Bubbly: Hello!!! Yes, i've been busy, goddamnit!!! You know, Cornell notes are a bitch!! Seriouslay!!! Gaawwwddd!! On with the story!!! (turns VCR's Bratcore on ipod full volume) Let's rock this bitch!!!!!!!

Disclaimer: I do not...own it?

Chapter 10: Persecution

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When I was a kid, it was like this: I'd be lying helpless in my room, my dad was another peripatetic, belligerent drunkard, and my mom would be lying idle and agitated on the couth, there was nothing we could do to make each other feel better, and the whole house seemed to be stuck in some wretched detente. And I would say to myself 'I won't end up this way.' Does that make any sense? Is it possible that I didn't collapse, become incapacitated, a malfunctioning depressive of the catatonic kind, because my thoughts about my own family wouldn't let me?

I mean, when people just flat out fall apart, when they get into the kind of state where they think they're talking to angels and they sleep barefoot in the park in the middle of winter, it's not as if they got permission to be that way. They are that way because they can't help it. Not saying that my mom was disturbed, but the sheer distance between us just made me feel...lonely. Though, had I been far enough gone, I'd have gone there too. Right? Maybe. Maybe not. The measure of our consciousness, the touchstone for sanity in this fucked up town, is our level of output, our attention to responsibility, our ability to plain and simple keep it together.

If you're still at the point when you're even just barely going through the motions--showing up at work, paying the bills--you are still okay or okay enough. A desire not to acknowledge the inborn depression in ourselves or those close to us--better known these days as 'denial', is such a concentrated urge that plenty of people prefer to think that until you are speaking in tongues, eating cake mix and collecting bottle tops, you don't have a problem. But this does not take into account the other factors, the existence of guilt, of a disciplined sense of right and wrong, or in my case, an understanding of the people around me--which placed definite limits on how much rope I had to hang myself.

My mom and I had switched roles so often--I helped her with her binge drinking, soaked her cigarettes in water so that she couldn't smoke, or told her, as she sat bawling in the kitchen because she had just lost a job and was scared we'd be broke, that I was sure everything would be all right--and I was afraid to abandon the parental responsibility I felt for her. She was just there. She wasn't a sympathetic person, someone who watched me at my soccer games, took me school everyday. She was just there. And I knew never to expect any more than that.

I knew the limits of the people who were close to me, and in my worst downs, I was ever more attuned to them. Depression gave me extreme perspicacity; rather than skin, it was as if I had only fine gauze bandages to hold in the manic-depressive episodes that accumulated over the years. Insanity. Did you have to survive Vietnam, or did it take poverty, chemical dependency, severe mental illness, and long years in state institutions for this to happen? Or maybe a near death? I would never know.

I spare a glance at the blonde next to me, and I wonder how the years of abuse had really affected him. Had he always been so cheerful, so sympathetic and well-mannered? Sometimes, I think no matter what situation he could have been placed in, he would always be just that. Himself. Butters.

I'm jealous of that, I know, and it's sick. Two blonde, blue eyed boys go into a world in the same district of hell (South Park) , and come out completely different from the other. Funny.

We're both resting against the hood of my car, eating m&m's, the deadened spark of sunlight on metal lying petulantly upon the concrete.

He drums his fingertips lightly against my thigh, and turns to give me a thoughtful smile, his watery blue eyes brilliant in the diluted, winter sunlight. His dusty golden hair is tousled in a childlike way, and his cheeks are ruddy and pink.

He's the picture of innocence, in a very literal sense of the phrase. I don't know if it's love or just a melancholic harmony between the two of us, but I hope it's love. I pray to the fuckin' heavens that it's love. He's someone I'd enjoy loving, I think. And he deserves it.

"..." I smile down at him, and shift a bit, so he's laying up against me, his palms coasting questioningly along the downy blue material of my hoodie. The light dusting of freckles upon the bridge of his nose shifts and flickers as he scrunches his nose in delight. Has he already forgotten what I had done?

I hear footsteps, and raise my fleeting bottle blue gaze to the source of the noise. Tweek approaches us, slight tremors pulsing faintly beneath his pale skin, his grassy, sea green eyes regarding us with amusement.

"H-hey, guys, eerrggh...!" We both turn to greet the spastic blonde, Butters already determinedly showering m&m's into his quaking palms.

