control how somebody else decides to dress, right?

They came upon the clearing that led to the front of the church. Past the broken electrical wire fence, that is. They slipped through and were face to face with God… almost. “You wanna go inside and pray?”

“…” Butters stared up at the steeple, the way it was designed to look like the very thing his lord had died on. The sun started to strain his eyes. “No… that’s okay.”

So they continued walking down the sidewalk and into town. Butters couldn’t help but feel nervous for Kenny. He wanted to cover her. Not shame her, of course, but shield her. A few people definitely stopped to stare as she passed. Butters couldn’t understand how somebody could be so okay with this.

They stopped at City Wok for lunch. “You know,” Kenny began, mouth still full of orange chicken, “this is like luxury to me.”

“…” Butters, again, was highly focused on something. Kenny’s legs. Her thighs were practically fully exposed. It made him want to throw his food back up. “How do you find your new clothes?” He managed to ask.

“Hm? Oh, uh… thrift shops, you know?”

“You have the money to get so many clothes?”

Kenny didn’t like that. “Yes, I have the money. What are you trying to say? That I stole these clothes?”

“No… I just wonder where the money comes from…”

Kenny stuffed another piece of chicken in her mouth. She didn’t answer that one.

After lunch, the pair continued to walk around until they settled on something to do. A movie was what they had decided. It was some basic horror movie that wasn’t even all that scary aside from the random shots of characters popping up in front of the camera. No matter how not scary it was, though, Butters felt like he was going to have nightmares.

By the time they left the movie theater, it was already getting dark. “Hey, do you wanna have dinner somewhere? Or should we just go-” A sudden yell aimed towards Kenny caused her to stop speaking.

“YOU’RE HOT!” A guy who looked far older than either of them said, the rest of the guys in the car whooped and hollered.

There weren’t enough people around who seemed to want to help. A different guy rolled down his window and told Kenny to take her shirt off. And when the light went green, they zoomed off, laughing. Butters watched as Kenny’s shrimp-like posture returned to normal, and how she smiled through it like it didn’t even bother her.

“Are you okay?” Butters asked. But she just started walking. He followed her, of course, but he didn’t want to push her. “Does that happen a lot? Oh my god I’m so sorry…”

“It’s fine. It’s… my fault. I can’t dress like a sex doll and expect people not to treat me like one.”

“They were just weird and gross!” Butters assured. “Don’t listen to them!”

“It’s fine, Butters.” Kenny sniffled, but she wasn’t crying. “I’ll walk you home.”

The rest of the night was silent. Kenny left Butters on his doorstep and he entered the house quietly. The lights were all off, which typically meant his parents were both asleep. So he ascended the stairs with his phone lighting the way, opened his bedroom door without making a sound, and threw himself in bed.

He couldn’t help but feel horribly about how he himself had perceived Kenny’s outfit. Was he really any better than the men who cat-called her in the street? He’d been sexualizing her body as well, in his own way. But was that not her intention? She pointed it out herself, she knows that how she dresses could bring that kind of attention and yet, she does it anyway?

The whole situation just made Butters feel sick. But most of all, he was worried about how it affected Kenny. It had to have affected Kenny.

Chapter Text

When the police arrived, it was early in the morning. Usually, they’d come to the Stotch residence to arrest one of Butters’ parents, typically his mother. But they were looking for him instead.

They sat him down at the kitchen table to question him. At first, he was a little worried they were going to arrest him for how badly he’d beaten Eric Cartman at school not long ago, but they were actually just going through with their investigation. “Have either of your parents ever physically, mentally, or sexually harmed you?” The lady cop in front of him asked.

Well, yes… but that wasn’t what the issue was. He wanted it to stay on topic. “It was my uncle, actually. That the principal… called about.”

“Your uncle? Does he live at this residence?”

“No, he lives in LA… in California.”

The officer jotted down some notes into her pad, “So, you aren’t in any immediate danger?”

Butters shook his head. “But… whenever I see him…” His hands were getting clammy, it was no time to be scared to speak up! “Um. On Thanksgiving, he r-raped me in the back of the car.”

A few heads turned and the lady cop nodded and continued to write her notes. “And this happened here?”

“Uh… well, no, it happened in Virginia.” He was starting to sweat now, nervous that the case wasn’t going to go anywhere. So he had to add even more information. “But… he… he started abusing me when I was five. Here.”

“I see…”

“And… the last time he did, it was during Christmas when I was twelve. In my bedroom.” Butters’ stomach hurt, it felt good to get it out there, but it didn’t at the same time. “But he also did it when I visited him in LA. All the time.”

Lady Cop nodded, “Well, I think that’s a lot of good information to give. Unfortunately, because he doesn’t live in South Park, there’s nothing we can do past this, but we will let the officers in California know, okay?” She rubbed Butters’ back with her notepad as she walked away, “You were really brave for sharing this.”

And then the officers were gone. Linda and Stephen were allowed back into the house once they left, and they were incredibly angry at their son. “Did you call the cops on us?” His father accused.

“No! My principal did, she’s… a mandated reporter.”

“What did you make mandatory for her to report?” Stephen asked, his tone increasingly more harsh by the word.

“It wasn’t about you, it was about Budd!” Butters stood up and made his way up the stairs, past his parents.

Stephen didn’t follow, but his voice did. “What about your Uncle Budd? Hey!”

The door slammed before Butters could hear anything else his dad wanted to ask him. He sat with his back pressed against it, but surprisingly nobody came knocking at it. Or attempting to open it despite him not wanting them to. It was quiet.

▸

Karen was sitting on the floor of Kenny’s bedroom. Butters brushed through her hair until it ran smooth. Kenny revealed her newest outfit like she was on the red carpet. It was a scarlet colored dress that didn’t entirely fit past her thighs and, to Butters, seemed uncomfortably tight. “How do you like it?”

Karen clapped, “It’s so pretty!”

“It’s um… nice.” Butters kept his eyes on the little girl’s hair.

“When it finally gets warm outside, maybe I can wear it.” Kenny went back into her closet to remove the dress.

Butters looked down at Karen, who held her head back to look up at him, “Do you want pigtails?” He asked her.

“Can you do a braid?”

“Not a good one…”

“Okay, fine. Pigtails are alright.”

Kenny returned wearing a large white, or mostly white, t-shirt filled with holes and stains. Now that was the Kenny that Butters was used to. He smiled. “Do you want some makeup?” Kenny asked Karen.

The little girl beamed, “Really?! You can do makeup?!”

“I can try.”

As Butters gathered Karen’s hair into two equal sized halves and pulled them up into pigtails, Kenny used a palette of expired makeup to give her little sister a makeover. It was completed when Karen asked to try on Kenny’s previously worn red dress. It was big on her, but Butters preferred that over how tight it looked on Kenny.

Karen looked adorable, just like a child playing in makeup and dressing up for fun. Her parents didn’t think so. “Karen what in the hell are you wearing?” Carol McCormick’s voice rang out when she opened the door to Kenny’s bedroom.

“Um, I’m just…” Karen’s voice was small, meek.

Stuart joined his wife at the open door and his eyes nearly popped out of his head, “You look like a hooker!” He said before taking a sip from his beer can.

“You’re too young to dress like that, there’s men in this house!” Carol added.

Karen was starting to cry, so Kenny stepped in. “She’s playing dress up, okay? Leave her alone, look we’ll wash the makeup off, it’s fine-”

“You, young man, shut your mouth.” Stuart said, pointing directly at Kenny. “You!” He pointed at Butters, now. “Did you do this to my daughter?”

The man entered the room and got uncomfortably close to Butters. He gulped, “N-No sir!”

“You dress my daughter like a prostitute for fun? She’s only twelve!”

“I didn’t do it! She was just… I just brushed her hair!” Butters’ heart was beating faster than ever before, he was scared of Kenny’s parents enough as is, but when they were accusing him of some horrific incident like this? That fear grew ten times larger.

Kenny spoke up again, “He didn’t fucking do anything, dad, it was me!”

Stuart turned his attention back to his own child. “Then you’d better keep it in your pants, son, that’s your sister.”

“Whatever.” Kenny crossed her arms with a huff.

Carol called her husband back, “Stuart, the show’s on!”

So the man backed off and took his leave behind his wife. They didn’t even shut the door. Karen sat on the floor and cried. The makeup that Kenny had so graciously applied to her face melted down onto her arms as she sobbed.

Kenny comforted her. She used an already dirty and makeup stained towel to clean off her sister’s face. And Butters just watched. For some reason, deep inside of him, he felt a strange connection to that moment. An older sibling cradling and protecting their younger sibling, no matter what pain it caused them.

He got it.

▸

Butters’ phone rang in the middle of the night, it was from an unknown number so he ignored it and tried to get back to sleep. But they just kept calling. So eventually, after the third time, he picked up. “Hello?” He made sure to sound as annoyed as possible.

“Butters, is that you?” It was a woman’s voice on the other side of the line, and she sounded panicked.

“Yeah, it’s me.” The boy’s anger had shifted quickly into concern, he could recognize the voice. “Aunt Nellie?”

“Mhm, look, Butters, the police are at our house right now and I can’t reach your parents, do you think you can get them for me?”

“The police?” His heart skipped a beat. “W-Why?”

“You don’t have to be concerned with that, just, please get your mom or dad-”

“No, I do… why are they there?”

Nellie swallowed hard on her side of the call, “There’s a mistake, they’re just looking around, but you don’t have to worry about it. Let me talk to your parents-”

“Aunt Nellie.”

“Yeah, sweetie?”

“Did you know?”

The silence was really telling. “No- Know about what, sweetheart?” Nellie asked.

Butters tried to keep his voice calm as he spoke. “The police are arresting him, aren’t they? Uncle Budd?”

Nellie floundered on the other side, “N-Now, you don’t know that! Anything could be happening, what makes you go there so fast?”

“Because I’m the one who reported him.” When his aunt didn’t immediately respond, he kept going. “Did you know what he was doing, Aunt Nellie?”

The woman sighed, “No, Butters, no! I have no idea what’s going on!”

“Your husband abused me.”

“Butters, this is crazy. Please go get your parents-”

“He started to sexually abuse me when I was five, Nellie. Five.”

“Honey, can you you grab your mom or dad-”

“No. You get me.” Butters’ voice was commanding. Scary, almost. “You have to listen to me now, because nobody listened to me back then!”

Nellie sounded on the verge of tears, her voice squeaked when she spoke, “This isn’t happening… Butters, this isn’t happening…”

“Your husband touched me every night I stayed over. Or made me touch him. Or he’d force himself on me, you understand me, right? In the room next to your own, you never noticed him get up at night? You never heard me crying?”

“I-I don’t… this isn’t real.”

“Well it was real for me.” Butters let out a shallow breath. “Goodnight, Aunt Nellie.”

“Wait, Butters, don’t-” He hung up before she could finish her sentence.

She didn’t deserve the grace of a final goodbye. Butters’ stomach was twisting and turning like it did only when he was about to panic. But also, he felt… excited? Seemingly, his uncle was getting investigated and arrested… that should feel great, right? He was not excited for how his parents would react when they woke up to the news, especially when Nellie would eventually fill them in on how it was actually their son’s fault that her husband was being incarcerated. His father was going to lose a brother, his grandmother, a son. And that made him feel downright disgusted with himself.

He only went to school the following morning so that he wouldn’t have to be in the house with his father. As he could see and hear, Eric was all better. He sat in the back of the bus on the way to school. Surprisingly, he didn’t even acknowledge Butters. Probably because he was insecure about how someone so much smaller than him almost beat him to death. Butters could overhear a good majority of the conversation Eric was attempting to have with Stan and Kyle. Kenny wasn’t on the bus.

“Since Kenny isn’t here, we can talk shit about him.”

“Shut up dude, that’s not what that means.” Stan replied.

Eric seemingly ignored Stan’s comment, “Why is he dressing like such a faggot lately, can we talk about this?”

Kyle piped up, “It’s his choice, Cartman.”

“Yeah, who cares how he dresses.” Stan added.

“If you're so concerned with what another guy wears, that makes you more gay than him.”

Butters hated the whole conversation. The way Stan and Kyle were attempting to be supportive but still referred to Kenny like a boy just made him uncomfortable. He wanted so badly to correct them… but Kenny did say it was easier for them to just say “he” and “him” than it was for them to acknowledge Kenny as a girl now. But that didn’t make it right.

Along with not riding the bus in the morning, Kenny was also not at school. At all. Butters tried texting, but got no response. So as soon as the bell rang to release the students at the end of the day, he started on his trek to Kenny’s house. He had to make sure she was okay.

The McCormick residence looked dead when he arrived. Aside from a beaten up car on cinder blocks, it seemed like nothing and nobody was home. Butters knocked on the door anyway, in hopes that Kenny’s parents wouldn’t be the ones to answer. To his surprise, the one who did was Karen.

“Oh, hi Butters!” She said sweetly, a smile grew on her face.

“Hi Karen, is Kenny home?”

“No, he left and hasn’t come back.”

That wasn’t encouraging. “Thanks.” Before Butters walked away, something hit him. He looked closer at Karen, how she looked like she might’ve just woken up. Her clothes clearly couldn’t be worn to school. “Did you… stay home from school today?”

“Um, yeah…”

“Why?”

Butters got his answer once Karen moved the door slightly and showed off the bruises starting at her wrist and going up her right arm. Most of them were small, but the bad ones were bad.

“I’m sorry… is there anything I can do to help?”

Karen shook her head, “No, I’m fine.”

“Well, I’m going to go find Kenny, stay safe while you’re by yourself, alright?” The little girl nodded and closed the door. Butters felt bad for leaving her alone, if he could help her, though, he would.

He looked everywhere for Kenny, he even knocked on a few doors to ask if they’d seen her. Powder said no, Bebe slammed the door in his face. Scott Malkinson hadn’t seen Kenny in days, and they had a class together. Soon enough, it was getting too late to keep searching. Butters walked home with a heaviness in his heart.

Upon entering his home, Butters’ parents gave out at him. “Where have you been? School ended hours ago!” and “Did you talk to your aunt Nellie?! What did you say?!” were thrown at him at the same time.

He was already overwhelmed, and the yelling just made it worse. “Please… shut up.” He covered his ears. “I’m tired.”

Butters pushed past his parents and ran up to his bedroom. His father followed close behind. “Listen to me, son!” Stephen yelled. When Butters closed the door in his face, he opened it out of pure force and rising anger. “Don’t slam doors in my house!”

“I didn’t slam it!” Butters whined.

“Did you, or did you not, talk to your aunt this morning?”

“It was the middle of the night!”

“That’s not what I’m asking!” Stephen threw the door closed behind him when he entered his son’s room. “What did you say to her? She called us crying herself into panic because of something you told her!”

Butters grabbed handfuls of his hair to avoid having a complete breakdown. The pain from yanking at his scalp would calm him a little bit. “I-I-I told her the truth! And I told the police and Dr. Janus and Principal Victoria!”

“What did you tell them?” Stephen’s threatening presence grew closer to Butters.

“That Uncle Budd…” He froze up. Tears released themselves from his eyes. He couldn’t say it. Not in front of his father. “He…”

“Did you accuse him of touching you?!” Butters wasn’t sure if his father knew already, or if he just made a very accurate guess. “Oh my god, Butters… this is fucking ridiculous…”

“HE DID!” He sobbed. “I wouldn’t lie about this, dad…”

Stephen rubbed his temples, a headache must have been inbound. “That’s why they’re investigating him, oh my god…”

“Dad, can you believe me?”

“Listen, Butters.” His father’s anger had returned, “You’d better hope that they can find actual proof of him doing anything you claim he did, or else you’re grounded for life.”

And then Stephen left the room. Left Butters crying alone. As if things weren’t hard enough for him, he was liable to be punished if Budd went free. He’d never wished so hard for something so horrible to have happened to him. He didn’t want it to be real, he needed it to be real. It couldn’t just be a collection of fuzzy memories inside different compartments in his head. They had to be real.

▸

Marjorine was sitting in the sand on the edge of the ocean. Butters couldn’t remember how he got there. The beach was uncharacteristically dark. It was as if the moon was all that was available to light the world within his head. Or that the sun had disappeared altogether. “Watch this.” Marjorine said in her soft, sweet little voice.

