Mutual, a south park fanfic

I am convinced that this past season brought plenty of character development for our sweet Butters. I am taking advantage of that. I've always imagine Butters as growing up to be the weird kid in class that everyone looks onto in bemused wonder. Like, goes through the deliciously traumatic episode that will be his early teens which often plagues The Innocent Kid, yet grows to be less corrupted than he himself likes to think or act like. Oh, and I love giving characters (particularly Kyle) existentialism issues. Thought I'd throw that in there.

Crackpairings, ftw. Enjoy.

Kyle had no idea why he couldn't hold down a girlfriend. He catered to girls better than any guy in the school. He was a great listener, he'd buy them everything, he went shoe shopping for crying out loud. Why then, if he did everything to encompass the perfect boyfriend, did all of his relationships end so awkwardly after only one or two weeks?

The answer to this came after his fifteenth break-up, when he was putting on his best man-bitching face and having a one-sided conversation with Stan about how unfair dating was and about why in the hell would Annie have dumped him and how he had been so sure it was going well. Stan had been unnaturally quiet through it all.

"Well?! What the hell's wrong with girls, man?" he asked his unresponsive best friend. The redhead narrowed his eyes when he noticed Stan avoiding his gaze. "What's wrong?"

"It's just... no, never mind," Stan muttered, focusing intently on a spot on the carpet. Kyle kept his eyes narrowed, attempting to pierce the other boy with his gaze until he told him whatever it was he was hiding. It worked, and the raven-haired boy looked around nervously. "Okay, it's just that - well, Annie's sister told Red who told Kenny that Annie said that she broke up with you because you never stop complaining about Cartman. Apparently all the girls agree that you're the perfect guy except for that fact. And that they all think it's kind of... gay."

Kyle blinked once. Twice. He swore loudly and began to pace his room. "He put her up to this," he deduced and laughed a humorless laugh.

"What?" Stan asked, confused.

"He must have paid Annie to say that stuff. I see no other reason why she would've said that. I took her out to that expensive Italian restaurant the other night. You know, the one where Cartman fucked up Jimmy's first date? I'm surprised he wasn't there to fuck up mine. You know he was at the carnival the other day when I took Annie? That must have been it, that's where he got to Annie!" Kyle, by that point, was shaking Stan by the shoulders. Stan had both eyebrows raised.

"O... kay. Maybe I should just be honest with you." He took a deep breath. "I think everyone's right. Maybe... maybe you have taken this Cartman thing a bit too far. You're paranoid."

"He sold my brother to the Russians just last month! He replaced my English essay with gay porn when they were passing around the pile - Stan, how can I not be wary of the guy?! It's been twelve years of this, and even when I've stopped hanging out with him he keeps making my life miserable!"

A sigh escaped the other boy at his friend's tirade. "Dude, I know that. Everyone knows that. But it is kind of... you know... gay. I mean, you never stop talking about him. Let me finish!" he said, holding up a hand as Kyle got ready to interrupt. "There's the fact that you watch his every move to make sure he's not plotting against you. You followed him into the bathroom, for Christ's sake -"

"He passed right by my locker, he could've easily slipped something in there -"

"And there's the matter about you constantly wishing somebody would kick or shoot him in the balls. Or threatening his balls when you get frustrated. The whole newfound fixation with his balls isn't healthy, Kyle."

As he finished, Kyle looked at a loss for words. Finally, he shook his head and walked towards the door. He paused as he reached the handle. "You just don't understand, Stan. You just don't understand."

The door closed behind him, and he left Stan stumped on his bed.

Kyle soon found that there was someone who did understand, however.

It was just another normal day in the cafeteria. Kyle was stabbing his green beans and suggesting that Cartman's tongue and genitals be removed with ordinary kitchen tools, and Stan was making grunts of acknowledgement while studying for his biology test and ignoring the redhead entirely. Kenny had died from a paper cut the period before lunch.

Then something clanged to the floor nearby, and voices erupted.

"You put something in my food again!"

"No, I didn't! Don't be such a freak, Butters!"

"I just saw you!!"

"No you didn't! I didn't fucking do anything, man!"

"Last week, you came over to tell me something and a dead frog ended up in my mashed potatoes. You don't just come over to tell me shit, you come over to put shit in my lunch!"

"I came over to tell you you're a fag. Calm your tits, man. Why the hell are you even yelling?"

Just as this was going on, Kyle came over to the two oblivious parties. He poked around Butters' lunch splattered on the table with the end of his own fork and unearthed a giant glob of gum covered in dirt, hair and grass inside Butters' hamburger. He whistled to call attention to the two and tapped the tray to show the offending piece of gum. Butters turned around and stuck out his tongue in disgust.

"Fatass probably found it under a desk. Did the same thing to me the other day, actually."

