A/N: Art trade with Mallory, a.k.a sugapieissofly.
The Twenty-Second Night
"Do you believe in Hell, Butters?"
The blond beside him ran his tongue over a sharp canine. "Do I believe in Hell?" he repeated in a far quieter tone and volume.
"Yeah." Raven raised the bottle to his mouth and pressed until a cone of numbness stretched up to his pierced nose.
"I dunno," Butters mumbled. He drew his knees to his chin, and rested his jaw in the valley between his bony knee caps. He was only wearing black nylon gym shorts that pooled around his meatless thighs, in spite of the cold night that enclosed him. "I…guess…" he said finally.
"Oh." Raven made a small sound of consent, and drank. Above, stars of aberrant brightness littered the espresso-black night. The alcohol fizzed and danced on his tongue before going down in a spurt of flames. He choked it past the shredded walls of his esophagus before turning back to the other, who absently picked the debris from his talon-like fingernails. "Do you think you'll be going?"
Despite the severity of the question, a small smile climbed its way onto Butters' paste-white face. He turned to Raven with glistening cornflower eyes and answered sadly, "How do you know we're not already there?"
Judgment Day – The Twenty-Eighth Night
As soon as he was sure the world around him had fallen asleep, he slipped out the door of his broken home into the dead of night. He was lucky for the silence. At night, the world was at its quietest. His mind was not.
Whisky tucked into the inner pocket of his coat, the boy trudged down the iced-up road, lulled by a silent destination. His steel-toed boots trampled the unbroken sleet below, creating a steady crunch that was oddly soothing. The liquid in his scandalous flask sloshed against the stainless steel walls, though, to supply a constant remind that plagued his conscience. Still, he ignored the futile bite of common sense. That portion of his brain was no longer a part of him, but, rather, a detached planet in the vast galaxy of his mind. Pluto, drowned out by the epidemic of black holes. Dressed in dark denim and cotton, the night did not embrace him, but welcomed him as a brother. He moved with the dismal ebb and flow. The only indication of color was the cobalt tuque perched upon his lowered head; on his forehead, a spray of ebony hair fought for breath beneath the hat's red border. Loose wavelets fell lazily in front of cold, frozen eyes, where nothing had dared to live since this rogue side of the boy was first born.
He continued soundlessly toward the heart of the town. Above, any streetlight that tried to draw attention to him quickly retreated. Crossing the street, he carried on his death-march pace up the slope of the hill. His gloved hands, curled into fists in the large pockets of his coat, fenced nothing but the lingering dust of wasted dreams. While the rest of the world spent their nights in the safety of their cotton shrines chasing such fantasies, he was out committing treasonous acts of sorts. Once, breaching on the cool skin of his white throat, a blasphemous cross betrayed him, but he was quick to shove it back down and move on. His hands, as well as his distraught heart, were empty, just as they very well should be. He was never a boy who believed in keeping earthly attachments; he knew they would only return and dog him when his time came.
Approaching the ramshackle warehouse, he spotted a familiar figure peering out of a window. Their torso was slightly encompassed by the hazardous shards of glass jutting from the window frame, but Stan knew who it was. The muscles in his tired face slowly eased upward, if only for a moment.
Still. One earthly attachment never hurt anyone.
The First Night
"Butters?"
The squatting child raised his dark head. Black wisps, once lemon-yellow, hung in front of his shockingly aqua eyes. "Stan?" In the childish question, his raspy voice cracked to prepubescent high, all but confirming the earlier question.
"Raven," was all that was uttered by the other, lower monotone.
"Oh," Butters exhaled. Curls of white vapor punctured the air from between gritted teeth. "Nice to…see you."
Raven glided over, soundless as the shadow he'd become. "Somewhat," he deadpanned, sitting beside Butters nevertheless. At the shock of cold on his jeans, he hissed beneath his breath, but nothing more. The surge of emotions swelled before receding back out to sea. He remained on the coast.
For a few awkward breaths, they sat along the cold granite wall. Then, a hand shot out from beside Raven, a brown bottle in the pale, spindled grip. "Whiskey?"
Butters eyed the alcohol in a measured gaze. His eyes fluttered up to Raven's face. "What makes you think I would wanna drink that?"
Raven snorted, circumnavigating his midnight irises around their sclera. "Please, Butters. It's just whiskey."
