A/N: Remember, this chapter is written in Cartman's point of view. Don't want to confuse anyone. Please review! :)
I felt horrible for making Butters cry. I had perfected fake laughing at Butters' pain around my friends, but each time I hurt him it killed me a little inside. But never had I made him cry before. I wanted to burst out into tears, too, and hold him.
But I laughed and teased him instead. Kenny had almost pissed his pants laughing, and I wondered why I had such a horrible best friend. I know I'm just as bad with some things, but Butters doesn't deserve the way we treat him.
But only I think that.
"I just can't believe he ditched school because he was so ashamed!" Kyle laughed gleefully as we sat down at lunch.
"Yeah... but if only he could've made it through lunch, it would've been fun putting him in one of the cafeteria trash cans...." Kenny replied with a false sigh, it might've been real if he hadn't been so amused by the fact that Butters really was a fag.
"He definitely would've left after that, can you imagine having all of this repulsive food on you?" Stan said with a wrinkled nose.
"Y'know what I think..." Kenny said suddenly, his gaze fixed on what seemed to be a table a few away, but it was hard to tell which one he was looking at. "I think..." Kenny's grin was widening, "he might have a thing for Pip."
"Pip?" I blurted out, and tried to recover before any of them got suspicious. "Wow, uh, yeah... could be, they always spend so much time together...." Kenny raised an eyebrow. He was best at seeing through me. But he didn't say anything about it.
"Yeah... we should throw them a wedding." Kenny was laughing again, quite pleased with his thought.
"But... it'd be two brides, no groom," said Kyle with a frown. "How would that work?"
The only good thing that could be said for the day was that I knew for sure Butters was gay, which gave me a fleeting ray of hope, even if I'd never stand a chance after all the shit I put him through. But now Kenny had me considering Pip as another obstacle....
I groaned and laid down on my bed, trying to figure out when everything had turned upside-down.
Maybe it was the fact that he was never horrible to anyone even when they really deserved it... he never made anyone cry after all, did he? He never tried to break anyone's heart just for a laugh... he's such a good person. Who would've known I'd be attracted to the good kid?
I mean, it would make sense if I had a thing for Kenny, he's a lot more like me, but... Butters? No one would ever think that. Which was a good thing, because my life would be officially over if anyone knew. That was why I never even told my best friend that I'm gay.
"I should stop living a lie," I told myself aloud, wanting myself to believe it. But I couldn't. It would be too hard to be myself. A smile twitched on my face.
Butters is always himself. And it got him people like me ragging on him.
I don't think I could deal with myself tormenting me.
The next morning was Friday, which meant that the usual four of us would be having a sleep over, tonight at my house. When I went out to the bus stop, that was the first thing they said to me.
"So we should drop by at around four, right?" Kenny asked, while peering around the corner for the bus.
"Yeah, four's good," I nodded, "where's that friggin bus?"
"Cartman, you've been here for about five seconds, stop being such a wuss," Kyle rolled his eyes at me, to which I flipped him off.
"Doesn't matter how long any of us have been standing here, there it is," Stan pointed out as the bus pulled up to the stop, and we all got on hastily. We were always the first stop, so we always had our first choice of seating. We took the back, where we sat in silence for a minute until we came up to the next stop – Butters' stop.
I looked over at Kenny and noticed he was wearing that wicked grin of his.
"I have a fun idea," he said chirpily, and I tried to hide my frown.
"C'mon, Kenny, let's just leave him alone." I received three shocked looks as I said that.
"Whoa, you want to be nice to someone?" Kyle said through a laugh, clearly disbelieving. I couldn't blame him, I did have a tendency to be... well... an asshole.
"Not nice," I said defensively – why on earth would you be defensive that you aren't nice? – as I frowned a bit more, "just not completely horrible."
"Fine, Cartman, have it your way," Kenny said sulkily, as he watched Butters get on the bus and send all of us a terrified glance. Kenny waved to him and Butters quickly sat down and shrunk into his seat so that we could only see the very top of his hair. "Scared little thing, isn't he?"
"Mmm... yeah...." I found my attention slipping as I was gazing at that bit of blonde hair I could see.
The day dragged on for what felt like ages, nothing more eventful happening than Stan throwing balled up pieces of paper at the math teacher every time she turned around to write on the blackboard. When at last the final bell rang, even though I wanted to sprint away from the stupid school, I hung around until everyone had left, giving quick goodbyes to my friends, even though we'd be seeing each other again in a couple mere hours.
Butters was always the last to leave, and I wanted to talk to him really badly.
"Butters?" He jumped at his name, he obviously didn't hear it very much unless it came from a British accent.
"Hi... Eric...."
"Look... Butters... a-about... yesterday...." I paused, biting my lip."I... I'm... I JUST CAN'T BELIEVE YOU'RE A FAG! HAHAHA!" Then I ran straight out the door, furious that I hadn't apologized like I so badly wanted to. But it was too late.
It was too late for the truth. Too late to tell him how I really feel. I kept running until something stopped me.
"Whoa, Cartman, cool down," Kenny's voice laughed a bit, he'd held his arm out to stop me. "You're a pretty good runner, why do you never put in that much effort in gym? Aren't your miles always like... thirty minutes?"
"Shut up, Kenny."
"What? It was a compliment... sort of."
"I hate you, Kenny."
"I love you too, Cartman," Kenny said as he rolled his eyes. "We missed the bus. I was trying to wait for you and then I noticed the bus left. What were you doing? It was only Butters there, have you decided to be normal again and tease him?"
"Er... yeah."
