The Life of the Almighty Bunghole

by Ghoullly

The childhoods of Beavis and Butthead were shrouded in the darkness of mystery, barely anything known about themselves let alone their family. Beavis will help shed some light as he tells you every little detail of their childhoods, sharing the things that were never mentioned onscreen! OOC in the beginning, but they become more in character as the story progresses.

Greetings, bungholes! I'd just like to start off by saying this is REALLY OOC, basically due to my inability to write "dumbed down" (ex.: "Heh heh heh heh m heh, so like, my name's Beavis and stuff."), but don't worry, only the beginning is complicated vocab. I wish I could, but when writing a fanfiction in the POV of a buttmunch like Beavis… that'd be way too incomprehensible and confusing, so I'll save both mine and your time by writing it normal.

There are two types of B&B fans—ones that don't mind a little out-of-character-ness, and then others that want the hardcore stuff as if it was a real episode. If you are the latter, you most likely won't like this. Although, bits of the music videos and such where parts of their pasts were revealed, from episodes, and from the Ensucklopedia are in here. I did my research, so this won't be 100% out of character … just about 60%. It's more OOC at the beginning but then dwindles down. Any ignorant comments will be deleted, but I absolutely will accept negative criticism if it is civil. However keep in mind that I have, multiple times, warned you that this is out of character, so no comments should be about that.

Depending how this story does, I might do another that focuses more on his schizophrenia and how he dealt and coped, rather than just his childhood.

(Those of you wondering about my Clockwork Orange fanfic, I'm at a block. Don't worry, I'm hoping this fanfiction here will somehow break it so I can continue.)

But forget my rambling. I hope those of you still reading enjoy it! Beavis and Butthead are licensed characters of the genius Mike Judge.

…

"There comes a time when the mind takes a higher plane of knowledge but can never prove how it got there."

I'm pretty sure a famous scientist said that.

My name's Beavis. Yeah, yeah, I'll just let you sit there in shock for a second at how smart I sound right now. What? You say. But you're that blond kid whose mind is always somewhere else and whose focus is always off, the decisions he makes judged only by whether or not his other half deems it good or bad. I am. I won't lie. And I can tell you that I'm not really an idiot.

It's already been made clear to you that I have schizophrenia. I've had it my entire life, the mad, whispering voices hidden inside my barely-empty skull acting as the soundtrack to my dysfunctional life. Ever since I was able to understand English, I've been haunted by them. I was put on mild antipsychotics when I was three since I had the childhood-onset kind, but they didn't help. I am still sluggish and hypersensitive and depressed. They are my cortex and I am merely their puppet shell.

But around the eighth grade, I realized that I am a part of them just as much as they are a part of me, meaning that I could harness them and get them to do what I want them to do. So, while Butthead and I were busy slapping each other with rulers and books the past couple years, I was controlling the voices. In place of them, I was absorbing information that the teachers were spewing, locking it all in before it could leave. Now, I am a junior with a complex memory, rightfully belonging in a gifted class but am not due to underestimation. Most of our reports are oral, and it's unfortunate, because for some reason my true, intelligent words can only be spoken through my hands. I can write – just like I am now – but it's as if there's a barricade between my voice box and mind. So, to everyone including Butthead, I am an idiot who is stealing oxygen from every other person on Earth who actually has a chance and isn't going to work at a fast food joint the rest of their life. Don't worry, though, I won't talk *this* smart this entire time, just so you can keep your image of me as a dummy. I don't mind it; I'm used to it.

Tell me: as you've watched me for the past twenty years (yes, I am aware that I am trapped in a loop, but mind that), have you wondered about what my childhood was like? Did you wonder where my parents were and what kind of parents they are, letting their son tear up their house just to kill a mere fly? I'd love to tell you. I haven't told anybody, ever. Butthead already knows because we practically share the same life. But anyways, I should probably begin with our parents.

…

My mama's name is Pamela and Butthead's mom is named Lydia. Our dad? We don't know his name. We only ever were around him when we were months old, so any memories we have of him were lost.

I know for sure that my mom was a popular girl – a cheerleader, with poofy, long blonde hair that fell at her calves and large curves, but always managed to get herself into trouble. That's why all the guys swooned over her – she was a sexy daredevil (I say that from their point of view; it most certainly isn't mine). She was best friends with Lydia, who was just about her opposite. She was a "nerd" (in seventies standards) who was always beat up, but she had the biggest crush on our dad, whom was a jock. Due to being a cheerleader, my mom knew him well and always laughed at Lydia, mocking her how she would never get even the attention of him. Lydia normally agreed but still had high hopes anyway.

Then one day when Lydia was going through her usual routine of being shoved against a locker and robbed of all the money in her wallet (since she was too tomboy-ish to carry a purse), our dad came up and scared them away, asking her if she was okay. Upon making eye contact, there was immediately a spark. Long story short, Lydia graduated as valedictorian, Mom and Dad graduated normally, and Lydia and Dad got married soon thereafter and moved into the house that Butthead and I live in now. It wasn't a dump then.

They were a fresh couple, eager to begin living the American Dream. Dad worked at a Burger World branch for a while and Lydia found a job at a doctor's office, working as a nurse. Both of them were nice enough to let my mom live with them until she was able to get a place of her own. Since she was such a delinquent, her parents threw a, "yay-you-graduated-now-get-the-hell-out-of-our-house" party and kicked her to the curb as soon as it was over. Like a puppy thrown in the rain, she wandered to Dad and Lydia.

Once they had a good amount of money under their belt, Lydia became pregnant. They both were thrilled and went out of their way in the first month or two to buy everything needed.

Honestly, if Mom wasn't there, Butthead would've had an awesome name and life.

Sometime around the third month, Lydia was out until real late, paying bills and having dinner with a couple friends. When she came home, she went upstairs to see Dad (who was complaining of a headache earlier that day and insisted that he take a rain check on that day's activities) and indeed did find him – only it was in bed with my mom. Naturally, Lydia freaked out and screamed at him to leave and never come back, breaking down so much until she was on the floor in a heap, bawling her eyes out. Dad supposedly tried to explain himself but Lydia wouldn't allow it, just wanting him to leave. After trying to reason her so many times, he did leave, and didn't come back. As for Mama: I guess she laid in bed for a long time while Lydia cried, until finally awkwardly dressing herself and leaving to drink herself to sleep at a bar down the road.

I hate it when I remember that part. It's just so… awkward. Everything was awkward until I was born. I only know all of this because I eavesdropped on Lydia when I was really little, sitting outside of my classroom during a parent-teacher conference. Her and my teacher were good friends in high school, but hadn't talked since graduation. The teacher commented how much Butthead looked like our dad and I guess it just went from there.

A month after Dad left (and the fourth month of Lydia's pregnancy), my mom admitted that she was pregnant with me. Lydia swallowed hard, forced a smile, and then just got up and went to her room. I don't know what she did there, but I'm sure she cried. She was really depressed after Dad left. She also had to quit her job at the doctor's office.

Pregnant or not, my mom liked to drink. Like, really liked to drink. According to Lydia, she would go down to that same bar and get a hangover, that mixing together with morning sickness. Those two things should never mix, but they sadly did.

You know how I said before that Mama was a delinquent? She was really into drugs. Specifically pot, cocaine, and a little methamphetamine. I didn't stop her from doing the things she loved (even after I was born I didn't). So she smoked and snorted and injected everything, deforming me ever so slowly. Lydia's depression worsened to the point where she eventually began to drink too, occasionally sharing Pamela's drugs. They'd often do everything together before they were caught in that giant love triangle, and they did everything together during their pregnancies, too. Both Butthead and I were doomed with at least Fetal Alcohol Syndrome.

After being tortured for five more months, Butthead was born on October 5th. Lydia named him a crude name out of disgust, and told him how much she hated him and how she wished he didn't make it as soon as they were left alone, but gave into him when he didn't act any different at all. Apparently, he's always been really level-headed.

I was born a couple weeks later on the 28th. I was premature by three months, really tiny and light. My skin didn't really fit my face, no hair, and I had a really disfigured jaw (which I was supposed to grow into, but obviously never did). Lydia and Butthead were with my mom when she was told that I probably was going to die. Lydia burst into tears, Butthead started to cry because his mom was crying, and Mama just kinda went, "Oh really." She didn't care as much, just wanting to drink again and leave the anti-alcohol hospital, presumably happiest if I were to die. I was just going to be a nuisance to her for the next eighteen years; why not stop that before it even started?

