May 25, 1998

Faint country music played overhead as the universally loathed wimp otherwise known as Stewart Stevenson tapped his fingers on the cash register, the Tractor Supply on the outskirts of this rundown town fairly empty, as usual. Whoever had decided to have a Tractor Supply built in a place like this must have had a few screws loose. Most of the local farms in this impoverished part of the state had completely gone out of business hardly a few years into the Dust Bowl, the only survivors over half a century later entailed an extremely unfriendly family's struggling cattle ranch right on the edge of Highland and some reclusive old guy who lived about eight miles out of town with cotton fields so unusually prosperous that he was rumored to have sold his soul to the devil. Ever since the majority of the original farms in Highland had died off, the oil fields had become the next best place to find a job before a ton of fast food joints had suddenly popped up in the late 1960s. There just weren't many local farmers left. Anyway, most of the shoppers that came to Tractor Supply were less likely to be farmers and more likely to be really frustrated guys looking for obscure tools that the handful of hardware stores near the theater didn't already have for their random handyman jobs, so the average day as a Tractor Supply employee was either extremely stressful or extremely boring. Thankfully, today was extremely boring. Stewart glanced at his half full bag of jelly beans, debating whether he should finish them now or wait until after his next break since there wasn't anything else to do; the boredom was nearly painful, but at least he didn't have to worry about confrontation, one of his many fears. Then, his portable MP3 player, which he'd gotten as a gift from his mother along with a heaping plate of cookies on his most recent birthday, stalled on a song and let the sound of enthusiastic chirping from somewhere near the back of the store that announced the seasonal "Chick Days" sale bleed into his ears; those feisty little chicks were available from early spring to late summer every single year and their telltale chirping was pretty much impossible to miss. The chicks were so cute that he had tried to buy one for himself a few weeks ago when he'd first started his new job since his parents couldn't say no if he used his very own money, but then the fuzzy little thing had pecked his thumb and left him a changed man who would force his coworkers to hand the chicks to the customers instead of handling them himself, clearly not wanting a repeat of the mentally scarring incident that certainly had not left a physical mark whatsoever; Stewart, whose psyche was quite fragile, thought that it should have been illegal for something so cute to be so unreasonably vicious. Clumsily batting at the buttons of the MP3 player, he ended up skipping the song currently stalling and starting a new one instead. Oh, well. Half-heartedly shrugging with one shoulder, he redirected his attention to the waiting bag of jelly beans; unlike Beavis and Butt-Head, his idols, Stewart was more prone to mild disappointment rather than sudden anger when things didn't go his way. He was much slower to anger, especially since he always had plenty of sweets to make up for all of the other empty aspects of his life.