She cupped her hands and filled them with ocean water. She encouraged Butters to do the same before gently pouring the liquid from her hands and into his. At first, he didn’t understand. But then, as the water seemingly seeped into his skin, he was hit with the worst pain he had ever felt in his entire life. His stomach cramped and made it difficult to breathe, his legs felt numb. All he could do was lay there on his back and wait for it to be over. Somebody silenced him, he noticed this when he attempted to speak, only to feel the pressure of a person’s hand up against his mouth. He closed his eyes in hopes that, when he opened them again, it would be over. But he actually had a glimpse into the real thing.

He froze when the familiar man came into view, even if it was only for a second. Because his body fell completely limp afterwards. He couldn’t even cry. “I’m sorry.” He squeaked. “I’m so so sorry.”

“Things are different now.” Marjorine stated, her mouth still stretched into a smile. “Thank you.”

“I can’t… I’m so sorry…” Butters continued to speak with a pitch in his tone. “I’m so sorry, I failed you…”

Marjorine laid a hand on his cheek, “You’re doing your best.”

He was crying now. “No… no, I’m ruining your body. I’m making you sick.”

“You’re making us better.” The girl ran her fingers through the ocean water, “I couldn’t do that before!”

“Still… I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to be.”

Before Butters knew it, he appeared in Dr. Janus’ office. He was looking at the carpet. His throat was dry. The man leaned forward on his desk, “Are you alright?” He asked.

“U-Um…” Butters stumbled over his words, “When… why… how am I here?”

“You’re in my office, we’re having our weekly session. You were just telling me something before you went quiet.”

Was he? He rubbed his fingers together, an attempt to calm his nerves. He still refused any kind of eye contact with the doctor. “Um. Sorry.”

“That’s okay. You can continue at any time.”

“...I don’t know what I was saying.”

“Something about a conversation you had with your family recently?”

Oh. Really? That’s what he wanted to bring up? “Oh…kay.” Butters swallowed, he could have really used some water. “I told the police. And they told the other police. And now my uncle is arrested.”

“Wow, when did this happen?” Dr. Janus sounded pleasantly surprised.

“I don’t know.” He couldn’t tell what day it was anymore. “My aunt is scared and my dad is mad at me.”

“He’s mad at you for speaking up?”

Butters nodded, “He thinks I’m lying.” His hands began to shake, “They all want me to be lying.”

“They don’t trust you?”

“They… they just want him to be safe. I could ruin his life.”

“But what you did was the right thing, you understand? He’ll get what he deserves.”

Butters stood up from the couch he was lounging on. Huh? He didn’t remember getting home from the doctor. Or hanging out on the couch watching TV. His phone buzzed, it was a message from Kenny! The first in… he didn’t know how many days!

Is this yours? The text read. Below it was a link to an article that was written earlier that day titled: Los Angeles Little League Coach Arrested on Accusations of Sexual Abuse.

Butters clicked on it at the speed of light. He read the full story. There wasn’t much, as the article stated, it was an ongoing investigation… but there had already been parents and children coming forward with their thoughts and experiences.

From “Coach Stotch would never even hurt a fly, let alone a child” to “my son has always felt uncomfortable around that man. I knew he was no good”, the opinions on his uncle were all over the place. Considering he had no idea if Budd had harmed any of the kids he coached, Butters felt he couldn’t have a say on that situation. But that wasn’t the issue, the issue was that he had been harmed. Even only a few months ago, he was. It was maybe wrong to say that he didn’t care much about the little leaguers, but he was far more concerned about what would happen regarding his experiences.

He texted Kenny back: yeah.

Chapter Text

Butters is inside of a dark, dilapidated building. The mall, he’s able to recognize, after seeing the empty shells of stores he knows. Everything feels dead, and it’s impossible to see much aside from blackness. Some grime on the floor, the plants, the benches… yet a large fountain seems majorly intact.

When he walks over to it, it sounds like he’s crushing bones under his feet. The fountain is full of still water. Though the fountain itself is clean, the water inside of it is a sickly green. It’s full of coins. Butters considers picking one up, but he hears something behind him. He turns around quickly to be face to face with a stranger.

It’s a… boy. Looks around his age, black hair, dark eye makeup, black clothing. And a pair of sharp fangs. A vampire. “Who are you?” The creature asks him.

“B-Butters.” He doesn’t know why he’s so scared, he just is.

“Butters…? Butters Stotch?”

“Yes?”

Suddenly, the vampire’s face lights up. “I finally get to meet you!” He shakes Butters’ hand aggressively.

“Uh… huh?”

“I’m… well, everyone just calls me Vampire. Or Vamp. Vamp is good too.”

Butters takes his hand back, it’s a little sore now. “Nice to meet you?”

“So, why are you here?” Vamp sits on the edge of the fountain.

“I don’t… I don’t know.”

“Oh, I’m sorry for bein’ a little mean sometimes. I kinda have a short temper.”

Is that right? Now Butters knew who to blame for all of his horrible thoughts and behaviors. Or at least most of them. “What is… what’s your job here?”

“I don’t work in the mall.”

“In the… in the body.” He hated that phrasing. It wasn’t the body… it was his body. Maybe… Marjorine’s body if they wanted to get technical. Butters just didn’t like being part of some group controlling his body like a meat puppet.

“Ohhhh!” Vamp leans and rests his back on the giant sculpted fish in the middle of the fountain. He doesn’t touch the water. “I don’t know, I’m kinda just above it all. Above everyone. Nobody can touch me, I’m ungroundable!”

Butters rolls his eyes, “So you just go around doing whatever you want and you don’t even care how it affects me?”

“…Am I supposed to?”

“You’re in my head! If you do something, it’s going to ruin me!”

“Correction, you’re in Leo’s head. Or Marjorine. Or whatever he goes by now.”

Butters scowls at that. “You can’t even get her name right.”

“That’s not my fault! You know, for a while she just went by Butters, too.”

He doesn’t understand this guy. Some annoying vampire brat who causes harm to everyone because of his actions. What’s the point in that? He thinks, hey, Marjorine, what’s the point in that? “You’re irritating.” Butters says aloud. “You’re a bad person.”

“Ouch!” Vamp laughs, “Ya got me!”

It’s not funny. “You’re an evil person.”

“So, I’m evil, but not the supervillain? What sense does that make?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t make the rules.”

“Ah geez…” Vamp dips his head inside of the murky fountain water and comes back up with a coin in his teeth. He spits it into his hand, and his face and hair are completely dry. Of course they are. “Here,” he holds the coin out to Butters, “take it.”

He’s not very trusting of it, but Butters takes the coin into his fingers. Then he holds it in his palm. It almost feels like it’s burning through his skin. “What is it?”

“Let it tell you, fella.”

He closes his eyes and curls his fingers into a fist around the coin. It burns even more, like it’s sinking into his hand. And before long, it did. Unlike what happened when Marjorine shared her memory with Butters, he physically feels fine, but his head is in agony. Like he’d just gotten hit by a piece of plywood or punched in the face, he was having the world’s worst migraine. Had to have been.

His father’s voice rings in his ears, the sound of police car sirens, his parents yelling at each other, doors slamming… he can’t shut it up. He feels like he’s about to completely lose his mind.

“Okay, that’s enough!” Butters yells with his hands over his ears, as if it’ll help. “Stop it! I can’t listen to this anymore!”

“I can’t help ya, it’s doin’ its job!”

“Turn it off!”

“You have to experience what it’s like for me before you can say anythin’ about what kind of a person I am!” Vamp’s voice booms over the sounds in Butters’ head. “You see what I have to deal with?”

“But this isn’t fair! I know this stuff, I’ve experienced it!” Butters can’t yell loud enough to drown out the noise. “What don’t you all understand about that?!”

Suddenly, everything is quiet. When Butters’ eyes flutter open he’s in a great white room. It’s empty. Nothing and nobody around. Initially, it’s relaxing. To finally be given a moment of peace. But soon it becomes soul crushingly lonely. He isn’t sure how long he’s in that room. The seconds feel like days, but a whole day could fly by in a minute. It didn’t matter, because he was finally alone.

▸

“Dr. Janus?”

“Yes, Butters?”

“I think… I have a lot of people in my head.”

The two of them were sitting in the man’s office like they did once every week. Butters seemed more laden with sadness than usual. “You think so?” Dr. Janus asked.

Butters nodded. “Marjorine, Star… Professor Chaos. And a vampire.”

“They all have names?”

“Yeah. And jobs.” He swallowed. “You wanna know my job?”

“What is it?”

“Protector. I’m supposed to just… take all the pain. But I don’t want to.” Butters fidgeted with his hands as he spoke, “I do want to protect Marjorine… I just wish it wasn’t all on me.”

Dr. Janus had stopped writing down notes, he listened intently to what Butters was telling him. “And, who is Marjorine?”

Oh. Had he not told him about that already? “She’s the little girl. I guess the… original.” He let out a very heavy sigh, “I always thought my body was mine.”

“I see…”

“But I’m just… made up. Marjorine made me up. I’m not even a real person.”

“Butters, you are a real person. Everybody is a real person.”

Tears pricked at Butters’ eyes. He didn’t want to cry like a loser about this. “I just wonder… who would I be if I didn’t exist? Marjorine? Leo? Would I still be myself, but better?”

“You’re who you are because you need to be.” Janus stated as a fact. “I don’t have the power to formally diagnose you with anything, but you should see a tpsychiatrist. I believe you do have Dissociative Identity Disorder.”

Well, there was no question about that now. The doctor wrote down on a note the name, number, and address of a local psychiatrist. Butters took it and mulled over it as he walked home.

Seeing a therapist was normal for him now, it had been months since he and Dr. Janus met. But to talk to someone new about his issues? That sounded… rough.

All he really wanted to do was talk to his best friend, but Kenny was nowhere to be found. She hadn’t been at school in days, and whenever Butters visited the McCormick’s to see about her, she wasn’t there either. And usually, Karen was the only one home. He guessed Kevin had picked up a job and… well, only God knew where their parents were.

Stan and Kyle didn’t seem very concerned. Butters walked up to them while they ate together in an empty classroom. He was nervous about how they’d treat him, but they were surprisingly kind. Maybe they didn’t hate him as much as he thought they did.

“Hey Butters.” Kyle said, which alerted Stan to the other boy’s presence.

“Hey…” He smiled awkwardly. He always felt like something was off about his smile. He’d practiced in the mirror a lot when he was little, but it never looked right. “Can I just… ask you guys about something?”

Stan looked at Kyle, who just stared back at him before shrugging his shoulders. “What is it?” Stan sounded like he was ready to get defensive.

“It’s… Kenny. Have you heard anything?”

“Oh, Kenny?” Kyle instantly relaxed. “He disappears all the time, dude. He’ll turn up.”

“Like a lost puppy.” Stan added.

Butters cringed at the wrong pronouns being used. If he, of all people, could understand it… why couldn’t the second smartest kid in school and the center of the universe? “Well, I’m worried. I haven’t been getting any replies to my texts or any answers to my calls.”

“Knowing Kenny, he’s probably on some grand adventure he’ll tell you all about when he gets back. Probably a story he made up about having orgies with a bunch of mermaids on a pirate ship or something.” Stan laughed at his own concocted idea.

Kyle chimed in with some advice, “Just stop worrying about it. As soon as you forget something, it always turns up immediately afterwards.”

“Like a TV remote.”

But Butters couldn’t just forget Kenny. She was on his mind… always! Even before she had started acting differently. Dressing differently. That was all his fault, anyway. She would have never gone down that route if he didn’t tell her to work on herself before speaking to him again. It was all his fault that she was getting harassed in the street, wasn’t it?

Maybe… it was for the best if he did forget about her. He was just going to ruin her life even further.

▸

Butters doesn’t remember the talk he apparently had with the psychiatrist. Before he knew it, he had his name called like someone was trying to wake him up. “I’m sorry!” He said when he first came to, so sure that whoever was asking for him was going to be angry at him.

“Butters, are you with me?” A female doctor was directly across from him.

“Huh? Yes!” His eyes flickered around the room. He was sitting on a fuzzy sofa, and the woman, an exercise ball on wheels. “What’s going on?”

“You’re in my office, my name is Dr. Juno. Or just Juno, if that’s more comfortable.” She held out a hand for Butters to shake. “We were just talking about how you feel that you might have a dissociative disorder, I’m not sure you remember.”

“No… sorry.”

“That’s alright. Now, am I speaking to Butters Stotch? I assumed I was before, but I think we’ve just met.”

That wasn’t right. “No… I am Butters Stotch. Who were you talking to?”

“I thought I was speaking to Butters?” The poor doctor was so confused.

Butters’ head hurt. As if someone was drilling a hole inside of his brain. “No, I’m Butters. I don’t know… which of the people in my head lied to you.”

“Right, the people in your head… well you did mention that you believe you have Dissociative Identity Disorder.”

“Dr. Janus told me I probably do.”

“And did you experience any symptoms of this disorder before that idea was brought up to you?”

What did that have to do with anything? Butters wondered. “Um. Yes. I had no memory of most of my childhood, still don’t… and I learned I was being abused since I was five years old, which Dr. Janus said could have caused it.”

Juno looked at her previously written notes, to match up this story with one she’d already heard. “Mhm…” She nodded. “Sexual abuse, you said.”

“Uh… yeah.” Butters instinctively pinched the skin on his arm between his fingernails. It felt so embarrassing that this woman already knew information about him that he didn’t even give her. “And…” He had to stop himself from bringing up his father and mother’s physical and emotional abuse. Just a few more years and he’d leave them behind when he went to college. Or he’d finally kill himself like he’d been wanting to. “Nevermind.”

“Well, Dr. Janus wasn’t too far off. This disorder is like the brain’s coping mechanism to protect itself from trauma.” The woman rolled on her exercise ball backwards and grabbed a book off of her desk. “Experiencing sexual abuse at a young age, you said, five years old?”

“Y-Yeah.”

“Mhm, that’s a very common traumatic experience that people with this disorder have.” She rolled back on over with the book cracked open. “I’m going to just list off a few things, you can tell me if they fit you or not.”

Butters wanted to roll his eyes, he was doing this again. “Okay.”

“Memory loss.” Mhm. “Total amnesia?” Sometimes. “Do you ever find yourself in a place and can’t recall how you got there?” All the time. “...Blurred sense of identity?” Not necessarily… he always felt that he was Butters. “Ever been told that you’ve done things you can’t remember doing?” Yes. “Found objects around that you can’t recall using? Or, like, notes and drawings you don’t remember making?”

“All the time!” Butters threw his hands in the air. “I tried to make notes to help myself remember things, but it got out of hand. Then my dad ripped them off of my door and threw them all away.”

“How about hearing voices?”

“Not so much anymore, but I did… not in a crazy way, though!”

“What would be a crazy way?” Dr. Juno adjusted her glasses. Butters didn’t catch her smile, which would have told him she was just messing with him.

“Um… like people who have hallucinations and voices that tell them to kill people.”

“Schizophrenia?” The woman laughs, “That’s not what that disorder is. And anyway, I don’t believe you have that.”

“Oh. Okay.”

She sat the book on another smaller desk near her. It looked more like a tiny filing cabinet. “Do you mind telling me about your life growing up?”

Yes. “I-If I have to, I guess not…”

“You don’t have to, if you aren’t comfortable. I won’t push you.”

“Okay. Then I won’t.”

“Well, let me tell you a little more about Dissociative Identity Disorder. Or, we can just call it DID, for short.” Butters nodded. “With DID, a person has what people refer to as ‘alters’, rather than ‘identities’ or ‘personalities’.”

“Alters…” Butters repeated in a whisper.

“An alter can come from anything and often have different roles. Like a child alter who gets to just be a child, or an alter who takes care of all of the other ones.”

Butters raised his hand slowly, as if he were in class. “Is there one that…” God, it was so embarrassing. “Likes to have sex?”

“A sexual alter, yes, those do exist.”

“What about an evil one? Like, all they want to do is… mess everything up?”

“Evil?” Dr. Juno seemed confused. “Do you mean an alter who is mean to people around them?”

“Yes, but… also mean to… me.”

“I think you might be referring to a persecutor.”

That was a word Butters knew… but he hated it. “So an evil one.”

“Not evil. Though a persecutor might take the name or general identity of an abuser, they themselves are not one.”

“...He’s a vampire.” Butters mumbled.

Dr. Juno perked up upon hearing him give way to his personal life. “Hm?” She smiled.

