Chapter 15: Everything's Coming Up Roses
"What in the hell is a Danny Zuko?"
Kenny ignores the blatant eye roll of some freshman theater twat in the making and the disappointed groans of a few girls who give Wendy the stink eye as they walk past.
"Well, it's no Teen Angel, I'll tell you that much," Butters shakes his head and stuffs his hands in his pockets as he scans over the cast list.
"It's the lead!" Wendy exclaims and smacks Kenny on the arm. "Jesus, Kenny, you really must have blown them away." Even as she says it, Wendy looks like was not expecting this outcome in the slightest. Kenny, on the other hand, feels his limbs go numb as Butters gives him a happy grin and brings him into a hug.
"Congratulations, darlin'," he hums and kisses Kenny on the cheek. Kenny feels like a big ball of nerves at the thought of getting up and performing for everyone. Butters does tend to have a calming effect on him, though, and maybe having him there with him will make it all a lot easier.
Maybe.
"I'm not even mad about having to inevitably kiss you," Wendy shakes her head as she checks, yet again, to make sure that her name matches up with Sandy Dumbrowski on the cast list. Kenny winces at the idea of kissing Wendy, meanwhile, and casts a sidelong glance at Butters, who just shrugs and says, "What? I have an amazing ass, I'm not worried."
Wendy gives a tired roll of her eyes as Kenny laughs and shifts closer to Butters. Then suddenly Wendy rounds on him and, very severely, declares, "This means you have to commit to this shit, asshole. Be at rehearsals and be on time, and actually put in effort."
"Um, okay?" Kenny offers. Butters, in turn, just pets his hair and tells him not to listen to the scary lady.
Kenny doesn't know if he can tell Butters enough how much he loves him without sounding insane, so he just pulls him into a hug and buries his face in his neck.
"Aw, don't worry about her," Butters chuckles as Wendy stalks off down the hall toward the auditorium. "She'll be better once her college acceptance letters come in."
"Ah," Kenny nods. "And when would that be?"
"May."
Of course.
Butters seems to be feeling a little better of late, at least, but Kenny knows better than to just assume the best when it comes to this. If Butters doesn't bring it up, though, Kenny doesn't like to either. That just makes it worse, and Kenny does not want that.
"So," Kenny begins instead as they begin walking in the same direction as Wendy, toward the auditorium. "What do your parents think you're doing?"
"I told 'em I got detention," Butters shrugs. "Funnily enough, the only stories they're willing to believe are the ones about me in trouble."
Kenny laughs, mildly impressed by the sudden development in character, but "Doesn't that mean you get grounded more?" Kenny raises an eyebrow, and Butters just gives another noncommittal shrug.
"I figure if they're gonna ground me anyway, which you know they will—" Kenny nods. "Anyway, I figure it's better to get grounded for nothin' than whatever somethin' they try to pin on me."
Kenny whistles, fully impressed now. "Goddamn, baby, you gone bad," he laughs as Butters shakes his head and pushes his face away. Kenny pulls him in close and, after a quick look over his shoulder, kisses him.
When they enter the auditorium, people are already up on stage—some singing parts of their favorite songs, others staring at wonder in the bright lights above them and the scope of the room. Kenny gets a chill of nerves up his spine again and turns to Butters.
"I can't do this."
"Oh, you can too," Butters rolls his eyes affectionately. "You're bein' a wimp."
Kenny pulls a face at that and turns back to the bedlam on stage, which is now being broken up by Wendy with a fierce clap of her hands.
"All right, before we distribute scripts and do a cold read, we're going to do some ice breakers," she chirps.
"Oh, god," Kenny groans. "Just stab me."
"I'm afraid you won't be getting out of it that easily," comes a voice from beside them. It belongs to a stout, middle-aged woman with a streak of gray in her jet hair. "I'm Mrs. Todd, the music teacher. I've been asked to do some voice exercises with you, so we know where you're at."
"Uh," Kenny turns to look at Butters, who just shrugs as Mrs. Todd drags him to the piano by the stage.
"Don't mind us," Mrs. Todd chimes cheerfully to the rest of the club. "Your leading man will be with you shortly." At which point she sits down at the piano and looks at Kenny. "All right, Mr. Zuko, let's see what you can do. Put down your bag, stand up straight, and let's start at C and go down. Ready?"