Outside, Beavis was walking with his arms spread out for balance on the narrow concrete divider separating the Tractor Supply's parking lot from the main road leading out of town, obviously not having been scheduled to work at the Maxi-Mart today since he had somehow wandered this far across town; wandering around aimlessly on foot for about nine miles was not a quick trip, and his feet had a few new blisters as proof of the hours squandered in mindless travel. At any moment, he could fall over and land either in the empty parking lot or in front of an oncoming vehicle speeding down the main road; for some reason, everyone always seemed pretty eager to drive away from Highland. Naturally, Beavis was totally at ease, clearly not giving half a shit about consequences as was his typical fashion. Slowly inching forward, he wavered slightly as a beat-up sedan zoomed by, which was going at least 50 miles over the speed limit since the local law enforcement crew was always busy gambling in the back of that one sketchy pizza place instead of enforcing traffic laws. The vehicle that he'd barely even noticed was the exact same sedan that had always been parked in that one driveway which had used to be covered in chalk all of the time. The wussy chalk drawings had completely stopped appearing a few years ago, so whoever had drawn them must've either found a cooler hobby or died, or something like that; after all, people did go missing a lot. Beavis didn't actively remember the exact sedan itself despite it having just passed by, but his subconscious had immediately jumped to vague recollections of a colorful driveway and how he'd thrown a crumpled soda can at the car parked there once, or twice, or thrice. He didn't remember what brand the soda can had been, what the pictures on the driveway looked like, or what color the car had been; well, that sedan was one of those perplexingly indescribable colors, anyway. All he could recall was a jumbled mess of colors and sunlight in his eyes. It had probably been during some random summer day because he was pretty sure he'd been dripping with sweat. That was pretty much the most detail he could get out of that. Sweat. Oh, but what if that had never happened? Maybe those were a bunch of different memories all spliced together. That was why he didn't spend much time trying to remember things that much anymore, which wasn't that big of a change since his memory had already been pretty crappy to begin with anyway. Sometimes, he would suddenly begin wondering if half of his memories had ever been real at all, and it didn't really feel that cool. Sometimes, his memories were more like dreams, which was super confusing and annoying since that meant all of the good things that he could remember probably didn't mean anything substantial, forcing him to hope for the best in the present, which really sucked on days like today. Stupid Butt-Head. Sometimes Butt-Head was extra cool, or even kind of nice in a very subtle manner- but never for more than a few seconds at a time, especially since it would have actually been super creepy if Butt-Head was nicer any longer than that anyway- in his memories, but of course memories couldn't be trusted. Just like dreams, memories almost always seemed very real at first, but then suddenly, they would immediately be revealed to have never actually happened at all or to have been completely out of order, leaving Beavis looking like a total idiot yet again. There was no point in dedicating so much as a second to hope in the intangible. Not when he could shove a rock up his nose or something cool like that instead.

Narrowly avoiding getting struck by a garbage truck veering into the emergency lane, whose driver was more focused on eating one of those cold sandwich thingies from the gas station instead of actually driving, Beavis hopped off of his perch on the concrete divider and clumsily regained his footing on the Tractor Supply parking lot while letting his arms fall back down to his sides. Shuffling around aimlessly, he scowled at the pathetic little pebbles wedged into the asphalt. What was the point in shoving things up his nose if they weren't even as big as his boogers? Today sucked, and he didn't even have anything good to cram up his nose. This sucky day had started off as just another normal morning, Beavis and Butt-head arguing about what to watch on TV over breakfast; Beavis had wanted to watch a droning infomercial narrated by some lady with decent boobs while Butt-Head had wanted to watch some random nature documentary about crocodiles fighting lions. Then, Butt-Head had pushed him off of the couch just for sitting too close as if they were still a couple of stupid freshmen instead of the slightly less stupid dropouts they were now; after getting held back during their junior year- some weird lady had stepped in when Principal McDicker had been institutionalized, hence the terrible decision of trying to properly educate these two academic lost causes prior to graduation- they'd given up on school entirely and quit going by their senior year to focus on making money. After Beavis had crawled back onto the couch, Butt-Head had beckoned him closer as if he had some sort of secret to impart, so Beavis had leaned in like a dumbass and ended up getting headbutted right in the nose. Apparently, Butt-Head was just being a total dickwad today; Beavis, who had literally just been shoved off of the couch, had been absolutely astounded at the unexpected turn of events before quickly retaliating by biting Butt-Head's leg like a madman. Whatever. This was just another part of their day, like tussling over the remote or finding boogers in their socks, though it kind of sucked sometimes. They were allowed to take breaks from fighting and actually just kind of enjoy having each other around, weren't they? Was it so bad to just be together without having to worry about messing up and getting smacked or starting yet another fight? Believe it or not, but sometimes Beavis thought that they fought too much. Of course, he wasn't really one to talk since he usually provoked most of their fights anyway and was usually the one to escalate them, therefore keeping his mouth shut on the matter, but the notion had still come and gone multiple times. Sometimes, it kind of sucked always having to expect a fight at some point; plus, he sort of liked it when they just got to be together without hurting each other, but only in limited increments of time. Beavis did like to argue and bite or scratch people, especially Butt-Head who always fought back, but sometimes he got tired of never knowing when their next fight would be; it was the uncertainty that was doing him in. He was more than used to fighting because it was basically a part of him at this point and he did enjoy it a lot, but what the hell was he supposed to do when everything in his mind went blank and everything crashed together all at once? How the hell was he supposed to keep up with anything else anymore? He couldn't. He couldn't keep up with anything anymore. He didn't care what Butt-Head's deal was. He didn't care what his own problem was. He didn't care. He just wanted to-