“The persecutor… he’s a vampire.”

“Is there any reason for that?”

“...He thinks he can do whatever he wants because of it. And-And there’s Star, and Marjorine, and Professor Chaos. I made Professor Chaos up when I was little.”

“Woah, hold on a second-” The woman struggled to take notes fast enough.

“I’m not even a real person.”

Suddenly, Dr. Juno stopped writing. “What was that?”

“I’m not real.” Butters’ face was stone. “I’m not even real.”

▸

“Is Kenny home?”

“Nope.”

“…Are you sure?”

“What, do you think we’re hidin’ him from you? He’s not here.”

The door was closed in Butters’ face. He didn’t know how long it had been since he’d last seen Kenny. Last they talked, if texting counts, was… weeks ago. And, of course, Kenny hadn’t messaged Butters again since. Just as fast as she came back into his life, she left him again. Maybe he was just a fool for believing that she would save him.

When he got home, Butters went to his bedroom. Despite feeling… better, recently, the isolation never ended. He wanted to stop going to school. Seeing everyone. He wanted to stop worrying about Kenny, because clearly Kenny didn’t care about him.

He looked at Dougie O’Connell’s name in his contacts. And he sent him a text: wanna hang out?

As if Dougie was sitting by his phone awaiting a message, he quickly replied: really?

Yes, really. At my house.

The younger boy sent back an “ok”, and Butters smiled to himself. He always loved his little minion. His sidekick… his General Disarray. He opened up his window by his bed and looked out of it. At the sky. The sun was beginning to go down, so it was a beautiful shade of pink that faded into orange. But there were still hints of blue within it.

Butters breathed in the cold air. As much as the winter season was fairly depressing, he wasn’t looking forward to spring pollen. At least he could breathe in winter air. As if he had no fear, and maybe he didn’t, he put more of the top half of his body outside of the window. And then he turned to look at the world upside down. The snow was the sky and the ground was a gradient sunset.

“Butters?” Someone said below him.

He opened his eyes to see the little red-headed boy he had invited over… apparently twenty minutes ago? “Dougie!”

Butters shot up out of the window, nearly slammed his head on the sill, and flew down the stairs to open the door for Dougie. “Why were you hanging out of your window upside down?” The boy asked as he walked inside.

“No reason. Come on, my room.”

Butters led him upstairs, but Dougie didn’t need to be led. He knew the Stotch’s house forwards and backwards with how often he had been over when playing supervillains with Butters. They went into his bedroom, where the door was shut immediately after.

“H-How are you, Dougie?” Butters asked awkwardly, he sat on his bed.

Dougie, with the assumption he was about to be given directions, sat next to him. “I’m good. It’s, you know, seventh grade.” He shrugged.

“Right… I don’t remember much of seventh grade.”

“Why not?”

“Well… I have a lot of problems.”

“Like what?”

Was this kid always like this? It was a little annoying. “Like…” Butters wasn’t sure if he wanted to give any super personal information to Dougie. But it wasn’t like he had enough friends to tell anybody, right? “Stuff happened. When I was really little. I don’t think you wanna know.”

Dougie’s voice was very flat as he spoke, “Why not?”

“It’s just kind of a lot… you’re a little kid.”

“I’m only two years younger than you.”

“But you wouldn’t understand.”

“Why bring it up if you won’t tell me?”

Good point. Very good point. Why did Butters bring it up if he didn’t, secretly, deep down, want to talk about it? He really was just using Dougie as a replacement for Kenny, wasn’t he? “You’re right.” He sighed and rubbed his face with his hands.

Dougie had no expression on his face aside from his resting one. He cocked his head to the side like a dog. “Thank you.”

Butters sighed again, even louder than before, like he was expelling a demon. “Okay, you have to promise you won’t tell anybody about this.”

“Okay.”

“I’m serious, nobody. This is a really bad thing that happened to me.”

“Who do you think I’m gonna tell? I’m only kind of friends with Ike Broflovski, and that’s just because he just moved up to sixth grade and didn’t know anybody else.” Dougie’s face didn’t change once during his little rant.

Butters rolled his eyes. “Okay, that’s fine.” After a large breath in and out, he gathered the courage to just spit it out. “I’ve been abused all my life.”

“Okay. How?”

How?! “Um, all of them. Every way. Getting beat, getting neglected… getting… r-raped.”

“What?” Finally, Dougie mustered up another facial expression. His brows were furrowed, so he seemed angry.

“What… what?”

“What does that even mean?”

“What does… rape mean?” The younger boy nodded. “Well, it’s when someone does something… don’t you have sex ed at school?”

“I’m opted out.”

Now Butters was confused. “What? Why would you be opted out of sex ed?”

“I dunno.” Dougie shrugged. “I don’t need to learn about sex anyway, it’s nasty.”

“Yeah… but you should still be in sex ed, it’s, like, important.”

The boy shrugged yet again. “My parents think it’s gross.”

“Oh, they’re… being stupid.” A pause. “No offense.”

“I don’t mind.”

“So you really don’t know… anything about sex ed? Puberty? Liking girls?”

Dougie rolled his eyes. Literally rolled them from one side to the other. “Girls are boring and gross.”

Butters wanted to laugh, but at the same time it was almost heartbreakingly sad to him. He wanted to take Dougie under his wing again. Instead of being his little villain sidekick, however, he’d just be his student. He wasn’t sure what kind of crazy and possibly super religious parents the boy must’ve had, but he was sure going to go behind their backs to give their kid some proper education.

Because if he doesn’t know… Butters shivered, terrified at the thought alone.

Chapter Text

Butters is twelve years old, he’s in the sixth grade. While doing his homework, his cell phone buzzes and he looks at it to see that it’s a text from Dougie O’Connell. It reads: do you want to play supervillains?

Being older now, Butters immediately rolls his eyes at the proposition. He has no time for childish role playing games. So he ignores the text. And he ignores the subsequent messages after it.

Until finally, Dougie gives up. Because Butters doesn’t hear his phone going off again and again anymore. By the time he’s done with his homework, he’s only able to scroll through and read a couple of them. “Please?” and “I just want to play something fun” are the ones that stick out the most.

However, Butters doesn’t reply to them. He would never end up replying to them. And in the future, Butters wishes he had at least read them more closely.

▸

“Are your parents okay with you being out alone like this?” Butters asked the boy sitting across from him. Both of them were eating ice cream cones.

“They don’t care.” Lick. “They just tell me to be careful.”

So… overprotective when it came to his education, but not his physical well-being? What sense did that make? “So they’d let you run around by yourself all over town?”

Dougie shrugged. “You do it. You guys always did.”

“Well… yeah. But the world is a bad place for little kids. Our parents were just… trusting.” Butters bit into his cone and ignored how the cold messed with his teeth.

“I’m only two years younger.” Dougie said, his voice muffled by his mouth on the ice cream. “I’m not a little kid.”

“You’re little to me.”

Butters had practically adopted Dougie as his unofficial little brother. And Dougie already saw Butters as somebody to listen to and respect. They walked in the reverse path that Butters had taken with Kenny previously to Stark’s Pond. Dougie averted his eyes as they passed the church.

“Look at that lizard.” He said, his voice sounded more uninterested than his face looked. But somehow, Butters could tell he was genuinely excited.

“Oh, do you like lizards?”

“I guess, I don’t know.”

“What do you like?”

Dougie was quiet, Butters gave him a little while to think. “The Simpsons.”

How could Butters forget about that? He wanted to bury his face in his hands and ignore any impending Simpsons facts that Dougie might spew at him. But instead, the little boy stayed quiet. And that just made Butters even more uneasy.

He elbowed his shoulder, “You don’t wanna tell me all about it?” He asked.

Dougie just shook his head. “It’s fine. I know you don’t care.”

Now Butters was pretty offended. When had he ever shut down the kid talking about something that interested him so heavily?! “No, you can tell me about it!”

“It’s better if I just shut up about it. I’m annoying.”

“Dougie, don’t let anyone tell you that! Do your parents call you annoying?” He shrugged, again. All this kid does is shrug, Butters thought. “Seriously, you can tell me all about it. We probably have similar families.”

Shrug. “I don’t know. They think it’s bad for me.”

“It’s a cartoon, how dramatic are they?”

Shrug. “They’re pretty dramatic, I think.”

“Clearly.”

The two of them arrived at Stark’s Pond shortly after their talk. For the first time since before winter started, there were actually people at the pond. An old man feeding the ducks, a group of elementary aged children playing a game of tag while their family sat on a picnic blanket, and a man actually attempting to fish in the water.

They didn’t stay long, though. “We’ve gotta get back to my house before my parents get home. I wanted to teach you something that you would be taught in school.” Butters explained.

“Okay.” Dougie was indifferent.

Once they got back to Butters’ house, they went up to his bedroom. Dougie took his shoes off to get comfortable. “Alright, first things first, do you know what sex is?”

“Yeah.”

“What is it, then?”

“When you love someone and you have a baby with them.”

Butters placed his face in his hands. “Uh… close. It’s um…” He really didn’t know how to describe it, it’s not like he had any real experience. “Like… putting something inside of another person’s body, but like, it’s okay.”

“What?”

“This is harder than I thought it would be.” After a moment, he thought of a different word to teach him about. “Consent! That’s an easy one to define.”

“Okay.”

“Consent is when you give someone permission to touch you in a certain way. Like, if someone wanted to give you a high five, they can’t force you to do it. If they force you, it wasn’t consensual.”

Dougie raised his hand as if he were actually at school, “So, how do you give them permission?”

“You can tell them, you can say that you consent.” Butters added, in fear of his message being perceived wrongly, “But, depending on what they want you to do you can’t really consent.”

“Huh?”

Butters gulped, he was already floundering through this attempted sex education lesson. “If somebody wants to do something sexual to you, like touch you in some way, you can’t consent. You’re a child.”

Dougie rolled his eyes from one side to the other again. “I’m not a little kid.”

“That’s not what I mean… you’re too young to do anything sexual.” For a moment, Butters could almost see a younger version of himself in Dougie’s place. His breathing hitched. “It’s not your fault.”

On the third day of Butters’ hangouts with Dougie, they decided to take a walk. Past Stark’s Pond, through the path to the busted fence… They stopped on the sidewalk in front of the church. Butters could tell Dougie didn’t want to.

“Are you religious, Dougie?” He asked him.

Completely expectedly, the boy just shrugged. “Don’t know.”

“Your parents don’t go to church?”

Dougie fidgeted with his fingers, “They do.”

“And, what, they leave you at home?”

“No.” He picked at the skin that had peeled off of each finger.

Butters read his body language perfectly. “…You don’t like church, do you?” There was no response, the boy just kept his mouth shut. “We don’t have to go inside.”

They continued to walk, and the further they got the more Dougie’s anxiety seemed to melt away. He didn’t care about any stores they passed. He had no reaction to Skeeter’s, which Butters concluded must have meant he wasn’t triggered by drinking. After what happened at the church, it had basically become a side quest for him to figure out exactly what was wrong with Dougie.

In reality, he didn’t care that much. He just needed somebody to take his mind off of Kenny. If he forgot about her, she’d come back. If it took cramming himself back into Dougie O’Connell’s life to forget about his closest friend… he was going to take that chance. And, no, it wasn’t good for Dougie… but Butters wasn’t thinking about that. Dougie was just a pawn in his waiting game, as hard as it was to admit.

But Butters wasn’t a bad person for that… right?

▸

At school, Butters was called up to the principal’s office. The woman in charge just wanted to talk to him about a few things, it seemed. When he entered the room, she told him to shut the door behind him and just take a seat. “Don’t worry, you’re not in trouble.” She clarified.

Butters was still extremely nervous, however. “Is this about what happened with the police?” He asked her.

“What happened with the police?”

“You know… you called them. They talked to me.”

“Oh, no, that’s not what I was going to talk to you about!” Principal Victoria sat in her own chair after putting away some papers in her filing cabinet. “Eric Cartman. I’m considering an extended suspension if not full expulsion.”

Butters’ jaw dropped, “Seriously?” He didn’t know if he was excited or not. “For… for what?”

“Well, he’s just been an overall menace to the school’s staff and student body, between the two of us. But mostly because of what he’s done to you specifically. He was out of school for a while due to the police investigation, but aside from that there was no suspension. And he just came back more heinous than before. Attacking you… provoking you to attack him.”

“So he’s getting expelled forever?”

“I would prefer that, but for now all I can rightfully do is a suspension. I can try my best to push it to be months long, but I can’t guarantee anything.”

It didn’t matter, the fact that it was a possibility Butters would no longer have to see Eric Cartman around school was enough to get him excited. He left the principal’s office feeling ecstatic. He was finally going to live a Eric-less life… maybe!

Too bad he didn’t have anybody to share the news with.

Aside from one person. “Who is Eric again?” Dougie asked. He was sitting on Butters’ bed and watching him pace around his room as he spoke.

“Eric Cartman. You know… the kid who dressed up as a raccoon to be a superhero?”

“Oh. Yeah.”

“He’s the worst person ever, seriously. He’s one of the reasons why I’m so fucked up now.”

“What did he do to you?”

That was going to take a while to answer fully, so Butters just said, “A lot. He’s done a lot.”

Dougie was quiet for a few seconds, he fiddled with the covers on Butters’ bed. “Was it… that thing you said?” When Butters didn’t respond immediately, he continued, “Uh… ra-”

“Yeah. Yeah, Dougie.” Butters cut him off before he truly finished his question. “He did that.”

He sat down next to the younger boy on his bed, and Dougie got startled for a moment. “What are you going to do?”

“Hm? About what?”

“The… stuff.”

Butters’ eyes widened. “Oh. I don’t know. He might be expelled, I guess.”

“…Will you tell your parents?”

He hadn’t really thought about that. “No, I don’t think so.”

“Why not?” Dougie’s questions were beginning to feel strange. “What will they do?”

“Well, nothing, I imagine. Why?”

The younger boy bit his lip and diverted his eyes towards his twiddling fingers. “I don’t know.”

“No, you can tell me. How would your parents react to something like this?”

Dougie was quiet. He often was, but the tension in the room made it more deafening than usual. He swallowed so hard that Butters could hear it. “Um. Probably wouldn’t do anything.”

“Mhm… and why?”

“…Because they wouldn’t want it to affect them.”

“What do you mean?”

The boy seemed to be sweating now, his hands were shaking as he moved them around. “They don’t want anything to be their problem.”

There we go, Butters thought, almost got it. “They wouldn’t do anything to help?” He asked, as if he was just innocently engaging in the conversation.

Dougie shook his head. “It reflects… poorly on them.”

“What does?”

“The fact that they allowed their child to be in that situation.”

Almost. Got it. “What situation?”

Butters had been manipulating the last half of the conversation in his favor. He was kind of uncomfortable telling Dougie about that had happened to him… so he instead managed to get Dougie to talk about anything that had happened to him. It was perfect. Butters wondered if he was secretly some kind of sociopath sometimes.

The little boy in front of him was already in tears before he was able to respond. “Church.” He hiccuped out.

Dougie curled in on himself to hide his face in his knees as he cried. Butters extended a hand to rub him on the back. He’d really be pushing his luck to try to get him to talk even more, but his nosiness didn’t really have boundaries. “What happened at church?” He asked.

He wasn’t expecting an answer, honestly. “I can’t tell you.” Dougie said, his voice muffled due to his face being practically inside of his lap.

“…You can.” Butters didn’t really… care, so to speak. He was just finally learning more about the kid after knowing each other for such a long time. And he was morbidly curious.

“No.” Dougie sniffled, “You’re gonna make fun of me.”

“I’m not mean like that, Dougie. Promise.”

It didn’t seem like the boy actually trusted his words, but he listened to them anyway. “O-Okay…”

Butters was on the edge of his seat, his mouth nearly salivating in anticipation. He didn’t know why he was so intent on learning about the horrific things that have happened to others, but it was interesting.

“My mom and dad… they go to church in another town.” Dougie started, “They said they don’t like Father Maxi’s teachings.“

“Mhm…”

“Well, they take me with them… I’m an altar boy. Or… server. That’s what they’re called now.” After a pause, he continued, “It’s just a thing that happens.”

“What is?”

“…When you play the church games. Have you ever been to a church lock-in?”

“Nuh-uh.”

“That’s… it. A lot of games then.”

Butters blinked, confused. Dougie hadn’t really told him anything . “So… what happened?”