Butters spun around and glared at Cartman. "Shitballs, I fucking knew it." He grabbed the chocolate milk off his tray and smashed it into the side of Cartman's face before he had a chance to react. The cafeteria erupted in laughter. Kyle's eyebrows were both raised, his mouth contorted into a goofy and amused smile, his face glowing with awe and adoration.

"WHAT THE FUCK, BUTTERS?!"

But that didn't deter the student body now in stitches at the obese boy getting his just deserts. Cartman, drenched in chocolate milk, stomped out of the cafeteria seething with rage. Butters, looking satisfied, threw his tray away and headed towards the cafeteria doors. Kyle's eyes followed him while the students resumed their loud chatter. He only hesitated a moment before deciding to open his mouth.

"Hey, Butters! What are you doing after school?"

The blonde turned around, and his smile put the Cheshire cat to shame.

"When I was a kid, I used to dress up as Professor Chaos. That was my made-up super villain name, you know. Why, I'd wreak havoc in all unsuspecting souls of the world in my head. Especially that no-good, fat asshole," he told Kyle as he procured a box out from under his bed. He opened it and revealed shiny, wrinkled clothing inside.

Kyle raised an eyebrow, trying his best not to smile in a way that might make Butters kick him out. "So... you dressed up in tinfoil and ran around pretending to be a bad guy?"

Butters pouted and looked at the ground. "Well, yeah, pretty much. I guess," he murmured in a too-quiet voice. "But that's not the point!" He stood up and began to throw the child's costume aside, digging out decade-old toys, stickers, and magazine cut-outs out of the box. Kyle wondered if Butters was nostalgic at all looking through this. "The point is - the point is I wanted revenge. Revenge for my parents and the guys at school and especially..." he took out a crude crayon drawing of Cartman's eight year old self littered with black scribbles, angry eyebrows, and a tooth missing. "Especially him. Why, he'd do all kinds of atrocities to me, you know. Fucker even put shit under my nose once or twice."

Kyle bit his lip at the bitter laugh that came out of Butters. The unruly hair, the chaotic and unmatched clothing in blacks and blues and pinks, the occasional piercings that would be taken out within a week and clashed so horribly with Butters' youthful face. It was odd, his eccentricities so out of place yet ignored by him as a whole as they showed up.

It certainly put into perspective the passage of time that had occurred at some point in Kyle's life. And perhaps the fact that he had developed such a strong bias towards Cartman, an acute paranoia as a method of self-defense. How the rest of the student body succumbed to either apathy or drama and Kyle... Kyle what? He certainly wasn't apathetic like Stan, who for the most part couldn't be bothered with the actions or opinions of his peers. Teenage years had taught him to ignore that. Maybe that made Stan the more mature of the two.

Kyle was certainly not dramatic, though. In fact, he tried his best to be excluded from the limelight and turned a blind eye to any news that reached him. He felt no interest in dealing with the problems of others. He was content - in a matter of speaking - in dealing with his own problems and nothing more. He preferred to blend into the walls and watch as people talked about what so-and-so was wearing and laughed about who puked the most at last week's party. If somebody - a nice girl, for example - acknowledged him, he'd do his best to accommodate them and become a social butterfly for their benefit.

Then he'd get dumped for complaining about the boy who had given him AIDS once upon a time.

He watched Butters unearthing old plans for world domination and explaining the details he remembered from his childhood in a voice that suggested they had future potential. Kyle listened but the words blended together. He smiled and watched a single strand of blond hair flying in and out of Butters' direct line of sight, being flicked in and out of his face by pale hands littered with random odd scratches.

Butters was also disconnected from everyone, though probably not in the same way. Of course he didn't care about others - or maybe he did, Kyle wouldn't know - but he didn't seem to acknowledge them in the slightest. They'd whisper around him and avoid him when he crossed their path. Not because he was the unpopular and naive boy from their elementary school days, but because he was the weird boy who was very clearly fucked up and had a home life and physical appearance as superficial evidence to prove it.

He went through his days reacting to everything in its purest form. When something was frustrating or didn't go as planned, he'd scream and storm out in a rage. Kyle had seen it more than once when he'd shared a class with him. When they'd watched The Pianist in class, he'd sobbed openly and locked himself in a bathroom stall for an hour. He'd talk at a million miles per hour when he was excited, gesturing wildly and pacing in place or bouncing in his seat. Sort of like he was doing right now. It was the reason why he'd been dubbed a psycho within the halls of South Park High.

It was as if he was untainted by the need to control the monsters within him. As if he'd never been taught, never learned how to let go off an abstract sort of purity he alone was able to maintain from childhood. Maybe Kyle envied him. He bit his lip and instinctively tried to beat down something threatening to spill from his chest, from his throat and eyes and soul. Yes, it was envy. And perhaps admiration.