Almost as if a switch had been flipped, his train of thought- well, if it even qualified as thought since it was mainly just a jumbled mess of vague bitterness and faint confusion- derailed into nothing. Whatever he'd been feeling earlier had dissolved like that clumpy sugar in Mr. Anderson's iced tea, which Beavis had been banned from drinking whenever it was left out on their neighbor's porch unattended because Butt-Head was sick of having to deal with all of the subsequent Cornholio fits. Butt-Head. Oh yeah, he'd been thinking about Butt-Head, hadn't he? Butt-Head hadn't really done much, though. Well, he had seemed sort of grumpy this morning. Beavis' nose still hurt a little if he thought about the incident since that was where Butt-Head's dumb forehead had whacked him; later, he had been surprised to look down and see blood on his shirt because apparently his nose had bled at some point, and he'd never even noticed. Still wearing the same bloody shirt as he meandered across the parking lot, Beavis wondered what Butt-Head's problem was today. Maybe he was just in one of his dumb moods and needed a new porno magazine or a bag of chips with like 20 different flavors; Butt-Head had very refined taste in literature and dining. Beavis shoved his hands into his pockets despite the fact that he'd already blown all of his loose change on a box of contraband firecrackers yesterday, genuinely expecting to have a dollar or two left. Nope, his pockets were empty. Too bad for Butt-Head. It looked like he was going to have to be grumpy all day, because Beavis definitely didn't have any money to buy anything. Wait, his pockets were almost empty; apparently he'd left a handful of cigarette butts in there at some point, though he couldn't remember what he'd originally intended to do with them. Maybe he'd wanted to chew on them? Or maybe burn them? Or flush them down the toilet? The possibilities were endless. Stuffing the cigarette butts back into his left pocket where they'd remain forgotten for another week, Beavis decided that he'd think about what to do with his little souvenirs from the local chainsmokers later. He didn't have any money, so he'd have to find another way to waste the day since he sucked at shoplifting without Butt-Head to help him; he was on his own because Butt-Head had gone to work again. Ooh, wait, but what if he used the cigarette butts as money? He could convince whoever was working at the hick store that the cigarette butts were a new type of coin and then he could get stuff for, like, cheaper than usual! Stumbling over an empty cardboard box from one of the fried chicken places, Beavis skittered across the parking lot as he envisioned himself tricking a cashier, preferably elderly or just generally bad at seeing, and paused for a couple of seconds as he caught sight of the undeveloped land behind the store.

Flowers, everywhere.

At some point last week it had rained for the first time in who knows how long, and unusually green grass had suddenly sprung up from the drought-cracked soil, the vivid hues still going strong over the course of the past few days. Of course, it was all apt to die off very soon because nothing stayed long in a place like this, but at the moment, everything was alive.

It wasn't right.