“We played games… other people liked them, but I didn’t, really.”

“Can you tell me… the kind of games? Like, sleepover games?”

“Like… kissing games.”

Now, it started to get interesting. Butters was going to get this information even if he had to beat it out of him, at this point. Metaphorically, of course. “Did you kiss… another boy?”

Dougie shook his head, his eyes dead set on a random part of the blanket covering Butters’s bed. “Girls.”

Butters wanted to roll his eyes. What, he kissed some girls at church? Was Dougie really that sheltered and religious that kissing girls was some abhorrent thing? “Is that all?” His voice was flat, but he tried to sound sympathetic.

“No.”

“Then what else?”

The younger boy gulped hard, it almost sounded like he was choking. “All the girls kiss all the boys. And the pastor tells them it’s okay to do. But it feels sinful.” Before Butters could get another word in, Dougie continued, “Sometimes the game was… going into a closet or another part of the room. A secluded one. And we could do whatever we wanted for ten minutes. I’ve heard people… having sex then.”

Wait, what? “This was allowed by the pastor?!” Butters questioned, absolutely bewildered.

“It was encouraged. It was all part of a game.”

“That sounds more like a sex cult than a game…” To be fair, he too had been manipulated into thinking his abuse was a game.

“A girl… she put her hands on me, but nothing else.”

“And, sorry, the pastor encouraged this?!”

Dougie nodded solemnly. “He was, he said, preparing us to become good husbands and wives in the future.”

Butters’s mouth hung agape. He couldn’t believe this kid had been hiding something like this for… who knows how long! “But the pastor… he didn’t… it was just the girls, right?” As if that would have made it any better.

“I’m an altar boy. I’m supposed to change out of my regular clothes and into the garments for service. He’d help me do that.”

“Don’t you leave your normal clothes on, underneath?”

The boy blinked, the expression on his face completely blank. “Oh. Alright, then.” After a cleared throat and a rapid change in direction, he asked, “What about you?” To Butters.

“I-I’m not super religious, so I don’t really go to church that often…”

“No. What happened to you?”

Well… it was only fair, after all Butters learned, for him to finally share more about his own issues. To put it simply… “My uncle raped me. And so did Eric Cartman. That’s the worst of it.”

“Oh. When?”

“A lot. Age five, at youngest.”

“Ah. I’ve been going to church since elementary school.”

Butters didn’t need to hear any more than that.

▸

The news was updated slowly. Or at least, it felt slow. It felt like months had trickled by in the time that Butters had first read the article written about his uncle, but it had only been a few weeks. He checked up on it almost every day, as dumb as that was, hoping and praying for even the most minuscule update.

Finally, something else had come out. Proof that Budd Stotch was just as horrific of a person as Butters always thought he was.

After heavy investigation of the home of the ex little league coach, police discovered numerous images and videos stored on a drive hidden away in the house. As well as a collection of seemingly harmless videos and images on the coach’s cellphone.

When the police were able to look into the files on the hard drive, they found folders entitled by specific names or dates. Many of the contents were somewhat innocent. Including a folder full of baby pictures of a young relative. We will not share the names of any children directly affected by this discovery.

Butters’s eyes scanned the article over and over again, he felt like he was missing something. He could presume he was the young relative in question… but what kind of pictures of him could he possibly have? Butters couldn’t remember him ever taking pictures himself. Unless he gathered them from elsewhere.

His stomach began to turn as he recalled his cute smiling face on the homescreen of the elementary school’s website. The articles made about his tap dancing escapades. The unknown amount of pictures his parents likely posted online in his young childhood… his head started to swim.

Completely innocent baby pictures of him were being stored in a secret file. Probably right next to pictures and videos of other children his uncle had victimized. He couldn’t stop the tears from flowing if he tried.

Out of habit, Butters scratched at his healing scarred arms. He hadn’t done anything to harm himself recently, he was so busy being there for Dougie… he didn’t notice the wounds began to heal up. It didn’t matter, because he located the shard of glass he’d stolen from the broken bathroom mirror and ripped open an old cut like unzipping a zipper.

There was a rush of immediate relief when he did so, so he continued. He kept slicing his arm up and down until he could no longer feel it. He wondered, as his mind started to wander, if his uncle would have liked to see him like this. If he would have enjoyed confronting the evil he created.

Because this was his fault. It would always be his fault.

Butters’s eyes closed with that thought in mind, but when they next opened he was at the dinner table with his parents. His arm was bandaged up. “So.” His father started. “Did you hear about it?”

“Hear about what?” Butters’s throat was raw. Had he been screaming before?

“What they found. The police.”

“Oh.” He poked at his food. “No, not really.”

“Harmless pictures and videos. His team running around or him giving them all high fives… it was nothing. Every little thing was normal.”

“…Then why did he try to hide it?”

Stephen’s fist clenched, and Butters thought he was about to get stabbed with the butter knife in the man’s hand. “Maybe he was working on something for those kids? Why is everyone’s first thought something disgusting?”

“Because he is disgusting.”

Butters knew how bad that man was. He knew nothing he ever did regarding children was innocent or normal. He wouldn’t be surprised if, upon closer inspection, some images of smiling kids' faces were taken directly before or after some kind of abuse took place. But maybe he was just reaching for straws.

After dinner, Butters was going to hop in the shower to wash the grime of the day off. But right before he did, somebody texted him.

Did u see? It was Kenny. And she had linked the updated information that Butters had read himself earlier.

His heart fluttered. He texted her back immediately: I saw it, my dad thinks it’s normal. what do you think?

For a while, he got no response. He figured he was going to be left in the dark again for who knows how long. But Kenny actually sent a reply back. No, read it again.

That was… ominous. Sure enough, the article had been edited to include new information. It was confirmed that, after further investigation into the files, there were in fact inappropriate things caught on camera. The ex coach filmed several children in an innocent way before it turned far more sinister. He had instructed, from behind the camera, for the boys to remove their clothing, typically their little league uniforms. Before he started performing lewd acts on himself and/or the child.

Butters’s stomach dropped. But something else rooted itself into the pit of his soul. A sense of… jealousy? These boys, he had to assume, were far younger than him. It almost felt like his uncle had never cared about him at all. If he was just moving on to abusing younger kids. Maybe that was a selfish and evil thought, but that didn’t matter.

He couldn't help but question if he meant anything. For a while, in fact, until very recently, Butters thought he was the only one. He would have felt better knowing no other children’s lives were ruined by Budd Stotch. That and… he felt kind of special. When you’re groomed from five years old to be okay with the kind of things he would do, perhaps you would feel special too.

But he really wasn’t special. He was just another victim. Possibly not even the first. Butters was never the first at anything.

Chapter Text

Stephen always turned up an eyebrow at his little brother. By the time Budd was in eighth grade, he was still attempting to talk to children in elementary school. He’d even brought over multiple younger boys to play with every so often.

The family had just assumed Budd was… not all there, mentally. Or developmentally. He had a big interest in making videos, which he’d done a lot with a camera his parents hadn’t used for years. He was constantly recording his brother as well, which just made Stephen angry and embarrassed.

Although this interest was never outright shunned, Budd could tell that he wasn’t… normal about it. His brother sure didn’t hold back from calling him retarded every single day.

His parents, no matter how wealthy they were, never decided to splurge on a private school to hone his talents either. And they definitely didn’t want to acknowledge how much of a fucked up child they had by sending him to a special education class. So it didn’t matter how often he shut down, or got overwhelmed, or wanted to film people without their permission… they had to pretend that he was no different when others were around.

One day, Stephen passed Budd’s bedroom door, which was cracked open, and rolled his eyes. Clearly he had some kind of friend over. It took until he walked by again, with his drink and snack in hand, for him to notice what was going on.

His brother had seemingly undressed an unknown little boy and was currently in the process of doing some horrific things to him. Stephen burst in to give Budd an earful whilst letting the little boy redress and get the hell out of their house.

Stephen was angrier at the fact that his brother had dared to do something with another boy than he was at the kid’s far younger age. Perhaps, he was just jealous, though. That his brother was getting away with homosexual activity, thoughts of which he had long decided needed to be locked away within him forever.

▸

The articles never got too grossly into detail. But after the last couple updates, Butters knew that his uncle had been photographing select boys from his little league team, as well as filming videos that included him sexually abusing said children. From him performing sexual acts on himself in front of them, or forcing them to do so to him, there were too many disgusting things caught on camera to even stomach.

And Butters was jealous none of it had anything to do with him. Nothing had been said about what Budd had done to him. The kind of horrors he’d faced for ten years. The permanent damage that man left behind. He didn’t care about these random little league boys he’d never even seen before, he cared about getting justice for himself. For Marjorine.

If there was no retribution for the pain and suffering he went through, then what was the point in him talking about it? Too many people knew of his most intimate trauma, and nothing was going to come of it. He wished he’d never said anything. Screw the little league kids, he wanted to believe he had it worse anyway.

At school, Butters doesn’t move from one spot a majority of the day. He doesn’t even get up for lunch. He wanted to starve, maybe by the time his father realized Uncle Budd really didn’t have anything incriminating about him specifically, he’d be a dusty pile of bones on the ground already.

“Hey, stand up.” A familiar, not very friendly, voice called down to Butters.

When he peeked up at the source, he was almost shocked to see Wendy Testaburger standing in front of him. “Wendy?”

She held out her hand, “Come on.”

It felt a little embarrassing to be pulled up by a girl like that. “What do you want?”

“To talk to you. Follow me.” Sure enough, Wendy began to walk away, with the assumption Butters would be not far behind.

They went into a secluded spot in the library, one of the rooms typically used for studying, or if someone just needed a quiet space. Wendy sat at the large table in the room, and Butters sat across from her. It was like they were at opposite ends of a dinner table, except unlike his father, Wendy probably wasn’t going to lecture Butters about anything. Probably.

“Okay. Let’s talk about it.” Wendy started.

“What?”

“Butters. Look at you.” That was all she had to say, really. “I’m not trying to be mean, but, look at yourself.”

“Wow. Okay.”

“What happened?” Her face softened right in front of Butters’ eyes. Or maybe it was always that way. “You used to be so… sweet.”

Butters bit his bottom lip and held it between his teeth until it started to bleed. “I don’t know.” He answered hoarsely.

“...When I was six… I was taken advantage of by my cousin.” Wendy attempted to look him in the eyes as she spoke, so calm yet a bit intimidating. “I’ve only ever told a couple people about it.”

“I’m… sorry?”

“You’re never alone in this, you know. What Eric Cartman did to you, what he said about you… you’re not alone.”

Wait. Huh? “What do you mean?”

“When Eric said you had sex with your uncle… I mean, I just assumed…”

So people had actually heard that. Everyone was just pretending that it never happened, but in reality they all knew it did. Except for Wendy, apparently. “This is about that?”

“Butters, I’m coming to you as a survivor, as well as a friend.”

Bullshit. They weren’t friends! Butters’ eyes darted around the room, nothing but bookshelves decorated the small space. “Is this a joke? Are you messing with me?”

“Why would I be messing with you? Butters, listen to what I just said.”

“No, Bebe and Red must be hiding in here somewhere. Or Heidi. Did Heidi put you up to this?!” His palms were wet and clammy as he used them to push himself back from the table and up out of his chair. “You’re-You’re still mad over what happened months ago, but I didn’t even do anything! This is not a funny prank to play on somebody, Wendy!”

The girl shot up out of her chair as well, partially to comfort Butters, partially to stop him from trying to leave the room. “Do you really think I would do that?!”

“You put my guard down by talking about yourself, then you’re going to use the things I went through as a joke! You’re gonna report back to your friends, you’re all gonna laugh at me!”

“...You sound insane!”

Butters grabbed the doorknob and only managed to open it a couple inches before Wendy slammed it shut from behind him. That just made him even more upset. “What do you want from me?!” He yelled at her.

“I want to help you! You need to talk about this stuff, or else it boils over inside of you and you lose your fucking mind!”

Without thinking, because really, he couldn’t, Butters grabbed the girl’s shoulders on either side of her body. He wasn't more than a little bit taller than her, but at that moment he felt like a towering giant. He shook her as he spoke, “Just leave me alone!”

Seemingly, Wendy was used to this kind of behavior, because she didn’t even flinch. She simply shook out of his grasp. “Don’t you fucking touch me like that again.”

Butters would have hated to see his sniveling face, red and covered in tears and snot. Thankfully there were no mirrors around. “Why are you doing this to me? Wendy, what did I ever do to you?” His voice was quiet now, as if he hadn’t just been yelling in her face.

“You’re doing this to yourself. Not everybody is out to get you.”

He just couldn’t believe that. How many times had that been proven wrong throughout his life? “That’s not true.”

“It is. You’ve been hurt, Butters, I understand that. But you are not in danger right now.” The softness in Wendy’s face from before returned, as it did in her voice. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

All Butters could do was drop to the ground and curl into himself. That was his defense mechanism. That was all he got to have. Nobody was going to take over for him to have this fucked up conversation with Wendy, he was going to have to do that all himself. “I don’t believe you.” He said, voice muffled due to his head being pushed down between his chest and legs.

Wendy sat down next to him, but kept her distance in a comfortable way. “Believe it.” She sighed heavily, “And you don’t scare me. My boyfriend is an alcoholic.”

▸

Leopold Stotch has Dissociative Identity Disorder. Officially, now. There was a whole paper that said so. His father was angry, his mother distraught. But he felt nothing. Maybe, because Leopold Stotch was dead. And all that paper did was remind Butters that he was a fake. He took over Leo’s life and made it worse, he shouldn’t even exist.

But Leopold Stotch officially has DID. So, there’s that.

“Since when do you have multiple personalities?” Stephen asked him.

Butters shrugged. “Probably since I was five.”

“That’s impossible.”

“No, it’s not.”

Upon further research, Linda would find out that DID is caused by trauma. What could have possibly traumatized their son at such a young age? Butters didn’t buy the crocodile tears. She hugged him tighter than she ever had before, as if she were afraid he was going to disappear. Maybe one day he would. But for now, he just wanted his parents to acknowledge the issues that they knew about.

Aunt Nellie had told them exactly what Butters had told her, that Budd had been abusing him for years. And in Linda’s case, she already knew. She knew. She saw the stains on his clothes and pretended like she had never seen anything similar before. He was twelve. She could’ve saved him. But now, she was grieving the child she didn’t even care about.

Oh, her poor son. Struck with a disorder that would one day consume him, she was sure. Little did she know, the boy she had always assumed Butters was, was already long gone.

He sat on a park bench with Dougie O’Connell. Kenny still was nowhere to be found, and honestly, Butters was still worried. No matter how much he wanted to take Stan and Kyle’s advice and forget about her… he couldn’t. Dougie didn’t fill the void in the same way either. “Dougie,” He started, his eyes straight forward, not even looking at the boy in question, “do you ever want to kill yourself?”

Dougie didn’t emote much, not even at a strange question like that. “No. I don’t think so.”

“...Dougie.”

“Hm?”

“I hope your parents die.”

The boy swung his legs as he sat, and cocked his head to the side upon hearing that statement. “Why?”

“I hope everybody who hurt you dies.” Technically, Butters himself would be on that hitlist. That was okay with him.

“That’s pretty mean.” Dougie responded after a couple seconds to take it all in.

Butters nodded slowly, “Yeah, I guess it is.”

Despite everything seemingly improving in his life, Butters couldn’t feel worse. He was almost numb. His uncle was definitely going to jail, and his confessions helped that be the case… but it still had nothing to do with him getting justice. Those boys from the little league team, they were getting justice. They were the ones who would be coddled and protected by their family, finally safe and away from the horrible man. Butters was instead being told he was a fucked up person for ever telling anybody about what had happened to him.

Stephen still wasn’t over it. He made it a point to bring up during dinner, for some reason. “So you still think your uncle molested you?”

Butters swallowed the mashed potatoes in his mouth, he almost choked on them as they coated his throat in starch going down. “I don’t think so, I know so.”

“The police never found any naked videos and pictures of you on his hard drive.”

Oh, so he knew about that part, but still refused to believe his son? “He didn’t take any.”

“Or it didn’t happen at all.”

“Dad, I’m not going to argue about this. I know what happened.”

“Prove it to me.”

Well, he couldn’t do that. Not in any way his father would accept. If he could just say “I have a disorder that was caused by sexual abuse, that’s the biggest piece of proof I can give,” things would be so much easier. But it was never that easy with Stephen.

