Chapter Text
That morning, Stan receives a letter.
Loopy, cursive handwriting written in purple marker; it makes Stan blush as he thinks of it, causing a familiar churning in his gut that usually onsets a violent blast of vomit. Even now, in class, he continues to envisage the folded piece of paper, tucked away in his bag, where he had shoved it after finding it in his locker a few minutes earlier. If he weren't surrounded by all these assholes, he'd take it out and stare at it again.
Instead, he glances a few seats over to try to catch her eye. But Wendy's head is pointed in the opposite direction, his searching eyes only meeting her pretty dark hair. He drags them back to the day's worksheet on his desk.
It's okay, he assures himself. They would have a chance to speak later, if the letter was truthful. Kyle shoots him a strange look from behind, and Stan ignores it, recalling the request.
Please keep this a secret, the letter had read.
He could keep a secret.
Meet me at the field next to the park at midnight, when no one is around. Bring this letter.
I have something I need to get off of my chest.
Love,
Wendy
Love. Love! Love, Wendy! Stan concentrates on not letting his face redden again. Once more, he shoots a glance at Wendy, who is still locked in a whispered conversation with Bebe.
"You alright, dude?" He hears whispered behind him, and he tilts his head around to look at Kyle. His friend's sharp eyes are tilted in a concern he can't quite disguise.
"I'm fine, dude!" Stan grins. Kyle seems to find this even weirder, though he still mirrors the action.
"Whatever you say," Kyle whispers back, before the teacher calls on Stan to answer a question. Even as Stan fumbles through the answer, Kyle whispering it to him from behind, he can still feel intense eyes on the back of his head.
He puts all thoughts of Kyle aside in favor of Wendy, Wendy, Wendy.
...
Now, Stan is walking to the park at the late hour of 11:47 PM. It hadn't been too hard to sneak out, considering his dad was out drinking and his mom was dead asleep with exhaustion from working extra hours. He briefly wonders if he should've stayed and taken care of her, but decides he doesn't care that much in the face of tonight.
He keeps his eyes peeled for anyone on the street, knowing how important it is to keep this secret. News travels fast in such a small place. It's a quiet night, however, a weekday. No one is partying, drunk in the street, especially not in the suburbs; and Stan is grateful for this. The last thing he wants is to get assaulted, attacked, or worst of all, scolded and dragged home.
No, there is nothing around him but soft, silent snow, drifting down from the sky, glowing in the streetlights. The only sounds he can hear are the crunchy noises of his own footsteps leaving a trail through the fresh layer of snow and the distinct rhythm of his own breathing in the frostbitten air. He can feel his cheeks and nose glowing bright pink, and he breathes into his gloves as he strolls on, warming his face. It is unusually cold for this early in the fall, and he shivers.
He's reached the park now, and stops and stands in the grassy field that lies past the playground, where the sky is wide and the evergreens claw up towards the clouds. The moon is new, a hole in the sky. Stan finds it dreary as he treads further into the field, brushing snow off of the grass caressing his shoes. He feels a strange tug in his chest as he looks up. Being alone in a field so late in the night makes him feel... small.
"Stan."
A high-pitched voice comes from behind him. He turns his head, all too suddenly, pulled out of his melancholy.
"Wendy?" he calls back, before the focusing of his vision reveals that... this is not Wendy at all, this silhouette rendered by the snow. His heart thrums in his chest. He takes a step back, the snow crunching at his feet.
It's dark. Still, he manages to make out a familiar grin.
"O-oh..." Stan puts a hand over his chest, panting. "It's just you, Butters. You scared me."
The smile never falls from that face, and now that Stan looks closer, there's something wrong about it; and his heart rate ramps up again.
"Hi, Stan!" The other boy greets him. Something about his voice makes an alarm ring in Stan's head, but he does not understand, so he resists the urge to run. There's nothing concerning about Butters... He's just Butters.
"What are you doing here...?" Stan asks him. His breath puffs in front of his face. Clouds, clouds, clouds. He is alive.
Butters takes a step closer, and Stan's breath catches in his throat. "Y-you didn't see that note Wendy wrote, did you?!" Stan accuses, his voice shaking. "That was supposed to be private, Butters!"
"It was, Stan!" Butters laughs and takes another step closer. "I'm very happy you kept that promise."
