::Rusty Iron Pipes on a Chalkboard – Miscommunication::
"Hey, Wendy, can I talk to you?"
Kyle didn't want to do this. It really wasn't his thing, most of the time. He didn't like sticking his nose into other people's relationships. It was, he'd always told himself, their own damn business. And yet? Well, the simple fact was that he'd seen this cycle play out just too many times to stand by and watch it happen all over again. Stan was convinced something was different this time- and maybe there was? He didn't know. But his last hour was a class he shared with Wendy, and the longer he'd been sitting in the same room as her, the more he thought it really was time to say something on behalf of his best fucking friend.
So, when the bell rang and everyone cleared the hell out to get to the buses and go home, he stopped her just before the door, pulling her aside as other kids continued on their way out after packing up their things.
"Oh, hey Kyle. Sure, is something wrong?"
"Well, Stan told me about you guys maybe going to the dance together." Kyle responded. "I didn't know you guys were dating again."
"Oh." She blinked- scoffing softly. Apparently the news wasn't supposed to be out just yet. "I'm not sure if I'd call it dating just yet. Stan and I have had our ups and downs, but... well, we were little kids. I feel like we've both changed a lot, and those changes might be good. I actually started hanging out with him right at the beginning of the year, trying to... I don't know, restart with a friendship and rebuild from there. To be honest, I still haven't decided about the dance. I'm worried it's moving forward too soon, before we've got a real foundation to work with, you know?"
That... actually sounded incredibly well-reasoned. Then again, Wendy had always been pretty grown up among everyone in their grade level. "Is he... uh, on the same page as you?"
"I know he wants to get back together." Wendy sighed, a note of defeat in that. "I'm worried it's all he can think about... and now he wants to do something for the singing contest, which, of course, rushes my decision if we want any time to practice."
"Oh jeez, he's already started." Kyle's face fell into his hand. "This is exactly what I was yelling at him about at lunch today- he's already too invested, and he's going to get hurt again. Maybe Dee has the right about of all this stuff; just ignoring everything."
"Dee? What did Dee ignore?" Wendy's voice suddenly went tense, perking up.
"Huh?" Why did Wendy care about Dee's recent behavior. The voice she was using was expectant to a certain degree, but also hesitant. Contention in her tone drew a tight rubber band around a number of feelings and rose her pitch a note or two. "Uh, some girl showed up and gave Dee a note, but he wouldn't read it. He just shoved it in his pocket and glared at anyone who said he should read it."
"He didn't read it?" Wendy's eyes went wide. "Oh damnit, I've gotta go!"
"What? Wait, what? What's up with the note? Do you know the girl who gave it to him, uh... Emily, I think? Is she gonna be heartbroken?"
"Emily didn't write it, I just asked her to deliver it!" Wendy responded hurriedly, panic in her eyes as she shouldered her pack and turned from Kyle to make for the door. "Sorry, I gotta go!"
"... wait, so you wrote it?!" Kyle asked to the thin air where Wendy used to be. Why would Wendy write a note to Dee and have someone else deliver it? Was...
Was Dee a plan-B in case she decided not to go to the dance with Stan? What the hell?! That made it all even worse; if Wendy went with someone else, it would be like when they broke up and she started going out with Token right away! Stan was fucking devastated after that shit! Kyle felt like he needed to do something with this information, but had no idea what. Tell Stan? No, that would just rush into all the consequences he was trying to avoid. He supposed he could try and make sure everything went well between Stan and Wendy, but what if he just made shit worse?
It seemed the only option was but one- talk to Dee and convince him that going out with Wendy was a bad fucking plan. No, more than a bad plan, a terrible plan, a plan he'd only go through with if he wanted to fucking ruin one of their friends- Dee cared enough about Stan to reconsider, right? Right? Well... it was hard to tell what Dee cared about, but he'd never gone out of his way to screw Stan before. Certainly he wouldn't be so selfish as to wreck Stan, once he'd been warned what his actions would do, right?
