A/N- We've decided to split the chapters up into smaller sections just to make the reading easier and to get chapters out faster.
Thanks for all the reviews! They mean a lot, especially since it takes so much to put together this story!
Scenery within South Park was a plain, white canvas on which fate painted a portrait of things gone astray. The mountains, they provided the white black drop upon which the hideous scar of that little, quiet town was cut into like a long since healed wound. Stitching was provided in the blackened streets, but not even they could contain the disease rotting beneath the polluted desecration seen in the dead eyed people wandering about in zombie fashion. The buildings were a structured testament to the disease festering beneath the seemingly peaceful surface of those luminous things in the background. Shadows traced over the ground in weaving lines and splotches of prism like colors of all shades and hues. These thick washes of nighttime fell from the arches and hard breaks of the buildings that made up the long stretch of suburbia. These streets, the spider web of second story homes, rose out of the ground, built up in perilously close resemblance to good natured homeliness. The looming things of the main street were nothing in comparison to the houses, the homes, of South Park. The main road diverged to the left and spiraled out of control, spinning off into several directions incoherently. These mini roads were the streets that made up what was suburbia in the tiny, lost town in the middle of nowhere, far from the cries of society and civilization.
Every street was dotted with little, disgustingly foul homes. Painted in pretty greens and blues, they were idolized white picket fence monstrosities without the lacing of restriction in the forefront. Windows were coated in curtains, darkening the insides where small gemstones peered out to the world unknown in the early years. Distrust filled the air like the sweet scent of baking bread, bathing the streets with motherly suspicion and fatherly misdeeds. A pungent scent, the children born in bloody cries grew up on the porches looking on. They sat there in their sickened isolation, staring across the way at others baring the same shackles, the same empty stares, the same bruises. The street, she was the asphalt acid that bubbled between the stretches of roads, searing them apart and birthing forth a separate breed upon each shore.
The left was 'the street', known for its line of deep green and midnight blue homes. From her loins, she bore the diseased creatures known as the freaky four. Seated on tainted steps, the boy Marsh, the son Broflovski, the child Cartman, and the left over McCormick watched with hungry eyes as the others of their age walked in circles about their own heads. The heavy doors of the Marshes clattered as Stan shuffled out in his tees and jeans, staring through the iced waters of apathy. The heavy curtains of the Broflovski home shifted as emeralds loomed through tangles of blood while Kyle watched through the window as the others watched him. The empty corridors of the Cartman house echoed as Eric sat on his steps, leaning forward to look down the stretch of windows, his eyes of sweet honey topaz hollowed out. Sitting in the dirt, the swimming sapphires of Kenny glinted in the sunshine as the ruffian got to his feet. His feet were dirty and bare as the demonic angel stepped over the rusted, faded train tracks and made his unsteady way to the other three homes.
Their friendship was born from the isolation of hell hidden behind heavenly smiles. Parents stood behind their backs as they met one freezing day in the middle of September. The first day of school, they had finally shaken off the biting ache of iron restraints. Seated at the same table in the same classroom, the freaky four had stared at one another for several hours in the pulsating pressure of neighborly niceness. Only four, they had yet developed their methods of talking through glances and gestures alone. Words filtered through the air, then, in nervously diluted ways. Kenny was the first the speak. His jacket was lowered only a slight fraction, revealing cut lips, and he stated in a violently frozen voice his name as he had always referred to himself as. The words shattered the silence pressing down upon them, breaking off shards in a cascade of faltering smiles and halting laughter. Their names, their identities, were carved into the world as they reached through their seclusion to shake hands and smile. Friends by necessity, they had become melded into one entity within the year.
The photo taken the day they finished preschool was a haunting profile of the damning effects yet to be realized.
Standing before the street which raped their childhoods, the four smiled bruised, bloody smiles, holding the camera up over their heads. Four eyes of colored stones gleamed in the burning, scorching sunlight, as plumped faces pressed together in childhood innocence gone. Darkness befell their cheeks as the house pictured beyond their heads ripped a hole in the summertime laughter, captured forever in the horrifying reality of Kyle, Kenny, Stan, and Eric, the little lost lambs with broken stares.
