Butters
He has Spanish with Butters.
He had always felt a little bad for him. A shit nickname that followed him no matter what he did. He could relate to that but at least he was rich and had Dick, who in spite of being a grade A Asshat, most of the time, was big and strong and had kept him out of a lot of fights. The idea of retaliation from Dick, no one fucked with Cassidy other than Dick, well for the most part anyway.
Butters was just Butters, hell he had an extra target on his back for being Clemmons' kid.
That pity and silent commiseration ended today, however.
Butters was taking Mac to prom and he wanted to roll up his Spanish workbook and shove it so far up, down or in the boy that he'd die of some weird ink related poison no one had ever heard of yet.
They'd name it after him.
Butters had been very careful not to look at Cassidy and the entire class seemed to be under the impression that a fight would burst out any second over Mac.
Turned out he had two other classes with Butters, all of which were filled with the same piano wire tension as Spanish. He noticed, fuck everyone noticed, that he was very careful not to be left alone with Cassidy.
He couldn't help but wonder what he thought he would do. He didn't have a history of violence that anyone here knew about.
Why had she agreed to go with him? It wasn't like she couldn't get a date with anyone else. The well known affections of the Casablancas brothers had given her a strange new wanted status.
Cassidy, who she had miraculously turned into a red-blooded, real boy, was one thing. But turning Dick into a moping, lovelorn puppy as well? Well something about her had to be magic. He had seen boys look at her now. Wanting her.
She was completely oblivious and still sent an apology to his phone every night. He figured she'd give up any day now, but he's been thinking that since she started.
Dick had practically begged on her behalf, but maybe it was for the best that she was rid of them now; when they were in too deep with his plan.
"You're sure you don't want to ask her to prom?" Dick asked, they were sitting alone at lunch, sitting close and talking quietly. It had been like this ever since he had spilled the beans. Dick didn't seem willing to share, or maybe it was trust, his brother with anyone other than Mac. It was sweet if not a little stifling.
"She has a date."
"She'd drop him in a second if you asked." Dick tells him what the entire school already knows, "She must have lost a bet or something." He adds, turning to look at Butters, "I mean seriously? Butters?"
"Can we not talk about it now?"
"You never want to talk about it. It's because you don't trust yourself, right? You think that her betrayal, or whatever, is beyond forgiveness, but you just fucking miss her."
"I don't."
"You telling me you haven't been enjoying her underwear?"
"Don't be disgusting."
He has and he's sure he's blushing.
"I have ears man. You've been listening to those whiny British wankers and wanking in her underwear."
"Shut the fuck up." He pushes roughly at Dick but he barely moves, just starts laughing and the sound is comforting. He had been so sure that he would never hear that again once Dick knew, once he was on his own for good, but that hadn't happened.
Dick ruffled his hair good naturedly, " It's okay man, just talk to her."
"I can't..."
"Why not?" Dick slumps forward, watching Mac talk with Veronica and their little circle.
"What if she gets hurt..."
Dick looks away from her to focus on his brother, he can feel Dick's focus on him burn a little, " You mean because of the plan..."
Dick always says it like it's some cloak and dagger bullshit. Maybe it's to keep himself sane, to pull himself a little farther from reality. Which is fine, Dick had always been a soft touch when it really came down to it.
He just nods.
He and Dick only talk about what had happened, and what was going to happen, in half sentences. In snippets of conversation, he didn't know exactly why, maybe neither of them could really handle the weight of the whole thing at once, after all.
"Thank you." He tells Dick after a long moment.
"For what?"
Cassidy turns to look at him properly, but can't really look at him for too long, "For not calling the police."
"We are in this together from now on." He kicks him lightly under the table, a brief, surprisingly reassuring contact, "We should have been in this together from the start." The last part sounds accusatory and it's not the first time that it's come up like that.
"Eight people is kind of a big deal, Dick."
He shakes his head.
"I mean before that." The guilt and shame seem to ooze out of Dick, " If you had told me, maybe we could have done something before... You know..."
The bus.
Before he killed all those people to keep this horrible shame hidden.
"You know I'd kill for you." He tells him seriously and his bright blue eyes are too much, too filled with remorse and could-have-beens and a desperate need to make things right.
The words are true and he knows it. Knows they are. Knows that he would and he knows he'd do the same.