Right. He just had to go and make his case, plain and simple as that.
Dee was most of the way out of the locker area when she was crashed into by an unknown mass in a hurry. She figured it was some student who needed to head to the office before catching the buses or something like that, and made a quick turn and side-step to try and get herself out of the way without falling over; the weight that hit her hadn't been all that heavy. Wiry, she realized- one of the girls? Had Red or Bebe crashed into her, no doubt preoccupied with whomever they wanted to ask them to the dance and how they were going to charm them into doing so?
The person who had knocked into her recovered, and she saw it wasn't one of the girls.
It was Butters, out of breath and wide-eyed. Panicked? Why was he so upset? Or... was it something else?
"Oh, Dee!" He cried out, once the pair of them had separated, looking at her with a sudden smile that was still somewhere between exhilaration and utter meltdown. "I-I was lookin' for you! Ah... hey, I mean, um..." He shook his head, ruffling fingers through hair that might have been combed or styled this morning, but his fingers had raked it back into a spiky mess over the course of the day.
Now that she thought about it, hadn't he been looking at her a lot today in science class? She assumed she must have been between him and some object of affection or another; Butters, after all, was human. No doubt he was also concerned with whom to ask to the dance... but now he was looking at her in a way that made her... suspicious. She cocked her head, blinking at him and briefly wondering when exactly he'd grown a couple inches taller than her.
Well, I'm here. Out with it before you make us both late for the bus.
"Oh, jeez, I'm sorry, just..." He put his hands out for a second, a gesture asking for a grace period as he took a deep breath. "Okay. Uh, I was wondering if... um. You'd go to the dance? W-With me?"
What? I'll repeat that, what? She blinked, several times. Then several more times. She took a full ten seconds or so as she tried to process what she'd just heard, lips parting a little as if she were going to speak but instead forming an expression of utter shock. Had she just heard what she thought she heard? Butters, asking her out. Her! A person who, from his perception, was a dude. Yes, she'd just heard that. No matter how many times she went over it in her head, it wasn't going away.
Did Wendy put you up to this? She wondered, staring at him with wide, skeptic eyes.
"Dee! Dee!"
"Oh, hamburgers- Listen,uh, you... you don't have to answer right away- there's still a few more days!" Butters assured, backing away as the fear began to take over. He'd pushed himself as far as his courage would go today, and someone else was calling for Dee from further up the hall. "I'll just... see you tomorrow morning! Yeah, uh... bye, fella!"
Dee was still left staring into space as Butters departed with all haste. She remained, still as a statue in the hustle and bustle of students getting their shit to get the hell out, right up until she felt a hand clap on her shoulder from behind. All at once, she came crashing back to earth and jerked around in a neat 180- and came face-to-face with Wendy.
Wendy. Fucking Wendy, the most recent and only person to express support for the idea of me being with Butters, despite the blatant dishonesty involved.
The look on her face had a pretty clear meaning; What the ever living fuck just happened?
"Oh, jeez, he already asked, didn't he?"
Dee closed her eyes; just when she thought she couldn't be more surprised, she got another bucket of proverbial ice-water to the face. When she opened them, she glared at Wendy with all hostility. YOU KNEW?!
"Don't give me that look!" Wendy protested. "You're the one who didn't read my note! I tried to warn you!"
Note? Dee's hand plunged down into the pocket of her hoodie, retrieving the forgotten thing. She'd meant to read it at home, when she'd be guaranteed a little privacy, as well as the option of burning it if she were particularly perturbed by its contents. Now it appeared a grave mistake had been made in unfolding it so late in the day, and recognizing that the way her name had been written on the front had been an obvious red herring to prevent anyone from realizing Wendy was the author of the piece of paper in her hand. Within, a much more familiar script had been written out, and read thus;
Butters was asking me if you were single this morning, I think he's going to try to ask you out at the end of the day. I know you're still not sure about it, so you might want to make yourself scarce so you don't have to turn him down. It sounds like he's liked you for a long time, and we both know getting rejected would break his heart.