So, they put me into a unit and hoped for the best. Sure enough, by the middle of December, I was alive and healthy, with golden little curls and regular-fitting skin, but still had a messed up jaw. Since Mama was hungover again, Lydia took me home.

Upon the moment I was able to open my eyes and see a brunette woman with a little bit of water weight still left holding somebody my size in her arms, I was thrilled. I hadn't even came face to face with the little person she was holding and I already loved it. When Butthead and I were actually introduced, I took in his squinty eyes and chubby body, us being nothing alike. He didn't seem to mind me too much, but didn't cry out in happiness like I did. He just stared.

Until I learned English and could talk a little, I would scream and cry whenever we were separated. By then he had warmed up to me a bit, but he always seemed a little aggravated when he was put next to me. Innocent I always smiled a gummy smile upon the mentioning of his name. He was a person my size and I loved that person more than I loved anything else.

Lydia basically raised me. As far as I was convinced, the one who would get me up every morning, love me and take care of me, and then put me to bed was my mom. Around my third birthday was when I realized that Pamela was really my mother, since we had the same hair and I shared no features with Lydia. Mom never really lost her water weight, even gaining more on top of it, and cut her hair really short, somehow resulting in a pompadour very similar to mine. Lydia, on the other hand, had the same body type Mama had in high school. She looked really young, with straight hair that came to her shoulder blades. She was also really cool, when my mom just brought home men (when Butthead and I questioned her about it, she said they were my cousins, since we didn't know she slept around with them). "Auntie Lydia" will always be more of a mother to me than mine ever was.

…

I can recall memories as far back as my first birthday. Nothing much happened when I was really little- my average day was to play with Butthead, maybe leave the house for a little while, and then come home. Half the time, I was asleep. If my first two years were a painting, it would be a monochrome picture of my family of three (not including Mama). Now from my third year on… it was as if every inch of it was splattered with multicolor paint.

Around the age of three was when I was becoming aware of my surroundings and I hadn't learnt how to harness the voices. Butthead was much warmer to the idea of having me around, too. The first vivid day I remember was sometime in May, when Lydia was pacing next to the bulletin board we have, on the phone. Butthead was in the living room in front of the TV (I was there, too, but had gotten up out of curiosity) and Mom was out 'working'. She was a prostitute then, too.

When she saw me standing in the doorway, looking up at her with big confused eyes, she did a double take.

"Uh—hold on just a minute." She said into the phone, cupping the bottom of it and holding it to her right side, away from me. "What's up, B?"

"Why are you so nervous?" I asked, my habit of laughing at everything not developed just yet. She glanced over at the phone with an open mouth, a weird 'uhhh' sound escaping her throat. Then she smiled an obviously-fake smile and rubbed the top of my head, my pompadour remaining the same shape after she was done.

"I'm okay. Just go back and watch TV." She looked back at the phone and raised it to her ear again, opening her mouth to speak, but saw me out of her peripheral vision and turned to me, not looking so cool now. "Beavis." She said firmly as if to tell me she wasn't kidding around now. I grew afraid of that and scrambled back into the living room with a squeal, throwing myself next to Butthead, my fear gone and a smirk on my face by the time I grew still.

He had barely moved his head away from our little sixties television in the time I was gone. I frowned that he didn't look in my direction and nudged him.

"What?" he asked, scowling and scrunching his eyebrows, which is something he still does. He still hadn't looked at me. I nudged him some more, faster and faster, until his ears turned red of anger and he turned his head to me, opening his palm and bringing them down face up, his fingers curled around invisible balls (heh heh m heh).

"Dammit, Beavis, what?" Immediately upon speaking, he clamped his hand over his mouth with wide eyes. My eyes were wide, too; 'our' mom didn't like it when we cussed and normally made us sit on the bathroom counter with a bar of soap in our mouth. (Of course, now we could care less about what we say.) We both turned to look at Lydia, who had looked over at us with raised eyebrows at Butthead and a disgusted look on her face while she talked, but didn't dare leave the landline. Instead of letting the phone dangle from the wall while she smacked us in our butts 'cause "that's where her mom used to hit her and if hit the right way could leave a lasting sting on both your memory and your rear", she just looked her son over and turned her back again. Both of us were really surprised at that. Something must've been really wrong.

"Woah, you really lucked out there—" I began.

"—Shhhhh…" Butthead put his index finger to his lips, which even then masked a set of braces, and turned back to the TV to continue watching a new episode of Spiderman that was on. I sat there and watched it with him for a while, but I was a jittery kid who was unable to keep still, and I nudged him some more.

"Do you wanna go play?" My then high-pitched-but-still-raspy voice rang out, smiling at him.

My smile went away when he groaned and rolled his eyes at me, turning his body entirely to face me. "No. I don't. I just want to stay here and watch TV, and that's all I'm gonna do." He didn't look back yet; he was looking at me until I answered so he wouldn't have to waste time by looking back at the television and have me speak again.

Normally, he would give in and stop whatever he was doing to play with me. And by play, I mean old-school play with action figures and play pretend (although doing that wasn't his favorite; he'd much rather sit and play with super hero figures than act like one. Even as a kid, my mind was vivid and imaginative). He caught me in a state of shock, and I looked at my knees in speechlessness. If he denied my offer, he was usually nice about it. After a couple seconds – which felt like minutes to me – I swallowed hard and nodded, trudging out of the living room, crossing through the kitchen. When I walked past Lydia, she swung her hand around my shoulder and pulled me into her side, rubbing my head a little while she squished me against her leg, as if giving me a hug.

"Pam-… Pamela. Just calm down for a second." When she let me go, I found myself suddenly very nervous. Why was my mom upset? Lydia had taken the arm that was wrapped around me and rested it on her hip, leaning against the wall with a look of exhaustion and frustration. I found my way to my room and got under the covers, deciding to sleep the day off to make it end quicker. I didn't enjoy not having somebody by my side. I closed my eyes and wrapped my fingers around the fleece blanket that I slept with under the covers (since it made a good pillow and was warmer if you hugged it instead), blowing out a big sigh. My head swirled with the things I had overheard Lydia saying, but it was what made me fall asleep for a couple of hours.

I said that day was the first 'vivid' one I ever had. To you, it might seem fairly normal. It was in the beginning, but it was really confusing me the second half and changed my life.

I was happily asleep at 9:08 (yes, I remember the exact time) when Mom practically fell through my then-closed bedroom door, doubled over with blood shot eyes, wobbly balance, and a burning cigarette in her mouth.

"You… you little shit…!" She slurred, stumbling over to me and falling to her knees next to my bed, trying to pull the covers off of my tiny frame with weak effort.

The sound of her body hitting my door woke me up, so I was sitting awake yet groggy when she actually managed to twist the doorknob. "What…?" I moved away from her, startled by her strange actions and glare that she was giving me.

"Who the hell…" she brought her right arm up over the side of the bed and pressed her palm on the top, helping her stand, "did you tell…" she fell forward onto the mattress, her chin slamming on it, but crawled toward me as I inched away terrified, "that Lydia and I were prostitutes…?" I was trapped in the corner where my bed met my wall and Mom was right in front of me, leaning over me.

"Mama! I didn't tell anyone! I promise!" I brought my hands up to my chest and balled them in fists, hugging my elbows to my ribcages. She looked really angry and I had never seen her like that in her drunken state. She was just normally all stupid when she was drunk.

"Bullshit!" she screamed right in my face, and I shrunk down and began to cry. While my eyes were closed, she took her cigarette out of her mouth and pressed it hard onto my forearm. I jolted my eyelids back open and screamed, struggling, but I was pinned to the wall by my right shoulder. There was a shoulder touching each wall with a big gap where the corner was behind my spine. I tilted my head back and tried to hide it in the corner as much as I could, but all it did for me was cause Mom to take the cigarette off my arm and hold it onto where my Adam's apple would eventually bulge.

I flailed, screaming for Butthead, since Lydia was at work and he was the only one who could save me. But he didn't come.

"Mama, stop! You're hurting me!" I cried out in pain as her cigarette felt like it was burning a hole through my skin. My entire body felt like it was on fire as I tried to escape her strong grip, but my fragile bones weren't enough even for her drunken stupor. She was pushing really hard on my shoulder and had her forehead shoved against mine, a borderline-psychotic look washed across her face.