The McCormick place. She cried as she withered in her burning demise.
Standing proud, she had been the victorious testament to what could be achieved when wood was strained, painted, and nailed together with the silence of children and the loudness of adults. The terror of the McCormick nine had long since adorned her porch as boots ran through the halls, screaming obscenities ringing throughout the walls like a never ending soundtrack. No one had graced their cracked steps the way they had when the inferno of repression consumed her broken bones. Try as they might, nothing could be done to undo the fifteen years of hellish conception within the confines of a prison defined by the scrap wood bars on the plaster windows. A mother, a father, and six of seven ruffian wrenches born to the two perished in the burning blaze that shrieked louder then any of those eaten alive. Their flesh seared, their bones broke, and they were found scattered amongst themselves in the gutted kitchen blackened to a dismal tribute to the one survivor's internal war. Salvation never found the McCormick place in her outrage, her outcry, until the nightmare was overthrown in the worst possible of ways. Prayers finally befell the ruins, though, as the ashy grey walls that remained cut into the town's scenery similar to blood escaping the stitching of a wound festering with disease. She was the infection revealed, the affliction brought to light, which bore a hauntingly familiar appeal of murderous intent. The fires which refuted the lies had opened the door to the rest of the spiders nesting in the webs of suburbia. Those who hid there, locked inside the darkened underbellies of the town, they stared in horror at what was revealed at the McCormick place. Despite honest protestation of it, what happened behind closed doors did not always stay there.
Unfortunately, the secrets did.
The words spoken between the freaky four the night Kenny burned the McCormick place back to hell stayed locked behind the gemstone eyes that conceived them. There had been no investigation into the origin of the inferno, regardless of the heinous nature by which it was birthed. Officer Barbrady had stood there, his pad of paper poised for the testimony of the fire chief. The heavy, glassy shades had been lowered a momentary fraction of an inch when the tainted word 'arson' was uttered out. Fingers had pointed to the sobbing wreckage of a family destroyed and the good officer had nodded solemnly. Closing his pad, he had cast a forlorn look towards the police car with the slowly revolving head lights of aqua and blood. The angel had been holding the activist's hand, leaning into him, as the Jew rested his head on the car door and the Nazi leaned against the cold metal. The four stones cut from the ground had turned to peer through the rising sunlight and lingering smoke to see that good man tilt his head in their direction. Without another word, Barbrady had declared the crime an accident and called off the search which had never begun. The four were left to their own devices as the cars rolled off the ash coated remains of suburbia beyond the wrong side of the tracks. No one asked anymore questions as the crime was left unsaid and the justice served was unjustly decided without the audience of judgment.
Seven days had crawled out from underneath the looming oppression of the blanketed murder scene. Kyle Broflovski sat on the steps of his own darkened home, his plump cheek pushed into the broken knuckles of his hand. A dark scar was cut into his finger, marking the moment of sanity lost, as his emeralds looked upon the ghastly reminder of such a thing. He looked down the street to where the McCormick place had once stood. The door was a twisted frame holding up the front walls, broken in places by the crumpling of the roof top. The rest of the place was a scorched ruin painted grey from the smoke as it descended back into the origin of its life. Deep, thick tire tracks sliced throughout the muddied lawn as if to remind the empty Jew of the bystander he had been as the raging flames touched heaven. He had stood there, in what had felt like the ice cold metal of fear but tasted like the searing heat of insanity, as the place had died. He had not been bothered until he had found himself tangled up in the hands of the Nazi tormenting him with his antics. Cringing at the memory, he swallowed down the biting flavor of disgust as the sapphires of Kenny swam to the surface. His division from the evening had cut him away to his locked up room for seven days. Kyle couldn't say he hadn't been avoiding the problem, but he wasn't willing to admit it. Nevertheless, he sat there, turning his orbs from the devastating testament of the trials of repression. Instead, he looked to the black and blue windows of the Marsh house only yards from his feet.
