Disclaimer: I don't own South Park, that belongs to Matt and Trey.
Leopold "Butters" Stotch smiled in satisfaction as he looked over his handiwork. Four peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (crusts cut off of course) with a side of carrots and ranch dipping sauce with a glass of milk each. The good white placemats were out, foreign orchestra music was softly playing in the background and the bland wooden chairs that were normally around his dining room table had been replaced with the good ones from out back. It seemed like everything was as perfect as he could make it and the thought filled him with glee.
You see Butters was going to be having company over, any minute now in fact, and it was very important that everything went just right. To this end he had made sure to keep his parents out of things in order to keep their interference to a minimum. The aforementioned parents were still pretty sore at him for running away to Spacex two weeks ago and technically he wasn't supposed to have any company whatsoever. Heck he should still be locked up in his room, windows closed and bolted and even taped because that's how Butters escaped the first time. But luckily his guest was a smooth talker and had convinced his parents to allow him to have one hour to eat lunch and talk about school related subjects. Ever since they had relented Butters had done his best to avoid them as much as he could (which was kinda easy since he was locked in his room with a catflap at the bottom) because one single 'infraction' might cause them to tell him forget it he wasn't allowed to have his lunch date after all.
Which just wouldn't do.
"Remember Butters." His dad stood in the kitchen and looked stern "One. Hour."
"Yes sir." the blonde looked down and tried to look as downtrodden as possible so his father would be satisfied that the warning and his no nonsense tone had properly set in. The tactic (which he needed to use more often) seemed to work because his dad nodded and turned around to leave, Butters's visitor moving past him and looking at the plates with a critical eye.
"Did you cut the crusts off?" Eric Cartman asked disbelievingly "Are we eight?"
Butters chuckled, refusing to be embarrassed. The sandwiches were a treat and the carrots were nutritious. It was a well balanced lunch and maybe okay he should have left the crusts on. Now was not the time to admit that though because Eric didn't respect the cowardly and Butters knew that he didn't seriously care, he was just finding something to complain about.
"Thanks for coming Eric." that seemed like the best way to reply.
"Whatever." Eric scowled. Scowling or pensive were the only two emotions the chubby teen had been showing these last two weeks. Outside of obviously fake good cheer whenever Heidi was around that is. Although even then sometimes Eric couldn't even keep that up properly. When the facade dropped he would be icy and Heidi would be worried and Eric would have to quickly cover it up again. "What do you want Butters?"
"We should eat first," Butters smiled.
"I ate already." Eric shrugged "I don't want your shitty sandwiches. I didn't come here to eat I came here because apparently this is important and somehow related to Heidi?"
Eric wouldn't have come at all if Butters had simply said "Please come to my house for lunch and convince my parents to let it happen" oh no. Eric would have told him to screw off and ignored him and Butters needed Eric's help. However Eric Cartman only helped himself or Heidi and that second one was getting rarer and rarer by the hour. So Butters had told him that what they needed to discuss involved Heidi and that had gotten Eric over here. Butters was a little bit surprised but pleased. Begrudgingly or not Eric had showed up and it proved that despite how he had been acting Heidi still meant something to him deep down. Something important. Butters had needed to know that.
It was annoying though that his food was insulted. Butters had worked pretty hard on those sandwiches and had cut the carrots himself so they would be in perfect bite sized pieces! He sat down in front of his plate, because he at least would eat some lunch even if Eric wanted to turn his nose up at it. Eric sat down across from him, shooting his own plate a disgusted glance before looking back up at Butters expectantly.
"So you've noticed that things haven't really changed very much at the school haven't you?" Butters opened.
Eric shrugged noncommittally. "Didn't really expect anything to."
"I mean I didn't think it would happen overnight but no one has even taken a step in the right direction!" Butters had to be passionate if he wanted to keep Eric's attention "The boys are waiting for their girlfriends to come back to them and the girls are waiting for the boys to apologize." Butters wasn't blind and he wasn't deaf. He could see the looks on the girls' face, looks of expectation and impatience. He could see the looks of obliviousness and hope on the in the eyes of his male classmates.