"You probably should've thought about what would come for you before you went and told your aunt's big mouth friend that your aunt and I have sex for money! Now she's demanding a crap ton of money from the both of us or she'll turn us into the police! Just because we bring you to lunches and shit with us doesn't mean you have to tell everyone what we do!" I honestly didn't know what I had done; I legit didn't remember saying anything to any of the ladies at this lunch Lydia was invited and forced to bring us to. But then again, I did have an innocent tendency to introduce myself, then my family, and share what we all liked. Something most likely slipped, but I wasn't about to admit it.

She put her cigarette back in her mouth and I felt relief, stopping my struggling to breathe for a minute. I wasn't offered it long, though, because Mom clamped her hand around my neck and pressed me deep into the corner. My vision was blurred by my tears and my throat had run dry, although I could hear my whining and cries of fear and pain through my clogged ears.

Mama's voice got quieter and she leveled her eyes with mine. "Don't you ever bring up our jobs, ever." Slowly, she brought her face close to mine, tiny sobs escaping my lips. She spoke in slow tones. "Do you understand?" There was a lot of emphasis on the 'd' at the end of her sentence. I frantically nodded, my face stained with salt.

"Yes, M-Mama… now stop, please…" I said as sweetly as I could to get her to leave. Hesitantly, I tried to wrap my short little arms around her, hugging her tightly, just wanting her to laugh and tell me that she loved me. Just once. I never really did hear her say it.

Instead, she ripped me off of her and slammed me against the wall, my head hitting pretty good. I was kind of confused and lost for a couple of seconds from the blow, but I was brought back into reality when I felt Mom bring her hand down in the shape of a fist and punch me in the stomach. I grunted and screamed, her punches getting harder and hitting me in random places. Helpless, I curled up as tightly in that corner as I could and took my punishment, the pain getting so bad to the point where my body was beginning to go numb.

"I don't think you do!" Her voice was so loud and so hoarse from all the yelling that it was cracking. She continued to hit me, at one point digging her nails into my wrist and making it bleed.

"I do! I do! Stop, please! Mama!" This continued for about five more minutes until she finally stopped, giving me space and getting off my bed, wiping my blood on her legs (apparently, she was so drunk she thought she was wearing pants instead of her usual daisy dukes that she really shouldn't have been wearing).

"That'll teach you, little punk." Mom grunted and walked out, leaving the door wide open. Afraid and in pain, I brought myself to limp to the bathroom and look in the mirror that was on the back of the door.

My entire body was covered in bruises, with long ones in rows on my neck where she had choked me. My wrist was dripping blood and my usually-poofy hair was now a matted mess from where she had caught her fingers in it and smashed my head against the wall. Lastly, my bottom lip was busted open and was gushing blood, and my right eye had a giant purple ring around it.

I looked pitiful. Upon looking at myself I began to bawl, falling to my knees that hurt me badly when the caps hit the hard tile. I hunched my body over as if protecting myself from a tornado, but put my head in my hands instead of vice versa. Then I just laid there, silently hyperventilating myself to near unconsciousness. My brain was trying to understand why Mama had just beaten me to a pulp, but it couldn't register anything. Once I was close to passing out, I used the counter to help me stand up and I wobbled to Butthead's room, slowly pushing his door open just enough so I could peek my face in.

Dim light crept in through the crack (heh heh) and widened the deeper it got into the room, illuminating Butthead's chubby wide-eyed face. He was sitting up straight in his bed and was looking at the door in shock before I even walked in. He had heard my cries for mercy and my screams for help. He just was too frozen in fear to do anything.

I opened the door a little bit more and squeezed my anorexic body through, shutting the door after I had walked in. My eyes hadn't adjusted to the dark yet, but I could still see the gloss of his, the pale moonlight glinting off of them from where they shone in through slits in the blinds.

"Can I sit in here with you until your mom gets home?" My voice sounded squeaky and helpless, even to myself.

Butthead just stared at me a while, giving me the same look he had when he had seen my beaten body for the first time. I just barely heard him go "Yeah." as he moved over in his bed, offering me a spot next to him. I walked over like a puppy with its tail between its legs and just sat next to him with my legs crossed, and I awkwardly began to play with my toes, unsure what to do. I didn't want to draw much attention to myself; I was never much of an attention seeker.

Of course, the stuff that happened to me that night was nothing compared to the things Butthead would do to me in the future (denting the back of my head with a baseball bat, holding a chainsaw inches away from my face while I hung on a meat hook, etc.), but we were only… what, three? Besides, Butthead abused me when I was a teenager, not when I was still really fragile having not developed stronger bones and all that crap.

He was still gazing at me – not nonchalantly either – and I didn't enjoy that.

"Stop." I managed to blurt out.

"Stop what?"

"Staring at me."

"I'm not staring at you."

I turned my head and put my tongue in my cheek, glaring at him in disbelief. Worse for him, I had turned and caught him in the act. He sheepishly looked down at his knees and looked straight ahead.

"Sorry." He mumbled. I didn't accept his apology and continued to mess with my toes.

On both of my feet, I have "Roman toes". I just thought I'd share that for whatever reason.

We sat in the crisp darkness in silence for a while, both of us just looking right in front at the bare wall, which appeared almost blue from the lighting in the room. Butthead tried his best not to glance over at me in the corner of his eye and look at my split lip (that was dripping blood all over my clothes) and the round red mark that lingered on my arm (which was still burning like hell). As for me, I tried my best to pretend to not catch his wandering eyes.

After a while, he couldn't help himself. "What did she do?" Butthead was sitting cross-legged now too, leaning over a little with an elbow in each palm. He opened his mouth and breathed in as if he was going to say something else, but he quickly shut it and focused on a welt that sat just above my knee.

"Ummm…" I began shyly, covering the welt with my hand, not sure if I should say in fear that Mom would hit me again. But when I looked up and saw his concerned face, I decided that Lydia would probably tell him anyway since they were so close and I opened up a little. "She just woke me up and screamed at me for telling some lady that she and Auntie have sex for money, and she beat me up," I shrugged my small shoulders. "I don't know. I don't remember saying anything to anybody."

"Well, did she seem drunk?" Butthead asked, his voice deeper than mine but not by much. His brunet hair wasn't slicked back like it normally was and was hanging in his face.

"Of course she did. Mama's always drunk."

"She probably just made it up as an excuse to hit you."

I made a tiny gasping sound in skepticism that he would say such a thing, but I knew he was probably right. Glancing over at the door, I started to think of how much it hurt when she choked me (my neck was extremely sore still) and the migraine that I had from cracking my head against the wall, and I hugged my knees, whimpering quietly. I could feel Butthead pat my arm since he didn't know what else to do, and he moved closer to me, not daring hug me. That's how we were sitting when I heard the familiar noise of tires over gravel that signaled that Lydia was home, and I swung my little legs over the side of the bed, jumping down and sticking my fingers in the tiny crack in the door, pushing it open. I peeked down the hall both ways to see if Mom was standing there with a belt or something, but her bedroom door was closed. I tiptoed down into the kitchen and planned on meeting her next to the front door, but I could already hear her crack her gum and the jingling of her keys. I sprinted through the doorway that separated the kitchen from the living room and ran into her legs, wrapping my arms around them.

"Beavis…? Shouldn't you be in bed?" She smelled heavily of perfume, which she didn't wear during the day. She was also wearing what my mom normally wore— daisy dukes with a bikini top that was just a little too small. Her full lips were painted with red and black eyeliner paired up with eye shadow of the same color.

"Yeah, but Mama woke me up." I didn't dare look at her just yet. My face was buried in her knees.

"Oh geez. Hold on, I'll put you back to bed." She lightly nudged me in the head to get me off of her and walked over to the kitchen counter, setting down a small over-the-shoulder purse. It wasn't the same one she carried during the day. Being an obedient kid, I stood in the same place patiently. Lydia hung her keys on a little rack that was next to an outlet and turned to me, her gum just about falling out of her mouth when her jaw hit the floor.

"Oh my God, what happened to you?!" She cried out, kneeling down in front of me and putting my chin in one of her hands. Her face was stricken with horror. Although I couldn't see him, the sound of Butthead's bare feet sticking to the cold floor was to my left. Lydia turned her head to see him, and I could just feel her eyes boring into his skull. We both knew exactly what she was thinking.

"I didn't do it!" Butthead panicked, holding his hands up in defense, "He said Pamela beat him up 'cause he slipped about you two being hookers!"

Lydia looked me right in the eyes, hers softened, wanting me to confirm. I swallowed and nodded, smiling at her, making my little grunt of a laugh that would eventually evolve into how I breathe.

"Heh heh, it really hurts."