Whatever took place in the room hidden there was unknown to him. Kyle was aware that the devilish angel Kenny had moved into the guest room within the upper level of that house. Stan had pleaded amongst the devoid stares of the poor boy with Sharon to concede until guilt had pressured her opinion. She had consented with a wandering warning to the mindset of Kenny. Of course, lies had poured through the uneasiness to ease the woman into the blind oblivion customary of the townspeople. Without anything to carry, the blond had quickly settled into the room. He had spent several hours just sitting on his bed with the other three of his set of four. Stan had held him to his chest, listening to the steady pull and exhale of frozen air. Kyle had sat on the edge of the bed, his head in his damaged hands, unable to find the words to express the turbulent spiral within. Cartman had laid out on the bed, his arms folded behind his head, unmoved by the eight black bags loaded onto the truck with the painted on cross. Words had been exchanged, but not through the methods of verbalization.
The freaky four had been there before, although never with one of their own. The sentences untold, the secrets unfolded, the whispers unspoken, they drifted through the temperatures below the fiery expressions. They never asked, he never offered, and so it all went by the wayside. Sunlight soon found its way through the silted curtains of midnight blue as the final hours ticked down as time slipped on by. As the sunshine of summer laughter found its way over the dirt smeared boots of the Nazi, the conversation found its way to a close. The activist pulled the angel onto the sheets creased with motherly concern to appearances. Kenny had curled up there, his blood stained jacket tugged from his soot smeared body. Never looking back, he buried his face into the pillow as his shoulders shook violently with the hysteria echoing within the depths of the closed off realm of their world. The laughter was suppressed as the Nazi slipped off the sheets and the Jew idly rose to his shivering feet. Kisses were given as hands were gripped and consideration poised for the measurement of depravity lurking in the room. Cartman had patted the messy blond of Kenny's head as he had placed a hand on the small of Kyle's back. Steering his rival out, the two of differing tastes removed themselves from the Marsh home.
The walk through the morning dew was a silent step walk on a tightrope. Kyle held himself, his fingers digging into the frozen flesh of his churning molten core. Regardless of his own opinions of the matter, he had remained quiet. He had allowed Cartman to pull him close to his girth, to his warmth, as he petted those curls and those plump cheeks. His words were as sweet as the honey of his eyes, although they weren't heard by the deaf ears of the Jew. Still, the message was received as the Broflovski home had rendered itself visible to their eyes. Coming to a halt, they stood in their embrace as the lingering smoke fell to the ground about the remaining homes with locked doors. Walking him to the front door and squeezing his hands, Eric had told him the only thing that mattered in the recollection of the whole of the fire seared evening. He whispered into his ear the words of trust, the words of misused abuse, the words of the four lambs slaughtered but surviving.
Eric told the Jew his door was always open.
Left then, Kyle had slipped into the lightless world of his home. The stairs had creaked in shrill shouts as he had made his way up to his escape. Inside his room, he had locked all the doors, all the windows, and he had crawled into his closet where he pressed his hands over his ears and screamed.
Seven days later found the Jew sitting still on his porch steps. His feet were bound in leather boots, his body in a once loose tee, as well as paint stained jeans. In the summertime, he was burning alive seated there. He didn't move, however, as he continued to stare upon Stan's bedroom window. For everything that had happened, he found his eyes unable to look towards the room next to it. He knew that was the guest room now inhabited by Kenny. The emeralds looked upon the blue curtains pressed firmly to the glass and he couldn't turn himself to stare at the pure, white ones of the other window. For a moment, he turned his eyes towards that house with disgust written on his pale face. Jerking his head away, though, he chewed on his lower lip. His fingertips ran over his quivering shoulders as he tried not to cry out. He never once stepped foot towards the two demons kept up there. All he did was turn in the other direction and search for something, someone, to lose himself within.