"But I'll get addicted."
"Why does that matter?" Raven mumbled, tongue burning from speaking so much.
Something powerful ached at Butters' heart. He knew he shouldn't, but allowed carelessness to overcome the guilt seeping from his pores. Accepting the perspiring brown glass between his bare fingers, he cushioned the side of the bottle with the palm of his glove and raised it to his mouth. Malice and spider's venom crawled down his throat as he took a drink. It was the most wayward taste he had ever encountered. "I guess it doesn't," he murmured before the opening. Alcohol edged into every gap. He could feel it down in his toes, in the pounding caverns of his sore eyes.
"It shouldn't." Raven touched the crown of his head against the wall. His Adam's apple arced up to the beat of his speech. "Not if you're out here, anyways."
Instantly sadness concealed the momentary ember. The sounds dropped from Butters' downturned mouth:
"I know."
Judgment Day – The Twenty-Eighth Night
"You're late," Butters said as Raven sat beside him. He spoke reflectively, as if to himself after returning from a somber dream.
Raven did not apologize, because he was not sorry. He regretted nothing in this life. Instead he responded accordingly, what Butters was really demanding through the poor cover-up You're late.
"Are you sure you weren't followed?"
The answer lingered on a thin strand of silk between them, until Butters read it aloud: "I'm sure." There was no tremor, no shudder or uncertainty in the word that he spoke with a braced voice.
Being broken and restored for so long had eventually put a flickering vengeance in the chambers of his heart. And one with a burning desire to kill learned not to hesitate from so much hate.
Raven raised one shoulder, adjusting his slipping coat without the use of his hands. He had lost a lot of weight over the past month, and was all but sure that he would eventually shrivel into ash. "Are you ready?"
The steadily mounting tirade tugged at the corner of his emotions, but he quickly shut it out. Never once blowing his composure, Butters said with an eerily straight face, "Born ready."
Raven gave a dangerous smile. "Let's do this."
They headed out. The sky looked much darker than it had before.
The Ninth Night
"Sometimes you just wanna kill them all, you know?"
At this understatement, Butters nodded at a grim tempo. He tugged absently at a lock of his black hair as he spoke. "You have no idea."
Raven looked up from the flask he'd been so affixed with. Eyes that absorbed all light but reflected none punctured Butters' side through the night. "Really? Who would you start with?"
"Whaddya mean?" Butters chuckled nervously, hoping he had heard Raven wrong. He wrung his hands, pleased by the pain each stone of his many jewels caused him.
"I said –" Suddenly, Raven was sitting flush with Butters, practically threatening to straddle him. "Who. Would. You. Start. With?"
Damn that sexy, level tone. Cobalt eyes matched ones of an empty, vacant chamber. The connection between them was electrifying, dropping right to Butters' bare feet and wavering at tantalizing proximity. "Um…Eric."
Raven smirked. "Really," he mused stoically, sacrificing more of his voice to the flask. He downed the venom quickly with an audible gulp.
"Really," Butters replied. He accepted the flask, but kept it perched between his spidery fingers on his lap. Hunching his shoulders forward, he spoke with his mouth positioned directly over the aromatic opening. "I would castrate him for all that he did to me."
"I see," Raven murmured, a lilting wistfulness staining the usually dull eulogy. "And…what else would you do to him?"
Butters lost the ability to move. When he reunited with Raven's dark eyes, a faint spark glowed beneath the murk. They waited with the rest of the charcoaled boy, rooted to the floor and thinning the air with anticipatory, audible breaths.
Unable to avoid that black-as-night gaze, Butters softly said, "I would bite him first. Hard."
Raven's crotch seemed to concur with the last word. The sight of it sent an unfamiliar shiver, followed by an extinguishing flood of heat, through Butters.
"Really," Raven hissed again. It seemed to require a lot of effort. "Would you make him bleed?"
"Yeah." Butters drew his lower lip into his mouth.
"Would you…drink it?"
"Yeah."
"All of it? As it was coming out?"
"Yes."
"What would it taste like?"
"Cherries," Butters rasped.
"Like rust and loss? Like the sweet poison of the dead?" Raven pushed, nearly bursting.
"Yes." The word arrived in a passionate moan.