Lydia scooped me up and set me on the kitchen countertop, making Butthead turn on the lights. I kicked my legs, my heels hitting cupboards below me as Lydia scavenged around in the freezer. She withdrew a couple of foggy plastic bags. She walked over to me and set them down, twisting her body to see Butthead, who was standing behind her.

"Go get me a bunch of dish towels and masking tape." She ordered him, and he went to go and get them, but then she grabbed his shirt. "No wait, just get towels. There's tape in this drawer here." Butthead ran away to get them and Lydia had me explain where everything hurt. The last thing I told her about was my migraine.

"Can you give me an aspirin?" I asked, pointing to the purse she had set down moments before. Her normal purse was like heaven. She had any kind of medicine you could imagine and little pieces of candy and a couple action figures for when we got bored at doctors' offices. She was the best.

"Uh, there's none in there." I was surprised to hear her say that and looked at the purse in confusion as she yelled for Butthead to grab that too. He came back down in about a minute, his arms completely full with towels. Standing in the middle of the kitchen, he brought his arms out from under them in a single sweeping motion, all of them falling to the floor, making this "humf" sound. Lydia glared at him jokingly while he laughed and picked one up, wrapping it around one of the frozen bags.

"Okay, bud. Where does it hurt the most?" She had the little pack held up, ready to put it down wherever I told her. I pointed to the welt-type thing by my knee and she set it down on top of it, reaching for the masking tape. The freezing cold stung my injury for a minute, but it soothed it shortly after. Lydia kept putting ice packs all over me until I was practically an ice cube with a couple Band-Aid's on my wrist. Except I was a happy ice cube, my wounds cared for. Butthead's mom decided that it would be best if I leave the packs on overnight and put me to bed, kissing my forehead. When she went to stand up straight, I saw her notice the corner I was beaten in. Lydia let out a big sigh and smiled sadly at me, leaving my door cracked when she left. With just that little light as a guide, I turned to look in the corner, wondering how she knew that's where I was abused.

The covers were stained with drops of blood, with a large amount sitting closest to my pillow. On the wall was a single, tiny, bloody handprint; a stain on my wall provided by my wrist in part, but a stain on my memory from my mother more than anything.

…

Being abused by my mama became a regular thing for me. And it was always when she was drunk. She discovered new ways to hurt me, too, such as making me stand under both blistering and freezing water, making me kneel on frozen peas (yes, really), and driving me into the middle of the desert and making me walk back onto the roads in bare feet (where she would then make me walk more until there were boils on my heels). Of course, I never willingly did these things like I did when Lydia made me go to the bathroom so I could eat soap as a punishment. If I refused, it would just mean the water would have to beat on me longer, or the peas would frostbite me deeper, or the blisters on my feet would be a little bigger. It was the worst thing ever, but once I was able to grasp that it was better to obey than to not, I fought her less. My skin got thicker and I got more of a resistance to heat and cold. I can thank my strength against Butthead's abuse to the sort of Stockholm syndrome I managed to develop.

By my seventh year, I wasn't as much my own person as much as I was Butthead's other half. After all those years of holding me and keeping me in his room until his mom got home, he grew really, really stubborn and cocky (heh heh heh m heh). Every time Lydia would clean up my wounds, she would never say anything to Mom the next morning. Every single time my mama would get off the hook, testing Lydia to see what more she could get away with. Nothing urged Lydia to turn her in, sadly. Perhaps that was because if Mom was taken to the police, she would rat my aunt out and then Butthead and I would be orphaned (although it didn't matter anyway). So, for her descendants' sakes, kind of, she didn't say anything. That made Butthead furious, so he would turn cold toward her at times.

The last couple days having Mom around were the same as usual, save for my aunt. The night before we were separated, we four went out to dinner at some local Italian place in celebration of Lydia getting a job as a receptionist at a pediatrician. It was a 24-hour office, so she would work at that place at night in place of her prostitution job. She was visibly really proud of herself, her smile a lot brighter and her walk a lot bouncier. Honestly, I think it was the happiest she was since she found out she was pregnant when Dad was still with her.

Butthead and I sat on one side of the table, sharing a chair, while Lydia and Mama sat on the other side. There was only three chairs since the place was always packed on Fridays, but we didn't mind only having one buttcheek on the seat if it meant they would buy us all the breadsticks we wanted (Butthead's idea. He always comes up with the best ideas!). So, we both sat there in our own little world, stuffing our faces with breadsticks as we giggled at the side conversations we were having.

The eighth grade might've been when I learned to make the voices listen for me, but for some reason, they were listening by themselves that night. I mindlessly used my peripheral vision and voices to eavesdrop on Mom and Lydia.

Mama grinned and twisted spaghetti onto her fork, holding it up to her mouth. "I'm telling you, Lyds, you're gonna miss it." When she finished talking, she ate the stuff on her fork and got more.

"Hell no, I won't!" Lydia snorted and rested her elbow on the table, reaching across and stealing one of our breadsticks. She opened her mouth to say something else, but Butthead put his hand on hers and pulled on it.

"Hey, you made a deal with us!" His face flared up with frustration, and he attempted to pry open her thumb and index to regain the bread that was rightfully his. He actually struggled hilariously serious, so of course I was laughing the whole time. Lydia chuckled and let go of it, letting Butthead have the breadstick which was now all squished from his fingers poking into it during the mini fight.

"Okay, dude, you can have it." She laughed, bringing her arm back to her side of the table, picking up her fork. Butthead tore into the breadstick like an animal, which I found funny, of course. Around that age, anything that I saw Butthead do was hilarious – they always have been to me, but that specific time was where they were the most.

"Are you absolutely sure? All the men love you; they always pick me up and ask how you're doing." Mom shoveled another forkful of stuff into her mouth. She loved to eat, explaining her plus size.

Lydia made that one scoff noise that meant 'oh, please' and shook her head. "Yes, I'm 100% sure. I'm tired of coming home smelling of the desperation and unfaithfulness of all those guys." When I had looked over at my mom to ask her something (which I couldn't remember), I saw Lydia glance down at her plate and glare over at Mama, practically purring, "It's funny how all the men that you wind up in bed with have already gone around once with me."

I'm pretty sure I gasped quietly. Neither of them had known that I listened to Lydia and my teacher talk, so I tried to look away but watch at the same time. Mama chuckled and looked down with her tongue in her cheek, squeezing her hand into a fist so hard that her knuckles were white.

"Do you really wanna visit that topic here? In public? In front of the boys?" Mom had her eyes squinted, focusing right on Lydia's, visibly aggravated. I could feel the conversations of those around us pause as all the people turned to watch the fight that was breaking out. I shrunk down in my seat, nervous. Lydia shrugged, her non-prostitute lips – which were pink – pursed together tauntingly.

"Dunno." Lydia hissed calmly, shrugging her shoulders, "We were on the topic of being sluts, so I just thought I'd remind you how much more of one you are than me."

"Guys." I blurted, getting the attention of both of them, but then immediately got anxiety silently because I would have to admit that I knew what they were talking about. They were frozen in the places they had moved last and their facial expressions were the same; only their eyes had flicked over to me. Lydia un-pursed her lips and must've put two and two together, finding out that I had heard everything. Blowing out a sigh, my aunt stabbed a lone mushroom on her plate.

"He's right. Let's just drop it." Lydia seemed eager to change the subject and began to immediately talk to Butthead about a Yankees game that was on the day before (we all were baseball freaks). He couldn't answer her right away because his mouth was full of breadsticks. Apparently, Mom caught my nervousness and must've put two and two together also, because she slammed her hands on the table and hovered over me over the entire thing.

"How the hell do you know what we're talking about?" she creeched, her thick Southern accent booming throughout the entire place. I could sense Butthead tense up next to me and I hunkered down even more, panicking.

I struggled to find words to answer her with, but I couldn't lie. I wasn't accustomed to that yet. "Mama, people are staring!" I cried out, which just drew us more attention. That technically wasn't a lie. I was growing really upset, my bottom lip quivering and my long, dirt-caked fingernails digging into Butthead's arm.

"You know everything, don't you, you little brat?" Mom hissed through her teeth, getting her face close to mine. I let out this quiet little whine, tears streaming down my face.