Nestled between the thick patches of grass and tall weeds, there were flowers, and they were everywhere that hadn't been paved over by concrete or asphalt. There were a few purple and yellow flowers scattered in that patch of land behind the store, but it was only the white flowers that bothered him. The white flowers with tapered petals, the kind that had tasted really gross when Beavis had pretended to be a cow during a mostly forgotten recess game in elementary school, didn't seem right today; sometimes, insignificant things he'd seen all his life would transform into something else entirely without warning. Aside from how they'd inspired his war on vegetables, Beavis had never really cared much about the white flowers until now. In the past, they'd just been there in the background every single time there was a warm rain, hardly worth a second glance. They'd never done anything interesting aside from the usual blooming and wilting, though they were pretty nice to stomp on and squish. Now, the flowers were different. They still bloomed and wilted. They still shifted slightly in the stifled winds. They still looked the exact same as they always did, but they felt so, so different. They felt very wrong. Call him crazy, but they creeped him out a little bit just like some of those weird music videos did. Maybe his brain was just eating itself or something silly like that, but everything that had been normal before was wrong now. The flowers felt like they were a bunch of little graves or something. Headstones, maybe. Headstones with eyes engraved in their centers. They looked like flowers, they really did, but they didn't feel like flowers at all. He wasn't touching them, but he could still feel that they were different. The flowers gave him a genuinely bad feeling. He felt like they were going to do or cause something bad. He was being an idiot. He knew that he was being an idiot, but that didn't make the bad feeling go away. He didn't even think that being smacked would help at this point. The flowers felt bad and they were all looking at him. They were looking and they wouldn't stop. He hated being an idiot, but he seriously had no idea what to do. They were just flowers, after all. Maybe the flowers felt wrong like the walls in his house did, but they still looked like flowers and that was all that mattered. Idiot. Everything had been going just fine for a while now, so he better not screw it up… as if he had a choice.

Hardly a few seconds after he'd first paused walking, Beavis lifted his head slightly at the sound of someone's motor acting up from somewhere on the road, loud bursts of noise resounding like gunshots in the air, and refocused on the front doors to the store. Patting his pockets full of precious cigarette butts that would hopefully serve as makeshift coins, he eagerly strode past the outdoor display of equipment and scratched his butt as he stepped through the automatic sliding doors. Looking around at display baskets holding little toys shaped like farm animals, boring objects like mugs and salt shakers plastered in weird sayings he couldn't really read, and aisles upon aisles of all sorts of tools and livestock feed in the back, Beavis blanked out on whatever the hell he could want from this place. Wandering around a little, he quickly found the checkout station, which was well stocked with candy but also foolproof Beavis RepellentTM also known as Stewart. Ugh, Stewart . As if this day couldn't get any worse. His plan to pawn off cigarette butts as coins fell out of his head as he made a beeline for the back of the store to hide in the aisles- he had no idea what sort of reasoning that was, it was just what came to mind- before Stewart noticed him; luckily, the dork seemed too busy listening to wuss music and eating candy to have even noticed his entrance despite how loud his laugh was. What a loser. Then, Beavis got distracted by all of the weird stuff on the shelves, the woe of sharing the same air as Stewart instantly forgotten. He'd never really come to this store very often because he'd never needed anything from it, but since he had time to kill- he wasn't in the mood to be alone in that house today, though he'd been doing fairly well lately aside from the fingers painfully stuck in his ears- he had wandered around town until he had ended up here, so he might as well check it out. After a few minutes of staring blankly at random tools and sacks of feed since Butt-Head wasn't there to joke around with, Beavis caught sight of his favorite room ever: the bathroom! Just as Beavis disappeared into the bathroom, intending to either coat every square inch of the room in toilet paper or flood something, a boring beige car pulled up into the parking lot and eased into one of the parking spaces reserved for veterans.

Flinching slightly as the sound of a car door slamming shut interrupted the soft interlude in the song currently playing from the MP3 player, Stewart jerked his head up with cheeks full of jelly beans as he tugged his earbuds off and nervously glanced at the hulking figure approaching the entrance to the store. Oh, no. It was his former teacher, Coach Buzzcut! Well, Bradley Buzzcut wasn't actually a coach anymore, but every kid in town who had ever had him as a teacher would call him that for the rest of their lives. Instinctively ducking his head and averting his eyes, Stewart pretended to busy himself with a maintenance log he'd already filled out a few hours ago as the proud veteran marched through the doors, albeit with a slight limp in his step. Thankfully, Bradley barely even looked Stewart's way, clearly preoccupied as he instinctively gauged his surroundings for any potential dangers; there were some people who he simply could not stand running into. Ignoring the loud chirping of chicks coming from the galvanized stock tanks in the back of the store, Bradley proceeded to meander throughout the aisles since this pathetic place seemed pretty empty. Oddly enough, he didn't seem frustrated. He did have that same grumpy scowl as always, but he wasn't radiating anger like he often did. In fact, he wasn't even giving off the same amount of confidence as usual. He almost always had an aura of utter confidence in public. He was an exemplary veteran and the toughest guy for miles around. He was the most respected and feared man in town. He was a natural leader who didn't even need to try to earn most people's compliance, actually having more authority than the guys who worked down in the courthouse by the merit of his reputation alone. Yet, here he was, trudging through a nearly empty Tractor Supply with slightly slumped shoulders and a limp in his step. Unlike most of the frustrated customers that came here as a last resort, Bradley wasn't mad in the slightest. Discontent or resigned, perhaps, but not mad.