"Show me," he whispered. Every monochromatic aspect of him was strung tight with dark lust.
Butters blanched. He couldn't stop his gaze from travelling over a strip of Raven's diamond throat and that damned cross the grazed it like a silver paradox. The Goth noticed and beseeched with hungry eyes. Butters cocked his mouth out to the side uncertainly. But his burning desire was winning. It elicited new, exciting emotions within him, undiscovered treasures the likes of which he had never encountered. Just the sensation of drinking Raven's sweet wine…
Springing forward, Butters' lips parachuted onto the safety of Raven's neck. The boy gasped in surprised hunger, only encouraging Butters. Testing the feverish skin with his tongue, he drew Raven's rigid body into his arms and bore his fangs. Raven's hot membrane offered little resistance, granting access as easily as clay. Almost instantly, metallic liquor cascaded into Butters' mouth. He nearly moaned into Raven's open wound. It was a bitter sauce, leaving a corroded – albeit delicious – sensation across his eager tongue.
With two searing pokers over his aorta, Raven's mind flashed with the urge to scream. Thankfully, though, something new was absorbed into his pores before any unpleasant sounds could break loose. Instead of shoving the smaller boy away, he was now hanging onto Butters' back in order to stay grounded. Pain could not compare to the bizarre pleasure he got from having Butters latched onto his neck and draining the two holes he had stamped.
A single sound fluttered from his lips. A moan of absolute pleasure vibrated through the wound and rippled Butters inside-out. He tore free, gasping. Raven's face still dwelled in the agitated passion. The blond stared back at him, blue bolted to blue, evil to evil, death to death.
Life threatened to crack into his eyes if he didn't speak.
"So." Raven swallowed the bile situated at the back of his mouth. The muscles in his neck ripped around the new wounds, still trickling maroon. "You would do it…like that?"
Butters blinked, trying to settle the blaze burning in his face. His teeth pulsed for more. Instead, he diverted an ambush with dialogue. "N-no. I would…" He squeezed out a breath. "Not like that."
"Oh yeah?" Raven craned his neck up, stretching out the spasms threatening to cripple him. Air nipped at the holes and created a delicious pain. "What would you do differently?"
The hate rose up in Butters and flared. "I wouldn't let him live," he growled.
For the third time that evening, and in his usual Reaper's voice, Raven muttered wistfully, "Really."
Judgment Day – The Twenty-Eighth Night
He was so predictable.
It was the only thing that Butters liked about their prey. Even after they had traumatized him before, he still returned to the same bar every night. It was pitiful and pathetic…just like Cartman.
A month ago, Butters didn't think like that.
It was a dilapidated building that pulsed with a rushed beat of the music inside, which was a shitty Kanye West track that neither could recall the name of. Occasionally, people would flow in and out, disgraceful whores with their equally unclean johns, teenagers who were still settled in the illusion that adulthood was all fun and games. Two pairs of eyes followed after each patron from behind a bush across the road. They glazed with impatience after a while. Not him, not him, not him…
Once, Butters glanced over to see a set of punctures corked with scar tissue surfacing beneath a sterling silver chain. Both sights jolted him, and he momentarily lost sight of the task at hand. For everything he had ever done wrong, the only one he had ever lamented over was that. They were marks of a dark and fatal attraction, one that was never meant to be and could only end this way.
Sensing Butters' heat, Raven's hand snaked out and entwined with Butters' without either owner looking down to witness the occurrence. Butters suddenly remembered what they had come for and returned his focus to a decked-out couple passing by.
The Seventeenth Night
At the first touch, Raven shivered, which was a rare event from someone of such a frozen physique. Butters' cautious hand fell back a step from Raven's taut muscles. "Are you okay?"
"Yes," the other growled. "Go."
Heeding to Raven's command, Butters reached back out until his fingers met cool skin. Once again, it tensed and shuddered beneath the contact, but he did hesitate this time. Finding the proper leverage of Raven's neck, he jerked himself upward and collided into a sinful kiss of fierce passion. He immediately mingled their tongues together, fighting for dominance in Raven's mouth. He caved to Butters' animalistic, alcohol-accented battle, and within seconds, was submissively pinned by a boy much smaller than him, but one with twice as much fire, no doubt. Raven had long been carved from granite; however, under Butters' dizzying kiss, he instantly burned. Flames crawled up his hot throat and expanded across the crevices of his powerful stomach, which braced him properly when Butters' fingers slipped beneath the hem of his threadbare shirt.