Kenny feels everyone's eyes burning into the back of his skull, but gives a careful nod anyway. She gives him a series of notes, tells him to sing on a rounded "ha" sound, and he does it. His throat is a little scratchy at first, but after a few rounds it starts working properly. He thinks he's hitting all the notes properly, at least, and Jesus he must have done about a dozen rounds of this before she finally let him stop. He goes lower, until his voice croaks and he sounds more bullfrog than human, and then climbs all the way back up again—voice cracking through a break—until he's singing so high that his throat starts closing up.
Mrs. Todd finally takes off her reading glasses when it's clear that he can't go any higher, and for a moment Kenny thinks he's messed up, that he's about to get tossed out of the play and the part is going to go to someone who can actually sing. Then she says, "Did you know that you have a four octave range?"
"I—what?" he counters, confused. Wendy pauses in her gawking long enough to smack him on the shoulder, and yells at him some more for 'holding out on them'.
"Four octaves is good, then?" Kenny confirms. He gets a resounding "yes!" from about half the people in the room before they drag him into a big circle on the stage, hand him a script, and tell him to start reading.
And it's actually really fun, Kenny discovers. He didn't think it was possible to have this much fun reading something out loud, but he gets into it. Plus, like half the play is about cars and pussy. What's not to love about that?
Also, Butters gets to sing a song to Annie about dropping out of beauty school, and the way Butters says so frankly, "No customer would go to you unless she was a hooker" almost makes Kenny piss himself with laughter.
It's thrilling, to be honest. He likes making people laugh, and likes that he's apparently getting all these lines, like, spot on (at least, that's what he thinks everyone's smiles and emphatic nods mean) and it makes Kenny beam with pride.
There's also a part where Stan gets to have his guitar and sing a song called Magic Changes, which Kenny already knows is going to make Kyle cream his panties when he hears it.
Speak of the devil, Kyle is waiting for them outside, all bundled up with a travel mug in his mittened hands.
"Hey, dude," Stan greets him warmly. "You know you could have come inside if you wanted."
"Nah, I just got down here," Kyle shakes his head and rubs at his eyes. "This kid I'm tutoring has a test on Monday and he can barely fucking add."
"That doesn't sound like too much of a problem, unless it's a math test," Butters offers. Kenny tries to hold back his laughter as Kyle takes off one of his mittens with his teeth and throws it at Butters' face.
"You ready to go?" Kyle turns to Stan and asks. "My mom said you can come over for dinner if you want."
"Hey, not to break up your guys' cockfest, but can I get a ride?" Kenny asks. Kyle looks over at Butters warily, but doesn't ask any questions.
"Yeah, sure," he replies. "Butters, do you need a ride?"
"Oh, thanks Kyle," Butters smiles, looking genuinely touched that Kyle would offer him that. "But I got a ride. I'll see you later." He gives Kenny a quick peck on the cheek and heads off upstairs to his locker. Kyle and Stan are looking at Kenny, eyebrows raised, but Kenny just shakes his head, "Don't ask."
The ride back home is about as awkward as it's ever been. Stan and Kyle don't really talk for the first part of it, which makes Kenny a little apprehensive. Things don't generally get to this point between the three of them: someone's always talking about something, or at the very least they have the radio on. Kyle and Stan appear to be in the middle of a very heated telepathic argument, which ends after five whole minutes of silence with Stan turning around and asking, "You and Butters have had sex, right?"
"Stan, for god's sake!" Kyle groans.
"I'm just fucking asking," Stan snaps back and turns an expectant look at Kenny. So Kenny replies, "Yeah, we have."
"See, dude?" Stan gives Kyle a pointed look before turning back to Kenny and asking, "Will you please tell him it's not scary?"
"Dude!"
"Stan, come on," Kenny frowns and puts his feet up on Kyle's seat. "That shit is scary for some people. Have you ever had a dick up your ass, Stan?"
To which Stan replies, with a snarky smile, "Have you?"
Kenny raises an eyebrow and cocks his head at Stan, "I have. And, uh, you've seen Butters' dick, haven't you?"
Stan looks over at Kyle, who gives him this look back that only says, "You got yourself into this."
"Then you know that that thing is no fucking cakewalk," Kenny nods. "It hurts, dude, even if you're careful. And if you're so gung-ho about having sex, maybe you should put your ass on the line."
Kyle barks out a laugh, "That. I like that."
"Well fine," Stan scowls back. "Maybe I will."