Linda was having a hard time holding back her tears again, “Stephen, just stop it!” She sniffled, her eyeliner was running and dripping into her food. “I don’t want to talk about this!”

“You weren’t even part of the conversation, Linda.” The man said back, his voice already more aggressive than before.

Butters excused himself from the table the moment his parents began yelling. From behind him, as he walked through the living room and up the stairs, he could hear the sound of a palm connecting with a face. Whose? He wasn’t sure. It was all so far away by the time he was at the top of the steps. In his bedroom, he could imagine it wasn’t happening. He pulled his phone out of his pillow case and texted Kenny: i miss you.

▸

On Sunday, Butters thought about Dougie. They hadn’t really talked about what Dougie told him since it happened. But Butters didn’t forget. He knew that, at that time, the O’Connell family were headed to wherever outside of South Park… and Dougie was going to come home after being creeped on by leaders of the church. He didn’t really understand, he was still so little. His parents helped to keep him ignorant by making sure he never attended a sex ed class. What did they gain from that? No way they were directly abusing him too, right?

This wasn’t good for Butters. Worrying about Kenny, worrying about Dougie… about himself. His anger towards Tweek, his now complicated feelings towards Stan, based on what Wendy had told him. Really, Wendy had changed his whole perception of the boy. Stan was always tragic in Butters’s eyes, alcoholism ran in his blood and he had to spend weekends with his abusive father as ordered by the court. He had struggled with self harm in the past, if he didn’t still, and that always made him extremely… relatable.

Wendy had explained, “He doesn’t do it on purpose, but he has gotten kind of violent when he’s drunk. That’s just who he is, though. Maybe I’m stupid for thinking I could fix him.”

Butters didn’t think she was stupid, she was just in love. Maybe he had felt the same way at some point. But it was weird to compare the romance between his classmates to the sick part of his brain that was in love with his uncle. It was hard to admit, but Butters could admit it now.

He had been in love, and maybe that’s why it felt like such a betrayal to find out that there were other victims. To him, to his mind and body, it was akin to finding out your husband had a mistress. A much younger woman whom he enjoyed more than you in every conceivable way. He knew it was a disgusting way to feel, but it’s how he felt.

Did that mean that he enjoyed the abuse? Was he so delusional that, deep down, he thought that man genuinely loved him?

He wasn’t sure.

He talked about it in therapy. “I’m a bad person for this.” He stated.

Dr. Janus shook his head solemnly, “No, no, Butters. This is common in people who have been abused. Think of an abusive marriage where the wife might stay with the husband, or vice versa, because she loves him.”

“But, why would I love my uncle like that?”

“Because he made you. He implanted this idea of love within you when you were very young. Also, he’s family. You grow up being told you’re supposed to love your family. It’s not your fault when the wires get crossed.”

“So, does that mean I’m ruined forever now? I can never fall in love?”

Dr. Janus leaned forward in his chair, which caused it to creak. “That’s not what that means.”

Butters kept his eyes on the carpeted floor, “It feels like it. Everyone else my age has a boyfriend or a girlfriend, they’re throwing parties and having sex, and I’m thinking about my uncle.”

“That’s what trauma does. The good news is that you’re talking about it. You’re getting it out, all of the feelings that most people die with. You’re not missing out on anything, Butters. It’s just that other people aren’t experiencing the same things as you.”

He thought about what Wendy mentioned about her cousin, what Dougie said to him about church. It didn’t rule their lives. What Kenny had been through as well… Butters was the only one that was tied down by the traumatic things that happened to him. Wendy had a boyfriend and a group of friends, she laughed, she went out shopping. Dougie kept to himself most days, but he seemed to be content with that. Kenny… was gone. Butters didn’t know anything about Kenny anymore.

He swallowed, his throat was sore. “I don’t… I guess so.”

▸

Leo first met his other family at age three. Why? Because they all lived so far away. He, his mother, and his father all lived in Hawai’i. He had friends there, but aside from his parents, no family. Until they all finally decided to take a trip to the island. He would never remember this, maybe he was too young, but there was a tension in the air when the whole family was together in one room.

Stephen, who had tanned majorly in the years he’d lived there and almost didn’t resemble his parents at all anymore. Linda, who was still awkward around her husband’s family, as they had only met each other years before during their wedding. Stephen’s parents, who hated the whole schtick of their son becoming a Hawai’i “native.” And his younger brother, who was interested in keeping the family from fighting as well as finally meeting his nephew.

“His name is Leopold.” Stephen explained. “It sounds like a successful name, and I want my son to be successful in life.”

His father rolled his eyes, “So did I.”

“I think it’s cute.” Budd kneeled down to see the child better. “Hi, Leo.”

The boy hid his face in his mother’s chest, Linda laughed, “Oh, he’s just shy. It’s alright, Leo. They’re your family.”

When he turned back around to look at them, he could see his grandparents’ disapproving glares. His entire existence seemed to annoy them. But his uncle… he looked so kind. So he smiled back at him. “Look, he likes me.” Budd said to his parents.

“You’d better hope he’s nothing like you.” His father threw back at him.

“What does that mean?”

Stephen immediately got defensive, “My son isn’t stupid, dad.”

Now that offended Budd even more, “Are you saying I’m stupid?”

“I’m saying that you had better hope it’s not genetic.” That was all the old man had to say before leaving the room. His wife followed behind him.

Budd looked distraught at the whole situation. “Do you really think I’m stupid?” He asked his brother.

Stephen couldn’t keep eye contact at the moment, “Dad’s right. I hope it isn’t genetic.”

Maybe what they were referring to wasn’t the same thing at all, but the sentiment was the same. Stephen hoped his son was nothing like himself or his brother. He wanted Leo to become something great.

Chapter Text

Butters awoke in the middle of the night by his phone. Steadily, someone was messaging him and causing his notifications to go off every second. He tried to ignore them at first, but it quickly got irritating. When he managed to open his eyes enough to read a couple messages, he shot up in his bed. They were all from Kenny.

butters. im sorry for ignoring you. im coming home. i love you. im so sorry.

Along with numerous other texts. They all seemed very… disjointed. Written in wild despair, maybe. The important part, or at least the part Butters latched onto the most, was that Kenny was coming home. Only God knew where she had been the entire time, but she was finally coming home. Strangely, though, when Butters went to respond to her, she didn’t answer. He just hoped she was okay. There was no way he was going to get back to sleep after that, so instead he scrolled through his phone all night.

From the websites and forum posts he always kept open, detailing the ways other people wanted to end their lives, to the now multiple articles written about his uncle. It was like the two fed off of each other. Butters had a hard time fully sympathizing with the other suicidal people, but upon reading and re-reading about the things his uncle had done to those little league kids… it made him want to die worse than he ever had before.

Again, it was tough. He wanted to care about the kids, he wanted to feel comforted in the fact that he wasn’t alone. But instead, he was jealous. He wished he could call his uncle up right then and there and demand him to explain himself. Why would he do those things to other children? Why wasn’t Butters enough?!

Tears fell down warm from Butters’s eyes. Maybe that was it. Maybe it wasn’t the love or the jealousy… maybe he just wanted to be good enough. Why wasn’t he good enough? He never protested, he even got excited to play games with his uncle. He loved going to visit for long periods of time. If it didn’t mean anything to Budd, why would he have done it? He could have had his own family this whole time, gotten Aunt Nellie pregnant and popped out his own kids to abuse. But he hadn’t. It couldn’t have just meant nothing to him.

Butters couldn’t have gone through years of abuse for no reason.

Right?

Everything happens for a reason. God created everybody for a reason, he doesn’t make mistakes.

Maybe he created Budd to hurt children… and he created Butters to be hurt.

Maybe, that was all he was good for, in the end. And he clearly couldn’t even do that right.

▸

Stan Marsh was a modern tragedy, Butters believed. He could see what looked to be a couple cuts just below the other boy’s knee during gym class. Cuts. Not scars. He averted his eyes quickly, afraid that, somehow, Stan would notice and call him out on looking. But to call him out… he’d need to admit to doing it in the first place. And aside from the one time that he did, that was never going to happen. Stan met up with Wendy after school ended, Butters could see them out of the corner of his eye on the way to his locker. Wendy’s hands grasped onto his arm as she walked… they seemed so happy.

Butters couldn’t help the horrific thoughts that flooded into his head at that moment. They were probably going to go to Stan’s house, where he’ll get drunk off of the stash of alcohol Kenny had always provided to him. And maybe Wendy will have had a drink or two, but she’d be dead sober in comparison. And then… and then… Butters shook his head violently to rid his brain of the terrible thought. Wendy had never even remotely hinted at something so horrible happening to her in reality, so why, in Butters’s head, was that even an option?

Out of all of his issues, that was probably one of his biggest. But he had no way to fix it. When he thought about people, he could conjure up some of the most awful acts being done upon them. Tweek being molested by his father, what kind of stuff Randy must have done to Stan growing up, Wendy being drunkenly attacked by Stan… he could even sometimes imagine the ways Eric Cartman must have gotten forceful with Heidi in the past. That was his issue. No normal person would ever want to think about those things happening to other people, let alone their friends. He was always so disgusted with himself. At least that was a good thing. At least he wasn’t excited by it.

He doesn’t bring it up in therapy.

“How are you doing, Butters?”

He was sitting in the chair he usually did, directly across from Dr. Janus. “I’m fine.”

Though, that wasn’t entirely accurate, and the doctor could tell. “Is anything on your mind lately?”

“No. Yes.”

“Let’s talk about it. That’s why you’re here, anyway.”

Butters kept his fingers intertwined with each other. “No, we’ve already talked about it.”

“Well, if it’s bothering you now we can talk about the same topic more than once.”

That was true… but it was different now. Now, Butters felt like a broken record. What else was left for him to complain about? His uncle was going to jail, he hadn’t seen Eric Cartman since the other boy was suspended, he hadn’t been blacking out as often as before and… Kenny was coming home. Eventually.

“Actually… things are fine. Everything is fine.”

Even Dr. Janus couldn’t be sure if he was lying or not. “Is that so?”

“Yeah.” Butters’s voice broke, and he swallowed in an attempt to hide it. “Everything is fine.”

“But, I have a feeling you’re still upset about something.”

He was. “But that wouldn’t make any sense. Everything is fine.”

“Butters, you can still be upset even if it seems like a majority of the things going on around you are good.”

When everything is going well, then why would anybody complain? Only a true ingrate would manage to find something to get upset about when everything is alright. And there were people in the world that had it much worse than Butters, so for once in his life maybe he would like to stop complaining.

He let out a shallow breath, “Wendy gets abused by her boyfriend, Dougie gets molested at church, Tweek throws up every day because he thinks his food is microchipped, and Kenny fucking disappeared. There is nothing wrong with me, and I would be a horrible person to act like there is.”

Dr. Janus frowned and stood from his chair. He didn’t say anything until he reached the window to the outside world that usually stayed shut and covered with blinds. His hands were behind his back, which was turned to face Butters. “When I was in college,” He started, “I always knew I wanted to be a therapist. Or a child psychologist. Because I wanted to help kids like me.”

Butters picked at the threads on the chair he sat in, he was getting nervous. “What do you mean?”

“Children who had difficult home lives, who were victims of every crime in the book. Do you know why I wanted to be part of this field?”

“…Why?”

“Because I thought… If I could take what happened to me and use it to help children in similar situations, then it was all worth it. Everything I went through was for the greater good of future children everywhere. That was a hopeful thought for me.”

“So what… why are you telling me this?”

“Butters, you don’t know much about my personal life, and that’s a good thing. I never want to have a strange relationship with my patients. But I can tell you right now that we are more similar than you might think.” The man finally turned around and went back to his desk.

Now he had Butters’s full attention. “How?” What could have possibly been a shared connection between the two of them?

Dr. Janus swallowed, almost like he was going to regret what he was about to say. “When I was a child… not much older than you were, I was also sexually abused. I won’t go into further detail, because you don’t need to know about that, but that trauma is what drove me to become a therapist.”

He didn’t seem to notice, but the man was getting louder with every sentence he spoke. “And I’ve been at this for years, I’ve listened to foster children explain why they don’t want to go back to their biological parents. Teenagers mention offhandedly the abuse they faced at the hands of a partner. I’ve heard little girls recount just how many times they’ve been transported around in the backseats of cars by grown men who paid to have their way with them.”

Butters jumped and squeaked when Dr. Janus slammed his hand against his desk, he thought he was done for. First the man was raising his voice at him, now he was sure he was going to hit him.

But instead, Janus spoke one more time, more loud, strict, and aggressive than he ever had before. “So don’t tell me you don’t have any right to be upset about what happened to you!”

The doctor sat down after that, his speech still swimming around in Butters’s head. It was quiet for a moment, a single solitary moment, until the boy whispered out, “But… other people have it so much worse.”

“Butters, there is always going to be somebody who has it worse.”

What was meant to make him feel better just left him feeling numb. Dr. Janus’s voice rang in his ears on his way home. Somebody will always have it worse.

▸

The closer to the court date, the more information got posted online about former coach Budd Stotch. Butters knew he shouldn’t look, all it did was send him spiraling. But he always did. He had to. He had to know how horrible things were.

There was a short article with an interview that was done with an anonymous child who was part of one of his uncle’s little league teams over the last couple years. Butters read it over and over again. The boy being interviewed was never one of the kids in the pictures or videos, but he was once groped and claimed that the coach had been grooming the entire team, somehow.

That just didn’t make sense. How could one person manipulate so many people at the same time with nobody ever speaking out against it? Butters was confused. Maybe that’s why he didn’t understand how cults worked either.

Aside from the interview there wasn’t much new information in the article, so after obsessively re-reading it, Butters finally put it behind him. For once, when he did so, he didn’t feel like he had to question everything about his own abuse. Or to compare the two situations much at all. That was progress.

Wendy waved at him as he walked the halls in school. He smiled back at her. But it felt so artificial. They weren’t really friends. She’d sat with him and revealed her secrets, familial issues, relationship problems… but they weren’t friends. It took more than just telling someone about the pain you’ve suffered through to be considered a friend, right? For some reason, that seemed to be all that anybody ever used Butters for. Just a place to dump their feelings. No wonder he was always told he was such a good listener.

Heidi stood apart from her group of friends. Perhaps they abandoned her once again. Or maybe Eric had convinced her to distance herself from them. It didn’t matter. Butters didn’t care. Deep down he could almost feel a part of his soul turn black as a terrible thought came to mind. He wouldn’t even care if Heidi perished in some fantastical way. He could see her mangled corpse on the news and probably wouldn’t even bat an eye. She’s such a fucking bitch.

He didn’t even feel bad about that one.

During class, Butters couldn’t stop thinking about what his therapist had told him. He had also been abused as a child. By not providing any details, that just led Butters’s mind to wander and create its own. Maybe Dr. Janus had a perverted babysitter. Or parent. Or… Butters’s breath quickened as he began to entrap himself in his own thoughts. What if… Dr. Janus was also abused by his uncle? Only a little older than Butters was as well… that felt so unfair. How come Butters was cursed with a mental illness, multiple personalities, and Janus wasn’t?

How come Wendy wasn’t? She was six! Or Dougie, who was possibly as young as seven. Why, of all people, of everyone in the world, did it have to be Butters Stotch?!

One moment, Butters is sitting at his desk in class. The next, he’s lying flat on his face on his bedroom floor. His father towered behind him, hand raised as if he were ready to strike. So Butters braced himself. He didn’t even know what he had done wrong now. Before he felt his father’s hand against his skin, he heard his mother’s voice ring out.

“STOP IT, STEPHEN!” Linda screeched. Butters turned to look at his mother’s face, it was drenched in what he could assume were tears. Her hair was frazzled like dry straw. “I’ll call the police!” She threatened.

Stephen whipped his head around at the speed of light, Butters didn’t even see it happen. “I’ll call the fucking police, on both of you!”

The look his father shot at him for a moment caused Butters’s head to swim. He sat up as best as he could and leaned his back against his bed. The carpeted floor felt like fingers grasping at his skin, even his blanket caressed his arms like an unwanted family member. His parents yelled at each other right in front of him, but that didn’t even matter. His heart was beating like it was going to burst at any second. He was going to die there.

“Call the police, Stephen! I’ll tell them exactly what you’ve been doing!” Linda stood her ground against her husband.