Breaking their kiss – and smirking inwardly at Raven's quiet whimper – Butters grazed his canines along Raven's jaw before lowering the boy onto the brushed concrete. He immediately touched his teeth and tongue to Raven's hard navel, working his way up and lifting the offensive article of clothing that lay in his way with the sharp hook of his forefinger's nail. Each kiss from Butters' cold lips drew an unsteady exhale from the boy's mouth above, until his tantalizing upper body was totally free and exposed to the subzero ground. Not that Raven noticed any of that. He was completely subdued by a possessive growl from Butters, the slender arms slung around his neck, and the kiss that ignited new ripples of ecstasy. A warm tongue and sharp sweetness invaded his mouth without so much as a warning. Butters worked their kiss at a slow, deep rhythm that was hardening the ridge below him surprisingly fast.
Bringing his mouth away, Butters breathed out against Raven, "Mmm. Someone's excited."
Raven responded with a low moan. His gloved hands knitted through Butters' dyed locks as his back arced up.
Splitting Raven's legs with his knee, Butters propped himself up to undo Raven's jeans. He noticed with a pleased smirk the hardening bulge that awaited him. Raven writhed, pure ecstasy peaking over each jutting bone of his face. Spotting the silver crucifix bobbing against Raven's heaving chest, Butters felt the delectable taste of sin arise in the back of his throat.
His lover gave an abashed cry when Butters' mouth closed over the throbbing head of his erection. "Oh God!" he shouted. His lust-filled voice was like opium to Butters, who didn't waste another second teasing Raven's tormented cock. The Goth jerked and stumbled over the first letter of Butters' name, instead elapsing into a series of whimpers and moans that swelled into an intoxicating crescendo. His pelvis threatened to buck, so Butters steadied himself in the concave of each hipbone. His nails drew blood, but, if anything, the coppery scent drove Raven even wilder. Eyes heavy with lust, dirty words flew from his mouth just as he was sure he was going to shoot. However, Butters released him, biting Raven's inner thigh and momentarily faltering at the blood he received.
"Keep going!" the Noirette screamed, voice thick with desire. His lackluster eyes careened open in such wild want that the other nearly lost his well-rehearsed composure. "Christ, don't stop!"
Butters merely chuckled, swirling his skillful tongue over the wound he'd created. Pulling Raven's tensed legs apart even more, he felt his own jeans shrinking at how the once statuesque Goth above him was now panting and begging him to "fuck me until I bleed."
He smiled to himself and undid his jeans as quickly as his fingers allowed. Then, hands anchored to Raven's narrow hips, he drove in without so much as a warning.
Immediately Raven convulsed, and an excruciating scream ripped itself free. Butters lowered himself onto the seizing boy, hissing when fingernails raked across his back. He ignored the smell of blood and held perfectly still until Raven stopped jerking. Tears sprang in his eyes but did not fall. He gave Butters a pained glance of conformation.
At the first buck, Raven whined. Then, when Butters hit the spot again, the somber sound reverted to a low moan. Butters recalled something that he had encountered whilst exploring Wikipedia – before cult websites began to clog his browser – about prostates, and moved against it. He earned a disturbing jolt of pleasure and a gasp. Serving as encouragement, Butters jerked his hips at a rapid rhythm, causing Raven to arc. He could no longer restrain his voice, which came forward in an avid cry. His nails left ridges in the soft flesh of Butters' back.
"What's the matter?" he whispered into Raven's multi-pierced ear. "Never thought little ol' Butters Stotch could turn into such an amazing lover, did you?"
"Holy hell…" Raven wheezed. "This dominant side of you…it's –" Abruptly he cut himself off, gritting his teeth together. A hissed-out groan vibrated between his incisors. Butters rocked a few times, determined to hear it. However, when Raven's hands flew towards his trembling mouth, Butters pointedly caught each wrist and pinned them to the swept gray floor.
"No cheating," he murmured, gliding in and out of Raven at an increasingly rapid pace. A few minutes after writhing and gasping, the Goth's hands pressed against Butters' shoulder blades.
