"FUCK,"
Eric Cartman clamped down angrily on his newly bleeding nose. Having messed up his footing for sneaking out the window of his room, he'd come crashing face down next to a bush. It was one of the only times in his life he could remember being thankful for the 3 feet of snow on the ground that muffled his fall. He crawled out from under it, taking great care to not be seen from the window as he walked to the car.
He wasn't supposed to take joyrides at night, but who the fuck was going to stop him? His mom? In a few months, he'd be at Colorado State, where he wouldn't have to hear her sounds as she barely tried to quietly have sex with two guys in her room.
Fucking whore.
Cartman put the keys in the ignition and thanked the silver lining of his mother being a lush and a slut that she didn't hear the car start. Driving quietly out of the parkway, he made his way down and out of Main street — another joyride around South Park. What it was about driving around the same places that calmed him down, he wasn't sure. Maybe joyrides were just fun. Maybe it was his need to get the fuck out of that claustrophobia-inducing hell-hole.
He couldn't remember hating South Park so much as he did now. South Park had a fair amount of stupid shit happen to it, but it was still South Park. It was still the most un-boring little mountain town in existence, and it was still home. Kyle, Stan and Kenny got more fed up with the town and the adults in it than Cartman seemed to—at least there was always something going on. But since their senior year of school started, the whole place had become a fucking shit hole of anger, jealousy, and disappointment for the foul-mouthed, ex-fatass named Cartman—and there was only one reason why: Butters.
Fucking Butters.
Cartman remembered the exact day his screwed up, egotistical brain gave him a glimpse of his feelings for that stupid blonde little melvin. They were only nine at the time, and the damn feeling just grew and grew to the point where now, whenever anyone mentioned Kenny and Butters, he had to suppress all urges to choke whomsoever made him think of those two together. Reminders were not necessary.
Nine year old Eric Cartman was getting really annoyed with the fact that the only thing that bothered him about Butters Stotch not letting go of his hand throughout their entire day at the Super Fun Time was that it didn't bother him at all. He had to make a show of wanting the little blonde wimp let go because otherwise he'd have to admit to himself that he liked the feeling. He was just too young to really understand why. Every time he tried to shake him off, Butters' determination to follow the command bestowed onto him by Mr. Garrison only became stronger. Eric couldn't shake him, and he hated that he didn't hate it.
People looked at them funny at the arcade as they shared a milkshake and bought tickets together, and Butters was the one who snapped "What are you looking at?!" first. Eric didn't mind the looks. He chalked it up to the ridiculous amount of joy which came with knowing Kyle Broflovski was stuck in the lamest place on earth and he, Eric Cartman, was at Super Fun Time playing air hockey... holding Butters Stotch's hand.
He had to convince himself that Butters' had nothing to do with it. He was just having a super fun time at Super Fun Time, and Butters was an appendage he had to endure... right?
"Aw man, I can't wait to see the look on Kyle's face when we tell him we had Super Fun Time while he was at the dumb pioneer village."
As they trotted on back to the faggy lame-ness that was the land of bad actors who wouldn't break character, Butters seemed as angry as a boy like him could ever be.
"We're not telling anybody! I don't wanna get in trouble, and I didn't have a super fun time anyways!" Butters, the eternal optimistic ray of sunshine, had his brow furrowed and was clenching Eric's hand a little tighter than he needed to. Eric supposed he was trying to inflict some form of pain, but Butters wasn't the kind of kid that really knew how to do such a thing. Not purely out of lack of physical strength—he was just too gentle a person to understand how to even try to cause someone pain. It was almost adorable to think this might have been his best effort.
Shut the fuck up, Eric said to himself. Butters is a gay-wad, that's why he can't squeeze hard.
"Butters, you gotta learn to chill. Life goes by pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, and do whatever you want all the time, you could miss it." Cartman had a way of changing Butters' mind to believe anything he said without even trying. The little blonde looked almost ashamed at himself.
"Yeah, well, I guess that's kinda true..."
Cartman smiled at himself in the half second before he saw the blue and red lights flashing near the entrance to the Pioneer Village. "Uh oh." At least a dozen police cars in front of 'Police Line Do Not Cross' hurdles stood directly in front of them. "Crap, they called the cops on us," Cartman stated somewhat non-chalantly. This time, Butters did inflict some pain on Eric's hand as he squeezed frantically out of fear.
"What? They called the cops!?"
"They must have realized we left. Damn!"
Butters squeezed even harder as he started to panic. "Oh my God, THE POLICE ARE LOOKING FOR US!"
Cartman pushed him roughly behind a mail-box to hide them both from being discovered because of Butters' screams. "Shhh, Butters!" But for all his attempts to clamp his hand over his hand-holding buddy's mouth, Butters had reached a full-fledged freak-out.
"WE'RE GONNA GET IT NOW!!"