“I’ll call them, and I’ll tell them you’re being a crazy bitch again!” The man’s voice was much angrier than his wife’s. Along with him approaching her with his hands balled into fists, he was clearly the more aggressive one in this fight. “You and that mistake you created will be in a mental hospital for years!”

“So you can have the house to yourself to invite over more young boys to have sex with?!” Linda retorted.

“D-Dad…Daddy…” Butters’s voice shook as words squeaked out of his throat unwittingly. “I want my daddy…” His whole body began to shiver, and tears that had already dried had their trails rewettened by fresh ones.

It was like Butters was eight again. Or seven. Or five. Or…

▸

Leo is three years old when he finally meets his other family. While his father argues with his grandparents by the hotel bar, where his mother is downing cocktail after cocktail, he’s sitting at the edge of the shore overlooking the vast ocean in front of him. When the tide comes in, it tickles his toes. He’s not wearing his swim clothes, so he’s not allowed to go into the water. But he likes to observe it from a distance just as much as he enjoys playing in it.

During dinner, Leo’s parents treat his grandparents and uncle to a fancy restaurant. He likes to eat salmon and rice, and really that’s it. One of the things his mother and father still had yet to master with him was his toilet training. So before he even knows it, he wets the pull-up he’s wearing. Typically, he could just tell one of his parents and they’d help him change in the bathroom. But they’re both occupied with trying to convince his grandparents that his father moving to Hawai’i was the best decision he’d made yet.

Everyone is too busy for him. Except for his uncle, Budd.

He slides out of his chair and waddles over to his uncle’s seat at the table. After gaining his attention with a couple tugs on his clothing, he whispers, “I need to change.”

“What?” Budd initially whispers back, before looking down at the boy’s shorts and understanding what he meant. “Oh. You’re still doing that?”

Leo nods. He points out his mother’s purse, indicating that there is a new one inside of it. When his uncle shakes his head at the proposition of grabbing the woman’s purse and rifling around in it, Leo takes it upon himself to do it.

He hands the new pull-up off to Budd, who takes it awkwardly. The man’s eyes dart around the restaurant, around the table, but nobody seems to notice or care. “I guess… I guess I can do it.”

While holding one of Leo’s tiny hands, Budd walks to the bathroom. It feels like all eyes are on him, but in reality nobody’s looking. His heartbeat quickens when they get inside of the family bathroom. The one with only one toilet that’s meant for families to stick together safely. Budd is more nervous than he had been before, he’s practically sweating now. He isn’t very well-versed in caring for babies in this way. But Leo isn’t a baby. In fact, Budd never had to confront the issue he had like this before.

Leo pulls down his own shorts and takes off the soiled pull-up, leaving it on the bathroom floor for his uncle to dispose of himself. Budd stares longer than he should at the child. He feels something happening to him, his underwear suddenly feel uncomfortably tight.

“Can I get the new one?” Leo’s voice asks. It’s small, just like he is. He’s holding up his shirt in anticipation.

Budd knocks himself out of his own mind and continues with the change. When everything is on correctly, including Leo’s shorts, they can both leave the bathroom. But Budd has something he has to take care of first.

When Budd leads Leo to a secluded spot behind some large rocks on the beach, he has something to take care of before they meet back with the rest of the family.

“This is a fun game that you can only play with me, okay?”

Budd places his lips on Leo’s, who has them pursed shut the entire time.

By the time they get back to everyone else, Leo feels dizzy.

▸

Butters woke up sweating and hyperventilating like he’d been holding his breath all night. He used the palm of his hand to cover his mouth as he sobbed. He seriously couldn’t do it anymore.

With his other hand, he felt the sheets underneath him. They were wet and cold, as were his pajama pants. His parents were going to kill him if he didn’t kill himself first. A sick feeling swelled in his stomach and crept up into his throat. He managed to get out of bed fast enough to make it to the bathroom to throw it up.

He just wanted this all to end. No more flashbacks disguised as nightmares, no more waking up with his heart beating a mile a minute, no more concern over the lives of people who suffered as well and were somehow still better off than he was. He was done.

He wanted to go that night. He didn’t care how anymore. He could be kidnapped and raped and murdered by a gang of homeless men on the street, they could sell his limbs and organs on the black market for crack money, he didn’t care. He could be hit by a car and dragged under the tires, gone unnoticed until it’s too late and he’s already long dead.

Or he could find the gun he knew his mother had stashed away somewhere in the house.

That could work too.

Chapter Text

“Now, Butters, as I understand it your teacher Mr. Garrison was concerned about something regarding your home life, m’kay. What uh… can you tell me what it’s like for you at home?”

Butters is ten years old. He was sent to the school counselor because his teacher asked about a mark on his arm he couldn’t come up with a lie fast enough for. “It’s alright.” He says to Mr. Mackey, who is sitting across from him at his desk.

“M’kay, and what about the mark on your arm, is that a bruise?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, how’d you get it?”

“I don’t know. Maybe from the playground.” Butters follows up with, “I bruise easily.” to make it more convincing.

Mr. Mackey doesn’t look any less suspicious of foul play, but he doesn’t push it.

That made Butters relieved in the moment, but years later he was angry he hadn’t pushed it. He was angry at himself for lying. But he couldn’t just outright say that he had gotten the mark from his father grabbing onto his arm so tightly and yanking him around so violently, that Butters thought it was going to come clean off. He didn’t want his father to get in trouble, after all.

Now, Stephen was on the verge of taking his wife and child’s lives all in one night. Butters didn’t know what his parents could possibly be arguing about for the thousandth time, but whatever it was, it seemed bad. Really bad.

Something smashed on the floor, another thing slammed against the wall. From inside of his bedroom, he could hear the sound of his parents’ door opening as they yelled at each other. Eventually, the yelling turned into full blown screaming. Butters’s stomach dropped when he heard what sounded like somebody tumbling down the stairs. The screech that ensued turned his blood to ice. And his whole body froze.

“YOU’RE CRAZY! DON'T COME NEAR ME, YOU’RE CRAZY!” His mother’s voice was loud and pitchy even through the walls and closed door.

“You made me do it, Linda!”

“YOU’RE FUCKING INSANE!”

Butters completely snapped. He had to get out of there. Away from those people. They weren’t even his parents anymore, they were just some imposters that walked around inside of his house. Maybe he was an imposter too, and all three of them were walking around in a home that never belonged to any of them. He threw on a jacket and slid his phone in its pocket. His hand shook as he opened up his bedroom door.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Stephen shouted at Butters before the kid could even get out of the room.

“On a walk.” He mumbled back.

When Butters looked at the bottom of the stairs, he saw his mother sitting on the ground while she grasped the back of her head. “Butters! Butters, come help mommy!” She called up to him.

“What did you do?” He asked his father.

Stephen scoffed, “She put her hands on me first, I had to show her who’s in charge in this house.”

“So you threw her down the stairs.”

“She fell.”

“...Right.”

Butters began descending the steps, and from the bottom his mother kept shouting to him, “Help mommy, Butters! Please, I think I’m bleeding, help mommy!”

He looked her in the eye when he reached the first floor. Her face was red, her eyes puffy, her eyeliner and other remnants of makeup smudged all over her cheeks. She just looked pathetic. Sure, he didn’t like that his mother was just thrown, or “fell”, down the stairs… but he also didn’t love her enough to want to help her. Currently, he just wanted everybody to die.

“Mommy,” He couldn’t even attempt to muster up a look of concern, so his face was stone cold as he spoke, “help. Help, mommy.”

Linda wiped her eyes with a free hand, “Are you mocking me?”

“You never helped me.”

“Butters, I think I’m bleeding out. I could die, Butters. Is that what you want? You want to kill your mother?”

Butters shrugged, “You wanted to kill me.”

After that, he made his way towards the front door. Both of his parents yelled at him, but for differing reasons. Stephen claimed he hadn’t asked for permission to leave the house in advance, so he wasn’t allowed to now. And Linda sobbed and screamed about how he was a horrible son, wanting his mother dead. When he left the house and slammed the door shut behind him, that was it. Peace and somewhat quiet for a couple seconds.

He walked off of the front porch and onto the sidewalk. His father opened the front door and yelled out at him, “I’m calling the police! See how much you love running away from home when you’re in the back of a cop car!”

Butters didn’t give him any attention. That was all his father wanted, really. Some attention. Well, that and twenty year old men he could have sex with, no strings attached. He wondered if the craving for attention stemmed from somewhere in the man’s childhood. Maybe Stephen’s parents gave all of their attention to their baby, Budd. Then Stephen developed issues from that and pushed them onto his own son. Butters knew he was going to be one fucked up adult some day, if he ever made it that far.

He didn’t even know where he was going. He walked down the sidewalk in the dark, partially hoping he’d be attacked and axe murdered. But he didn’t really have a plan on where to go. He couldn’t stay out, cops would be looking for him if his father really did call the police. And he usually does.

Part of Butters wished that his mother would die from her supposed head wound. She’d die, his father would get charged for killing her… and maybe he could lie in court, a little bit. If his father was going to go away for life after murdering his mother, would it really hurt to accuse him of the very same crimes his brother had actually committed? Butters shook the thought out of his head. That would just be evil. But at least he’d have someone listen to him for once.

His feet stopped moving in front of the Marsh residence. He didn’t want to be there. In fact, he tried to keep walking, but something in his soul tugged at him. He couldn’t just… go. So he walked up to the front door and knocked. It was late, but their lights were still on. A minute later, somebody finally answered with a “Hello?” and a crack in the door.

“Can I talk to Stan?” Butters asked. The words just fell out of his mouth.

The door fully opened and on the other side Butters could see it was Shelley who had answered. She rolled her eyes as she called up the stairs, “Stan! Your loser friend is here!” Even without the braces, she had an annoying voice.

Stan opened his bedroom door and stood at the top of the stairs. “Kyle?”

“No, the blonde one.”

That’s when Stan finally looked his way. Butters smiled awkwardly, “Hey, Stan…”

“Oh, god, what happened?” He rolled his eyes in the same fashion as his older sister.

Shelley excused herself from the conversation by retiring into the kitchen. Butters closed the front door behind him. “Can we talk in your room?”

Clearly, Stan didn’t want to. His eyes darted between the upstairs and Butters’s face. “Why? Why can’t you just say whatever you want to say right here?”

“Please.”

The pitiful look in his eyes must have convinced Stan, because he finally gave in. “Fine. Just- give me a second.” Butters waited at the bottom of the steps as Stan went back into his room, presumably to tidy up some before allowing another person in. “Okay… come up.”

He did as he was instructed as climbed the stairs, in Stan’s room he sat on the floor like he had many times in the past. Stan shut his bedroom door behind the two of them. His face had an expression on it that Butters couldn’t quite read, but he looked a little uncomfortable in some way. “I’m… sorry I didn’t ask to come over.”

“It’s fine.” Didn’t sound fine.

“It’s just… My parents are fighting more and it’s getting worse. My… dad threw my mom down the stairs.” Butters twiddled his thumbs as he spoke.

“What?”

“Yeah. I’m scared, Stan. I know you can relate, so I thought I’d come to you.”

Stan bit his lip, he still seemed upset. “Oh, because I can relate.” He repeated sarcastically. “That’s a cool thing to say to someone with trauma from their abusive dad.”

That… isn’t what Butters meant. Deep down, he knew that Stan knew that. “I didn’t… I mean you’re the only person I know who was in a similar place.”

“So you think of me as this victim of abuse constantly? I’m still a person, Butters.”

“Stan, please don’t do this.” Butters looked the other boy in the eyes. As much as he hated eye contact, he had to get him to understand. Just… listen to him for once. “My dad is getting worse, the fights are getting worse, I’m not even scared of a divorce anymore, I’m scared he’s going to kill her. I don’t know what to do, Stan, I don’t know anyone else who's been through this.” He finally broke eye contact when his eyes began to well up hot with tears.

Stan looked at him like he was disgusting. “Don’t… don’t cry. You’re making me look like the bad guy.”

Butters sniffled, “Just help me, please. I try to help everybody, but nobody ever helps me back.”

“I can’t just help people, Butters. I’m not a therapist. You can’t run to me whenever you have issues with your parents, what am I gonna do?”

“You’ve already been through it, Stan! You know what it’s like, stop acting like you don’t!” Butters gulped when his eyes shot to the area of Stan’s legs he saw a little while ago. The previously semi new cuts had become scars already. But it didn’t take a genius to put together the red smudging on Stan’s fingers and the way he sat to avoid pain in the areas Butters knew he’d self harmed in the past. “And I have a therapist, do you?”

Stan shut up after that, but not for long. He somehow always had something to say back. Butters felt bad for Wendy. “So you’re going to flex the fact that your family can afford therapy? Classy.”

“I started going to therapy because I was blacking out and missing days or weeks of my life at a time. I hope it never gets that extreme for you, Stan.”

“Why do you want to be sicker than everyone else?” What seemed like one of the least horrendous things Stan said so far actually sent a chill down Butters’s spine. Stan noticed. “You want to victimize yourself at every moment, don’t you? Everything has to be about Butters, right? How Butters is a victim, Butters is sad because his dad yelled at him, Butters is more mentally ill than anybody else, he’s the biggest victim there is.”

“I don’t act like that.”

“You do. Nobody else’s trauma is allowed to have ruined their lives because Butters had it worse, right?”

Butters let out a shaky breath but tried to stay calm. “Stan, have you ever been assaulted? Sexually abused? ”

Stan just rolled his eyes again, “Oh here it goes… sexual assault is automatically worse than being abused your entire life, right?”

Yes. Yes. Butters wanted to rip his hair out. He had been abused his entire life, anyway. It wasn’t a one off issue. “I’ve been sexually abused since I was five. My parents’ abuse was probably around that time too.”

“Oh, of course…”

“… I was raped on Thanksgiving, Stan.”

Maybe that was the one thing that would get him to really shut his mouth and keep it that way. Butters didn’t want to have a fight over who was the most traumatized. He didn’t want to invalidate someone else’s issues. But to get through to Stan, he kind of had to.

Stan looked away, at his carpet, at his bedroom door. “By who?” He asked.

“Why do you want to know?” Wasn’t it bad enough as is without knowing the details?

“Was it your… dad or something?”

Close, but why was that his first thought? “Uncle.”

“Ah. Okay.” Stan played with his hair that hung over his face. “My uncle Jimbo… would never do that to me.”

“Congratulations.”

“But that sucks what happened to you… really.”

“Thanks for your validation, now I know it was bad.”

“I’m trying to be nice.”

“Are you? Or do you just feel bad now that you know I went through something you haven’t?” Butters had the upper hand on the argument now. “I didn’t want to tell you that.”

“Well… thank you, anyway.”

Butters stood up and wiped the already drying tears off of his face. “You have to do better.” He left himself out of Stan’s room, down the stairs, and back out of the house.

It just made him angry, the whole conversation. He went in hoping for someone to listen to him, tell him things would be okay, maybe… and he came out having revealed his sexual trauma to somebody who acted like a total stranger to him. What a horrible night.

▸

Butters doesn’t know how old he is. He’s in LA, and he knows this because there’s the Hollywood sign within his view. He’s nervous, he’s out on the field with a group of other boys. He doesn’t know how old they are either. He squeezes his legs together, but he is too scared of ruining the game to say anything.

For a moment, he and his uncle, who is coaching from a distance, make eye contact. And the man can tell there’s an issue. He blows the whistle. “Alright, time out, everyone!”

The rest of the boys walk over to the bench for water, Butters stays put. He can’t move, actually. His uncle runs over to him, but his words are incomprehensible. He can pick out a couple key words, but mostly he can’t understand anything.

Then he hears his uncle’s voice again, but somewhat more clearly than before. “Oh, Leo, it’s okay…”

When he looks down, his shorts, legs, and shoes are now completely soaked. He can feel himself crying. He sees his uncle’s face in his blurred vision.

“It’s alright, come on, I’ll help you clean up.”

Butters woke up. He immediately noted the cold and wet feeling on his body. But he couldn’t get out of bed. It wasn’t that he didn’t care that he was covered in pee and it likely ruined his mattress, he just couldn’t get up. No matter how hard he tried.

He laid in bed all morning. And that morning turned to afternoon, which turned to evening. By the time the sun had gone down, the wetness on his sheets and clothes had dried, so that was a plus. Though, despite that fact, when his mother opened his bedroom door to check on him, it was still quite obvious what had happened.