"Pamela." Lydia barked, yanking her shirt back and forcing her down in her seat. She then proceeded to chew Mom out about what kind of a mother she was and all that good stuff. In public. And we weren't even asked to leave. I quickly put my head down in my arms on the table. My family embarrassed me. The place around us was in total silence, all of them listening to two grown women fight with each other while their sons lingered across from them. Shouldn't it have been backwards; the mothers steaming with embarrassment as their kids made complete fools of themselves in front of at least a hundred people, who would go home and tell all of their friends about the idiots at dinner that night?

They proceeded to fight. I'm not sure if a waitress was hanging around our table, trying to decide whether or not to interfere, but I think there was because I heard Butthead order like, a fifth basket of breadsticks.

…

I knew what was coming for me when I got home. The moment we walked through the door Mama grabbed my right ear and dragged me upstairs into the bathroom. I had to sit in a tub full of blistering hot water for the longest time. My mom sat next to the tub with her fingers stuck in my hair, gripping it tightly, pulling a lot of it. I cried terribly hard while desperately trying to crawl out the side, but she kept shoving me back in. She never screamed at me about what I did wrong anymore. Abuse happened so often she just expected me to know what I did. A couple of times, she would take my head and dunk it underwater, holding it there for about ten seconds while I struggled.

The first time I was held underwater, I panicked even worse and breathed in through my nose, sucking in the boiling water. Still underwater, I choked, my nostrils and throat searing with pain. I was able to bring one of my hands up and claw Mama's arm, deep enough to the point where she howled and let go of me, reaching for it. I shot my head above water, somehow gasping for air and gagging on water at the same time. Since I was too indulged in trying to breathe, I couldn't see Mom reach for my head again and push it underwater so hard I smacked my head on the bottom of the tub. But I didn't struggle this time. Lingering on what little breath I had I went limp, figuring that would be best. By the time she actually took me out of there, my whole body was a bright red and I was exhausted. Then, she did the strangest thing – she dressed me (she didn't even give me a 'full bath' with soap, if that's what you'd call it) and put me to bed, holding me for a couple minutes before giving me a kiss and leaving.

How do you even transition from that?

I don't know. But I was eager to wake up and have Mom gone working, so I tried to pass out as fast as I could by blowing into my thumb, just like Butthead taught me.

…

That next morning, I was woken up by my mama, not by Lydia.

"Hey." She was shaking me awake with this big smile on her face. "Wanna go to IKEA?"

Lydia took me and Butthead there a couple times when we were about five. We liked to play hide and seek throughout the store by hiding in cabinets and all that, but once the person who was it wouldn't come and find you after about fifteen minutes you burst out of your hiding spot and searched for Lydia, only to find out that the other person was with her the whole time and they were looking for you because they thought they lost you. But I liked it nonetheless so of course I was on board.

I was confused as to why she insisted that Butthead and Lydia not come, but they had plans to go see Lydia's brother, who had come into town from Houston. I never met the rest of my family outside of the ones that I lived with, most likely because of my mom's delinquency. They didn't even want to be associated with her.

Once inside, Mom led me immediately to the beds, where there was barely anybody around.

"Guess where Mommy's going soon?" she practically cooed at me, holding my hand.

"Where?" I chirped, a happy little thing, especially when my mother was being nice to me and not using my skin to put out her cigarettes.

Mama grinned down at me, ruffling my hair. "Las Vegas. I'm gonna go with some biker friends of mine!"

"Really? Can I come? Can I, can I, can I, pl-eeeeeeease?"

She laughed and shook her head. "Sorry, Beavis. I wouldn't say that Las Vegas is for a boy your age." I frowned and looked at my feet, never really liking being far away from my mom, even though she hurt me. But if she told me to do something, I'd do it, no matter how I felt about it. At least while she was in Vegas, I would be with Lydia.

Mom made me stand next to a dresser as she took off all of the flashy decorative pillows that were resting on top of the comforter. I scrunched my eyebrows together.

"What are you doing, Mama?"

She pulled back the sheets and covers and turned to me, a smile plastered on her face. "You're gonna take a nap!"

My mouth undoubtedly formed an 'o'. "I am?" I marveled, walking closer to the bed, even climbing up on the edge, balancing on my knees.

"Yep!" she laughed, gesturing me to climb in. I crawled over to the pillows and stuck my feet under the blankets, and my mom covered me up the rest of the way. Then she sat on the end of the bed next to me and stroked my head, leading me to close my eyes.

"It's okay, Beavis… just close your eyes and go to sleep… everything will be okay…" Mom was leaning against me, whispering. I didn't know what she meant by the last part, but I didn't question her and did wind up falling asleep.

I woke up about five minutes later with my mom gone.

Naturally, I sat up and frantically looked around, whimpering. When a seven-year-old boy wakes up alone in the middle of an empty store, he won't think to get out of the bed he was sleeping in to look for somebody. He'll remain frozen, afraid of leaving the warmth of the quilt to venture out into the cold, open areas only to find that the store was endless and that he was alone, lost in the maze forever. He most certainly won't move if he has schizophrenia, because the voices in his head would bark at him to stay.

I hugged myself and cried, just sitting there, looking around the area to see if I saw anyone. Not even a worker. I did that for a while until I happened to look up and see a plus-sized blond woman cautiously float by the bedroom scene.

"Mommy, I found you!" I squealed in happiness, struggling to get the blankets off of me which were tangled around my legs. Mom rushed over to me and pushed on my forehead lightly, making me put down my head again. I frowned in confusion.

"Hey, babe…" she put her finger to her lips, "You gotta be quiet. I just left to look for something. Go back to sleep."

I laid down again, but propped my head up on the pillow and just sat there while my mom walked away. She walked past again with that same cautious look after about two minutes.

"Hi, Mama." I said calmly and quietly, just like she said, grinning tiredly at her.

"Hello, Beavis." Replied she in that same purring voice that she had a tendency to make whenever she thought she was being sweet.

The same thing happened about two more times until she stopped walking by me. It made me grow uneasy, but I just assumed that she was still looking for something and brushed it off. About a half hour later, she still wasn't back and I began to cry (because most seven-year-olds do that a lot). I laid there and I cried and cried until finally, a couple policemen and a tall, ginger woman wearing some sort of tight-fitting purple and blue floral dress walked up to me.

"Oh, you poor baby!" The woman cried out, collapsing next to me in a heap, throwing her arms around my neck and squeezing me really tight.

I just looked at the policemen in bewilderment, awkwardly hugging the woman back. The shorter, fatter policeman fixed his hat.

"Um… does your mother happen to be a blonde woman with hair such as yours… and is a bit, uh…" he began, glancing over to his partner as if he could pull an answer out of nowhere.

"Fat?" I peeped, that toothy smile I still make spread across my face. My mom was overweight and I wasn't afraid to admit it.

"Ah, uh- yes." The taller one said, approaching me and silently prying the woman off of me. "I'm afraid that she's not… gonna be around."

"Huh? What do you mean?" I crawled out from under the covers and got on top of them, sitting on my feet and staring up at the policeman.

"This young woman here watched your mom abandon you right here, so she called us and tried to stop her from leaving."

"But she wasn't leaving." I giggled, finding it funny that they misunderstood what my mama was doing. "She was just looking around the store for something. She told me just to take a nap."

All three of the adults exchanged nervous glances.

"Sweetheart, I don't think your mommy was looking for something to buy in the parking lot." The ginger woman spoke now. Her hair was short and was curved toward her face. I felt a pang in my heart and I looked over her sadly.

"She was in the parking lot…?" I croaked, twiddling my thumbs nervously. My mother might've abused me, but she wouldn't have just left me like that.

The lady nodded. "I followed her out and yelled at her for it, but then the policemen came and took her to jail."

I stared at my legs, which were bare from my mid-thigh down from my shorts. I hadn't even realized I was crying until I saw the first tear hit my knee. The woman clicked her tongue and went "awwwww", and knelt next to me, giving me a hug. I bawled into her neck, wondering why my mom would've done such a thing.

Of course now I understand that she was abandoning me to move to Vegas with those bikers, but how could I realize that when I was that little?

I peeked out from her shoulder and looked at the two cops, my eyes big and watery. "Where's my auntie…?" The shorter policeman made a face.

"Aunt?" He turned to face the other one, saying quietly, "I thought she said the kid didn't have relatives…?" The tallest shrugged and looked over to me, putting one of his hands in the other.

"Son, I think it would just be best if you were taken to an orphanage."

…

And so I was.

Just like that, my normal life was swept out from under my feet like some kind of mat. Mom had lied to the policemen about having someone who would take care of me just so I could feel the pain of having nobody around to love.