"B," he choked. "Butters, I'm g-gonna…"
Then, his hips rubbed Butters as he violently orgasmed. His seed shot out, coating their stomachs in white. Not moments later Butters came into Raven, filling the Noirette with warmth.
Judgment Day – The Twenty-Eighth Night
"There," Raven snarled, black hate blotting the word.
Butters jerked backwards to get a better look. The movement did not disturb the leaves around him. Through the dusk, he found a familiar crimson coat being tugged around wide body. The owner's head peeked out of the collar, newfound fear in his wretched eyes. Butters' hand unconsciously tweaked tighter around Raven's, squeezing as a low growl droned in his throat. Raven squeezed back.
Taking a few cautionary glances around – not enough, unfortunately for him – he ducked his head and crossed the silent street at an unnatural, rushed pace. His hands were driven deep into his pockets, the great slope of his back raised up. So vulnerable. Butters' bloodlust inflated. He felt the reverb of Raven's heartbeat against his through their intertwined fingers pick up.
They waited, slinking along the ground but never quite exiting the vegetation. Their eyes were well-trained on their quarry, who kept casting backward glances over his shoulder as he shrank along the horizon. Finally, he rounded a corner, and Butters and Raven burst from the bushes. They hurried in Cartman's footsteps, silent, their hands still knitted together. Raven loosened his as they broke out into soundless runs, and crossed himself. The irony of it almost slackened laughter from his compressed lips.
Turning the corner, their stride did not break. Cartman's form was approaching quickly, so within reach that it was hurting. He appeared to detect the movement behind him, and spun around.
It was too late.
With an all-too-familiar pounce, Raven brought the larger boy to the frozen ground.
The Twenty-First Night
He bucked his hips and thrashed violently underneath his attacker. All that he gained, however, was a low, sadistic grumble. The sick bastard was laughing.
"Off," Cartman gasped. His trachea was crushed by the pair of lean hands tightened around his neck.
A breathy chuckle exploded in his ringing ear. "Scream and you'll regret it," was his warning before air was able to properly flow into his lungs.
He was strung out wrought when he perceived a familiar voice: "Huh – I'd expect more of a fight from Eric Cartman."
Even flat and dead, Cartman instantly knew who was speaking.
"Butters? Butters, you asshole, what the hell is this?"
No reply met his furious question; just the same pair of hands that had been clamped over his throat, which yanked at his belt buckle and introduced his lower half to the biting cold. Cartman shouted, lashing out blindly. Whoever sat on him eluded his angry hits and continued to slide his pants down.
"Wait!" he cried, choking on fear. "Don't!"
Not speaking to him, a droning voice said, "Help me flip him over."
More hands moved across his body, turning him on his stomach so his screams swallowed mud. Cartman lifted his head, gasping for breath. His underwear was gone and the night was brutally frosty. He kicked and reared up, but each time he seemed to be wriggling free, something slammed him back down into the dirt.
Seated atop him, a chilling voice that definitely wasn't Butters iced into his ear, "Surprised, fatass?"
Cartman suffocated on his tears of terror. Hands pinned his wrists down and the person above seemed to be awaiting some kind of response before they violated him.
"Who…are you?"
There was a pause before they answered: "No one." Then, pain shot through Cartman and drowned his return in an agonizing shriek.
Judgment Day – The Twenty-Eighth Night
Cartman yelled and resisted and screamed for help the entire time they dragged him to the warehouse.
"You can't do this!" he yelled as he was deposited onto the freezing concrete floor. "Please! Not again! Just leave me alone, for Christ's sake!"
He flipped onto his large belly and crawled for some kind of exit, fingernails breaking as he clawed. Butters and Raven swapped languid looks before striding over to Cartman at the pace of the walking dead and pulling him by his violent legs. He screamed, but all the answered was an echo.
On his back, he pleaded them with pathetic honey orbs. This time, it was Butters who straddled him down. Another surprise came when his hands moved for the buttons of Cartman's coat instead of his groin.
"No!" he squealed. "Fuck, don't!"
His jacket fell away, and the collar of his t-shirt was yanked down until Butters found his prize: an expanse of milky white skin. Beneath it, a fat ribbon begged to be extracted. The burgundy liquid was so tempting.