Kyle leaned towards Butters, left hand on the rim of the cardboard box the blond had made such a mess of. Butters could feel the other boy's breath on his face, and his eyes widened. Kyle's hand reached towards Butters' face and grabbed the offending strand of hair, entwining it into the more stable strands above it, too short to tuck into the other's ear. His hand lingered in the wonderfully silky locks of hair for a second before he let go.

"So I figure we've got about eighteen months left of high school. How about we take your world domination idea and put it to good use, huh?

Stan stood leaning against the door frame, surveying Kyle as he scribbled frantically on a piece of paper. "So I hear you've been hanging out with Butters a lot lately," he began, nonchalantly.

The redhead didn't look up from his task, nor did he pause. "Yeah. So?"

"I really don't think you should go there. I know you feel - I don't know, elated or whatever it might be talking shit about Cartman all day and planning out his demise and all, but you should just leave it alone. Butters is fucking messed up, dude, and I hear his dad's been hitting the gay bars again."

Kyle shook his head, finally looking at Stan. "See, it's people like you that let people like Cartman get away with the shit he does. If you were a little more proactive like Butters, then maybe Cartman'd be locked up in a mental hospital where he belongs right now or dead with his balls crushed!"

Stan blinked. "Why are you yelling?"

"Yelling? YELLING?!" Kyle scoffed and looked back down, putting pencil to paper again.

Stan stared at Kyle incredulously. "You know what? Fine. I give up. Don't say I didn't warn you." And he walked out again.

"Why are you late?"

"She got in the car. And she wouldn't go anywhere."

"Who?"

"My mom."

"Oh."

"She got in the car, and she started it. Then she turned it off. Then she started it again. I told her I'd walk, but she told me not to go then she didn't say anything. So eventually I just got out and left."

"That's fucked up."

"So they say."

"..."

"Hey, Butters?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you care what others think about you"

"Well... yeah."

"Oh?"

"Why?"

"It's just... you always act like you don't."

"I don't have to numb myself to survive, do I?"

"..."

"Hey, Butters?"

"Yeah?"

"I kind of wish I were you sometimes."

"The feeling's mutual."

"AY, WHO THE HELL DID THIS?!"

Cartman punched the locker next to his and eyed the hallway menacingly as the students pointed and laughed. Butt plugs; spilling out of his locker, spilling out into the hall, spilling out covered in a sticky white substance. Kyle and Butters laughed the loudest, and Stan eyed the two suspiciously.

"Dude...?"

"It's - it's hair gel!" Kyle managed to sputter through a stitch in his side as Butters' shrieking laughter echoed off the walls, resonating unnaturally yet melodiously.

Stan rolled his eyes. "It's just a prank. You didn't do anything. Seriously, Kyle. Grow up."

Kyle smiled mischievously and grabbed Stan's beanie, pulling it off his head and waving it around in his face. "I don't want to." And he laughed harder, leaned on Butters for support though the blond himself was having trouble keeping his balance.

"You know there are cults who claim that Sirius is a planet?" Butters said, tracing random selections of stars with his fingers, lacking knowledge of constellations and instead connecting the brightest dots of light in the sky with each other.

"I thought they believed it was a planet orbiting Sirius. The Y2K cult?" Kyle asked, tapping an unfamiliar tune on the roof of the car. Emphasized, a louder beat, whenever the other boy's finger changed direction.

"Nah, that's something else. This cult also thinks that there are dolphins and whales living on planet Sirius because that's where they come from."

"No shit?"

"No shit."

Kyle laughed, a deep laughter coming from his throat and chest and invading him. He'd become accustomed to the feeling. They sat in silence as Kyle's cell phone kept ringing. It sat unanswered, yet again, providing background noise to the otherwise still night.

"You know, this is kind of cliché," the blond said, pausing in his doodle and looking to his right at the redhead. "The stars and the car roof and all that shit. You'd think you were trying to woo me, you skilled Jew, you."

Kyle sat up, placed a hand on either side of Butters' head in a single, spontaneous move. "Well, what if I am? Nothing you can do to beat a Jew to make a profit."

Neither knew which smile had infected the other, but they were both looking at each other with identical ridiculous grins on their faces. "Oh, so now I'm profit?"

"Sure are."

Silence fell down upon them again. The difference, though, was that the two were now in quite a compromising position, faces within inches of each other, nothing but the silent Friday stillness to watch their exchange take place. The two seemed frozen, no tapping of tunes or numbering of stars. Just two unsteady sets of breathing lungs, inhaling each other and exhaling God knows what.

Butters closed his eyes. Inhaled, did not exhale. Kyle leaned down, his breath hot on the blond's face, closer still. Then he paused, let out a shaky breath. Butters opened his eyes, half-lidded.

"What's wrong?"

"I feel... I can't do this." The hurt look on Butters' face was too much to bear, so he looked away.