"Okay, Stan," Kyle laughs.
"Dude, I'd totally do it," Stan insists.
"Sure," Kyle nods.
They're still bickering by the time they drop Kenny at home; Kenny doesn't know if that means they're going to go back to Kyle's house and fuck, or go back to Kyle's house and have a big blow out. Kenny's been so preoccupied with making sure Butters is all right that he hasn't really had time to see what kind of couple they are. Not that it matters all that much; as Kenny turns back to his house, he feels this unparalleled sense of accomplishment.
He feels good.
oooooooo
Butters is feeling okay too. At least, he is now that he's home and surrounded in a cloud of smoke.
He'd like to say 'it's not what it looks like', but it totally is.
He's sitting in his basement, a towel pressed up under the door, smoking in the little nook between the dryer and the cement wall. Neither of his parents are home and there's already a funky smell coming from the washing machine that masks the stench of the smoke, so he doesn't have to worry about any lingering smell either. He bought his own little stash off of Kenny—off of Kevin, actually. Kenny's letting him use an old pipe, taught him how to light it and everything like that. He had to, since Butters isn't allowed to go back to Kenny's… or spend any extra time outside of the house. The detention thing only buys him so much time.
Butters tucks the pipe away in the hollow of a loose brick in the wall and pushes himself to his feet. Kenny made sure Kevin sold him the good stuff. Medical stuff. Stuff that's meant for people like him. He smoked something once that had him cleaning Kenny's kitchen at one in the morning, and then Kevin told him he had the wrong kind…?
"You need a different strain," Kevin had grunted.
"Why's that?"
"So you don't fucking wake me up while you're scrubbing the shit out of my kitchen, you fucking fruitcake!"
Kenny made Kevin make up the outburst by selling him a nice little stash at half the price he normally would. It's good, because this stuff helps him out a lot more than he thought it would, and what's even better is that the good feelings aren't just from Kenny. He can smoke on his own and still feel perfectly fine.
Which is good, because the more he thinks on it, the more he thinks he shouldn't be relying on anyone to make him feel okay.
Also, whatever Kevin sold him makes him very hungry. So, with as much grace as he can muster, Butters pushes himself up onto his feet and makes his way up the stairs and to the kitchen. He grabs a bag of marshmallows and a jar of nutella out of the pantry and curls up on the couch to eat until he can't eat anymore. That may take a while, but he doesn't quite care.
He will stay on this couch and spoil his dinner and that's that.
He's not spectacularly high, he knows. Kenny has gotten him stoned beyond belief before, and this isn't it. This is just a happy high, which means that he should definitely know how long he's been sitting there before the front door opens and his dad walks in. He must be in one heck of a rush, too, because he whips off his coat and tosses it on the couch, right on top of Butters, before he hurries upstairs.
The coat smells like cheap cologne and cigarettes, and, if Butters tries really hard, he can pick up an unmistakably musty scent that makes him throw both the coat and the marshmallows and the nutella on the ground and scrambles to the edge of the couch.
Quickly, Butters glances up at the ceiling above him (because this will, of course, tell him whether or not his father is going to come right back down again) and without another thought goes to check through the coat.
The only thing he comes up with is a business card, worn out and scribbled on, with dates and times and phone numbers in his dad's untidy scrawl. He reads the header on the front of the card about ten times before the words actually fall into his head in the right order, and even after that it takes him a few more moments before he grasps the full weight of their meaning.
The White Swallow.
"Jesus Christ!" he yelps as the card pops out of his hand and onto the floor. A thud follows a moment later, and then a, "Butters?"
"Shit," Butters breathes and rolls rather ungracefully off the couch. He doesn't have time to grab his jacket from upstairs, or his shoes, so he just slips into the bright yellow rain boots he keeps by the door, narrowly reminds himself to grab his keys, and runs out the door.
It takes him forever to get to Kenny's house from his. It has never, ever taken this long and he knows that he's not walking any slower than normal. Everything is dragging on and on, which means he has all the more time to think about just where exactly his father has been.
When Kenny answers his door, the first and only thing Butters says is, "The White Swallow."
Only he belatedly realizes he doesn't say this to Kenny, but to Kevin, who turns back to the house with a grimace to shout, "It's for you, fag-tron."
Kenny appears at the door, confused to see Butters standing there.
"Dude, what's up?" he asks. "Are you okay?"