Very few people remembered who he had once been.

Flowers were like little headstones because the fields were graveyards. That was what silly little Bradley had been forced to learn when his mama and papa had sent him off to be a real man in 1970, shaving his subtle curls down to pinpricks of black and looping a cold, hard dog tag around his neck. They had even paid for him to change his last name to "Buzzcut" before his departure, almost as if they had wanted to reduce him to a cruel parody of a person rather than give him a new sense of purpose like they insisted they had graciously done. As Bradley got older, he doubted them more often and would secretly resent the name change that had alienated him from his family for years to come, but he knew better than to ever talk back to them unless he wanted the belt. Regardless of however he might have personally felt- which was inherently irrelevant anyway despite it supposedly being his life- Bradley had been raised to live up to his name, and if he couldn't live up to what his strict family of hardworking cattle ranchers needed him to be, then he would have to live up to what "Buzzcut" needed him to be, no questions asked. Nobody had ever taken the time to stop and to ask him what he personally thought about anything in the first place, not even if it was about something serious like war and death that could completely make or break his life, because good strong boys always followed instructions and he was expected to be nothing but a good strong boy. So, he always kept his own opinions to himself if he wasn't alone with his friend and did everything that he was instructed to do while occasionally parroting his mama and papa's opinions for a scrap of approval that briefly lingered but never satisfied. He knew that his family meant everything to him, but he couldn't have possibly known just how worthless he was in their eyes. Doubt and despair had never been foreign to him, but he just couldn't afford to dwell on those feelings, always too busy focusing on nothing but the duties he could never take a break from every waking day; a strong boy like him wasn't supposed to have weak feelings like that anyway, so he had grown accustomed to pushing them so far down that it was like those feelings didn't exist anymore. He had always been a man of purpose, even when he had been a silly little boy who painted faces on the rocks in his friend's garden or climbed trees when nobody else was around to tell him no. Ever since he had learned how to walk, he had been perpetually driven by the need to fulfill his duties before considering anything else; if he wanted to practice making Bigfoot calls, play tag with the chickens, steal one of his brothers' comic books, walk on the fences with his arms spread out for balance, or keep an eye out for UFOs in the twinkling night sky, he would either need to get all of his work done first or wait until nobody was watching to be a real kid instead of just another servile maggot. Of course, neither option had ever been likely since the work almost never ended. His mama and papa, the source from which most of his duties emanated, always made sure that he had plenty to do so that he could build up his character and wouldn't ever have to worry about boredom. Good strong boys like Bradley always had a lot of work to do, like tending to the cattle and chickens under brutal summer suns or in the midst of frigid winds, making sure that the Highland football team won every single game regardless of whether he had an injury from overtraining since champions never rested, prioritizing his strength and toughness over his academic could-have-beens and unaddressed vulnerabilities buried deeper than a grave, channeling his anger and general energy into something supposedly useful like manual labor at his part-time construction job instead of finding a solution to his unbridled temper that didn't involve accidental lacerations from dangerous equipment, and just being an overall good strong boy. Nobody liked a bad weak boy, and Bradley wanted to be liked very much. Of course, he had a tendency to pick fights with other children his age and a subsequently poor social life save for one friend, so that pretty much left only his perpetually disapproving mama and papa to try to please; in retrospect, he should've focused more on his friend instead of his impossible-to-satisfy mama and papa, but it had been too late to change anything by then. He'd been too young and hopeful to have possibly known that he'd never be the good strong boy that they wanted, so he'd blindly done anything and everything to try to make them proud. Even if his mama and papa wanted him to kill strangers in cold blood instead of taking up that one college's offer on a football scholarship- there was no point in sending him to some hippie-dominated college anyway even if his teachers had insisted that his brain was as sharp as a sewing needle and that he had so much potential if he would just put more effort into his schoolwork- he would put aside his own interests and do exactly what his mama and papa wanted him to do. He wanted to be a good strong boy who was actually liked by his mama and papa, and good strong boys always did what they were told to do. Following orders was simply what he'd been raised to do, and trying to be a good strong boy would be his only goal in life even after he messed everything up. Was it really so bad that he just wanted to be good?