"There ya go." Butters beams proudly, and I stifle my slight laughter upon seeing the apprehension displayed undoubtedly on Tweek's face. He was quite the germaphobe. I turn my attention from the two squabbling blondes and my gaze settles upon the arrival of Craig.

"Yo," I greet offhandedly, giving him a shit eating grin. "McCormick," he drawls out in that same, nasally intonation of his, giving me an pleased smirk.

"Ah," he leans up against the hood of my car, resting his palms against the back of his head, casting a haughty, though sociable, glance my way. "I love blondes..." We both turn to watch Butters and Tweek, and we both can't help but laugh at the sight.

Tweek's eyes are closed, and his back is pressed up against the school building, looking as though he might attempt to climb it that way, while Butters stutters (haha) on about the pros, and cons of eating and sharing m&m's, further traumatizing the already disturbed blonde.

"S-See, Tweek? You're favorite color is b-blue! You can have all the blue ones, if ya want..."

"Gaah!! O-Okay!!" The emerald eyed blonde's convulsions died a bit, his body pulsing in slight vibrations, as he shyly accepted the minor luxury.

I hear more footsteps. Butters casts his bubbly, soda blue gaze to the source of the new sound.

It happened all too slowly.

The once dogged, childlike look on Butters' face congealed silently, crystallizing wordlessly into a distant, melancholic expression, a low-spirited sigh dying upon his lips.

A serrated, harsh shadow is cast upon the cold cement, and me, Craig, and Tweek all look up, expecting Stan and Kyle.

'Shit'.

Bebe stands there complacently, an objectionable expression of satisfaction caked onto her face along with all her makeup. Her supple, cherry pink lips sparkled with a gummy layer of freshly applied gloss, and her arctic, sapphire blue eyes stood out hauntingly against her lightly tanned profile. That body was driving me mad..."Hi, Kenny..." She sauntered forward, until she was within inches of my neck, her breath ghosting faintly along my jaw, which had been locked in an incorrigible trepidation.

"Bebe," I ground out evenly, my strained muscles pulsing sadistically to the rhythm of my unexpectedly accelerated heart rate. 'She's getting to me, dammit. Why the fuck is this self-centered bitch persecuting me like this?'

"Yes, Kenny..?" She's finding so much satisfaction in this, that I want to wretch.

And in the heat of this 'moment', out of the corner of my eye, I see Butters looking unbearably distraught, heartache staining his features, his eyes now the color of the ascetic winter skies.

"Fuck you, Bebe..." I mutter deliberately, barely registering what I was about to do.

I turn towards him, as I feel an almost wretched ache inciting irritably within my throat.

"I love you, Butters... Dude, I can't stop fuckin' thinking about you! Please...," my voice died down to a harsh whisper, "don't leave me."

I feel...tears? Tears. I'm fuckin' crying, and he notices it.

He's walking towards me now, and all I know is that...I do love him. So fucking much.

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We're both lying panting in the back seat of my car, everyone already in class, studying each other heatedly, pent up lust flashing overtly in Butter's brilliant, clear blue eyes. His lips meet mine in an angry kiss, my tongue delving into that moist, wet cavern, eliciting a sultry moan from the blonde pinned below me.

My hips grind up impatiently against his in unrestrained sexual tension, and he bucks up against me, his lusty whining driving me crazy. My lips feel almost bruised, but we both continue to work wordlessly, harmoniously.

"B-Butters," I choke out awkwardly, "I-," another turbulently sweet kiss, "...l-love you..."

I pull away momentarily, my features still stained with the evident lust and...something more. My expression had softened, and I found myself wanting to be even closer to him. His brow shimmered with a light sweat.

He gazed up at me with those glorious soda blue eyes, a happy smile gracing his fine features. "You love me?" I nodded eagerly, a peaceful, dopey grin rippling across my face. I feel those same tears begin to well up in my eyes.

He leaned up and placed a doting kiss to my brow, my temple, the bridge of my nose. "Don't c-cry, Kenny. I love you, too."

TBC...!!!!

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bUbBLy: AWW!!! don't worry, the lovin' doesn't stop here!! look forward to a hot, sexy, naughty, fluff chapter coming up!! OH, and stan and kyle also share a hot scene! the perverted kenny will finally make his appearance, also!!!! bring on the humor!! yay!! no more horrid angst!!!!

Spencer: you think she's hyper? I'm her FIRST girlfriend. Deal with that!!

bUbBLy: but, she loves me. so don't mind her! I'm out!!!