At least the nuns at the orphanage were nice, but it couldn't have killed the rest of the kids to let me fit in just a little. Later that day was when I was taken there by the policemen, who were also able to locate my birth records (and were, needless to say, shocked that my name was 'Beavis'). I was given my own bed in this big giant room where all the other kids slept, which made it look like it came straight out of that kids' book Madeline. We lived on a schedule – I can't remember what it was, but it was something like we woke up, ate breakfast, played inside for a little while, went to a little classroom (I don't know why we didn't go to public schools), ate lunch, played more, ate dinner, went to a chapel, then went to bed. There was a lot of playing involved which truly made me realize why Butthead didn't like it very much.

The first night I was there, the nuns had put us all to bed and shut off the light, closing our door. We all laid in the darkness for about ten minutes before a girl in the bed next to mine began to talk.

"Hey. Psst. You. With the hair."

My back was turned to her, so I didn't know she was talking to me until she added the hair part. My pompadour is my most distinctive feature. I switched sides I was laying on so I could face her, giving her my trademark smile.

"Hey, how's it going?" I giggled, excited somebody was actually going to talk to me.

"What's wrong with your face?" the girl crinkled her nose, looking me up and down. The smile was wiped off of my face.

"What do you mean?" I swallowed hard but forced another smile, remembering what Lydia used to say to me about staying happy no matter what. She told me that around the beginning of my abuse. "My face is my face."

"Your jaw is all crooked and your forehead's really long!" She began to laugh tauntingly at me, the other kids joining in, crowding around me until I was an island in a sea of mockery.

"Yeah, and your eyes go different directions most of the time! What are you staring at?" A boy maybe a couple years older than me guffawed, poking me in the arm roughly. The rest of them caught on and began to jab me, too, hissing "What are you staring at?" quietly so the nuns couldn't hear them. It didn't stop there, either: they all just kept nailing me with hurtful names and acknowledged my disfigured or abnormal features.

Eventually, I began to break out into sobs and went to my last resort. Curling into a ball under the covers, laying on top of the edge of the quilt so they couldn't pull it back, I cried myself to sleep while being prodded like cattle.

…

I was only at that orphanage for a week, but it was the worst week of my life.

When all of the kids got to play with all the toys that were there, I just stuffed myself in a corner with a book held in front of my face, pretending to read it. Mom never cared enough to teach me how to read, so I used the book to mask my puffy red eyes and flared cheeks, furious at everything.

The girl that had teased me that first day? She was adopted two days later. She met her parents in the hallway outside of the playroom and I saw the whole thing happen. Turning to look back into the room one last time before going to her new home, she had to do a double take when she noticed that the kid with the weird face had his book lowered and was staring right at her. When I had her attention, I stuck my tongue out as far as it could go and clenched both of my fists in front of me, shaking them with fury. All she did was laugh and glare at me, hugging her new parents before taking their hands and leaving.

Was it jealousy that urged me to do that? Possibly. Or maybe a nicer way of telling her to rot in hell for picking on me? Most likely. But in the back of my mind, what bothered me most was that she was a bratty girl who didn't deserve anything but was just given a good home with people who actually loved her, whereas there was weird little Beavis, a polite boy who would love anybody unconditionally – no matter what they had done in the past, present, or what they would do in the future – just as long as they loved him back. I would have willingly moved in with a murderer if they promised me endless love and care.

Once it had been about a week, I was laying in my bed with the covers pulled over my ears, half-awake. All of the other kids were asleep, having gotten their share of bullying me for the day. Right when my eyes were going to shut and carry me away, I heard the glass of the windows make a knocking sound. I sat up, looking around the room to see if any of the others were awake and/or heard that too, but every single one falsely appeared innocent, laying quietly in their beds. I didn't see anything by or outside of the window, so I dismissed it as my schizophrenia and laid back down. After a minute, I heard it again. I sat up all the way this time, sitting on my feet, staring at the window with concentration. Nothing. Then out of nowhere, the familiar brown almond eyes popped up at the bottom of the frame, chestnut colored hair hanging lazily in his face.

I cried out with happiness and bolted over, throwing the window open and trying to hug Butthead through the tiny window frame. He squeezed my lips shut with his thumb and middle finger.

"Hush." He said quietly, glancing inside the giant bedroom. "My mom's out in the front in the car waiting. We're taking you home."

He didn't have to tell me twice. This was one of those moments where our teamwork smoothly helped us escape, whether that be a psycho farmer coming at us with chainsaws or a shoddy orphanage. Grabbing under my arms, Butthead backed up and I ducked my head, getting the top half of me out of the window. While I dangled there for a second, holding my body up by keeping my stomach on the window pane, he wrapped his arms around my thighs and pulled me out of the window, holding me upright and setting me down on the mulch in my bare feet. I cringed.

"Ow." I flatly said, wiggling my toes that were now black on the bottom. Butthead sighed and scooped me up like a baby, walking out of the landscaping (in his sneakers) and setting me down on the pavement, both of us sprinting out to the front of the building in happiness, wanting to go home.

Except nobody was there.

Butthead frowned and walked out into the open lot, looking around.

"What…?" he squeaked, searching for Lydia. He turned on his heels to see me, holding his hands out. "She was just here…"

I could tell that he was just abandoned too, I didn't say anything about it, though. I stood there patiently as he sniffed around the place anxiously, looking for his mother. When he finally accepted that she wasn't in the parking lot anymore, he walked back over to me and grabbed ahold of my shirt sleeve, dragging me toward the building.

"Wait…!" I stumbled backwards, trying to regain my balance that he had knocked off, "What are you doing? I don't want to go back in there!"

"Relax." He said in almost a pouty, angry voice. "We're just gonna go in this bush here. We'll spend the night in it, and if my mom doesn't come back, we're going home."

I agreed with this and snuggled into the bush, resting against my half-brother as a pillow. It didn't take long for me to fall asleep, but I sense that Butthead was awake the entire night. In the morning, I could feel the dew coat my skin and the numb spots all over my body where bugs had bitten me. When I looked over at him, he was looking straight ahead in thought, dark circles under his eyes.

"Come on." He sounded exhausted and melancholy, pulling me out of the bush. I didn't say anything in fear that I would just make him more upset and followed him back to our house, which took about four hours in total. We might've been little boys, but we were taken so many places by our mothers that we knew our way around town: it was just the difficulty of finding a main road to use as directions, since the orphanage was on a side road that coiled into the woods.

We were relieved when we stood in front of our run-down purple house, wanting to pass out in the front yard but knowing that our beds were only yards away.

However, it was confusing to walk through the front door and find everything that was in the living room gone, couch and all; the only remaining item being the crappy TV and the stand it sat on.

I just walked in the middle of the living room and looked around slowly, my mind trying to process what I was seeing. Butthead, however, burst into a run and went into the kitchen and barreled upstairs, running into each and every room.

"Beavis!" he yelled, his voice echoing louder throughout the house than it normally should have, "Everything's gone!"

"Everything?" I repeated.

"Yes, everything! Our moms' rooms ain't got anything in them, the kitchen's bare, and all our rooms have are the dressers and beds!" Butthead quickly found his way in the doorway of the living room and glared at me, holding up a finger. "This is all your fault!" He accused, doubling over, holding his stomach.

"What? My fault?!" I frantically shook my head no, my throat running dry. Whenever I was blamed for something I didn't do, I had a tendency to shake really, really bad. This began.

"Yes! It's all your fault!" He stormed towards me, leading me to back up nervously, hitting my back on the wall. I was trapped. Butthead hovered over me, that same finger pointing at my glabella. "It's all your fault that my mom left me at that orphanage, it's all your fault that my mom had to sell herself to keep us all alive, and it's ALL YOUR FAULT that my family isn't rich, or that my face is messed up too, or that I don't have a man to call my dad! You interfered with my life! It could've been perfect, but you had to come in with your whore mom and ruin it!" His spit was spraying all in my face. I blinked away tears, not sure what to say. I know I ruined his life and I felt terrible for it. But the words of apology caught in my throat and I made a choking noise. Suddenly, he grabbed my shirt and slammed me against the wall, and I slinked down to the ground, looking up at him with fear. "You're stupid and an idiot and I wish you were dead! Better yet, never born! I hate you!" I was left speechless on the floor as he stomped upstairs to his room, slamming the door so hard it shook the whole house.

Huh, if only I knew the stuff he would say to me when we got older. If I did I probably would've just cried in this big heap on the ground.