“Butters, are you…” Linda cut herself off with a scowl, it was made clear by her face that she had smelled that something was wrong. “Did you… why does it smell like pee in here?”

Butters didn’t respond, he just shifted his body away from her.

Linda’s face wore a look of disbelief, “Butters, did you wet the bed?” No response. “Are you sick?” She moved into the bedroom to place a palm on her son’s forehead. “You don’t feel warm. Are you okay? Why would you pee the bed?”

“Had a nightmare.” Butters mumbled.

“What?”

“I had a nightmare. I peed myself in the nightmare.”

Linda scoffed, “That’s… that’s no reason to just sit in it all day.”

“Mom?” Butters started, “Did I play baseball in LA?”

“W-Why?” His mother’s voice shook a little.

“In the nightmare… I was playing baseball in LA… with Budd.”

There was an uncomfortable energy between them. The silence was palpable. The air in the room suddenly became thick. “Um. Your dad wanted you to get into sports.”

“He taught me how to play baseball, right?” Butters gulped through his sentence, “Dad taught me how to play… so I played on Budd’s team when I visited. Right?”

Linda gritted her teeth and spoke between them. “Well… you sound like you remember a lot, don’t you?”

Butters put both hands over his face. He didn’t want to remember that. He didn’t want to remember anything anymore. Tears coated his hands before he even knew he was crying. “He helped me clean up, but…” He didn’t know what happened after that. His stomach dropped.

“Don’t…” Linda was tearing up, of course it had to be about her. “Don’t talk about it. I can’t stand it.”

“Mom, I don’t know what he did, but I was already abused by him by then. I know that.”

“And how do you know that?” The woman sniffled and wiped at her eyes with her fingers.

“…Because I think I did it on purpose. Sometimes.” Butters made himself sick. He didn’t know what was seeded so deeply within his head that he, as a young child, would have purposely peed himself for his uncle’s attention.

▸

By age five, Butters was potty trained. He didn’t even have accidents at night. But around age seven, it was like he’d regressed. In all skills, really, but especially there. He’d forgotten how to write his name, or the letters that made it up. He stopped talking most days. And he had accidents much more frequently than he had before.

The only thing the doctors were able to say was that Stephen’s father’s fear had come true. The regression was due to a mental delay, and they’d have to work hard to ensure that their son succeeded.

But it wasn’t that. Not really.

It was like a cycle. Because of Budd’s abuse, Butters went quiet. He wet the bed and generally had more accidents even while awake. And because of those behaviors, his parents punished him. And everything got worse.

Butters couldn’t articulate why he was scared of going to the bathroom sometimes, because he didn’t know. But he knew why he had “accidents” so often.

It gave his uncle an excuse to get him alone. And because Butters loved him, because he thought the games they played were fun, he gave him all the time in the world to play. Sure, it was embarrassing. And it ruined things at home… But in LA? Only people who loved him lived in LA.

▸

Butters didn’t kill himself. He wished he had. But instead, he was in therapy. “How are you doing?” Dr. Janus asked.

There was only one thing on Butters’s mind. Only one that mattered. “Who abused you, Dr. Janus?”

The man blinked rapidly in surprise. “I’m— I’m sorry, what?”

“You were abused too, who did it?”

“Butters, I don’t feel comfortable sharing that information with my patients. Surely, you understand?”

“No, I don’t understand! Why am I the only person who has this fucking disorder?! Why don’t you? Why doesn’t Wendy?” Butters stood from his chair and paced as he spoke, “Why, doctor, why am I the one who got cursed like this?!”

The man sighed, “It’s nothing you did. The brain works in mysterious ways. Sometimes, your brain just can’t handle a situation you’ve been put through. It puts up barriers, it makes you forget. Because if you remember… you’ll be hurt by it.”

Butters grasped handfuls of his hair, “Not remembering still ruined me! I couldn’t be cautious if I couldn’t remember!”

“Butters-”

“I wish I never existed. I’m not real, remember? Marjorine made me up, I shouldn’t even be here!”

“You needed to be here.”

“WHY?!”

“Because Billy needed you to be!”

Before Butters could argue back, he really took in what Dr. Janus had just said. “What?”

“Marjorine. Marjorine needed you.”

“That’s not what you said.”

After a couple seconds of silence, the doctor finally broke. He sighed heavily, “I know.”

“Who is Billy?” Butters sat back down in his chair.

As much as he didn’t want to reveal details of his life, especially to a child, Dr. Janus felt like he had no choice. Maybe it was best for Butters to know. “Billy was… me. We were all me. We are all me.”

“What are you saying?”

“…You’re not the only person with this disorder, Butters.”

The boy’s eyes widened to the size of dinner plates. His mouth hung open. “You have multiple personalities?”

“I was diagnosed with that, yes, but the proper medical term now is Dissociative Identity Disorder.”

“Since… since when do you have it?”

“Since I was a child. As it is right now, I don’t technically have DID anymore. Years of therapy helped me become the person, singular, that I am today.”

“But… how is that possible?”

Dr. Janus smiled, “You get better. Things get better around you.”

Butters fiddled with a peeled piece of skin on his finger. “Who is… who is Billy, though?”

“Billy was… Marjorine. I use past tense, but he’s never gone. He lives inside me.”

It was only at that moment that Butters noticed the certificate hanging on the wall of Dr. Janus’s office. Dr. William Janus. The corner of his lip moved to form a small smile.

“She lives inside me.” He whispered to himself.

Chapter Text

Kenny was back. And so was her previously worn fashion. She was missing a tooth in a place she hadn’t been before, her face had a recovering bruise on it, and she stopped wearing makeup. This version of her was less grand of a reveal to Butters than her last. If anything, it was more… sad. Despite not being very open about her gender in the first place, it seemed like she had also gone back into the closet. That she’d given up on trying to be a girl at all.

As soon as the lunch bell rang, Butters sought Kenny out. They hadn’t seen each other in person in forever, let alone spoke. He found her in the hallway next to the cafeteria. “Ken… Kenny!” He called her name to get her attention.

She perked up as soon as she noticed, “Butters!”

They ran to hug each other after so long. Kenny sucked in a pained breath as they did so.

“Are- Are you okay?” Butters pulled away from the hug out of concern.

“I’m… I’m fine.” Kenny smiled. Her bottom lip looked swollen, her teeth were worse off than before, and Butters could swear he saw her eye twitch.

“I missed you… where were you?”

“That… isn’t important right now. I’m glad to see you again.”

With Kenny back, Butters had no need for Dougie O’Connell anymore. It was tough news to break, so he did it over ice cream. His treat.

Dougie opened his mouth wide enough to suck down all of the ice cream and its cone. When he pulled the food away from his face, a glob of semi-melted vanilla dripped off of his lip. Butters felt sick seeing it. Not the gluttony of swallowing nearly an entire ice cream cone whole, but the way the boy did it. Like this wasn’t his first time. Like this wasn’t about ice cream.

He cleared his throat. “Dougie, you know I don’t want to hurt you.” No response. Butters continued, “But would it be alright for us to… stop seeing each other so often?”

“But… you wanted to hang out with me.” Dougie’s face didn’t change, but his voice was noticeably upset. That was a sad fact. That Butter’s could notice the small shifts in the kid’s mannerisms.

“I know… but I think… I just needed a friend. And, well… I have one.”

“We can… still be friends.”

“It’s… it’s hard to explain. I’m sorry.”

Both of them were quiet for a while. Their ice cream began to melt in their hands because now, it was too awkward to continue eating. Butters zoned out while looking out of the window only to come back to reality at the sound of soft, subdued, sobbing. He didn’t even have to look to know that it was Dougie, so he didn’t. The crying grew harder and harder to listen to, though it didn’t get any louder.

“Hey, Doug. You don’t have to cry.” He attempted to comfort the boy.

Dougie spoke between shallow breaths, “You… don’t… get it.”

“What? What don’t I get?”

“You don’t know what it feels like… to be friendless. To feel like nobody wants to be around you.” It was getting tough for him to hold it together as well as he was. “Nobody wants to listen to you talk about the things you like, they don’t want to hear your opinion… they don’t let you say no.”

“I’m… sorry, Dougie, I didn’t-”

“I don’t… like being lonely.” Dougie swallowed a sob before it could really hit him. “I want to have friends. I thought we were friends.”

“We were!” Butters went on guard, as if he was being threatened. But he was the one in the wrong, wasn’t he? “I just… I missed Kenny. I needed somebody to fill that void for me.”

Dougie sniffled, “Just had to be me…”

“I’m really sorry, okay? I shouldn’t have done that to you, it was horrible, I’m sorry.”

“No, it’s my fault for thinking anybody could ever actually like me.” The boy stood up, his ice cream, what was left of it, had melted all over his hands. He threw the cone in the trash before he walked outside. “Thank you for the ice cream.”

That couldn’t be the end. Butters felt disgusted with himself. He tossed his unfinished ice cream into the trash can and met Dougie outside of the shop. “Please, Dougie, I’m sorry.”

“You are a bad person, Butters.”

“You don’t mean that…”

“No, I do. You’re a bad person. Fuck you, for what you did.” With that, Dougie walked off. And Butters didn’t follow him.

▸

Butters used a blade to cut his skin. It was far more effective than glass. He’d taken his father’s razor apart to obtain it. It was entirely different than anything he’d felt before. Sharper. Deeper. He bled more. It hurt worse.

Karen traced her fingers over the scabbed over cuts. “What happened?” She asked him.

“Nothing. I get hurt easily.”

The little girl nodded, “Okay. Me too.”

Butters was sitting on a mattress on the floor in Karen’s room. Kevin’s bed, he assumed. The walls were so paper thin that he could hear everything that was happening in the room next to them. He didn’t comment on the nature of Kenny’s “job”, she had filled him in on that much, at least. It made him uncomfortable to be around when it happened. Karen didn’t seem to care, however. Maybe she was used to it, hearing her parents from across the hall when she got up to use the bathroom in the middle of the night.

When Kenny was finished, and the mysterious man she had let inside of the house left, Butters opened up her bedroom door to check on her. “Are you alright?” He asked.

She was laying on her bed, her clothes mangled in every which way. And her face was wet. Clearly, she’d been crying, but she responded, “Yeah. I’m good.” anyway.

“You’re not… but if you want me to leave you alone, I will.”

Kenny sniffled, “Thank you.”

It’d been a couple weeks since Kenny’s return, and she had mostly shifted into a new person. One disguised as her old self. While hanging out one day, she admitted to Butters that she would sell herself to help pay for her family’s bills. But she was okay with it. So Butters didn’t try to talk her out of it.

Not that she’d listen to him anyway.

And aside from the one time where listening to the obscene acts from the other side of the wall in Karen’s bedroom caused Butters’s body to stiffen up and his mind to blank… it didn’t really affect him personally at all. So who was he to tell her to stop?

▸

The stars came out at night, and for once, Leo could see them. Typically, the light pollution of Los Angeles made it near impossible to see anything in the sky. But that night, it was like a thousand tiny lanterns were lifted into the air. Millions of stars burned lightyears away, and from his aunt and uncle’s backyard, Leo watched. He placed his mouth on the white rim of the red plastic cup that had been sitting on the side table next to him, and he sipped the sweet lemonade from inside of it. His aunt had just made the pitcher of it earlier. She knew he liked it to be as sugary as possible.

Leo relaxed, he laid back on the chair, which was covered in fabric with little pillows. He could have fallen asleep there. Something caused him to jolt upwards. “Ow!” He shouted, then he scratched at a spot on his arm.

“Damn, bugs.” His uncle Budd commented from the matching chair next to his. “Don’t scratch it, it’ll be alright.”

“It hurts…” Leo continued to itch it.

“It was probably just a mosquito, you’ll be okay. It’s because you’re drinking all that sugar in that lemonade, they want your sweet blood.”

Leo squeaked when he gasped, “Really?” He eyed the drink like something was about to jump out of it and attack him.

Budd smiled and rolled his eyes, “Nah, I’m joking.” The man swirled around the contents of his own cup. “I’m drinking some too, want a sip?”

Leo didn’t question why, because of course he wanted a sip. It was just extra lemonade for him. But when his uncle got him to lean forward and drink from his cup, he got a very rude awakening. He spat it out immediately and almost began to cry. It was so bitter… It was like gasoline.

Uncle Budd just laughed hysterically, “Oh, oh my god… that was…” He couldn’t even catch his breath. “Leo, you are so cute.”

“That didn’t taste sweet.” The boy said his eyes already teared up.

“Oh, man…” Budd tried to wipe the smile off of his face to appear serious for a moment. “It… it was a joke, Leo. I’m sorry, but it was a really good one. You should’ve seen your face, oh my god. I wish I could’ve taken a picture to send to Stephen.”

“But, what is it?”

“Hm?”

“Your drink… what is it?”

“Ah, it’s… alcohol. You don’t need to know anything about that yet.”

Aunt Nellie called from inside the house that she was going to bed, for the two of them to not stay up too late. They both promised they wouldn’t, but rolled their eyes at the woman trying to ruin their fun. After Leo had drained all of the lemonade from his cup, Budd offered to grab him some more, as well as a bottle of water for himself. Maybe a bowl of popcorn, and they could watch a movie on Budd’s laptop. It was like camping.

They had pushed their chairs together so they could crowd around the computer screen as if they were at the theater for real. “Do you want to watch… a scary movie?” Budd asked, he grinned in such a sinister way, it sent chills down Leo’s spine.

“N-Nuh-uh… I don’t like scary things.”

“Well, it’s not real, it’s a movie.” Budd pulled Leo closer to him, “And I’m right here, you can always cling to me if you’re scared.”

Leo’s heart pounded in his chest, he didn’t even know what he was so afraid of. The movie hadn’t started yet. He sipped his lemonade periodically to distract himself from the horror. At first it was hard to ignore the strange taste his drink had begun to have, but inevitably it all tasted just the same. Or… different, but the same. Or the same but… different. Or…

“I feel sick…” Leo said, eventually. He didn’t know when. Was the movie still playing? His vision was all blurry…

“Oh, do you need to lay down? Come on, let’s go inside.” Budd took the boy’s hand and led him through the back door and down the hallway to the guest room.

Everything was so dark. Leo wasn’t even sure he had his eyes open half the time. He sat on the edge of the bed in the guest room, time melded together before he could truly process it. He couldn’t even think straight. He saw his shorts laying dead on the floor before he understood that his legs were no longer within them. Legs that had previously been dangling in front of him. Where were they now? Where was anything anymore?

He sat up and shook like he was in sub zero chill. A line of drool exited his mouth involuntarily. And finally, he disappeared. Or went comatose. Or fell asleep.

▸

“You inherited all of your mental problems from your psychotic mother, you know that, right?”

“I don’t… think so.”

“That’s how it works. She’s what, bipolar? Look at you.”

Butters rolled his eyes. He wished he could just leap right out of the car window to escape the conversation. “I’m not bipolar, dad, I have DID.”

Stephen nodded slowly, as if he really believed his son. “Oh, right. Not bipolar. Multiple Personalities. Sure.”

“It’s a real disorder, and I’m not the only person who has it!”

“I’m sure you’re not the first person to be diagnosed with it.”

The boy clenched his fists, pushing his fingernails into his palms. “Dr. Janus has it!” He shouted. He didn’t know why he did that. What was the point in revealing something so deeply personal about his therapist? Did he really think it was going to change his father’s mind?

The car came to a screeching halt at the stoplight. Stephen’s knuckles were white from gripping the steering wheel as hard as he could. As if the car would drive on autopilot away from him if he didn’t. “You’re not seeing that shrink anymore.” Was all he said in response to Butters’s statement.

“What? Why not?”

“If he thinks he has multiple personalities, then you have clearly had your head filled with his nonsense. I’m canceling all of the payments from now on.”

Butters couldn’t believe his father was being serious. He only started therapy because of the man’s complaints, because his mother pushed for it… and now it was all going to get thrown away because Butters was too mentally ill? Because his father thought his official diagnosis meant nothing?

The heart inside of Butters’s chest began to beat at a pace that alarmed him, and that anxiety likely made it worse. His head spun. His fingernails pressed further into the skin of his palms. And as soon as the car began moving again, he screamed. A blood curdling, bone chilling, glass breaking, scream. He used his legs and feet to kick against the glove compartment in front of him. He writhed his body around like it was in immeasurable pain. And really, it was.

