Butters was exhausted. He didn't think he'd done too badly on his performance, a contemporary monologue, but it had fried his brain. The rest of him was fried, too. He'd only had about four hours of sleep. Before his monologue, he'd tried to down some coffee, but he'd made the mistake of drinking it black and had only succeeded in burning his tongue and choking on the bitter taste. Now he was in the diner again, this time with a mug of cream and sugar. Well, there was a bit of coffee, too, but not very much. Butters was reminded of Tweek, his hyperactive childhood friend.
Childhood friends... He was still in shock about the sudden reappearance of Bradley in his life. The curly-haired blonde had changed so much. He seemed so self-assured. Secure in his own gayness. Butters remembered when Bradley had hated himself. What had caused the drastic change? Not that Butters was complaining, he'd been secretly worried about the fate of his gay friend for a long time.
"Well, fancy seeing you here," said a familiar voice.
"Bradley! I was just thinking about you. Where's Conrad?" asked Butters.
"Oh, he's at work. I was bored, so I figured I'd come down here and maybe see if you were around."
"I'm around!" Butters said happily. Bradley smiled and slid into the seat across from him.
"So we never did get around to having a meaningful conversation last night," said Bradley.
"Yeah, I know." Butters paused. "You've changed a lot," he said.
"That's what therapy can do for you," Bradley gave a wry smile. They continued their conversation. Butters learned that Bradley had left Camp New Grace shortly after he himself had. However, his parents had ignored him, insulted him, and generally abused him up until his late teens. "After I turned seventeen, I couldn't take it any more. I ran away from home- my parents didn't come after me. I was almost legal by then anyways."
"Um, hey, Bradley, isn't it kind of painful for you to talk about this stuff?"
"A little," Bradley admitted. "But my doctor says it's healthier to talk about it than to keep it bottled up inside."
"Oh." After Bradley ran away, he'd moved to L.A., where he'd worked as a bartender for a gay bar ever since.
"That's how I met Conrad. He was a regular there for a long time before he asked me out."
"Ah."
"What about you, Butters? What's your life story?"
"It's not very interesting. I went to school, got into acting in high school, and moved here."
"Yeah, I was wondering about that. How did you get into acting?"
Butters laughed sheepishly. " I started taking theatre during my freshman year- you have to take some sort of arts class to graduate, I thought theatre would be an easy grade and bring up my GPA," he said. "Anyways, there was this movie," he said. "Starring Susan Sarandon and Christopher Walken. We saw it when I was a sophomore. It was called, 'Who Am I This Time?' The story was about a painfully shy convenience store clerk who's the darling of the town's theatre troupe, and a traveling computer tech girl, if I remember right.
"Anyways, she comes to work in the town and gets cast in the latest play, 'A Streetcar Called Desire,' along Harry, the clerk. I forget the girl's name. Anyway, she falls in love with him. Or his character. She falls in love with his character because he's such a good actor, but outside of rehearsals and performances he won't even talk to her. I forget how it ends, really, but I know they get together.
"So I figured, hey, I'm kinda like Harry. You know, I can't really talk to... people. I thought, maybe if I'm good at this, I'll be able to connect with people, you know?" Butters laughed wryly. "I fell in love with the stage instead. I love being able to not be my useless self for a while."
Bradley frowned. "You're not useless, Butters. Don't think like that. Didn't you meet anyone through acting?"
"I had one girlfriend who acted for a hobby. She dumped me."
"Oh. I'm sorry. Why'd she dump you?" He looked sympathetic.
"She said I was lame and I wasn't tipping her enough."
Bradley looked confused and taken-aback. "Sorry?"
Butters explained. "She worked at Raisins, so I ate there all the time, but I ran out of money from tipping her so much."
"Oh! Okay. I was a little confused for a second there."
There was a pause. "I'm still confused," Butters said quietly.
Bradley looked up and caught Butters' eye. They held each other's gaze.