"Why not?"

"I feel as if I'd, I don't know, be taking advantage of you, I guess," he finished sheepishly, his eyes pirouetting between Butters' own and the rest of Butters' face in an attempt to avoid what eye contact he could.

"Okay." He paused, waited until Kyle met his gaze and held it there when it came. "I guess I'll do it for you, if I have to."

Kyle felt their lips touch, and he was breathless.

"You killed his cat!" Stan exclaimed, gesturing wildly as Kyle finished gathering his books for class.

Kyle rolled his eyes. "Oh, relax. It was just an accident. It wasn't like we meant to kill it."

"Relax? Kyle, You killed his cat!" He slammed his locker shut and began heading to first period English. Stan followed close behind.

"It was old anyways. Poor thing should've been put down years ago."

"Kyle, he's - he's - he's destroying you!"

Kyle stopped, let Stan bump into his back from the sudden nature of it. He turned around and glared holes into him. "I've never felt more alive in my life. He's not destroying me. He's creating something better."

"He's fucking nuts! He's so - so extreme!"

"Well, maybe I am too, Stan! And maybe it's better not to lock it up, okay?!"

Stan watched his friend walk away, and he couldn't help but feel a horrible pain inside his chest.

"It wasn't your fault, you know."

"Butters?"

"Yeah?"

"It h-h-hurts."

"Isn't that a good thing?"

"I d-don't know."

Stan knocked softly on the door, opened it and listened to the creak it made as it spilled light into the dark bedroom. He turned on the lamp on Kyle's desk and bit his lip when he saw the lump that was Kyle, smothered by the covers as if cocooning himself into something that'd escape from the world. "Kyle?"

No answer.

"Kyle, wake up. You haven't gone to school in two weeks. And we need to talk."

"Fuck off," answered a muffled voice from under the blankets. Stan pulled them off and Kyle squinted at the light from the lamp. He had a light stubble growing from his chin, his eyes were bloodshot and had bags underneath them. The raven-haired boy sat down on the desk chair, pulled it close to the bed. "We need to talk," he repeated.

Kyle shook his head, shutting his eyes tightly. Silence fell between them.

"...it wasn't your fault, you know." Kyle opened his eyes wearily and looked at his friend, daring him to go on with an expression that evoked pity. Stan continued. "You were just pissing him off. You couldn't have known that there'd be a truck coming at that very moment. You couldn't have known that he'd be stupid enough to dash out into the street like that." Kyle was silent. "You never even cared about Cartman, so why start now? You wished death on him so many times, this was certainly not an answer to your wishes. That'd be kind of delayed, don't you think?"

Kyle gulped and shook his head. "I've... I've been crying. For days. I can't stop. I didn't even cry when my grandma died last year. Nothing. I couldn't." He sat up in bed, wincing at the vertigo that overcame him. "I didn't want this. I wanted to feel, I wanted to let it out and not choke on it but I never wanted this! I'll start crying and I just think as each sob comes. I think about Cartman and how fucked up I am and his dumb cat! There's no reason to it, no thinking in circles until my brain exhausts! It's all just there and solving nothing and getting me nowhere! There's just - this!" And he held out his arms, scabbed and curved scars in sets of five, clearly created in desperation at skin that wanted to be penetrated, wanted to be infiltrated until the purest pain was reached and dealt with.

Stan's breath hitched. He shook his head and gave a sad smile. "Kyle. You're really smart, you know that? But you've got the emotional maturity of a five year old."

Kyle stared at him as if the he had just betrayed him in the worst of ways. "I can't take this."

"Stop feeling sorry for yourself, of course you can."

"No! I can't!"

"It'll get better -"

"HOW DO YOU KNOW?!"

"KYLE!!" The redhead, breathing heavily and shaking all over, quieted. "I promise."

Kyle didn't know what to do. The overwhelming pressure weighing down on his chest was suffocating him, and he looked wildly around the room. He caught sight of a pair of wide blue eyes on the brink of tears standing in the still-open doorway, piercing him and asking for a different door through which to enter. Kyle sobbed openly and collapsed into Stan's welcoming arms.

"Apparently Kenny let slip to Red that I like dick."

"And?"

"Well, if Red knows, the whole school knows, doesn't it?"

"...do you care? Does it bother you?"

"If I didn't care I'd be numb, wouldn't I?"

"..."

Oh God, this started out as a funny fic. A FUNNY FIC. With rainbows and ponies and the laughter of children. It started with that first paragraph. A light-hearted story about Kyle getting dumped by girls because he complained about Cartman and which sentiments Butters shared. The fact that it turned into this somehow kind of stumped me for a bit. Oh well, turned out much better than I thought it would. And it took literally the whole night, at that. Review then, I suppose? Pretty please with a cherry on top!