::Sneaker's SnacShak – Falling into the Same Old Shit::

"So... uh... Heidi..."

A large portion of science class had been devoted to the operation and care of the dolls, each one getting signed out to the teams of students that would be caring for them. Ace had led the class in the various pieces that came with the little robotic infants, and how to care for the simulated child's needs- changing, feeding, burping, attention, and what not to do unless one wanted to fail this little project instantly, such as shaking or dropping the thing; behaviors that would kill an actual child at this stage in development.

Heidi had been laser-focused on that instruction, hoping it would take the whole hour. She wouldn't even look at Eric, instead staring up at the whiteboard and Ace as if she were presenting the very word of God. When it was over with, however, and the teacher began to go around the room to activate everyone's faux spawn, it was somewhat inevitable that they'd have to talk to one another... if only to figure out the custody plan for the weekend.

"I'll do all of it." Heidi responded flatly, taking possession of the doll and its pieces with a sweep of her arm over the surface of the shared table. She didn't even glance his way.

I won't give him the satisfaction. I'm in control as long as I don't engage with him.

"Heidi, it's a partners project, you gotta let me help."

The sigh that came out of her felt like her soul was trying to escape via her mouth. It failed, and the despair of being stuck fell heavily into her stomach. She screwed her eyes shut, reminded that her jaw ached from how much she'd been gritting her teeth since she sat down. "Eric, you and I both know that if I were anyone else, you'd be trying to get out of doing any of the work at all. Don't pretend you care, I'm not that stupid. I'll do everything, you'll have a freebie weekend, and we can go back to the way things were: where I don't talk to you and you leave me the hell alone."

"Heidi..."

Fuck. I engaged.

She knew she'd fucked up the moment she heard that hurt tone in his voice, the little warble that he might be about to cry in the middle of a classroom of their peers. Fucking Christ, was nothing below this kid? Here we go, she thought to herself. How are you the victim this time?

"It's Friday, don't you have track practice after skewl? I'm pretty sure you can't wear a baby harness while doing sprints- lemme take it home, and you can come get it on Saturday morning."

Surprise was a small shock up the spine, making her eyes pop open and her head shake mildly from side to side, like a dog trying to shake water droplets out of its ears.

Finally, she looked at him.

It always disturbed her how pretty Eric's eyes were. Kids could say all they wanted about his size, his eating habits, the fact that he was beginning to show the early signs of a kid who was going to have a lot of issues with acne when puberty hit full force with the occasional pimple; it didn't change the fact that he had powder blue eyes that were intensely expressive. At the moment, raised brows and widened lids exposed her to the unadulterated might of those baby-blues, staring at her with unswerving sincerity.

She remembered loving those eyes a couple years ago.

She remembered hurting every time they cried.

Her stomach twisted.

"You, uh... know when track practice is?" A halting question that fumbled its way out of her mouth. "That's kinda irrelevant to you, isn't it?"

There was a temptation to make a dig on him for all the sports teams he'd been part of back in elementary school just for free food after games and practices- one she decided against. It would be an opportunity for him to exploit, no matter how well-worded her take-down was.

"I notice when you're not on the bus." He shrugged, looking away, a frown cutting into his soft face. There were still leftovers on his face from some kind of shit that had happened a couple weeks ago; the healing red lines of scratch marks from a thousand cats. Heidi had gotten the cliff notes of what the heck happened from Butters, but it sounded more than a little unbelievable. Curiosity was there, but stamped out.

What happens to him isn't my problem. I look after me. I win by holding myself accountable and never becoming the victim again.

"I know you don't trust me Heidi. It's okay. You probably shouldn't. I know I screwed you over before- I just wanted to help out. Do my part, but I guess I can't even be trusted with that, huh?"

She winced. It was him who wasn't looking at her now, and there was some reflexive part of her that wanted to rush to saying sorry. To reassure him that it wasn't all him; that she screwed him, too- but the moment the words formed it her head it was as if a fire alarm had been flipped. Sirens blared in her head, and her jaw clenched tight again.

"No." She agreed with him. "You can't. I'm going to do this, and if you come anywhere near my house this weekend, I will break your legs."

She saw the transformation, a proverbial morphing between Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, as the open and pitiable expression he'd been wearing closed down with furrowed brows and narrowed eyes that turned upon her in an indignant flash of rage. There was a sense of satisfaction in her to see it, reassured that she was not dealing with someone who actually wanted to make nice with her and move on. No, this was the same old Eric, working the same old strings, trying to get her to drop her defenses and let him work her again.

It's not happening, asshole.

Before he could spit anything vile at her, the teacher arrived at the table.

"Okay, Eric and Heidi..." Ace muttered faintly, making note of them on a clip board she was carrying. "Heidi, can I see the foot of your baby? They're all marked with a number, I need to verify it on the sign-out sheet." She asked, unaware of what she'd just interrupted.

"Oh, sure." Heidi took any excuse in a storm to look away, unbuttoning the one piece the doll was wearing and tugging it out of the way until a foot was exposed, showing A12 written in black sharpie.