In the moment, I sat there, in shock over the entire day. In less than 24 hours, my mama abandoned me, Butthead's mama abandoned him, and somebody stole all the furniture out of our house. Seriously. I scoped around later and found a couple pillows and blankets as well as mine and Butthead's clothes, but everything else was gone like he said. The rest of that night, he was up in his room and I was sitting on the floor in front of the TV, watching the white noise. My brain was exhausted and fried. Eventually, I ventured up to my room and shut the door quietly behind me, listening for Butthead's voice through the paper thin walls. Nothing. Climbing in my heavy covers, I squeezed my blanket that still happened to be there, burying my face in it. Silently I pretended it was my mama, dreaming of her love and embrace. But I didn't cry. I was done crying. My ducts had no more tears to hold after all those years of abuse and especially after being bullied. I was a rock. Not even my big brother's harsh words could bust a tear out of me. Not even the fact that I had nobody to wake me up in the morning. Not even the fact that it was just us, Beavis and Butthead, alone, with no one to raise us. We were alone in the world, and – whether Butthead wanted to admit it or not – were fused into one person, making each of us one half, and the one half couldn't survive without the other.

Butthead is like the embodiment of the confidence that I lack and the leadership skills that I've dreamt of having. He is strength and I am weakness, scrawny and depressed and lonely. We, together, are Yin and Yang, the masks of Comedy and Tragedy; we have always been opposites.

That's a good thing that we need each other (and that he knows it too), because I honestly don't know what I would've done if Butthead had just up and left. Most likely I would've left for Las Vegas to look for my mom by hitchhiking, but would've gotten kidnapped and hacked to pieces. Ah, well.

In my last second of consciousness, I could hear Butthead's voice ring out in a cry of sadness.

…

The next five years were boring repeating ones. It took Butthead about a week to decide to start talking to me again, both of us setting down a bunch of pillows and blankets in front of the TV so our butts could be comfortable when we watched it. I grew more… not feminine, but I began to rarely take up female jobs like cooking and cleaning and that. Butthead wouldn't do much more than sit and watch television. Over the years I had warmed up to it too, since there was nothing else to do, and watched it in my downtime. When we were twelve, Butthead especially grew into the delinquent that you know now. He was always trying to convince me to come with him when he went "out", but I was somewhat of a goody-goody then and kept my feet firm. Shrugging, he would put the hood up on his grey sweatshirt so his face couldn't be seen and slipped out into the night.

Butthead would rob, vandalize, and assault when he'd leave dressed in his hoodie, jeans, and boots. When he had these clothes on you couldn't recognize him, so that's why he did it. He also had a sudden craving for drugs. That's how we met Dave—you know, the guy that drove us down to Mexico. My brother was looking for a dealer and found him, and Dave thought it was awesome that a twelve year old was into that kind of stuff and was able to get Butthead lots of marijuana and cocaine, which he all did in our basement. Every once and a while he would walk up the stairs, come into the living room where I was with his bloodshot eyes and smell of pot clinging to his clothes, standing only a couple feet away from me.

"Do you wanna come downstairs and smoke a little?" he'd ask calmly, occasionally putting his hand on top of my head and tangling his fingers in my hair. He'd always say "a little" because he thought he could win me over in a, "Oh, maybe just a little" sort of situation, knowing damn well that if I placed a bong up to my lips I would get addicted. My naivety was his entertainment; he often tested me to see what I would and wouldn't do. I wasn't as bad when I was younger, but I grew dumber and dumber when I got older and was the perfect chew toy.

"No thank you," I'd reply, more recently with the 'drive through' part at the end of my sentence. He wouldn't even argue with me about it, which was surprising.

"Okay," his deep-but-young voice would coolly say, taking his fingers out of my pompadour and returning to the basement, closing the door courteously, knowing that the smell of that stuff gave me a headache. I don't know why it does, it just does. I don't mind cigarette smoke, though, so I would sit in front of the TV with one hanging out of my mouth half the time. Our couch is stained with tobacco and burned from cigarettes, the black-rimmed rings reminding me of similar shaped ones that I used to be able to look down at my arms and see.

Oh yeah, the couch.

You pause. But Beavis, you question, rubbing your eyes to give them a break from all this reading you're doing, you said that you came home to no furniture and that you used pillows for cushions. What do you mean, "couch"?

I was sitting in the myriad of squishy things (heh heh, that sounds weird) at around eleven at night. It was in the middle of a very humid June, but since we were close to the desert it got really cold after the sun set, so I had all the windows closed with the blinds drawn. Butthead was gone on one of his adventures – having a 'life', I guess you could say (what's that? Heh heh m heh) – while I had one hand stuck in a bag of cheese puffs and another in a bag of tortilla chips, a mega Fruity Whip with a giant straw in front of me, and was watching Headbangers Ball when there was extremely loud and hard (heh) pounding on the door.

"Dammit, Beavis, open the door right now!" Butthead yelled from the outside with urgency, banging on the door again. He sounded like he was trying to be loud but whisper his yells at the same time. I could hear a couple other people talking amongst themselves around him.

"God, no need to scream. Wait, lemme get up." I wrestled the blankets and took my hands out of the bags they were in, wiping them on my pants before going over to the door. Opening it, I noticed that Butthead has his hood up. I was stricken with fear; I figured that he had done something extremely bad and now the cops were after him, since that explained the voices, which were most definitely not my schizophrenia acting up. What I hadn't noticed was the two men unloading something off of the back of a pickup truck. My bright blue eyes flicked up to meet his dark brown ones, I being utterly confused.

"What are they doing…?" I nervously laughed, both of us adopted our trademark laughs by then. We mindlessly giggled all the time, so it never sounded like we were "heh heh m heh heh, talking like this and stuff, cause like, heh heh, we were used to it. Heh heh heh heh m heh, it sounded like I said 'do it'. Heh heh…" To us, we were always having conversations just like any other person would.

"Okay, okay, are you ready?" Butthead beamed, his braces glinting off the light from the TV. He put his hands level to his chest with the palms facing me as if asking me if I could handle what he was about to tell me. "I stole us a couch!" he laughed, turning his body so I could fully see the two guys on the pickup. Sure enough, they were carrying a bright red couch toward the house. My jaw hit the floor.

"You didn't steal it from a family, did you?" I breathed, putting my right hand on my head and gripping my hair in panic. The guys were standing right behind him now, holding the couch in impatience. Butthead looked back to see their annoyed faces and turned back to me, his mood souring.

"No. I stole it from a redneck woman in some trailer. Now move your shit so they can set it down there." He barked with a shove, making me stumble backwards, almost running into the TV stand. Staring at him for a minute before going over to my mess, I sheepishly scooped everything up, chips and puffs falling everywhere since the bags were upside down, and tossed them into a corner. As Butthead strutted in and started arrogantly pointing out where he wanted it to go, I rummaged in my deep pockets. Whipping out my lighter and a pack of cigarettes, I withdrew one and lit it in anxiety, glancing outside every five seconds to look for police cars. I never saw what I was searching for because the only thing I saw was the pickup truck, which was parked directly under a streetlight.

After the robbers had left, Butthead plopped down on it, pleased with himself. Saying nothing he patted his left side, gesturing for me to sit next to him. I shuffled over and uncomfortably sat down, my cigarette hanging out of my mouth. He reached over and took it out, took a puff of it, and put it back between my lips. My eyes were glued to the TV – which was still playing the show I was watching before – but I looked over at him with wide ones.

"We're getting rid of this tomorrow."

"Oh, come on, Beavis! Like, you know you enjoy it…" Butthead crossed his arms and grinned at me with his tongue in his cheek. I looked down at my thighs to avoid looking at him.

"…No I don't." I said, a smirk creeping onto my face. Once my teeth were showing Butthead roughly nudged me with a guffaw.

"See? Stealing can be fun. Come out with me tomorrow and I'll show you how it feels. You'll see. You'll like it."

I was reluctant, but hearing all the stories Butthead told me made me think about what it was really like. Apparently, you got this buzz that made you want to steal more (he said the same about drugs).

"Fine." I exhaled, mimicking Butthead's nudge. He went "yes!" before nudging me back, and we went into one of those mini-fights that we liked to have.

That night was when my delinquency began. The next day, Butthead showed me the ropes, giving me a can of spraypaint to go wild with. We covered the undersides of bridges in graffiti and robbed a bunch of people in the same trailer park he got the couch from. We stole that big tall lamp that's in our living room, the painting of the fisherman that we have, TVs for our rooms (which we forgot to steal the remotes for), the stove… it was awesome.