"It's going to erupt soon." Eric said in a bored voice, obviously he had seen and heard the same things that Butters had. A month ago he probably would have figured out another way to unite the two groups, especially working with Heidi, but right now it looked like he was more interested in his own inner turmoil. Right now he was keeping his distance from Heidi and everyone else while he figured out what he was going to do. Butters noticed that instead of wearing a Token's Life Matters shirt or something to match Heidi's he was wearing his typical red puffy jacket. He was slowly but surly becoming the way he was before they broke his stuff and he had made friends with Heidi. His trust in women and his desire to be a better person had been broken into un-repairable pieces.
That's what Butters wanted.
"It is. The thing is Eric I asked you here because I want your help to erupt it right now." Butters took a bite of his PB&J savoring the sweet taste as he waited for Eric to reply. He did pretty good with this sandwich.
Eric stared at Butters, eyes growing cold "I'm not a part of your movement. My dick is staying in my pants."
Butters swallowed "But I don't want you to join me as another follower to the cause, I have plenty of those, I want you to help me lead. I got them this far but if you helped me I could turn the tides and gain the upper hand over them girls!"
Eric sipped his milk "You forget that I have a cause as well. Are you seriously asking me to turn my back on what I believe in and help you take out the girls because your little heart got broken by that Canadian bitch?"
Butters fidgeted, mentioning his ex caused his heart to clench and his throat to close up. It was disgusting but he hadn't actually gotten over Charlotte yet. She had hurt him badly and yeah, that was why he had started the Weiner's Out movement at first, that was true. But now, after Bill's warning and seeing with his own two eyes just how frighteningly smart girls were, things were a lot different. He'd deal with Charlotte. He'd make the pain stop, but that couldn't happen without the boy in front of him so for the moment he just had to match Eric's cold look and respond.
"You know a lot more about the girls now than you did when you started your cause."
Because Butters wasn't the only person who'd been hurt.
Eric's eyes darkened but he didn't reply. Score one for Butters.
"You know what the girls want from us Eric," time to push "You know what they tried to do two weeks ago."
"We blew up Spacex. It'll be years before they can try their cum and joke mine stunt a second time." Eric said, voice dismissive again.
As much as he distrusted women in general, Butters thought the concept of them milking the boys of their jokes and semen in underground mines on another planet was nonsensical. But Eric believed it and if Butters needed to press that button to steer Eric towards his cause then he would. He himself had gone to the closest Spacex because he was scared at the time. He'd believed they had already found a way to Mars and if he got off planet then that means he wouldn't have to deal with whatever hellfire Hilary Clinton brought down on the men of the world. But his hopes were dashed when he found out otherwise and then they were doubled when Heidi had solved the supposedly unsolvable. Butters had seen the light thanks to Bill, and thanks to Heidi he'd decided what he needed to do about it.
Not run. Act.
Not pretend to be changed, not kissing up to them like he'd kissed up to Heidi. Bill was wrong and Butters had told him so when they talked on a payphone last week. It was stomp or be stomped and for Butters to do any stomping...
"You think they'll stop? You think there's not another Spacex that's reachable by bus point? They want blood Eric. Male blood. The girls want to push us boys down and lord over us and if we lose this war then our lives will become incredibly difficult."
Eric snorted "Because our lives aren't at all difficult right now."
Butters ignored him to deliver his point "We've beat them twice Eric. When we stopped Troll Trace and when we decimated Heidi's energy source. Darkness is coming and do you know why?"
Stick it.
"Because hell hath no fury like a woman scorned."
He had practiced that line. Made sure every syllable was emphasized in just the right places. He had planned on that opening Eric's eyes and then he'd say yes and Butters could sneak him up to his room to show him the other half of his request but Eric just sat there not saying anything, taking another sip of his milk.
"You...You've gone at Jews and Hippies for much less." Eric wasn't acting the way Butters had imagined he would and that made his voice wobble as panic started to quietly set in his chest. In all of the time spent locked in his room and working on this plans Eric not actually agreeing to this had never crossed his mind.
"I'm not you Butters. I don't have an irrational paranoia about women taking over the world." Eric said condescendingly, as if he'd forgotten about the way he'd acted when he thought girls were going to milk him dry on a distant planet. "Now since obviously you were lying to me about what this talk was really about, I think i'll go home and focus on what actually matters."
When it comes to panic Butters didn't handle things very well. So when Eric stood up to leave and unknowingly damn mankind (and he meant MANkind) Butters quickly blurted out the first thing that popped into his head.
"Wendy is having this very talk with Heidi right now."