"Butters! BUTTERS, calm down!" Eric was going to have to shut him up if they were going to get out of this ungrounded. "I know a way out of this!"
"You just got me busted forever!" Butters' baby blues started to well up with tears at the thought of what his parents would do if they were ever to be arrested. Cartman knew what the Stotch's were like, and as much as the sick twisted part of his brain found it entertaining, there was a smaller part that was always horrified at the kind of abuse the little blond boy always suffered—though he would never admit such a thing.
"Butters, listen-listen to me," Eric tried to say over the whimpers coming out of Butters' mouth, but Butters was beyond listening to Eric anymore.
"No!" he declared, putting his head in his free hand and sobbing openly. His crying was starting to make Eric uncomfortable.
"All we have to do is sneak back inside without the cops seeing us," he insisted. "Then we can say we were inside all along."
"You said they wouldn't notice we were gone. You promised!" he sobbed, and, mustering all the ill-will he could, landed a sad little punch on the top left section of Cartman's chest—right near the heart; Butters' very best effort to hurt him as much as he could. It seemed no matter how logical a solution Eric devised, it wasn't going to change the fact that Butters was hurt. Hurt, scared, and panicked. And Eric was the cause of that. And for the first time in his life, Eric Cartman felt really, really bad about it.
It wasn't even pity in the way Kyle pitied homeless people or the way most kids at school pitied Kenny. Cartman was genuinely sorry that he had gotten Butters in trouble. And it wasn't just because he had gotten him in trouble—if it had been anyone else, he wouldn't have given a fuck. It was the fact that it was Butters, and he was crying, and it was all his fault. He, Eric Cartman, was to blame for the adorable little tears streaming down to that turquoise little coat that Butters always wore. He felt a tug at his chest where Butters' pitiful little punch had landed, and ferociously fought the impulse to give the crying boy a hug.
Fighting that impulse was the hardest thing he'd done to date, and he would forever mark that moment as the one where he became aware of just how much that stupid little blonde gay-wad cry-baby meant to him.
FUCK.
He looked down at the spot where his heart-strings were still going haywire. He had to make this right. He was going to make sure neither he nor Butters got in trouble today.
Cartman turned the wheel sharply as he missed crashing the other car by the skin of his teeth, the blaring honking sound of the person he almost killed ringing in his ears. He almost crashed for getting lost in a memory that always seemed to make him run the red lights on the road. Every time it was the same. The same drive, the same roads, the same Marlboro cigarettes, and the same memories being reminisced on over and over again. He should have died as often as Kenny used to with how little he paid attention to the road on these drives.
The car had come to a halt in the middle of the intersection. Eric put his head on the wheel and closed his eyes, a cigarette dangling from his lips as he started to cry again. Never audibly, but always passionately, the tears rolled down his cheeks and made little dark circles of wet on his jeans, shoes, whatever they hit.
Fucking BUTTERS.
He was never going to get that feeling off his chest. The tingling, tugging little ache on the top left section of his chest where Butters' fist had connected all those years ago. He felt like Harry and his scar, the sensation increasing whenever Butters was near, warning him of imminent emotional danger. The burning, unbearable pain when he saw Kenny McCormick and Butters Stotch together—that same pain which almost killed him when he first walked in on Kenny giving Butters his Valentine's day present: their first kiss.
Eric pushed his head down on the horn and screamed as loudly as he could, cracking and damaging his voice, only lifting his head to accelerate the car as fast as it would go towards Kenny's house. He dreamed of killing Kenny him over and over again, stabbing him in the chest until he couldn't ever come back... and then he could have Butters all to himself. The tires screeched just on the other side of the train tracks as Eric turned off the car, just meters from the McCormick residence. He lit up another Marlboro and watched the shadows dance in the light coming from the windows. He saw Kenny walking around his room, talking on the phone with what Eric could only assume was the object of his obsession. Kenny laughed and smiled something big.
And there-in lied the truth of how Eric Cartman had changed. His manipulative, selfish persona had now become a facade he had to put on to make sure no one knew the gravity of the effect Butters had had on him. He had no plan to walk into the house and kill Kenny, because he was sure that, on the other line of that conversation, Butters was smiling even bigger. Because Kenny made him happy, and Eric promised himself long ago that he would no longer be the cause of Butters' unhappiness.
Sighing, he finished his cigarette and drove back towards his house. He contemplated getting drunk and wrapping the car around a telephone pole, so as to not feel the burn of that spot in his chest when Kenny and Butters hung out at the lockers tomorrow as they exchanged secret glances of affection and hints of their off-campus romance. But then, he wouldn't get to see Butters at all. Maybe some day he'd get the courage and do himself in, but until then, he'd rather have Butters' face, and not Kenny's, be the last thing he was going to see. One more day in this hellish little town to endure in exchange for the promise of a glance at the baby blues that had changed Eric Cartman; the boy who's little punch had kick-started his heart: fucking Butters Stotch.