"Miss Teacher, how would you suggest we split up the work for this project?" Eric asked from over her shoulder, taking on the plaintive tone he always got when he wanted something. It was somewhere between a whine and a mewl, and maybe just the moth pathetic noise on earth.

"However you want, Eric- each group can choose to trade off as needed for activities, have one person focus on care in return for the other helping with schoolwork, switch off days- whatever works for you and your partner." Ace responded, shrugging slightly. "There are thousands of different parenting styles the world over; the real point of this project is to show that caring for a baby is hard- honestly, I'm pretty sure they're part of the old abstinence only scare tactics to try and frighten kids out of trying sex when they're teens... which only makes them more disgusting and creepy, in my opinion."

"And what if one person does all the -"

Heidi knew where he was going. He was trying to corner her into doing things his way by getting the teacher involved.

"Why's that?" Heidi asked, cocking her head at Ace. "Aren't you abstinent? Shouldn't you be happy the school is encouraging kids towards your lifestyle?"

She heard Eric choke behind her as Ace blinked, her usually bright smile tightening into a puckered frown.

"Heidi, that is reductive and assumptive. Just because I'm asexual doesn't mean I'm abstinent. I choose to be sexually active with my partner because they enjoy it and I like doing things that they enjoy- but the point is it was a choice. Mine. Some people choose to be abstinent, for a lot of reasons, but trying to force kids to be abstinent through fear tactics is disgusting and leaves them unprepared to deal with their own feelings about sex and sexuality as they grow up. The fact that we still have holdovers from the old curriculum like these dolls is why I'm unhappy... but I'll still teach it, because the school requires me to."

"Oh." Heidi said, as if she hadn't understood that before. "I see."

"Good." Ace nodded, signing off on her clipboard before setting it down to pick the doll up off the table.

"But Miss Teacher-" Eric tried to get back in, "What about-"

"I'll be doing a whole section on sex and sexuality next week, Eric." Ace dismissed, setting the doll back down gently. "You can ask questions then. Right now, I need to active the rest of the class's simulations before the hour is over."

"But-!"

"Thank you, Ms. Ace." Heidi put on a cheerful smile, cutting off her table partner yet again, and setting herself to carefully re-dressing the activated doll. As the teacher left, she glanced back to Eric, who was actively pouting so hard it was a surprise his face didn't stick that way.

Eat your heart out, Eric. You're the one who taught me that trick.

"It's not fair!"

For once, Cartman was only generating the second-most obnoxious noise in the lunchroom, because half of their grade level had been through science class by this time of day and had received their creepy baby dolls... which, once activated, didn't just cry like a store bought cabbage patch kid. No, no, those things shrieked, the kind of sound that seized one's spine and forced instinctual capitulation to its needs if only to make it stop. It was one thing when it happened in a classroom; by second hour only a smattering of kids had theirs, and they were hastily excused to the bathrooms to take care of what they needed to do in order to limit the disruption. Kids were even given a pass on the Friday run during gym class if they were looking after their molded plastic infant, which Dee and Clyde happily passed off to Butters so they could get into their weekly competition of who could stay at the head of the pack.

It was a competition that they sometimes shared with Heidi, when their grade's track star saw fit to remind them who was really the best sprinter in the class... but she had been on the sidelines today, changing a doll's diaper, while Cartman was with the walkers that she and Clyde regularly lapped during that specific gym activity.

"What the hell is your problem, Cartman? You don't have to do any work, and Heidi is probably going to get a great score on the project for you. This sounds like your perfect scinaro; she does all the work, you get all the credit." Kyle sighed, shaking his head. "Me and Lana at least worked out a deal; she looks after the baby today at school, and I take him over the weekend in return for her doing the work on that essay we got assigned in English class."

"You're gonna do the mister mom thing all weekend?" Clyde quested; a surprise addition to their table this Friday, and the one currently in possession of their baby doll. "We're gonna switch off; I've got her tonight, Butters' is taking her tomorrow, and Dee's doing Sunday because he doesn't go to church."

Don't call it 'her'- just because they molded a vulva for it and dressed it in pastel pink doesn't make it any less of a thing made to torment kids. Dee huffed slightly, but nodded along all the same. It meant she was going to have the thing on Karen's birthday, but regardless of whether luck worked out she was going to be spending that day with Kenny and the birthday girl, so it wouldn't be all bad.

"Well that's great for the threesome you perverts got going on, but Heidi isn't letting me do anything!" Cartman whined. "That bitch won't even let me hold our baby- like she thinks she can just take it because she's the woman and that's her right. What about single fathers? What about loving dads who get screwed out of their rights just because they're men? It's so sexist it makes me sick!"

"Heidi isn't all bad, Eric." Butters chimed in; the other part of the trio Dee was currently embedded in, which had prevented her from sitting next to Kenny as she usually did. He was instead across from her, lacking both a doll and a partner. He didn't have science until after lunch; lucky bastard. Stan was in the same boat, and slotted himself next to Kyle, whose partner had decided to sit with her usual table of girlfriends rather than eat lunch with her 'baby daddy' as some other kids had decided to do. "I know she's still sore at you about... well, what happened back in fourth grade."