"You weren't saying sorry or anything, were you?" He asked me in an accusing tone. Why can he see through me so perfectly?
"Of course not," I snorted as if this was the most ridiculous thing in the world. Truthfully, I hadn't been apologizing to him, but Kenny could have no idea how bad that was making me feel.
"Well, we'd better start walking... it's going to take a while to get back home." Kenny said grudgingly as he looked out into the heavily falling snow. As he pulled the school's main door open, he swore loudly. "IT'S SO FUCKING COLD!"
"No kidding," I said as I stepped out into the freezing weather. I tried to not let my teeth chatter too loud, because I knew it'd make Kenny even more mad... as it was sort of my fault he'd missed the bus.
"Why do we have to live here?" He muttered, though I wasn't sure if he was really asking me.
"Because our parents do," I pointed out obviously, to which he threw me a dirty look.
"Your place is closer... can I just go to your house?"
"Sure, no problem...." I strained my eyes to try to see through the snow which was falling ever harder by the second. "...Kenny, where the hell are we?"
"Uhh... dunno, I can't see a thing anymore," he grabbed my hand and dragged me until we found a building, which we ran into, shaking the snow off of ourselves. A quick glance around told us immediately that we were in the movie theater.
"Hmm, so we aren't too far away, but it'll be hell walking through this."
"I hope the school bus crashes," Kenny said darkly, "because now I probably have frostbite. Even in South Park it doesn't normally snow this hard. My feet are killing me."
"Would you prefer if I carried you?" I asked sarcastically, but to my surprise Kenny jumped on my back.
"Piggy back good or would you prefer to carry me in your arms?"
I was amazed that I managed to get all the way home with Kenny plus the weight of his backpack on me. Whenever I tried to shake him off he only held on tighter.
"We're here, now get the hell off, Kenny!" I said as I pushed open my front door. I felt like I was going to die, but I couldn't help but laugh at that grin on Kenny's face.
"Haha, I know you liked carrying me around," he stuck out his tongue and then headed to my kitchen to raid the fridge.While Kenny got his food, I flopped down onto my couch and turned on the TV.
I was mindlessly flipping through channels when Kenny came back into the living room, a soda and a box of cookies with him. He sat down next to me, munching for a few quiet minutes, when the doorbell rang.
"Is it four already?" I said out loud, looking rather surprised as I glanced at my watch. "Well, I'll be..." I got up and opened the door, and Stan and Kyle both walked in.
"Wow, Cartman, I think that's the first time you've answered the door and not your mom," Kyle said with a laugh as he immediately joined Kenny on the couch, his eyes glued to the television. "Wanna play video games?" He said after he seemingly decided the show was boring.
"No "So Cartman, why weren't you on the bus today?" or "How are you?"" I said with mock offense in my voice. I'd learned long ago though that they didn't care about me, they liked my mom's cooking and his vast collection of video games.
"Nope," said Stan as he pulled out one of the boxes from under my couch that held some of my video games, which he started flipping through. "Hey, is this one new?" He asked suddenly, as he pulled out a snowboard game.
"I got it last week," I said, but Stan had already put it in the Gamecube and had grabbed a controller. Kenny looked over at me and laughed.
"Well, I know what Stan'll be doing all night."
Butters had been driven completely out of my mind until we started getting tired and were getting ready to sleep. Kyle and Stan rolled out sleeping bags on the floor in my room, Kenny was laying on my bed.
I should really just buy him a freaking sleeping bag, he always sleeps in my bed with me. Poor piece of shit.
"Did you know Tweek's back on pot?" Kyle said as I got into my bed next to Kenny.
"Kyle, I don't care, gossiping is for chicks," I said as I shut my eyes, but that only made things worse, because now Butters' face was floating around in my mind. Why couldn't I think about anything besides him?! Kyle kept talking about Tweek anyways, but slowly his voice drowned out, and was replaced by a higher-pitched one.
"Eric, I'm so happy to be with you!" Butters was saying, his face glowing with happiness as we walked side-by-side around Stark's Pond. "Nothing could spoil this day!" Suddenly we both got quiet and stopped walking to face each other....
"Eric... did I ever tell you... I love you?" We were getting closer. Until... Stark's Pond vanished, and the scenery was suddenly flames instead of snow, demons circling around us. Just when we were about to finish the inch apart from each other, one of the demons starts laughing loudly. I looked more closely at the demon and saw that it was... me?
"YOU STUPID FAG! HAHAHAHA!" The demon version of myself was laughing, and Butters suddenly was laughing too, joining in making fun of me for being this way.
"No! Butters! But... you are too! I LOVE YOU, BUTTERS!" I yelled, but he sneered.
"I'm no gay-ass fag!" Butters snickered as he turned into a demon too, and he started circling around, laughing....
Laughing....
They're all laughing....
Why won't they stop laughing?
The laughter stopped, and the cold eyes that had been sneering at me vanished into concerned blue ones. Kenny was wide-awake and staring intently at me, I was really surprised how worried he looked.
"Cartman... are you okay? You were muttering in your sleep... something about Butters... and Cartman, you were... crying." Kenny was whispering, still watching me with wide eyes.
I flushed. No... I couldn't have been. But I raised a hand to my face and I felt it. I felt the tears that had been rolling down my face.
"Kyle and Stan are both asleep... they didn't see," Kenny said softly still, and I was grateful. I never would've lived it down if they'd seen me cry. "Try to get some sleep, and have sweet dreams...."
He hugged me lightly, and I knew he was watching me until I fell back into a better sleep.
Maybe he was a better friend than I normally gave him credit for. And maybe Kenny liked something about me other than my video games.