Why his mama and papa had always been so worried about him doing something wrong was kind of hard for him to understand; aside from the fact that his uncle was such an untouchable subject in the immediate family that Bradley had no idea that he had ever even existed, his mama and papa had always been a bit overbearing about him stepping out of line in any way, shape, or form. Yet, he had always done everything he could to try to please them, so he never stopped trying to be their good strong boy even when he just didn't understand what it was that he kept doing wrong. Naturally, a hardworking farmhand and champion quarterback like Bradley had never directly done or said anything that could have revealed anything remotely scandalous. He did have his own little stash of weak, shameful secrets, but he would take those to his grave. He would never admit to not liking football as much as he should have because his injuries from overtraining hurt more than he let on, or wishing that he could have read all of those books his only friend David Van Driessen had talked about instead of just nodding along while fidgeting impatiently, or wondering if he would never like girls the same way his brothers did although it was fair to say that he had zero experience in that department. To be honest, though, he'd never had enough time to even consider any relationship involving romance at all let alone the prospect of girls, but he was too clever to let something like that slip. After all, he had been too preoccupied with trying and failing to please his family while choosing to spend the scarce free time he had with his only friend rather than getting himself into a mess of a love life, his all-important duties even outweighing his teenage horniness. Besides, based on the complaints his teammates exchanged in the locker room after football practices before they'd been drafted away, girls were needy and annoying, always asking for money and attention; Bradley barely had time for himself let alone another person, not to mention that he was broke since every penny he earned had gone toward his mama and papa's fat cattle. Even if he had wanted a girlfriend, he would have driven her away within a week just like he inadvertently did to almost everybody in his life; even his brothers weren't very fond of him. Notoriously temperamental and unmedicated- his mama and papa said that his short temper could be channeled into strength, refusing to get him treatment with zero thought given to the chronic strain on his heart because they believed that the excess "enthusiasm" made him more useful, unlike that bad influence David who rarely ever showed a hint of irritation beyond sass and probably couldn't lift a puny 50-pound bag of chicken feed with two hands- it had always been nearly impossible for Bradley to get close enough with anybody to have real friends let alone girlfriends. It had always been nearly impossible, but never perfectly impossible. Yes, most potential friends usually did cut ties with him after a few days, though there had been a few occasions when people had managed to remain on fairly friendly terms with him for as long as a whole week. However, he did have one real friend who had never left his side for years, the two having known each other ever since they'd been forced to sit next together in a very cramped first grade classroom after one of the two elementary schools in the county had shut down due to health violations and subsequently resulted in a massive influx of students toward the remaining establishment. David, bless his pitifully sensitive and meditative heart, was unlike anybody he had ever met and it was a miracle that the flower child still hadn't ditched him. No matter how many heated arguments and scuffles they got into, his friend had never ditched him despite the few- but only a few- small marks here and there that would accumulate over the years alongside scars from outrageously misfortunate accidents, those little reminders of those past fights that had devolved into bouts of roughhousing in which David rarely ever fought back due to his strict admiration for pacifism; maybe there was a chance that David might have liked the marks a little bit because of the stupid memories behind them, but Bradley, who had all sorts of scars from the most inane farmwork incidents, had never wanted to ask that because he didn't want to look too weird in front of the only friend he would probably ever have. Bradley usually didn't have time to care what anybody who wasn't in his family thought of him because he had so many responsibilities to take care of already, but when it came to David, he cared a lot. Anybody with half a functional eye could see how differently Bradley treated David.