"What?" Stan squeaks. "What's going on? The fuck, Butters!" Anger blooms in his chest as he realizes the truth, until fear smothers any other reaction. Why is he scared? It's Butters. It's Butters. Still, this Butters tricked him. His glowing blue eyes and wide grin full of teeth say gotcha, and this bothers Stan more than anything.
"Why'd you write that note?" He shoves his hand in his pocket and pulls out the thing, uncrumpling it in his hand. At first, he had felt bad for ruining it; but that line of thought is completely destroyed now, and he couldn't want less to do with it. He stares at the deceiving handwriting now.
"Stan... Well, I guess I can't keep it a secret for very long, can I?" Butters laughs again. Stan can barely react as the boy rushes the small length left to reach him and barrels into Stan, knocking him to the ground with an oof. Above his blurred vision is Butters, hovering above his face like the moon, and he glares up at it. The smile is still there, he notes drearily as the initial shock fades.
"What the fuck?" Stan exclaims as he realizes his arms are pinned by Butters' legs. He struggles under the smaller boy, who laughs again, that screechy sound echoing through the field, striking a deep tremor under Stan's skin. His heart thumps in his ear, louder, louder, louder.
"Get off me, Butters!" He cries, trying to sound annoyed. He is silenced by something cold against his neck. His whole body freezes as it recognizes the feel.
"Check this out, Stan!" Butters lifts it higher, but Stan doesn't need to see it to know it is a knife. The blade glints in the faint light of reflected snow. He feels that same gut twist from before, as though he is going to throw up, though never has he felt it out of fear. He is about to say something, but Butters laughs again, bringing it closer to his throat.
"Stan... I've always had a lot of things to say to you." Butters teases the knife along the edge of his throat, and Stan gasps, feeling the prick of tears in the corner of his eyes.
"Butters, g-get off. Please. This isn't funny, dude." Stan begs, trying to sound deadpan, but instead it comes out high-pitched and shaky, and he feels like a little thirdie again. It's not real, Butters wouldn't actually do this, he repeats to himself. However, underneath the stream of logic he truly feels as though he is in serious danger, unable to stop hyperventilating as he stares at the knife with glassy eyes.
"It's not funny?" Butters frowns. "I thought everything was funny, ol' pal! Everything you've ever done to me is so very funny, it is!"
"Wha- I..." Stan isn't sure how to respond, his brain frazzled as it desperately tries to come up with a way out of this situation. But any hasty twitch, and Butters could run that knife through his neck. There's a kind of malice emanating from the other boy in the way his lips twist and the way his words curdle when he talks, and they fully convince Stan that this is no joke, and he breathes faster as he truly realizes what is happening.
"B-Butters, whatever it is that you want, you can have it!" Stan cries. "Don't do this!"
"Aw, Stan, that's sweet of you!" Butters' cutesy voice contrasts with the empty look in his eyes. He's gonna vomit, oh god. "But I only really want one thing!" Butters moves the knife away, and Stan pants, still just as tense.
"Wh-what is it...?" Stan asks pathetically, the slightest hope in his voice.
Before he can blink, he feels something sharp and icy lodge itself into his stomach. He cries out in horror and pain as he witnesses Butters dig the knife into his abdomen, deeper and deeper, feeling the foreign object cause flares of pain to wrack through his entire body. His mind is overtaken by the fire and he can't move, can't think, can only scream. After an eternity Butters pulls the knife back out, and Stan sobs as he spots the dark liquid dripping off of it. There are other wretched things on the blade, bloody traces of him that should never see the surface. Deep crimson begins to stain his jacket, a sickening wetness to add the the sensory bomb, all around the hole, the giant, bleeding hole that is now there-
Stan shuts his eyes and cries as his whole body throbs with blinding pain. Butters isn't even holding him down anymore: he could run, he could run, but he can't move. It hurts. He can't move and he sobs as he cracks open his eyes to see Butters hovering above him, that joyous grin still plastered on his face as his eyes bore right down into Stan's.
Gasping, he desperately tries to sit up, sobbing in pain as the movement makes his new injury that much worse. Still, he turns over and desperately drags his body away, feeling his blood spill from the wound. He needs to escape, he has to, he prays to the gods of adrenaline that he can get away.
He feels a shoe slam down on his hand. It stops his pitiful attempt with a horrible crack that can be heard through the glove and he yipes at the new source of pain. His blood is a trail as it drips onto the grass, dying the flattened snow red. He grimaces up at Butters with eyes like saucers, and Butters bends down to his pitiful height, grinning.