Butters tells Kenny about his dad, about the coat, saying "The White Swallow" a few more times just for good measure, and then has to do it all again because Kenny says he's talking too fast.
"What's The White Swallow?" Kenny asks very calmly.
"This gay bathhouse just outside town," Butters tucks his hands under his arms, and at Kenny's nose scrunch explains, "We caught him goin' there before. Years ago. My mom went nuts and tried to kill me. You don't remember that?"
Kenny just gives him this horrified look and says, "Oh, that old chestnut. No, I can't say that I remember your mom trying to fucking kill you."
Butters brushes it off and keeps going, explaining the rest of the ordeal to Kenny.
"So," Kenny tries to riddle out. "So, your dad has been doing this for years."
"Well, we thought he stopped," Butters shrugs and sits down on the front step. "Guess not."
But that doesn't seem to concern Kenny, who hops off the stoop to stand in front of Butters. He looks kind of pissed.
"After all the shit he gives you?" he demands. "After all the shit they both give you?"
He sits beside Butters and continues in a low voice, "My family might be homophobic fucks, but at least they're not hypocrites."
There was a time when Butters would have found himself rising to defend his parents. Not anymore. Instead Butters just scowls and props his chin in his hands and stares at a patch of snow on the McCormick's front lawn.
"I hate liars," he mutters, not caring that he sounds like a petulant child. "I mean, it could be an old card. What if he just kept it for nostalgia's sake?"
Even he thinks that sounds fishy as soon as the question mark falls into place on that sentence, and soon he and Kenny are laughing at the thought.
"Man," Butters sighs as he leans back on his hands. "I remember last time I caught him there, he nearly shit himself."
"Aw, sick!" Kenny laughs. "You caught him?"
"I didn't know I was catchin' him doin' anything!" Butters leaps to defend himself, laughing too. "I found him there twice: once I just got a few pictures of him goin' in and the second—"
Just then, a light bulb goes on in his brain.
"Pictures," he says and then turns to Kenny. "I bet I could get pictures of him goin' there again and show 'em to my mom. I reckon that'd take some of the heat offa me for a while."
"Better yet, show 'em to him," Kenny shrugs. "Let him know you know what he's been doing."
"Hey!" Butters exclaims so loud that it makes Kenny jump. "You think if I did that he'd get my mom to lay off me?"
"Mm, blackmail," Kenny hums wistfully. "Sexy."
Butters doesn't want to think about it as blackmail; blackmail sounds so dirty. Really he's just using the situation to his best advantage to get something that he should rightfully have anyway.
Never mind, that sounds a little diabolical too.
"You wanna come with me?" Butters asks then. "That way if my dad doesn't show up, we can always go in and give some old perverts in there a show."
Kenny belly laughs at that, and even though he doesn't hug Butters or kiss him, Butters can tell that he wants to. In lieu of that, Kenny offers Butters a ride back home so he doesn't have to walk back. Butters feels heavy on the ride back, even though his mind is racing with all sorts of excitement. For the first time in a long time, he feels like he can see the light at the end of a very long, very dark tunnel.
"Can we run away when all this is over?" Butters asks as Kenny pulls over at the end of Butters' street.
"Sure," Kenny nods, without even thinking about it. "Where do you want to go?"
"Hm," Butters thinks for a few moments. "Paris?"
"Too gay."
"Siberia?"
"Not gay enough."
Butters giggles and unbuckles his seatbelt, climbing across the seat to kiss Kenny's face. "I'll go wherever you wanna go with me," he says.
"Can we just make out for a few minutes and go from there?" Kenny offers.
"Sold, to the man in the orange parka with the impeccable ass," Butters closes his lips over Kenny's and he somehow ends up on his back with Kenny slotted neatly on top of him. They stop before it gets too far, though, and Butters is left to walk starry-eyed and flushed back home. He sneaks in through the basement window and wonders if he can just pass off that he's been in here the whole time.
He ends up taking a nap on the old futon down in the corner—it's a lumpy old thing that they've never had the heart to get rid of, but Butters likes it. When he wakes up he'll mastermind his plan, but until then he needs to fall asleep basking in the phantom feeling of Kenny's hands and lips on his body.