"I just wish you hadn't felt like you had to."
Dick's guilt over the bus crash had been mounting since they got back from planting the car bomb. His outrage at what had been done to him, and as an afterthought Peter and Marcos, had boiled down into a functional hatred and he was left with ghosts of anger and outrage, and cold hard facts.
His brother had been molested by the, now, mayor.
Along with, who knew, how many others.
And to keep the world from knowing his shame, his brother had killed the two other people who had known his secret along with six innocent people.
He wasn't sure if Dick had put it together that he had killed Curly, as well.
He had sent their father on the lamb.
He had been buying up properties under a company that he had Kendall front and had Mac help him with.
That by the end of the school year Woody Goodman would be in the ground.
It was a lot to deal with when you didn't technically have to. Dick didn't need to help, he didn't need to be a part of this.
" It's done now, channel all that guilt into Woody." If he felt guilt he's sure that's what he would do.
Dick nods, " It's just that I was fucking one of the victims." He flops forward onto the table, " She let me go bareback and everything. God you wouldn't believe what she let me do to her, Cass, it was amazing."
"I heard that she was planning on getting preggo and taking all your money."
"What!" Dick sits up quickly, his guilt forgotten for now, " That bitch. Where did you hear that? Does everyone know?"
"I heard it from..."
Mac
Dick sighs heavily, "Great."
" It's not like she didn't know you sleep around man." Cassidy puts what is meant to be a comforting hand on Dick's back.
He's bad at this comfort thing, he's never really been on either side of it until recently, but he's just glad that the topic of the bus crash has slipped back under the rug for now.
He's not stupid. He knows that it's going to take a while to reason away Dick's horror and guilt over the thing, but if everything works out like he wants it to, he'll have time for that.
"So what are we going to do about Butters?" Dick asks.
"What do you mean?"
" Well, look at her. She's miserable," he followed Dick's gesture, and God she did look really unhappy about the state of things, " this isn't a 'we just need to be happy for her' situation."
"What do you want me to do about it?"
Dick shrugs, " You're the brains of the operation, think of something because if that weirdo tries to put his tongue down her throat, I'm going to put my fist down his."
He's trying to think of some way to make sure that Butters doesn't try anything, without publicly doing anything, without doing something that will make her think that why they should get back together.
Because, God, he does miss her, but she is really better off without them, before she's stained and spoiled and can't go back.
"Well?"
"I'm thinking. Just give me some time."
He didn't have time.
Prom had been canceled, thank God, most likely from Dick and several others antics during the senior trip.
Then, almost immediately, Logan had gone ahead and created Alternaprom. An alternate prom for the '09ers. It shouldn't have been a problem except he had invited Veronica because the boy was a fucking marshmallow.
He didn't know what he had told her, but the next thing he knew he had overheard Butters talking to a friend about how he and Mac were going to go to Alternaprom.
Fuck
Fuck fuck fuck.
He had to figure out something to do or say to that asshole before he tried to get his slimy hands all over his girlfriend.
Ex-girlfriend.
Damn it.
Dick kept referring to her as Cassidy's girlfriend still and it had stuck. He's not sure why, maybe it's to remind himself or maybe he's just trying to get them back together.
Dick seemed to be the captain of the SS Mac/Cassidy. Maybe it just gave him something to focus on other than murder.
"You forgave me, why can't you forgive her?" Dick asked, flopping backwards onto Cassidy's bed.
" It's complicated."
"Is it because I know what happened?"
"No."
Liar.
"Liar." Dick calls without looking at him. He picks up Cassidy's cell phone and switches it on. The phone proudly tells the room he has messages and he doesn't even bother to stop Dick from scrolling through them, "She isn't going to think about you any differently if she knows."
"About what part? Because I'm pretty sure she'll have plenty to say about sending a busload of classmates to a watery grave."
Dick looks over at him like he's going to start in again about how he should take her back, so he takes the cell phone from him.
He reads the message.
The first one he's read, at all.
Please respond. I am so sorry for what happened. I don't know how it happened. Please call me back, you can punish me however you want just talk to me.
She has the word punish in italics and he knows exactly what she means. Bent over his lap, begging for it...
"Fuck." He hisses and turns the phone off before shoving it into his back pocket.
He makes to leave when Dick sits up quickly, "Where are you going?"