Strolling up the street was Butters Stotch in his innocent glory of the falling daylight. The golden spun locks of his waist long hair were pinned up, pulled back, into a lovely, seductive ponytail much higher than usual. The slender pony swung in time to his mute swagger as he tilted his pale face up from the cracks of the sidewalk when he approached the only other living being upon the whitewashed stretch of road. His orbs never found Kyle, however, for he was quickly seduced by the silver cell phone held loosely in his tiny, childish hands. His baby face screwed up in confusion wrought in every small, subtle line there. He read over the words and symbols there with fluttering eyes of clear eyes of aqua hue. Although obvious that he was unsure of the symbols, he didn't appear confused as to their meaning. This allusive appeal, however, drifted away into the burning sunshine as those eyes once more flitted upwards to gather the blank, unremarkable world surrounding his casually clothed body. Turning those eyes up, he spied the Jew watching him through the tangles of blood. A smile of sheer energy was presented as a hand was waved in the direction of the leering Broflovski home.
" Hiya, Kyle," the innocent chirped with a certain air of unimaginable happiness considering the time of day that it was. Butters stood in front of the shadowed steps in his worn out blue shirt, his tattered jeans, and his sleek boots. For all the brightness to the colors, the emeralds found an attraction to the strikingly familiar boots bound by bubblegum pink laces. He looked down at the leather things with an idle stare that traced over the loose folds of shoes far too big for the forever young Butters to be wearing.
" Hmmm?" Kyle droned out, his voice thick with heavy sleep pressing down upon him from the fiery air licking over the summertime day. His eyes slowly raised up to the immeasurable smile fastened into place of the unreadable Butters' face. Rubbing one eye, the Jew glanced away as if forced into the action, " Oh, hi, Butters,"
" Whatcha doin'?" the child asked, his head tilting. He looked as though trying to locate some form of activity, a game or book, behind the redhead. Finding nothing, the blond gave him a wildly puzzled look somehow devoid of real commitment.
" Nothing really," the Jew mumbled into his fist as he stifled a yawn. A slight flicker of ember within made his eyes open almost to their entirety. Unfortunately, the pulsating boredom of avoidance lurked within his cloudy skull. He found himself incapable of becoming wholly engaged in a conversation Butters didn't seem too dedicated to either.
" Oh. . ." Butters uttered, allowing his prolonged curiosity to draw his vaguely wandering attention back towards the porch beyond the yawning Jew. His light eyes searched the premise yet again for any form of indication as to why Kyle sat alone on the steps in hundred degree weather of a June afternoon. As he did the first time, he found nothing more than empty space radiating with negativity. His search was uninterrupted by the redhead, who closed his eyes momentarily to the spiral of disinterest. Opening them, he saw that the blond as looking towards a beeping cell. A small, dejected sigh escaped virgin lips as worry filtered through that young face, " Aw, hamburgers. . . ."
" Grounded again?" he absentmindedly asked without any of the intrigue he normally would have held for such a thing. Nevertheless, the emptiness aching through his body caused him to gaze up at Butters. He was given a blank face that was bordering on shock before a small, practiced smile poised itself on those sweet lips.
" Nah. Jus'. . .uh. . ." the blond stumbled over the words as his voice trailed away to nothing. Chewing on his lower lip, he cast the Jew a look remotely similar to fear. The metal wash found in those eyes of shimmer was startling enough to cause Kyle to sit upright. Regardless, the voice paired with such a frightening expression was the same gentle prodding of the innocent's normal day dreaming drawl, " Hey, you wanna come over?"
" Why?" Kyle shortly snapped, his fingers slipping over the length of his thighs as he eased back into his half fallen forward position. The bite to his words didn't appear to have any effect on the innocent. Of course, Butters had been subject to much worse timbres in the length of his short life with a companion such as the snarling Nazi as close to his person as he certainly was. A little bitterness rolled over his pink flesh like a pleasant summer's breeze in light of the searing screaming of the ill tempered tyrant that was Cartman.
" I'unno," Butters honestly answered. He simply shrugged without the least bit of concern for the offhanded gesture it could be taken as. In a similar fashion, he motioned between the tired emeralds and his own flat waist, " 'Cause you're alone. I'm alone. We could hang out,"
" Not interested," the Jew spat out as he turned his head to the side, his broken knuckles digging into his jaw line. His eyes scanned the bleak horizon somewhat dismally, his lips turning into a persistent frown. Before him, he saw those breathtaking boots shuffle in what could have been uncertainty. Hearing a small sigh running along the tension of the warm air, his eyes shifted back to the empty look being granted.