Eric was also across the table from Dee and her partners, sat on the end next to Kenny, and making his side the classic group, such as it was before she moved into town. Butters' assertion seemed to shock him, to the point that he nearly dropped his cheap hamburger into his equally cheap fries and token salad. "Oh, oh, and she just tells you everything, eh Butters?! It's bad enough you gotta be a fuckin' gay wad with Douchebag, you gotta fuckin steal my ex-girlfriend, too?! Polly-anus people really are greedy sons of bitches! When are you gonna stop, when you've fucked your way across the whole fuckin' grade- OW! KENNY! THAT HURT!"

A smart smack against the back of Eric's skull interrupted his tirade, Kenny's eyes narrowed as he glared at the boy next to him. "Fuckin' lay off, dude." He intoned through his muffler, having already inhaled his lunch at light speed and wrapped back up with his customary scarf. "You and Heidi were bad for each other. Deal with it."

"Bad for each other? Try the whole school." Kyle scoffed. "Everyone got sucked into that nightmare."

"You're just butt-hurt because you wanted to date her." Stan observed dryly, having not looked up from his lunch, his tone intensely sour. "Can we all just agree that Heidi was bad news and move on?"

"Wa- Stan?" Kyle blinked, blindsided and jerking his head to stare at his best friend... who didn't react.

Son a bitch, what's up Stan's ass now?

"SEE?" Eric insisted, latching on to any modicum of agreement. "That chick is poison! And she's infringing on my rights as a male parent! I'm gonna take that bitch to the Principal and see how she likes justice in her face."

"Oh, so you're going to force her to deal with you, and punish her for trying to stay away?"

More eyes shifted to Stan. He spoke in a manner that could only be described as emotionally dead, nothing but a sharp edge that was certain of nothing good in the world having ever been or ever coming again.

"W-What the- but Stan, you just... you just agreed with me?" Cartman blinked, confused.

"I agree Heidi was bad news." Stan answered, not looking up. "But you shouldn't punish her for trying to stay away. She's making the best of a bad situation. Maybe you should show a little maturity and do the same."

What in the tit-fucking hell is going on with him? Dee couldn't help staring on with a fault line forming in the middle of her forehead for how intensely furrowed her brow was over wide eyes. Sure, this morning had sucked, and Eric had nearly cornered him about therapy, but they'd gotten past that. She'd headed Cartman off, and with any luck this whole Heidi thing would distract him all weekend, diminishing the likelihood that the fat fuck would pursue the issue further.

There was a long pause, before Kyle seemed to realize it. "Wendy's in a different science hour than you- you guys can't be partners on this- awe, man, don't make this the eggs all over again."

"I was a shitty dad, Kyle!" Stan barked, slamming a hand on the table. "And Annie is my lab partner- if I screw up, Wendy is gonna hear about it, and I'm gonna lose her again-"

"Whoa, whoa, dude- remember, just cause something feels true, that doesn't make it true. Take a second and breathe-"

"I know, I know-" Stan nodded along before Kyle could go through the entire CBT checklist. "I just- I'm done. I'm gonna go walk around until the bell rings."

Dee stared on as Stan disengaged, leaving Kyle staring after him and looking utterly unsure of what to do.

"Whoa, Stan's wrecked... is being a good daddy such a big deal to girls?" Butters muttered in awe.

"We better take this seriously." Clyde added in a similar tone. "This project might really mess with our dating chances if we screw it up."

"Who the fuck cares? Girls are poison, anyway." Cartman spat, digging back into his lunch spitefully. "Stupid... cootie ridden... good for nothing..." He grumbled between bites.

Wow, just a bit of hostility up in this bitch. Kenny, please tell me you're not on board with these idiots... Dee's gaze wandered to the boy in his scarf... who was difficult to read when half his face was covered. He was staring after Stan, concerned, not appearing to be engaged in the table's conversation anymore. She supposed that was better than him agreeing that girls had a horrifying fixation on babies and the care there of.

She occupied herself with what she'd been doing throughout the day; sneakily texting everyone in her address book about the raffle and Karen's birthday.

God I hope he doesn't think I'm that stupid.

Next to her, the robotic baby started screaming in Clyde's arms, making the boy damn near jump out of his skin in his haste to take care of it.

::The Author's Corner::

It is not an understatement to say I've been excited to dig into Heidi since I started writing this series. At first I knew only mildly of what had gone down in the show with their relationship, but once I was caught up and seen it... well, I've been through an abusive relationship with a manipulative asshat before, and Heidi contains a lot of feels for me. Digging into her, how she's changed, how she's coped, is something that's very exciting for me as a writer :D

As always, of course, that'll just be my interpretation of the character, so I ask ahead of time that y'all don't take it personally if my take is different than yours. We's here to have fun, after all.

ONWARDS!

-Buttlord