He needs to hold onto the happy things.
oooooo
"Newly renovated, it says," Kenny remarks as he reads over a brochure he nicked from The White Swallow's front room. "And with enough money left over to print full-color brochures. Classy bastards…"
Butters snorts from his place behind the bushes outside of The White Swallow. Thankfully, drama club rehearsals aren't at the every-day stage yet, so after school Kenny and Butters hang around Butters' dad's office and wait for him to leave. He leads them right to where they are now, and while Butters got a few good pictures of him going into the building (which does look as though it's been renovated), he sent Kenny in to do the actual grunt work of catching his dad in the act.
"They check IDs now, I guess," Kenny had said when he'd come out three minutes later, "But I got a nice brochure from them." And now here they are.
And there they are again the next day, and the day after that.
Butters wants to be discouraged, but he can't find it in himself to be so. He has something to focus on that isn't school, and that seems to be doing him a world of good. It's even getting him through school a bit easier, which he did not expect anything could do.
It doesn't even get him down when Eric tries to break him back down.
"Nice to see that the crazy apple hasn't fallen far from the crazy tree."
"Fuck off, Eric," is Butters' hasty reply. This not only gets Eric to shut up, but also ends with Kenny pulling him into an empty supply closet for a hasty romp.
He loves when Kenny gives him head, too. The less afraid Kenny gets of him, the more incredible it is.
"Do I get a blowjob every time I stand up for myself?" Butters huffs as he props himself up wobbly-legged against the door. Kenny's just swallowed a mouthful of his spunk and is doing that thing where he looks up at Butters from under his bangs and it's an absolutely lovely sight.
"Pretty bomb incentive, right?" Kenny's lips quirk into a smile as he rolls to his feet.
"I'll say," Butters nods, "Though I think that just means I'll end up getting really horny when I tell people to fuck off."
"Good," Kenny runs his fingers through Butters' hair, "We'll have something else in common, then."
Butters grins and rests their foreheads together. He's starting to get those old feelings back—the good ones. Those feelings that make Butters chest swell when Kenny looks at him, the ones that leave him breathless the moment Kenny's skin touches his. It's almost like they're nothing more than flashes from a camera, brief illuminations in the otherwise thick darkness.
Except there's that little light there now. It hasn't gone away, and pinpoint though it may be, that's enough for the time being.
"Comin' to stake out with me later?" Butters yawns.
"Ugh," Kenny groans and buries his face in Butters' neck. "Wendy said there's rehearsal."
"Oh, right," Butters recalls. "You gotta start learning your songs."
"How come you don't have to go?" Kenny all but pouts. "You have a song."
"Because I'm perfect?" Butters offers, which earns him a poke to the ribs and a stuck out tongue. "Hey!" Butters giggles. "I don't know… you guys are leads. I just got one song I sing with a bunch of freshmen. That's one day of practice, tops."
Kenny grins back at him and pulls him forward into a kiss.
"You gonna be fine storming the castle all on your own?" he asks.
Butters nods, "I'll be fine." He means it too. "Maybe I'll get something done without you distracting me." He sticks out his tongue then, and laughs when Kenny nips at his chin in retaliation.
They exit the closet and go to their respective classes, and when the school day is over Butters asks Stan if he'll drop him off near The White Swallow, though not close enough for Stan to become suspicious. Butters just makes up a story about a new therapist and Stan buys it.
His dad gets to the spa around the same time that he does every day. Butters doesn't know how long it's been going on, but it's long enough for him to established a routine.
Gross.
The thing about this is that he's at a stand-still. Without being able to go in and get the kinds of pictures he wants, he doesn't have the kind of leverage he needs to be able to get what he wants. Even as he comes out from his place behind the bushes to survey the building, he starts thinking about what he would ask for if he got the pictures he wanted.
Something about getting good and proper help, he thinks. That's what's most important to him right now, and if getting naked pictures of his dad in a gay spa is the way he's going to get that done, then so be it.
Funnily enough, the thought of catching his dad getting butt-fucked into oblivion doesn't gross him out nearly as much as it probably should. Maybe it's because he's seen it before, maybe it's because he just gives so few fucks about anything anymore that he's getting some sort of super powers from it or something. Either way, when he finds a door at the back of the building he almost jumps in the air for joy.
What's even more exciting, it's open.
He knows he's not exactly incognito, but this isn't exactly the class of place where that kind of thing matters.
To be fair, though, it is a lot nicer than (what Butters has chosen to remember of) the last time he was here. It's freshly painted, his feet aren't sticking to the floor, and he feels a little less like he's going to contract a venereal disease just from breathing the air now.