Fangs pressed against the larger boy's quivering throat, Butters' moist lips stretched into a lurid grin. "This is for all the times…" he choked out in a trashed voice, "that you hurt me, Eric…"
Cartman's tawny eyes popped, stinging raw in the bitter air. They sought out Stan's through the darkness. But who Cartman beseeched desperately in his final moments of life was not Stan, sarcastic nature-lover. He was Raven, uninterested Goth. His murky, ringed eyes, no longer shockingly sapphire, shifted beneath his raised brow. If there was any emotion on his sunken face, it could not be seen without light.
Smoke and shadow roared within Cartman as the boy lashed around, screams piercing the surrounding midnight.
The Twenty-First Night
With a satisfied grunt, Raven pulled out of Cartman. He stood beside Butters, redressing without an ounce of emotion. They hovered over the grubby brunette, whose rubbery arms, robbed of the ability to support his weight, quivered beneath him. He re-collapsed, sending up plumes of dust.
"You guys…are in…so much…trouble," he panted at a weak attempt of a threat.
It was sickly entertaining. "Oh, what are you going to do? Run off to cry to Kenny? Tell your mommy on us?" Butters crooned, tilting his head to one side to watch Cartman's struggle for breath, composure, and strength. Normally, he was a pariah who would swagger down the halls like he owned them, sapping respect from any eye that happened to land on him. Now, naked and caked in dirty blood, he just looked like a Buddhist monk tortured by Communists. No longer the Nazi, but the prisoner in his own sick war. Butters sneered. Eric was disgusting.
Head shooting up, Cartman attempted to torment them with bloodshot eyes, but to no avail. He crumpled, shivering and broken. "Aw," Raven mused. Wicked mirth entwined a sadistic smile onto his face. "Look, Butters. We made it cry."
The blond giggled. His fingers and cock simultaneously twitched. Seeing someone else on the short end of the stick for once was exhilarating. However, seeing the very monster who had given him shit for so many years…his exhausted heart threatened to flail off the cliffs of his ribs in sheer excitement.
"Fuck…you," Cartman heaved. He curled into a fetal position. His entire ass was coated with dirt. There was no gusto in his voice. The words seemed to drain him, because no he was wheezing and shuddering at the effort it took to cry.
Raven's expression spiraled into utter disgust. "Shut up," he ordered, planting his boot on Cartman's backside. He flopped, a defeated puppet in the filth.
Bending over his angled leg, the Goth growled, "Tell anyone and we kill you, pig."
Eric Cartman had nothing to say to that. Butters marveled at the silence. No denial about his weight. No cruel, dismissive remark. Nothing from that fat fucking mouth that they had made scream like a wanton whore not minutes ago. It trembled, drowning in the tears that flowed to it, and that was all. Butters had never been a sadist, but wouldn't mind witnessing this defeated side more often.
"Give Kenny a hug for me," he spit, turning with Raven to go.
Cartman wouldn't have to tell anyone about this little incident. At that moment, there was no doubt in Butters' mind that they would kill him, anyways.
Judgment Day – The Twenty-Eighth Night
As soon as the gold reverted to coal, they knew he was finished.
Butters released Cartman's limp neck from between his jaw, licking the dark liquid away from around his mouth. A decent puddle of blood had pooled around Cartman from the attack, now climbing up the fabric of his shirt. He had died with his eyes and mouth open. Butters did not bother closing them.
They mounted the windowsill, eyes turned to the endless sky. Crossing his denim-slicked legs, Raven foot lurched into Butters'. The jolt made their gazes lock. Raven outlined the dripping orifice of hungry lips. Darkness and sin drenched it. He forced himself to remain calm and spoke quietly.
"Are you cold?"
It wasn't a complicated question, or one uttered in a very compassionate tone; but, somehow it was able to ignite an unusually warm response from Butters, which he supposed was a masque for satirical. He was sure to hold Raven's twilight eyes when he replied coyly, "I'm a vampire, remember? Vampires don't get cold."
"Oh." Maybe Raven smiled then, but there was no time for Butters to register the shape his lips took because immediately they moved again. "Right. I forgot."
Butters accepted that, raising a cautious fingertip to the tips of his canines. Daggers responded to the pad of his thumb. Soon, a smirk of his own transferred to the pale billow of his mouth.
Outside, with a recently-deceased corpse at their backs, both of them grinned to themselves when a cacophony of sirens surged around the building.