-Wendy
Dee took only seconds to read the note, and then looked back up to Wendy with a deadpan stare.
Well, I see a really obvious solution to all of this.
Holy cow the hallway smelled like rotten eggs in an open sewer pipe- but Butters had bigger things to worry about right now. He'd been anxiously waiting for the end of class, unable to focus on his worksheet or his social studies textbook as the last minute ticked away. Now that the bell had rung, he had been the very first student out the door and into the locker bays... and the first to get smacked in the face with the horrific reek of someone who had probably eaten one too many school burgers today.
C'mon buddy, you gotta get all your stuff and get moving- you've lost your nerve over and over today, so it's now or never!
The internal pep-talk helped his hands move quickly, getting to his locker, twisting his combo this way and that, retrieving everything he needed to take home, and then pushing the locker closed as he dashed down the hall and into the mass of people that populated it. He needed to find Dee! If he didn't ask him now, he was probably going to chicken out, again! Just like he had after science class, and gym, and during lunch.
Don't be a negative Nellie! See it! See success! See it in your head and know you can do it, buddy!
And he could, he could see it in his head- somehow he knew he was going to run into Dee in this hallway, and he knew he was going to ask. It was like he had already done it, the memory alive in his head as he sprinted into the rush of his peers and glanced left and right for the signature bright blue hoodie Dee wore, or his curly, candy-red hair. He knew it was going to happen, he was so certain of it-!
He tripped, and crashed into someone. They moved, and he very nearly lost his feet. Scrambling, arms out to catch his balance with his heavy pack on his back, he let out a nervous laugh as he regained himself and looked back. This is it, he told himself, this has got to be it, this feels right, like it's already happened!
Turning and looking, he saw... Token.
"Hey, man, slow down!" Token called out warmly, letting out a good natured chuckle. "If you keep running like that, you're gonna hurt yourself."
"Oh, uh, sorry!" Butters cried out, confused and feeling disoriented. Had he hit his head? He had to blink, like clearing away the after-image of a bright light to get his vision back to seeing things that were actually there. How had he been so certain the person he had crashed into was Dee? He'd felt it, known it, and then it hadn't been true. "Uh... h-have you seen Dee?"
"Dee? Sorry, dude, I haven't seen him since lunch. Don't you guys ride the same bus home, though?"
"Oh, hamburgers, you're right!" Butters felt a flare of hope run high in his chest, like his heart fluttering little wings that tickled his ribs. "Thanks, I gotta go!"
Little did Butters know, but just as he sprinted down the hall, someone else was jogging up to the same place, with the same feelings of certainty of a memory that had already occurred. It was a fresh print in the mind of another individual, but she appeared much more prepared for when the sense of de'ja'vu turned out to be a ghost of something that never was. She arrived to the same point, where Token was standing with a look of confusion on his face, and approached to ask a question he'd been asked only a moment ago.
"Hey, Token?" Wendy quested. "Have you seen Dee today?"
"Huh? Oh, hey." Token shook his head, slightly spooked by Wendy arriving so quietly and without fanfare- then again, noisy hallways were noisy. "Funny you should ask that, Butters just asked me the same thing. I haven't, though, sorry; which is weird, we have last hour together. I know I saw him at lunch... maybe he went home early?"
"... I'm guessing he did exactly that." Wendy agreed with Token's theory, but she didn't sound satisfied. In fact, she sounded rather sour about it, maybe even disappointed. "Thanks, Token. I'll see you later."
"No problem?" Token answered in a befuddled tone that didn't seem to understand what had just happened in this hallway, watching as Wendy proceeded with much less haste than Butters had been expressing. "Man, Dee sure is popular today..."
::The Author's Corner::
DEE THAT IS NOT AN APPROPRIATE USE OF TIME TRAVEL.
ALSO THAT'S WHAT YOU GET FOR NOT READING NOTES PASSED TO YOU RIGHT AWAY.
*ahem*
Onwards!
-Buttlord