" Eric ain't gonna be there," Butters assured him, holding his hands out like he were surrendering himself to the words he uttered. The confidence to the meekness was a juxtaposition strong enough to jar the fires free inside the blood of the Jew. A flare overtook to lingering dread sickening Kyle as his eyes narrowed a touch. Wetting his lips, he jerked his body back so that he was sitting more upright and thus could give the innocent a look of resolute contempt. Heat spilled into the flesh of the redhead as he gritted his teeth to the unintentional jeer.
" Why would I care if Cartman was gonna be there?" Kyle sneered, allowing the burning fire ripping into his blood to find a place in his words. The spitfire was noted in the subtle raising of Butters' eyebrows. However, the blond never withdrew from the steadily rising fury within the glowering other.
" Y'all don't get along," the innocent plainly stated, pointing down at the furious stare tossed his way. Butters' orbs were wide as if stunned that Kyle was not aware of the obvious notion he suggested. The look, however, was surprisingly cynical even as it was about as violent as the fluffy pony hanging from a top his blond head.
" That's because Cartman's an asshole," the other hissed as he slumped back to his previous position. His feet tapped out in vile frustration as fire breathed over the back of his neck. There was a moment when he wished to grab something, to hurl it into the superbly blank look of the child, but he resisted the urge. He hoped only that his snap would be removed with a deliciously cold remark to which he could bare his venom and strike with the force suppressed. Instead, there was a causal look of empty awe as light eyes glanced around in mild confusion to why the statement was even being addressed towards him. Butters voiced this mixture of concern and detachment with two innocent words.
" I know,"
" I dunno how you're friends with him," Kyle growled under his breath, his face falling into an expression of disgust. The emeralds looked away then, as he swallowed a vile word that was not meant for the virgin ears of the innocent. Regardless of his intention, he received nothing underlined with anything remotely close to what he sought. Instead, Butters knocked his knuckles together in weakened resolve, chewing his lower lip as if tasting the effectiveness of his speech.
" Well, shucks. . . it's 'cause I ain't got no other friends," he explained without a tone of matter of factuality. Rather, his tone was the gentle pressure of a calm summers day much like the scorching one that surrounded them. Despite the overall appeal of his timbre, Kyle reacted tremendously to the words. His eyes jerked back to the blond standing idly before him. He gritted his teeth and pushed his thumb roughly over the torn lines of his faded jeans.
" I'm your friend," the Jew barked out, glaring through the loose locks of his red hair. Butters didn't appear fazed by the observation as Kyle jabbed an accusing finger his way, " We never hang out,"
" I know. No one hangs out with me. . . 'cept Eric," he responded lightly, shrugging his shoulders as he said it. The Jew regarded him with a look begotten from the embers surging to the surface in a jolt of uncontained agitation. Kyle felt himself clench his fist as he saw those eyes look upon him in what could of been consideration. As to what was considered, that was the lost to the unreadable depths of the innocent's cascading image of forsaken childhood purity.
" No one hangs out with you because of Eric," the redhead mumbled darkly through the pull of fiery haze. Fingers like the icy hands of delirium slipped over his shoulders as he rubbed one of his eyes hard enough to qualify as an attempt to draw his attention back into focus. His blood still livid with fresh flames, he growled under his breath as he desperately tried to swallow the embers threatening to escape.
" Golly, I jus' said he wasn't gonna be there an' you still don't wanna hang out," Butters protested in a weakened manner which reflected his obvious exasperations with the conversation at had. For all his mild objections, however, his feelings went unnoticed as the Jew felt the pulsating embers pierce his blood with unheard of vengeance.
" I never said that," Kyle bitterly spat out, the fire within searing every word he expressed. Glaring at the innocent, he pushed his trembling form into an upright position. Yet, his venom meant nothing to the wild confusion cascading over Butters. Those light eyes jumped away, as his brow furrowed, in a tremendous effort to understand the fiery expression harshly poised before him. His own bewilderment was met furiously by the look which overtook the Jew's face as he waved his hand to the side in dismissal, " Why wouldn't I want to come over? I'm just sitting here alone, and it's hot out,"
" So, you wanna come over?" the child restated slowly, his head tilting slightly as though the shift of vision would help him asset the sudden change within the other. Rolling his eyes, Kyle started to get to his feet with some trouble.