"I'm going to deal with Butters like you wanted me to. Go get ready for your stupid prom."
"What are you going to do?" Something about Dick's tone makes him believe that Dick thinks he'll add another number to his bodycount.
He's got a plan for number ten and he won't let anyone else take that number, his little league number. He wouldn't dare to let one unplanned crime of passion fuck him over.
Not when he's so close.
"Butters and I are just going to have a little talk. That's all."
"You don't want me to come?"
"Go have fun, try and get laid. You're getting all antsy." Dick moves to get up and follow him, but he waves him away.
Dick follows him all the way to his car anyway.
God, he should do this for a living, it is beyond easy to get into Butters' room. There's radio equipment and manuals scattered amongst the 'Month Python' discs and borderline pornographic posters of animated women.
He gets the impression from the room, which looked an awful lot like Hart's room if you exchanged the radio equipment and the animated girls with video and vintage 'Baywatch', that he may have actually liked Butters if he didn't have such a colossal stick up his ass.
I mean he was a mass murderer, for Christ's sake, and he could take a joke better than this kid.
Butters opens the door, his hair wet, but thankfully, fully covered. He didn't think he could take seeing him naked before Mac.
"Leave the light off."
Butters stands frozen, his back against the now closed door.
Cassidy leans forward on his knees and lights a cigarette, the flame lighting up his face momentarily.
"Beaver?"
The bright cherry of his cigarette the only light in the room, save for the red numbered alarm clock.
He doesn't smoke often, but he figured that Dick would appreciate the dramatics when he retold the story later.
"You might want to try again, Butters ."
"What are you doing here Cassidy..."
"You know what I'm doing here."
"But you broke up with her..."
Cassidy stands from the bed, they are approximately the same height, but he feels so much taller than this boy anyway.
"Just because I think she's better off without me doesn't mean I think she should slum it with you." His voice feels straight out of a noir and he knows that if Mac ever found out about this she'd secretly love it.
He stubs out his cigarette on the dresser, "You are not going to do anything to Mac that wouldn't be appropriate in Sunday school." Butters' eyes must have adjusted to the dark because his eyes are following him rather than the cigarette, " Don't make me come back, Vincent, you don't want to know how easy this was for me." He has his hand on the bedroom door when he turns back to him, "I'd be really careful, you don't want Dick to get involved."
He leaves out the front door, pausing to wave at the frightened-looking Butters before getting back into his car.
Dick is pacing the living room by the time he gets back, in a suit looking, really, rather good.
"What did you do?"
"I just had a talk with him... Well and I put a cigarette out on his dresser."
"What?"
He waves it away, "I'll tell you about it later. Right now you are going to grab us some beer and I'm going to start Soul Caliber."
Several rounds of Soul Caliber later, Dick makes to leave when Cassidy can't help but ask the question that's been on his mind for days.
"Why do you want Mac and me to get back together?"
Dick shrugs, "I don't know. I like the way you are when she's around. Plus, I think I could get used to just the three of us."
He opens his mouth to agree or argue that she's better off without either of them, he's not sure, but Dick keeps going.
" Plus, can you just picture how hot a threesome would be? Fuck, I'm going to be asking Santa for that for Christmas until I die."
He's not sure where exactly to start with that.
Maybe the fact that if Santa did actually exist, that he only gave presents to good kids of which they most definitely were not.
He decides on the obvious, "You know were brothers, right?"
Dick just waves that away, "Mac would obviously be in the middle." He stops just short of duh, "but I call backdoor."
"What?"
"I call backdoor," he gets this weird goofy grin on his face, "I love that shit."
"Have you ever wondered what that might say about you?"
Dick just shrugs, "Nope."
"Of course not. Hurry up and leave, I don't want to have this conversation with you anymore."
Dick leaves with that goofy grin on his face and he makes a mental note not to allow heavy Belgian ales during video game time, because Christ now he can't stop thinking about Dick's perfect Christmas present and, well, he has a lot more sounds and images in the bank to make it vivid.
He tries to clear his head with film noir, raw, dirty and black and white.
It doesn't work; the dreams that flood him, as he sleeps on the couch waiting for Dick, are filled with the remembered sound of Mac moaning and filled with a grayscale of morals and colors.
He wakes up violently when Dick drops him into his own bed.
"You did good kid." Dick tells him before falling drunkenly into the bed next to him.