Also, he's getting a little more attention this time around—the not so savory kind—and it makes Butters feel just plain sleazy.
"Get those skinny jeans off, let's see what you're hiding under there."
"I bet you make all sorts of pretty noises, don't you?"
"Yeah, not for you!" Butters snaps back, but keeps his voice low after that. He doesn't want is dad to hear him.
After the first few rooms he checks (and the next half-dozen offers for various sexual acts that make Butters a little nauseous), Butters starts wondering if he's ever going to find his dad. He's about to give up entirely when he sees a trio of middle-aged men through a crack in the door, but then he realizes.
Holy shit.
That's his dad sandwiched between those two big, beefy fellas.
Ew.
Okay, he is definitely about as horrified as he should be. He fights his natural inclination to drop his stuff and run, and instead bites the bullet and holds his camera up to the crack in the door. He snaps a few pictures—it takes a while, but he finally gets some good ones where you can clearly make out his dad's face and counts it a success. He's also probably a little more scarred than when he came in, but whatever. The damage isn't any worse than he's used to.
He even takes a video for good measure.
When he turns around to tuck his camera back into his bag, there's a portly, hairy man with a large mustache and even larger belly staring at him rather lecherously.
"What's with you?" he grunts. "You like to watch? Got a big group going in room ten."
"No, thank you!" Butters insists with a frown and pushes past the man to go back the way he came. He doesn't like the leering, or the catcalls he gets as he walks by open rooms. Slutty though he may be, Butters gets creeped out by places and people like this. He doesn't know the story behind why every person is here, but he knows his dad's and that makes him uncomfortable: late-in-life queer, can't leave his family because he can't cop to who he is, has to seek out anonymous sex with sleazy men… for a moment, Butters almost feels bad for him.
Almost.
The whole 'attempt to heterosexualize him' thing really does work against whatever sympathies Butters might feel. Pray the gay away camp, this whole ordeal over the last couple of months… Butters knows who he is. He shouldn't be punished just because his dad doesn't.
And he most certainly shouldn't be punished because his mom is always two seconds away from going insane.
Butters gets out of the spa relatively unscathed, save for a used condom stuck to his boot and a phone number sticking out of his jacket pocket.
Ew, when the hell did that happen?
He rushes home from there and wastes no time in getting up to his room and logging on to his computer. After a few minutes of ransacking his drawers, he finds his camera cord and downloads all the pictures. Several copies are hidden all over his computer after that, and even after that Butters prints out two sets of copies. He'll give one to Kenny—that's better than sending the digital copies to the one computer that all five McCormicks share.
As if on cue, Butters gets a text from Kenny.
'howd it go'
'Dad's a screamer…' Butters replies back, which earns him the almost immediate response, 'that's FUKED UP dde'
'I'll give you the low down tomorrow'
'pls dont'
Butters grins and tucks the hard copies of the pictures away in one of the drawers under his bed. A sense of accomplishment settles over him, and Butters decides that hard work and emotional scarring like this deserves a little snack. He ducks out of his room and down into the kitchen for a Dr. Pepper and some potato chips, but something catches his eye by the mail slot in the door before he can get too far.
It's an envelope—a big, official looking one.
Apart from the giant footprint across stamped across it, there's also an unmistakable university-looking insignia up in the corner. Shakily, Butters grabs it off the floor and tears it open without ceremony.
He reads over the first lines a few times before he lets himself break out in a smile.
Boulder accepted him.
Sure, it's no NYU, but he's been accepted.
To a college.
All of a very sudden, that little pinpoint of light at the end of the tunnel expands, just the teeniest bit.
It may not be enough to illuminate everything, but it's definitely enough for Butters to project himself out of this town, away from his parents, and into another life, one that could easily be his. He sees himself in a dorm, surrounded by interesting people who do interesting things, people who don't judge him at face value, people he hasn't known since before he could walk.
People who would actually have to get to know him, and who would love him and accept him for the person he is.
For the first time in a long time, Butters can see his life changing.
He thinks he knows what he can ask his dad for now.
Hi everyone! Things have been hectic over here in my neck of the woods-I had a birthday, I'm now employed, and I am house-hopping. Crazy stuff. A couple more installments to go as we wrap things up in this story. Thank you so much as always for sticking with it, especially since updates have been so sparse lately. I adore all of you.
Chapter title is from Rose's Turn from Gypsy.