It had always been in a certain kind of deep pain nobody could ever understand.

Stephen desperately tried to get him to quiet down, like he was a tantruming toddler. “WHY ARE YOU YELLING?! OTHER PEOPLE CAN HEAR YOU!”

“I FUCKING HATE YOU!” Butters continued to scream. His eyes had already been overtaken by tears. “I HATE YOU!”

As soon as Stephen had the chance to pull the car over, he did. He couldn’t hide his embarrassment when he saw the faces of people walking by on the sidewalk or driving past in their cars. The first thing he did was try his best to restrain his son, he grabbed his legs, pushed his feet down to the floor, held his wrists to keep his arms still, but nothing worked. So he did the only other thing he thought he could do.

Butters got silenced fast by how hard his father had just hit him in the face. Then again on the side of his head. And when he grabbed his arms, he no longer resisted. He barely felt the man’s nails ripping open his old scars. But he felt the blow to his stomach, it made him double over. He gagged due to his stomach lurching.

His father grabbed the hair on the crown of his scalp, and he held it tightly. He made sure to jerk his head around every so often, to remind Butters that he was just a toy to him. A fucking puppet. “Don’t you ever do that again. Not in public, not in fucking private. Do you understand me?” Stephen twisted his son’s head to look towards him. “DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?”

Butters wasn’t sure he did. His face hurt. His entire head hurt. He looked at his father with doe eyes. Calf eyes, rabbit eyes, whatever he could use to get him to understand who exactly he was hurting. His father continued to stare at him with the eyes of a predator. Butters didn’t know which one. They were all the same.

He didn’t know when they got home. Time didn’t exist anymore. Maybe it never did. Man made concepts weren’t real. Nothing was real except for the sun and the moon and the stars in the sky. He missed watching the stars in the sky. When he was younger, he liked to pretend they were floating lanterns, just for him. And that one day he’d notice the family crest painted upon them, and eventually he’d find his real home. His true family. Maybe… he just watched too many Disney movies.

Stephen dragged him into the basement, the place was forever unfinished and only existed as the room to clean your laundry. It was always cold. Butters didn’t even notice the change in temperature going from upstairs. He was barely conscious anyway. His father shouted something about how he’d stay down there until he understood how to respect his parents. That was alright with him.

Butters wasn’t hungry, so he didn’t worry about food. And he didn’t need water, but if he did, there were jugs of it in the emergency stash they kept down there. Along with a large majority of the items they took with them when they moved all those years ago. Butters didn’t even remember anything from back then.

In one box, he found a book that was meant to detail his life from birth to early childhood. It had narrowly avoided collecting dust, for the most part. Stitched decals and teddy bears holding blue balloons decorated the front cover. The first page showed an ultrasound, the text next to it read “IT’S A BOY!” He smiled. Every image had some kind of handwritten diary entry in the lined areas that prompted parents to write their thoughts in the moments the pictures were taken.

In thick sharpie, the handwriting read: We’re having a son. Linda wanted a girl, but she’s still just as excited as I am.

So… his father had been the one to write in the book. That soured the experience a bit, but Butters continued on.

He was a newborn, his mother held him in the hospital. She looked twenty years younger, which was funny considering Butters was only fifteen. Another image of his father holding him was glued in next to it. The book didn’t originally allow for more than one picture on that page.

Leopold Eric Stotch was born on 9/11/2008 . Welcome to the world Leopold! We are so blessed to be your parents! ♡ Mommy

So his mother did get to write some things too… that was also not very comforting. He hated her just as much as the man she married. He turned the page. More pictures of him as a newborn, but nothing interesting. He supposed that phase of life really was just boring.

Finally, Butters was a few months old in the pictures. He was still just as bald as he had been as a newborn, which made him chuckle. He wasn’t one of those people blessed with luscious locks at birth, it seemed. There were some very adorable pictures of him on the beach, one of him sitting in the sand squinting due to the sunlight. And another where one of his parents, he assumed his father, had placed a pair of sunglasses on his face.

Most of the notes at this point consisted of things like “beach day” or “first time touching the water”, nothing super interesting. When he got to the section of toddlerhood, he noticed he finally began to grow some hair. Very very light blonde hair, but hair nonetheless. Suddenly, he could walk. His first word, as explained in a note, was “mama.” Stephen owed Linda twenty dollars.

He loved the ocean, the beach, and the food. His dad still had generational wealth running in his blood, and his wallet, so most days he spent time with both parents just hanging out on the island. There were almost too many pictures of that. How expensive was it to get all of these pictures printed? Wasn’t there a recession?

For some odd reason, by time the book got past the “terrible twos” section and into the “thrilling threes”, things had slowed down. Everything. The pictures were sparse, though when they were there, they were cute. The notes had stopped altogether. And with one final image of Butters, at the age of three, wearing pool floaties on his arms, posed in front of the ocean… It was done.

There were more unfilled parts of the book, but that was it. It was over. But that’s how all of these books tend to end, isn’t it? The parents get bored, the child becomes less fun as they become harder to control. And eventually… it stops. Butters closed the book, it slammed shut. It felt like he’d just been shot in the chest.

Does that child exist anymore? He grasped his shirt like it was clinging too close to his skin. Or did his story end at the same time the book did?

Or, just maybe, that child never existed at all. Leopold Eric Stotch never existed.

Because he never got the chance to.

Chapter Text

When Butters woke up, it was nine in the morning. He didn’t bother getting out of bed, so before he knew it, he’d fallen asleep again. Another night, another nightmare. Or what his brain wants to convince him is just a nightmare. Nothing crazy, at this point. Just another dream where he can see himself in third person as his uncle abuses him. Completely disconnected from the feelings of the moment. He wished, sometimes, that he would stop being bombarded with new information about the abuse he already knew he suffered. He didn’t need to know that his uncle had his hand under the blanket while he read Butters a bedtime story. In fact, he could’ve gone his entire life without knowing.

The next moment he woke up, he looked at his phone to see a text from Kenny. She wondered if he would be in school. He didn’t reply. Butters didn’t want friends anymore. And after what he did to Dougie, he didn’t deserve them either. It was therapy day, but he didn’t go to therapy anymore. So what was the point in getting out of bed? He fell asleep again.

He dreamt about a dizzy night in LA. No matter how much he remembers from that time, he will never recall it fully.

Kenny had texted him a hundred more times. It was late afternoon now. She was incredibly concerned.

Kenny deserved so much better than Butters. Why couldn’t she see that? Butters was a disgusting person. A soiled person. He wallowed in his pity because he gets the most attention when he does so. And that’s all he truly wants, attention. Just like his attention starved father, who is so in need of acknowledgement that the only way he can get somebody to listen to him is by threatening them.

Butters’s parents fought again. Not as bad as it had been, but that wasn’t saying much. He didn’t care anymore. If one or both of them died, he’d be free. He needed to learn how to tie a noose already. There was no more hope for him. Not like there’d ever been.

In the middle of the night, Butters woke up yet again. His stomach was cramping. He hadn’t eaten anything for the entire day… he hadn’t gotten out of bed at all. So it was impossible to tell if it was his stomach, or his bladder having issues. Either way, he felt like he was going to die. Every small movement caused pain to jolt through his body like lightning. If anybody cared, he’d have them to call out for. But instead, his body transmuted the pain into tears. They helped cool his face down as he pushed through getting out of bed.

He wanted to throw up, but he had an empty stomach. So what would come up? Stomach acid? That would burn his throat, though, maybe that would be okay. Not being able to speak anymore wouldn’t be much of a change from his current life. He wished he had somebody to talk to.

▸

Just like every single other day since his life had been ruined for the millionth time, Butters was upset again. Wendy smiled at him in the hallway when he passed her locker, Kenny tried her best to talk to him during class. But he didn’t respond. He was running on autopilot. Go to school, go to class, leave school, go home. Wash, rinse, and repeat. Friends? Who, Stan, Kyle and Kenny? None of them actually liked him. Therefore, he wouldn’t even bother to speak to them.

If he just focused on the monotonous tasks of waking up, doing whatever he needed to do to get the school off of his back, and going to bed, then he wouldn’t have to worry about anything else. Just go to sleep, wake up, get dressed, go to school, go to class, go home. Listen to his parents argue as white noise while he does his homework. Eat dinner, take a shower, contemplate the way his body looks in the mirror. Why his arms and legs are so skinny, why his ribcage is beginning to poke through when he takes a deep breath, why the skin under his eyes have grown shadowed and dark.

Why his eyes are so sunken in, his arms are heavily scarred, his lip is still healing from the last time his father busted it. There’s a hand on his hip that doesn’t belong to him. There’s a hand on his hip. There’s a hand on his hip. There’s a hand on his hip. There is a hand on his hip.

Butters blinked, and he was in bed. The next morning, he disrupted his routine.

It was still cold, as Colorado naturally was, but it was nearing summer. So Butters just wore a jacket over a regular short sleeved shirt. He didn’t need a sweater. Due to the fact that it was a weekday, the church was pretty empty. Aside from, of course, Father Maxi sat in the pews for his morning prayers. He was pretty startled upon seeing Butters.

“Oh! Butters? I almost didn’t recognize you.” It’d only been five years since the two of them had first become friends. Or however friendly a ten year old boy could be with a priest without it being weird.

“Sorry. I messed up your prayer, didn’t I?”

“Not at all, I was just finishing up. Did you need to talk?”

Butters bit his lip, which really slowed the healing process. “Um… I guess so.”

“With me, or the Lord?” Father Maxi outstretched his arm to the large white marble statue of Jesus Christ behind the podium he preached from every Sunday.

“I don’t… I don’t know.”

The man stood from the pew and stretched his back, “Well, I’ve got to set up for summer camp. You can always join me, if you’d like to.”

Butters managed a small smile, “Alright. I would like to.”

Maxi led him into the back area of the church, it was just a large storage room, really. Boxes all over the place and unused robes and other religious garb decorated the place. “I have a ‘welcome summer camp’ sign around here somewhere…”

Butters ran his fingers over the white garments that hung on clothes hangers. He imagined Dougie wearing something similar. “I didn’t know there was a summer camp here.”

“Oh, well it’s more similar to a vacation bible school. We don’t have many viable campgrounds that are close enough to the church for a true church camp experience… and to be honest, I’m not sure I’d trust anybody else around these kids.”

That’s right… Father Maxi had taken it upon himself to be the savior of the children of South Park years ago. Really… Butters wouldn’t trust anybody but the priest himself around a group of children either. As ironic as it may sound, the man had proved himself to be a good person. Butters needed him to be a good person. He was the last good one left.

“I don’t think… I would be able to take care of so many kids alone.” Butters replied.

Father Maxi expelled air out of his mouth and nose as if to say “yeah, me neither.” But he shook his head slowly and kept a smile on his face. “Anything for the Lord.”

After rifling around in the storage, Maxi found the banner he was looking for, along with several children’s bibles. Butters helped him carry the box out to the altar. “Was there… anything else you needed help with?” He asked him.

The man just got Butters to follow him yet again to another back room. One filled with several tables and chairs. And a carpeted floor. He imagined that was where the bible studying would take place. Maxi sat in a chair and offered up the one next to him for Butters. “You wanted to talk, let me know what I can help you with.”

Butters took a deep breath in before speaking. “I… I don’t know what to do anymore.”

“What do you mean by that, my son?”

“...My dad stopped my therapy sessions, and it was the one thing that made me feel like I was getting better. My best friend came back after being gone for weeks, or a month, or I don’t even know how long. But now she’s acting like an entirely different person. I broke off a friendship with a kid I reached out to after years of not talking because I was so lonely and he was ruined by it. My parents are fighting all the time, my uncle isn’t even in trouble for what he did to me, and I just want to kill myself!”

Father Maxi placed a hand on Butters’s shoulder, the boy was already crying. “My child, I understand things are hard right now, but harming yourself is never the answer. Deuteronomy thirty-one eight, do not be afraid or discouraged, for the Lord will go ahead of you. He will be with you, he will neither fail nor abandon you.”

But was that so true? Butters wiped his eyes and sniffled, “Father, how can you be sure that God will never abandon you? Haven’t there been times where… you felt like he did?”

“Butters, we all have moments where we may feel a sense of despair. And it’s hard to admit, but I’ve also felt that the grace of God had been revoked from me. But the Lord never abandons his children. When have you felt that this was the case for you?”

“When… when I was twelve. Eleven. Ten, maybe. I never meant to… speak so horribly about God. But I was angry.”

“Mhm… you were in pain. Many people say what they don’t mean whilst pained with something else. Out of anger, they take it out on the highest power they know.”

Butters nodded along with the priest’s words. “I was… abused. Repeatedly. At that time.” He didn’t know why he was dulling the severity of the situation. Father Maxi would understand. “Raped.” He corrected himself.

Father Maxi’s face softened into a look of pity. His smile had turned into a neutral frown. He looked almost disappointed. “Oh, Butters…” He whispered. He sounded like he was close to tears himself. “I should’ve known… I should’ve done something.”

“Wha- no, no it’s not your fault. I-I should’ve said something!”

“In order to run the summer camp program I’ve had to educate myself on the signs of abuse in children. I should have been watching out for you.” The man shook his head solemnly, “I’ve failed at my job, once again. I’m so sorry for failing you, Butters.”

For once, somebody had apologized. Someone had acknowledged that, yeah, Butters had been failed. By his parents, his teachers, everyone in town. Nobody took enough notice of the way he’d been acting to see the signs. Or if they did, they actively ignored them. Even his pediatrician should have said something, anything. Asked him why he was avoiding the bathroom outside of home, why he peed himself constantly, why he seemed to switch emotions on a dime. Why his stomach hurt when he pressed down on it. Why he refused to allow the doctor to go anywhere beyond the navel during an exam.

Butters didn’t think Father Maxi needed to apologize, but it was appreciated. “Thank you.” He continued to dry the tears from his face with his fists.

“I wish I could do more to help you, but all I can do now is remind you of God’s love. I’m so sorry, my son.”

“...That’s okay, Father.”

▸

Butters sat on the floor of his bathtub as the shower rained down upon him. He’d just scrubbed his body so raw that his arms began to bleed. The boiling hot water made him feel clean. Involuntarily, he thought about Dougie O’Connell. The kid was only thirteen, he didn’t have to live as Butters currently did. He could be saved, perhaps. Yes, the damage had already been done, but would it not save the boy some grief in the future?

Butters thought about Wendy Testaburger, how she spoke about Stan shouting at her, grabbing her, once even hitting her, while drunk. How she always went back to him like nothing ever happened. If he tried to save her, she wouldn’t consider it saving. It’d be mettling. Sometimes, he needed to mind his business.

He thought about saving Kenny. But did she want it? It seemed like selling her body was providing her the money she needed, though it hadn’t been as glamorous as it was in the beginning for a while. Now, Kenny felt like nothing but a cheap whore. Butters couldn’t let her think that way about herself. He couldn’t let her continue hurting herself in the way she had been. What kind of best friend would do that?

Then, Butters thought about himself. None of those people were doing that. Taking the time to think about him, how he was doing, how he was holding up. His rapist uncle was going to jail. His other rapist, Eric Cartman, was already sending out invitations to his upcoming birthday party. They never spoke about the scars. That was forbidden. You never talk about a person’s scars.

Was it his job to save everybody? Was it everybody’s job to save each other? Should he even care about trying to save others, who didn’t care enough to save him? He didn’t know.

The water in the shower went cold, so he stood up and exited it. The last thing he needed was a reminder of what cold fingers felt like on his back. His parents hadn’t said anything about the bathroom mirror, which Butters was very grateful for. Maybe they also often refused to look at themselves in it, so they never even noticed.

When Butters got dressed, he put on a set of pajamas he hadn’t worn in years. The pants had previously been long enough to get stepped on by his feet, but now they came up comfortably around his ankles. The shirt hadn’t changed much, and the only thing that did change about Butters was the size of his arms. There was no problem getting them in through the sleeves.

In the full body mirror in his bedroom, he looked like a giant toddler. The pajamas weren’t that childish, but he sure felt ridiculous. It was just to sleep, though. And with that, he went to bed.

▸

The door is locked. Leo’s uniform is soaked down to his socks. Yet he manages to match his uncle's smile. “You need to sit out the rest of practice?” The man asks him.