Maybe it was because David was his only friend and he didn't know what he would do if he ended up alone with nobody but his parents for company, but Bradley had never actually beaten him up the same way he beat other people up; he seemed to lean more toward verbal altercations rather physical ones if David was involved, which was interesting, to say the least. Violence was the answer to a lot of things and Bradley got into minor scuffles with his peers all of the time- he wouldn't become a bully until later in life when he joined the Marines, but a large boy like him definitely never got picked on in his school days, either- but for some odd reason, it was never really the answer to an argument with David although it was worth noting that their arguments could get absolutely infuriating. Despite their many differences and common arguments, they had always gotten along well enough. In fact, they genuinely liked each other. They liked each other so much that Bradley continuously struggled to keep his jealousy from flaring up in a physical altercation whenever David made more new friends every passing year; after he'd made one of those dreaded newcomers to David's social life cry in the lunch line in second grade and had therefore received the silent treatment from David for the entirety of the next two days, Bradley had come to the painful revelation that he never would be David's only friend and that he would always have to worry about being the second or third or fourth or twentieth choice for the rest of his life because he would never be able to imagine a future where they weren't discussing Mrs. Van Driessen's ghost stories or arguing about cartoons together. Even if he would end up being David's last option someday, Bradley knew that David would always be his first pick for the rest of his life. Good strong boys weren't supposed to be so devoted to such weak people, but there he was bearing that same old existential dilemma that had come to fruition at eight years old.

Since Bradley had seemed to get along a little too well with nary a girlfriend and a bit too many visits to David's house throughout his teens without a single other friend- anybody with half a brain could tell that David was too soft and feeble to have a positive influence on a good strong boy like Bradley- then surely he wouldn't have minded being pulled out of his senior year of high school to be subject to the company of hard men with penetrating eyes when the advent of the Vietnam War served as an excuse to call disposable young men to enlist in the military on behalf of the good ol' U. S. A. His mama and papa believed that if he truly wished to seek the company of men, he could at least do so by dying a dignified death among the people they deemed "heroes" instead of talking to a wishy-washy tree hugger; devoting his free time to that coward David who loved bright, fragrant flowers while turning down pretty girls' advances simply was not an option if his mama and papa had a say in the matter, and they always had a say in everything. Rather than having to spend another day watching Bradley live in their hometown with a paltry excuse of a man for company, his mama and papa had chosen to send him to his death overseas in the company of only the most respectable of men; even his veteran papa refused to believe anything remotely resembling criticism directed toward the military and its allegedly honorable soldiers. Their hearts firmly set on bits and pieces of propaganda solely in favor of this country regardless of the tsunami of protests washing over the states or the inhumane reports that slipped censors, they truly believed in the traditional American dream and its supposed heroes; his mama had once been a nurse who worked under his papa, who had led three different regiments throughout the course of World War Two and had the scars- both physical and mental- to prove it, dead set on honoring the legacy of the noble soldiers that had devoted their lives and souls before him. His mama and papa greatly preferred the notion of losing their youngest son in an honorable death oceans away to the benefit of their country, the sacrifice superior to the prospect of bearing the shame if he indeed did turn out to be a homosexual; they worried incessantly that he had far too much in common with an estranged uncle he had never gotten to meet, a gay man who had been inadvertently outed and instantly disowned by his entire blood family about a year before Bradley's birth. His mama and papa just could not risk the humiliation Bradley might bring to their respectable family if he really did end up like that. Besides, they had four other sons- including one set of twins who both already had wives- still helping around the ranch who were nothing like that excommunicated disgrace, and there really wouldn't be much of a difference if Bradley was gone since he did have a tendency to make mistakes when his temper got the best of him during a task that required concentration, like helping fix the tractor or repairing leaking pipes. There was no underestimating how little his mama and papa cared about Bradley as their child, the way they primarily saw him as a pair of helpful hands and hardly anything beyond that painfully obvious to the few visitors that awkwardly stopped by every few years.