Eric stiffened and Butters wanted to sigh in relief. The idea of lying sickened him of course, he hadn't been raised that way. Butters was very aware that Wendy wouldn't be approaching Heidi any time soon and that those bridges had been burned a long time ago, but he would deal with the shame later. Eric would never admit it but for all of his distress and distance towards the girl, Heidi was still a chink in his armor. Eric hadn't stopped loving her and Butters was desperate enough to make use of that. Besides, this was Cartman. If he was in his right mind, using someone's weaknesses against them would be his go to strategy, his opening move in any sort of negotiation! A negotiation with the old Eric wasn't really a negotiation at all.
"Wendy can prattle all she wants, but Heidi wouldn't ever join her!" Eric snapped, breathing a little heavy as he visibly worked himself up.
"Wendy's the leader of the bunch, of course she'll use slick talk and honeyed promises to sway Heidi." Butters shrugged, trying to appear as though he was simply delivering the facts instead of making things up as he went along. At least he knew that if Wendy ever did try to recruit Heidi she really would use underhanded methods to try and grab the girl. It was probably Wendy who convinced all of the girls to break up with their boyfriends in the first place. He didn't have any proof of that though, and that was lucky for her because if Butters had even a shred of it then Wendy would be the first person he pointed Eric at. His companion sat back down and took another swig of milk to distract himself. Time to keep shaking him.
"You said it at Spacex. Women are all conniving snakes in the grass. They'll use you up and then leave you for dead and Heidi isn't any different. If you keep on holding onto this girl then she'll do the same thing to you, just wait and see. You remember what she said after Spacex. How her dreams would have to wait. She didn't even get your joke!" Butters had been close enough to hear the exchange and he was grateful for it as Eric's doubts started to really show in his body language.
"If I join your cause Heidi will break up with me." Eric said, voice probably sounding smaller than he had intended. He certainly didn't mean for his eyes to look so shiny and vulnerable at the concept.
"I can't live without Heidi, I know i'll be miserable"
With Eric's past words ringing in his mind Butters leaned forward to stamp out that vulnerability forever.
"Which is why you'll break up with her before she has a chance to," It was basically a You Can't Fire Me I Quit scenario "You'll do it publicly, a spectacle that only you can create! That'll prove to the boys that you mean business plus it will catch her off balance and then she can't use those brains of hers to screw you over!"
It also guaranteed that Heidi would hate Eric forever and kill any hope of reconciliation. Butters didn't have any personal quarrel with Heidi Turner and truth be told he didn't want anyone to go through what he had when Charlotte stabbed his heart out with a Canadian spoon. But it was necessary because even though Heidi was one of the sweetest people he knew she was also a girl and because she was a girl that meant she'd side with Hilary when the time came. She had to go down with the rest of her gender before that could happen.
Eric's eyes had settled on his plate as he pondered over what Butters was telling him and get himself back under control. Butters for his part used this lull to take a few bites of his food. His throat was getting dry and he figured that some food and milk would put an end to that before his voice got all raspy. That tended to happen whenever he got too nervous.
"She's a snake Eric." He delivered a parting shot before Eric could totally recover "otherwise she'd be funny like she always lead you to believe."
Eric himself had been the one to champion the concept of Heidi being smart and funny and she would always smile, embarrassed but pleased. It was obvious that it was probably Eric who had puffed up the girl's pride but Butters knew full well that with his last sentence Eric was probably flashing back to his time with Heidi and misremembering events so that it was she who constantly reminded him about her alleged comedic value. Better than anyone except Kyle and maybe Wendy did Butters know how Eric's mind operated.
Eric was silent for so long that Butters almost said some other things to sweeten the deal and had to stop himself by actually giving his own tongue a bite. However the chubby teen eventually spoke up and asked the question Butters had been waiting for.
"How would we go about this war of yours if I joined you?"
Leopold Stotch smiled widely and reached over beside his chair, pulling up his blue bookbag and pulling out several pages worth of colorful graphs, ideas, ploys and even a scrap with Bill Clinton's number on it. Eric pulled one over to him to scan it, eyeing the silver and green drawings on it. Gears in his head were already visibly turning as he finally picked up a sandwich to nibble. Butters had won and the blonde could hardly wait to get started.
With Bill's money and resources, Eric's viciousness and Butters own tenacity the men of Earth wouldn't have to worry about Hilary and the female population much longer.