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“Please just be careful” Butters pleaded, squeezing his eyes shut.
“When have I not been? I'm awesome at this, look at my ears if you don't believe me” Kenny replied, reassuring though he was beginning to get tired of hearing the same stuff the whole morning.
They had no school nor work that day, so Butters and Kenny had decided to spend it home doing nothing. At one point, Butters had started playing around with Kenny's piercings, wistfully mentioning how he wished he had some of his own. Kenny soon suggested to make him some, since he was the one who pierced his own ears. It had been a long and hard process, not because of the typical things but because Kenny simply kept dying before he was finished. Once, he apparently made the holes wrong because he quite literally bled out. Another time, he slipped and hit his head on the bathroom mirror. At least twice the piercings got infected after less than a week, and the needle he'd been using had somehow ended up stuck in his neck during an attempt. But after a lot of trying and failing, he finally figured it out, and he was really proud of the result.
Plus, the whole dying curse was his thing, he wouldn't let it happen to Butters. He had a lot more practice now.
“Let's just get this over with” Butters half-whispered in a scared voice. Kenny vaguely remembered having been told he didn't like needles, but that wasn't something Kenny could fix.
“Yeah, hold on a second” Kenny groaned.
“What's wrong?” Butters asked, opening an eye to see Kenny going through the pockets of the few clothes in his closet.
“I can't find my fucking lighter!” Kenny grumbled, closing the closet's door with a bang so loud it made both boys flinch.
“The window?” Butters pointed, remembering how Kenny had been smoking there the previous night. He had come home from work to find him there, then Butters had been offered a blunt but he rejected it and went straight to bed. He heard Kenny lighting another one, but after a few minutes he was laying with Butters in bed, his head on the light blond's chest. As he hadn't been looking, Butters didn't know what Kenny had done to the lighter, but he would bet it was either by the window or between bedsheets.
“Here!” Kenny cheered, having found it on a pile of clothes on a box only a few feet away from said window. “Thanks Buttercup”
“Whatever, let's just do this” He smiled, looking at Kenny as he made his way back to the chair he was sitting on.
Kenny nodded, and he picked up a pen.
First, he made a dot on each of Butters’ ears, showing them to him with an old small mirror. Seeing how Butters would was content with it, he turned on the lighter and put the needle in the flame to disinfect it.
“How much does it hurt?” Butters asked, staring at the needle as if it had personally insulted him and his whole family.
“Eh, not much?” Kenny shrugged “Less pain than being crushed by a piano, more pain than being shot in the head”
“No way you just compared this to being shot in the head” Butters pointed with even more fear in his voice. “You have the weirdest metaphors”
“Yeah well, deadly gunshots are usually pretty painless I dunno. Can't even hear the bang most times” Kenny shrugged, still looking at the burning needle. “It's not too bad pain, believe me. I've been through worse, and so have you”
Kenny didn't need to explain for it to be understood. Butters had luckily managed to escape his awful parents years ago, sure, but that didn't erase the years of abuse he'd endured. If he could get through that, he could get through having his ears stabbed with a needle.
In theory.
“FUCKING HELL” Butters screamed when Kenny passed the needle through a hole that wasn't there a second ago. He cleaned the drop of blood and slid a small earring through the gap, then backed away from Butters with an incredulous yet entertained look in his eyes.
“Whoa” Kenny's mouth stayed open after he stopped talking, which caused Butters to glare at him as he made a conscious effort not to touch his pained ear.
“What?” He snapped.
“It's the first time I hear you curse” Kenny replied, shock and a bit of light mocking in his voice “I didn't know you knew how to do that”
Butters laughed, rolling his eyes.
“Of course I do, asshole” He replied, no malice in his tone. “I got grounded whenever I did so I don't do it much, but I still can”
Kenny nodded, understanding.
“Makes sense” He commented with a smile, and went back to work.
* * *
“How's it?” Kenny asked at Butters, who was looking at himself in the mirror.
“Love it” He replied in amazement, his eyes bright.
Kenny cheered a soft “woohoo!” which got Butters to laugh, it wasn't something too fitting for a teenager but after having done it his whole childhood, it was such a Kenny thing to do.
“When will I be able to pick my own earrings?” Butters wondered.
“I don't know, a month or two?” Kenny shrugged “I have no idea what I'm doing, this is your problem now”
Butters laughed in mock disbelief, and Kenny joined him with his own giggles.
“I thought you knew!” Butters lightly scolded.
“I told you, this is the second time I do this!” Kenny pointed out. “Look at the bright side, this is better than claire's”
That was it: Butters lost it. He couldn't stop laughing, not even to breath, and Kenny seemed to be going through the same.
“Shut the fuck up!” Kevin's voice, clearly newly woken up, shouted at them through the wall. Butters and Kenny looked at each other, and they couldn't help but begin to cackle again.
This is what home feels like.