" Well, duh," his tone slipped through the tight air with a feel mimicking mockery. As per usual, the innocent didn't appear to realize this. His mouth simply upturned into a fragile smile of uncertainty while the Jew rested a hand against his head as though to steady himself. Standing on his own two feet, for all the struggle to find balance amongst the ever shifting embers, he dusted off his butt and gave the child what felt like a penetrating stare. The smile shook as those knuckles knocked together.
" Uh. . . .Okay,"
" Eric's not gonna be there, right?" the Jew questioned offhandedly, rubbing his hands over his dirty, stretched jeans with careless concern. The stunned look that overtook Butters' forever young face was alarming enough to make him fiercely aware of the haze bubbling beneath the surface. Still, Kyle swallowed down the aching fires curling themselves in his blood. In front of him, the child vaguely nodded as suspicion mutely clouded his pure orbs of untainted treasures.
" Nuh-uh,"
" Good, 'cause I don't wanna see Cartman," he snapped without the nasty timbre of before. Rather, he smoothed his quivering hands through the tangled locks of his bloodied hair. For a moment, there was a pause in which his emeralds lingered on the foreboding blue curtains of the house reaching for the burning hells of heaven. Gritting his teeth to that calling, though, Kyle ripped his head towards the absentminded misconception of Butters, " He's been a total ass to me lately,"
" Yeah. . . .Eric's been a pill. . .Or somethin'," the blond muttered to himself as his hands flipped over the phone he had put up for a momentary second in time. His slender fingers gripped the silver instrument, tightly, grimly, as though expecting a phone call to summon him away from his mildly distracted companion. Kyle heard the words the way he would have heard a scream in the distance; faded from a void that couldn't be crossed in time to spare the screamer its agony.
" I don't know how you're friends with him," Kyle sneered as he took a hesitant step off the porch and onto the burning cement smoldering beneath an unforgiving sky. His words melted into the searing air as two wide eyes of devoid innocence opened up to view the light, glowing screen of the silver sliver.
The whispered words uttered next were frozen in the chasms of time, forever caught in the tragic division of senseless reality and surreal imagination. They wholly engaged Butters' attention towards the flickering symbols upon that microscopic insight into the mind decorated with such passionate displays of neurotic pleasure. Kyle, however, found himself jolting at the two words that lingered in the air, heard but not understood. His head turned sharply as those tender, untainted lips moved, revealing the cause of the pulsing pause.
" . . . .or someone. . . ."
Airily, the words of terribly beheld purity struck the repression of the Jew, shocking his startled eyes open to gaze at the tangled mess of Butters' confused expression. Yet, for all the attention the redhead gave to the blond, it was not returned. Rather, the child merely scratched his head in bewilderment as he reviewed the haunting testament to whatever he did not address. Then, wetting his lips, he snapped the phone shut. The second the connection was severed, those light eyes were poised on the delirious emeralds of the fiery Jew. A wide, coldly complacent smile was presented to Kyle as the phone disappeared once more.
" Boy howdy. . ." Butters tone suggested he was trying to smooth over damage that hadn't been done yet. However, the look to his sparkling eyes were familiar in the most unpleasant of senses. There was emptiness, icy as the death of winter, for all the lingering touches of sheer childish wonderment. A shiver slipped unconsciously down Kyle's back, recoiling him from the blond a step or two. As he moved, though, the embers churned, plunging him into the deep, heavy embraces of the throbbing headaches of suppressed screaming.
" Yeah," his voice was short and curt, as much as he tried not to spit fire. Tension grasped his words furiously, tainting every attempt as supposed kindness. While Butters idly smiled to the shocking spite, Kyle stretched in one final attempt to shake off the building rage circulating within. There was a jolt, a piercing pain which stabbed through the base of his skull to the forefront of his mind, and his body jerked to its sudden appearance. Unwillingly cast into the shivering clutches of his spiraling inner demons, the Jew stumbled head on into Butters' lithe form. A second passed where light blue met deep green before Kyle pushed himself off without regard for the pressure applied, " What'd you think Cartman's doing?"