Butthead also showed me how to blow a cricket up by lighting its butt on fire, which I was fascinated by. My interest in fire had quietly lingered previously, but after being driven slightly insane by my older brother that day really sparked a flame (no pun intended) and helped burn the pyromania that still exists in me today.

…

In two years, we would play baseball with a frog, somehow fit both of ourselves into a dryer, and get chained to a wall after attempting to have an old lady donate a couple dollars to charity. Butthead was still addicted to drugs and I still smoked, but on the side I huffed rubber cement and all that good stuff, because I kind of fell to his peer pressure. Not all the way, but a little. By then, we were exactly like each other when it came to showing our emotions; I wasn't crying my eyes out or acting anxious, and Butthead wasn't acting as destructive and rebellious. We were at the point between both of our personalities, with me being more of a loose cannon and Butthead a leader. However, he embodied self-righteousness at some sort of sick level that really shouldn't have been there, but y'know.

You remember the story of when we were going down to Mexico, right? And with the condoms in the glovebox?

We went down to Mexico for fireworks. Dave was a drug camel so we knew for sure he would go down there, and since he and Butthead had ties with each other, we could go for free (sort of). We caused chaos down there and Dave went to take us back home and made us swallow the pill-filled condoms to hide the drugs he was bringing back. Only since we forgot to tie them when we did, we got to feel the effect of the drugs instead of whomever Dave was going to sell them to. Aggravated after being hassled by border patrol, Dave refused to sell anything else to Butthead and forced us to walk back to Highland.

Butthead was okay for about two days, but after what pot and coke he had leftover had ran out, he freaked out. He rambled on to me about how he needed a thrill and how he was going insane. I watched him with a smirk on my face, because he was comparing the total wrong thing to insanity. He didn't really know how it felt. He was just going through a drug withdrawal.

"You need a thrill?" I frowned, but grinned and started to do my raspy laugh. "You could borrow one of my magazines…"

"It's not that kind of a thrill, Beavis!" he creeched, doubling over like he always did to emphasize the overload of emotion he was feeling, whether that be 'insanity' or sadness or blame. "Like, you know how you felt when those pills went into effect? How it made you really happy? That's how I felt when I had all that. I was happy and now I'm not!" He grabbed at his hair and groaned, falling to his knees and hunching his back.

I was desperate to get off the subject of drugs. "So, you're saying that looking at Playboy magazines doesn't make you happy?"

"Ugh- they do, but it's a different kind of happy."

"There's a difference?"

"Yes. There is a difference between being high and choking your chicken."

"No, I mean like, happiness can be felt in different ways?"

Butthead sighed, putting his face in one of his hands. "You've never lived, Beavis. You wouldn't understand."

I just shrugged seeing as I couldn't negotiate with him and lit a cigarette. At the sound of the lighter, Butthead shot his head up and pointed at me, his other arm wrapped around his middle.

"If I can't have my drugs, then you can't have your cigarettes!" he cried, bringing himself to his feet in order to try and take it out of my mouth.

"What?" I laughed at him this time – not at nothing – and held my foot up to nudge him away. "Says who, butthole?"

"I do! If you stop smoking then I'll shut up about my drugs!"

"No way! Just because you screwed up and didn't tie the ends doesn't mean I should be punished too!"

We paused to laugh at the fact that I had said 'screwed'. Butthead quickly switched faces and turned red, the tips of his tiny little ears the brightest.

"You forgot too!"

"Oh yeah."

The next fifteen minutes were spent with him to try and convince me to quit smoking, but I had stolen his trait of stubbornness and absolutely refused, even lighting another one in the middle of our argument. Butthead ripped it out from between my lips and threw it on the ground, grinding his foot into it to put it out.

After I had gotten sick of it, I groaned and gripped my carton of cigarettes and hurled it at him, the individual ones flying everywhere.

"Fine!" I growled, crossing my arms in a pouty way, "But I don't want to hear anything about your pot!"

Butthead smiled and literally threw all the cigarettes out the window, sitting next to me on the couch and flipping on MTV. I went through a little tobacco withdrawal, but by the time we were forced to hold in our laughs or else we would get suspensions, we were both fine.

…

Crazy stuff happened those later years. My discovery of my alter ego (which was the voices taking control of me when I fueled them with sugar; it's a long story of how I decided that), becoming members of the ATF… and some guidance counselor named Rick apparently developed a love for me. Butthead and I were stuck in an elevator, stuck in a freak show, stuck in gigantic pipes. We are figuratively insane, he and I, which is awesome. We're still in high school now and are the same as you ever knew us. Daria moved away (although I could've sworn she committed suicide) and McVicker got fired for cheating on our tests. Our new principal is nice, I guess, but doesn't like us very much either. Also, Butthead's been really nice toward me! Not loving but not polite, either, but not abusive. He'll listen to me when I talk instead of cutting me off all the time.

Whenever we're walking down the street, I scan the opposite sidewalks for a slightly-overweight blonde woman and a stunning brunette woman (though Lydia could look a lot different now), since Highland is heavy with prostitutes. I never spotted my mama, but I did catch glimpse of a couple of people who I think might be Lydia.

The one lady was tall and curvy, just like Lydia was, and looks really young. That last part is what makes me unsure. My aunt always looked younger than she really was, but this woman looked really, really young. I tried to make eye contact with her but she was too busy making a deal with some man.

Another woman had short, bob-type hair, but was kinda short. It might've been from the distance between us, but you never know. When I made eye contact with her, she smiled at me, but not in a nice way. It was in the I-know-you-saw-me-so-I'm-gonna-do-this-frowny-grin-sorta-thing way.

The third woman was kind of chubby, but her thick brunette hair came to the middle of her back. She had a really friendly looking face and was wearing the Pamela and Lydia "trademark" outfit of Daisy Dukes and a bikini top, and it looked like neither really fit her. When this one saw me from across the street, her mouth opened up a little, but she didn't say anything. I considered nudging Butthead to show him but he had his back to me, digging through some business's mailbox. I turned back to the lady to see if it really was Lydia, but she tucked her hair behind her ear and hurried off, disappearing around a street corner.

Now, I don't want to automatically assume, but that was Lydia. It had to be.

But it didn't matter now. Her boys were practically grown up (but most certainly don't act it) and knew how to care for themselves. I don't know about Butthead, but I'm always going to remember the lessons she taught us for the rest of my life, whether they be the ones she taught me during my abuse or the lessons she taught by leaving us both in an orphanage parking lot.

I'll always take them with me, wherever I may roam.

…

If you're reading this right now, thank you! :D I hope you enjoyed it. It was OOC, but you know, it would take certain life experiences to shape Beavis and Butthead into who they are now.

Also, a couple of things in there might've seemed like they were made up – and some of them you might've actually thought so – but they weren't. I'll list a few of the parts from the fanfiction and explain:

[Beavis's abandonment at IKEA] – That was mentioned in the new season. According to Beavis, even the "It's okay, Beavis, just close your eyes, just go to sleep…" part was real! The last half with the police officers and woman was written to help tie in the loose ends that Beavis left out in the show.

[The orphanage] – That part came after the abandonment. Mentioned at the same time, Beavis said that "the Fosters" were really nice. I decided to change that into only the caretakers were nice, not the kids.

"… and some guidance counselor named Rick apparently developed a love for me." – Also in the new season, Beavis mentioned how the school guidance counselor had invited him over for dinner, but it was really a trap, and long story short poor Beavis woke up under a bridge with a sore butt (no joke, he actually said that).

[Butthead's stealing of the couch] – New season. I can't remember what was being conversed, but it's very easy to miss. Butthead says to Beavis, "Yeah. That's why I stole this couch."

[Beavis's schizophrenia] – This is from the old season. In "Most Wanted", Beavis mentions the voices in his head and how they tell him to do bad things, but he's learned not to listen.

[Pamela's appearance] – According to a couple of the music video pieces, it is said that Beavis's mom (whose name is never revealed in the series) is a plus-sized prostitute who has hair like Beavis. Nothing more is known about Butthead's mom except for the fact that she scored with one of the Motley Crue roadies, which is obviously Butthead's dad. As a side note, Pamela and Lydia were just names I gave their moms to avoid from going "Butthead's mom" and "Beavis's mom".

Well, I really hope you enjoyed it! Sorry for the OOC-ness… . I'd love it if you'd review! Remember, if a comment is ignorant or rude it'll be deleted. Negative criticism is welcome but only if it's polite.

Have fun surfing the rest of FanFiction!