"Where ya' goin', buddy?" The boy asks, a facsimile of innocent ol' Butters. The knife in his hand, an inch from Stan's face, drips blood onto the snow.
Stan throws up. He shakes and heaves from the effort, even more of his insides staining the snow awful colors. Butters had swiftly hopped a few feet back, laughing as he had avoided being hit point blank with bodily fluids.
Stan's mouth burns like fire, his stomach worse, so much worse, and he is unable to do anything as Butters kicks him back onto his back.
"Butters, please," he begs, his voice haggard and high. "We- we're friends-whyareyou... Why are you doing this?" he desperately spits out, as the flavor of copper adds to the flame in his mouth.
"Since when was I your friend?!" Butters cries, and Stan sees pure anger break his cheery expression for once. A fist meets his eye and he chokes at the pain. His entire body shakes from the force, and he watches with horror as Butters raises his fist to deliver another hit. Then, another. Again, again. Butters pummels his eye, a whimper and a wrack of pain erupting from his prey, over and over and over...
Now, Butters is panting as well, his face red from the excursion as he smiles down at his work. Stan can only imagine the black eye that's joined his new and growing collection of injuries, unable to even see out of the thing anymore. He feels bruises litter his face from when Butters had missed, or perhaps, missed was the wrong word. The wound in his stomach is going a little numb, at least, and he feels himself go lightheaded.
"Butters..." He chokes out. Butters' expression lights up as though he's eagerly awaiting his words. "Wh-what?" is all Stan manages.
Suddenly, the blurry figure of Butters disappears. Despite his state, Stan freezes as he feels hands from behind lift him by the shoulders and lay him against the chest of the person who had done this to him. Arms wrap tenderly around him. He's hugging him- he's seriously hugging him after all that. Stan goes limp in the arms, his energy drained as the tharn sets in.
"I don't want to die," he whispers, his small voice lost to the cold. "P-please, I don't..." Butters smile becomes wider, somehow. "I'm scared..."
Butters pulls him closer, face to face. Stan feels a hand toying with the bangs sticking haphazardly out from underneath his hat, the hands soft and small and smooth against his bruised skin. "They're gonna miss you, Stan," Butters says, as though it's some unfortunate side effect of a medication.
"M-mommy," Stan's voice shakes as faces rush through his mind. "Kyle..." he whispers. Words and touches and secrets and memories hit him all at once and tears roll down his face, his bad eye burning. "Can I please...? Please let me see them..."
"Oh, Stan," Butters' voice is sweet and reassuring. "You'll never see them ever again." He seems to revel in glee as Stan sobs again.
"I-it hurts," Stan whispers. Butters moves and Stan's glazed-over eye jumps back to attention, his heart still trying its best to pound. There's a strange look in the boy's eyes which puts Stan on edge, a sick feeling broiling in what's left of his stomach. The dull, grayed-out pupil of Butters' own bad eye is all he can see as he draws much too close.
Stan cries out in horror as Butters' lips touch his own, and is still for a moment as Butters kisses him. He thrashes his head to the side, unable to fully escape the wet, soft feeling.
"Stop! Stop it!" Stan cries as tears fall down his cheek, Butters giving the edge of his lip love before moving to take back the full thing. Blood continues to leak from Stan's mouth, but this does not hinder the person in front of him from his efforts.
"Please!! Why?! No! Nonono!" His voice is scratchy as he grasps for air through the continued assault. He feels warmth in his pants somehow, even through the myriad pain, and he gags as he swallows vomit. Utter, sickening disgust makes his brain go numb as Butters continues the crusade against his psyche.
"Help! Anyone! Please!!" He cries out into the darkness of the night, desperately hoping someone will hear and save him from this hell. No one answers.
He is going to die.
He screams as he feels Butters' knee shove forcefully into the black hole that is his stomach. The pain from the stab wound multiplies, a horrid inferno that threatens to rip him apart as the leg digs and digs, Stan's line of view flashing in and out of existence. Butters finally pulls back, his pant leg stained from Stan's blood.
Stan stares up with his good eye at the monster above him, his entire body limp as the pain splits though him. His blood is caked across Butters' lips, loose spittle arching from Stan's own. He's still smiling, but there's something else there, something Stan is coming to understand as pure rage behind his eyes.
"I hope you remember this when you go to hell," says Butters.