" Shucks, I dunno," the blond mildly answered, swallowing hard and giving a weak smile. His tiny hands knocked knuckles, as if he were fighting with himself from changing the subject. Kyle just sneered venomously, losing himself to the grips of the demonic hell blackening his words and dripping into the burning timbre of his words as they cut through the summer's day.
" You're his best friend. How do you not know?" he snapped, his eyes narrowing in the direction of the unconcerned look of the other boy. Butters chewed on his lower lip before he licked his lips. Every action suggested he was tasting his words for poised decency, but there was something else. Kyle felt his teeth baring in defense, a breath of fire dancing upon his hardened orbs. He regarded this child hotly, haughty, as his curls tilted as he inclined his ear to whatever excuses surely created.
" Golly, I don't keep tabs on 'im," was the only thing Butters said in his defense of the proposed lacking. He didn't acknowledge the growing agitation contorting Kyle's beauty into a scowl. For all intents and purposes, his widened eyes of sheer blue seemed to see through the screaming heat and to the bubbling core of molten hatred. For whatever reason, he observed the insight of bloodied consumption with apathy for its disgusting appetite for flesh.
" Why not? He's crazy," Kyle actually heard the bite to his bark with such clarity, he, himself, was surprised. His voice sliced razor thin over the words, drawing blood in the freshest of manners. Blood spattered hung in the air as those notorious gems glinted in wild abandonment to the momentary lost in the gripping fires. As Kyle caught his tone, he found himself tearing himself from the bleak oblivion of the infernos darkest chambers of the untold. Dryly smiling in his most vicious manner, he retracted some of the unchecked fire with one simply stated question of muted anxiety, " Shouldn't you do that?"
" Uh.. . . Eric makes it difficult to keep tabs on 'im," the innocent informed Kyle with a calm, although firm, voice. The expression he wore was unimpressed with that biting trembling still between them. Honestly, once more, the Jew was left to the conclusion that his obvious bloodlust was unnoticeable to the child spawned in the clutches of the nefarious Nazi.
" I don't know how you're friends with him,"
" Me either," Butters wholeheartedly agreed, his eyes widening a slight touch in their desperate need to assert this point. Aside from those glowing orbs, however, his face was empty of emotion. Somehow, the lack of expression unnerved Kyle to the point he felt himself easing away. He gripped his shivering hands to his sides, unsure if he was willing to continue on the path he was walking.
Nevertheless, despite this unheard of unease, when the child started down the street in the direction of his own house, the Jew followed suit. To be sure, his steps were reluctant, leaving him to lag behind. One arm wrapped about his fuller middle as his other raised to push his icy fingers into his burning forehead. The moment he did, to his suspicious surprise, Butters' head looked in his direction. A slender finger was pointed at the way his emeralds darkened.
" Are you okay?"
There was no describing why it did, but whenever Butters Stotch had to ask if you were okay, it sounded unmistakably like an piercing insult. A slap to the face, it cut through Kyle in a arrow fashion. To this unnatural feeling, this penetrated revelation, he spat out his only appropriate answer. In the summer day glow afternoon, it sounded hollow as the grave and nearly as cold. Regardless, it did not hold any of the finality usually accompanying the chill of death.
" Yeah, I'm fine,"
" Is it 'cause of Kenny?" the child question, without ever needing to say what 'it' was. None of the insiders ever needed to say it; to address what was meant by such a vague assessment of the situation. One of the most privy of those insiders was Butters and he certainly did not need to further explain himself. The redhead heard the underlying words as his fingers quickly tore away from his loose curls with a curt motion. The taste of fire licked over his tongue as he swallowed away the poison threatening him.
" No, it's because of. . . .yeah, it's because of Kenny. It's terrible, what happened to them, isn't it?" he switched through the topics without even noticing what he was saying until he had already turned his head to look towards the blond for a reaction. Butters looked upon him with a tone that looked through his every word. There was ice in those enlightened eyes cold enough to trace freezing fingers over the roaring embers of the Jew. Slowly, Kyle breathed out the repression as his words tumbled out beyond his control, " People shouldn't hurt their family,"
The silence which enveloped them seemed to hail from the very air and nowhere in the same breathless moment. There was not a second of hesitation as Kyle stopped walking. He did so as if possessed by the charms of someone far more persuasive than himself. Hands from the afterlife, they touched his face with loving embrace as his head tilted and turned to the pressure invoking such a frightening reaction. Haunted orbs of gemstones peered through the unseeing sunlight to the darkened, closed off curtains of the forsaken Cartman house. The building constructed on the card house of lies poised herself before his eyes for all his disgusted nature.
As he looked upon it, upon her mistake, Butters slowed to a close only a few steps beyond him. His every motion suggested his desire never to look up, to never be seen at her doorstep, nor anywhere near its presence. Still, he stopped, still he knocked his knuckles together, and he presented himself to the lingering touch of the crying ground that the beast of a suburban lie rested on. Grappling with his previous convictions, though, the innocent attempt to say a word towards the distant leering of the house down the street from the Broflovski homestead. Finding nothing to say for it, Butters dropped his eyes to the broken pavement below as he mumbled his confusion towards the slip he had managed to hear.
" I didn't know. . . .he. . .they hurt him," his words couldn't have been said with more than an ounce of conviction towards their meaning. Unfortunately for Butters, the double standard attached to anything of the sort with regards to the freaky four immediately reacted.
In a broken, haze of drunken fury, Kyle reeled backwards internally as he physically steeled his haunted gaze to those innocent orbs of pale blue. Faintly, vaguely, just beyond to confines of his deluded mind, he recalled the words to leave his mouth. The assessment of those related and what they shouldn't do; people shouldn't hurt their family. Those few words, uttered outside his center of control, they had provoked such a easy, honest response from Butters. Yet, even if he was the one who has instigated this conversation, Kyle felt a rush of untamed fiery hell consume his weathered mind.
Privilege has always been a granted gift within the inner circles of those in control. Within the limits of that particularly commended strip of suburbia, the freaky four constructed this fragile thing. At that moment, in light of the residual embers of the midnight destruction at the McCormick place, that fragile thing shattered. Heat, fire, raw and unabated, coursed through Kyle's bloodline. His teeth gritted down, the emerald stones glowing in a dimmed hellfire creating an instantaneous ceasefire. Before the whiting creases of his forsaken hatred for having to protect someone as viciously devious as Kenny, the Jew sprang into action. Knowing those words, hearing them, and what they mentioned to the closed off world of the ruined McCormick stronghold, was a privilege Butters was not entitled to.
Even if he had known all along that Kenny suffered far worse that the bodies of his former tormentors.
" There's a lot of things you don't know," he snarled in an entirely divided timbre of scorching fire and searing embers and smoldering rage. Sweet rage, lost beneath a masque of smog, rose to the surface with frighteningly clarity. Kyle was caught wholly off guard by the freezing heat of its assault. In a breath, however, it was whisked away and he was left shivering, his fingers gripping his sides, as two wide eyes descended on his face coated in unreasonable pallor.
" Well, golly, you ain't gotta tell me that,"
Butters' words fell on deaf ears, for those Jew's eyes were ensnared by something much more captivating with childish purity. Rather, he stared up and beyond those pale eyes in a pale face with such pale stains of vice against virtue. He stared at the tainted majesty of the Cartman place, with darkened windows mirroring the other prisons of the neighborhood. That crypt beckoned to him with the fair scent of amore and death lingering within freezing, burning embers. Before he could help himself, he took a step around Butters as the words were pulled from his lips without his control.
" I'm gonna go see. . .I'm gonna make sure he's not doing anything," his voice trailed off in a tangle as fingers of sugary passion strangled the excuse. He knew he need not explain himself to Butters, of all creatures, even if he had no inkling where such a confidence came from. Nevertheless, he drifted through the frozen flames of seductive instability.
Before his eyes, the Cartman home rose up through the shadows of family falsehood. Into it's damning grip, Kyle stepped, leaving all purity behind.