Oh, what a disappointment it had been when big tough Bradley had finally returned from serving his country just like a good strong boy forever eager to please his mama and papa, nearly unscathed save for a bone-shattering femoral puncture from a stray bullet that would never heal properly and instead progressively worsen his mobility to the point that he would end up being forced to resign from his position as the head coach at Highland High School despite how good he would become at his job a few decades later. Bearing flowers in his brain and blood on his weed-choked hands, a piece of that silly little boy who had desperately clung onto the vestiges of Bradley's soul even throughout the unspeakable things he'd seen and regrettably participated in- though he would certainly double down and insist that he had done the right thing by serving his country and family if anybody ever asked because that was the only way he could cope with the fact that he had indeed done those things out of his own volition, not that anybody really did ever ask him anything since he had gotten pretty good at keeping people away- had died when his mama and papa refused to let him back into their house. Their house, not his. To make matters worse, nobody would answer the door when he went to David's house, the only other place in the world to which he could go; later that day, he'd gone to the gas station and called David on the payphone, but the latter had hung up before the former had gotten midway through a single sentence. At first, Bradley had been confused as to why he seemed to have lost everyone who'd ever cared about him; well, his parents had never really cared about him in the conventional sense like how the mamas and papas hugged their kiddos on TV, but they had always housed and fed him which was more than enough, right? He'd been so confused, though. He'd done nothing but act in the best interests of his family, and he hadn't said or done anything bad to David, right? All he'd done was try his very best to be a good strong boy for everybody who was an actual part of his life and not just a shadow passing by. His mama and papa should've been thrilled that he'd come back from fighting a war for them, and there was no reason for David to suddenly go silent on him, right?

Wait. David hadn't responded to any of his letters for the past few months.

Oh. The letters.

Fuck! Bradley had forgotten about the mix up with the letters. Fuuuuuck. A few months prior to his return, Bradley had mistakenly addressed a letter for David to his mama and papa- and vice versa- after having gone approximately 74 hours without sleep while under extreme stress that could've sent him into cardiac arrest at any moment; however, he'd been especially desperate for a souvenir of home since the box in which he'd stashed every single letter he'd received had recently been destroyed in a hot, hot, hot fire, which would have rendered him absolutely hysterical from awe and something else had it not been for his formidable poker face, not to mention his overwhelming need to set an example for his companions since he had been appointed as their unofficial leader. In all honesty, the letter for David hadn't been anything special, just a collection of vague complaints and his latest response to a ridiculous argument they had been having over whether the Earth was hollow or not, but merely imagining David's voice and facial expressions in each written sentence had given Bradley a small sense of hope in this desolate wasteland where invasive weeds suffocated every single flower that dared breathe. Even if they were continents apart, Bradley and David would never stop bickering like some old couple that had gotten divorced three times but could never go over a week without bugging each other. Well, David hadn't known that they were continents apart before the mix up with the letters because Bradley had lied that he needed to work on a construction gig in Colorado for a few years since there was no way he would risk their friendship by saying that he was going to fight in a war the other had protested ever since its first national drafts had washed over the states; David was very passionate about what he believed in because, unlike Bradley, he actually had the freedom to have his own opinions. However, David's letters gradually became more and more suspicious despite Bradley's attempts at nonchalance and consistent lies. Back home, a despairing David, who was oddly lonely despite the fact that he had other friends, had begun to believe that Bradley had ditched him for a girl and was actively avoiding him as if their years of friendship had been nothing; the letters almost made him feel like a weak mouse being tortured to death by a homeless cat for its own enjoyment. On the other hand, Bradley had always made sure to insist in his letters that he was working on a BIG construction project that paid VERY well whenever he read David's doubts between the lines, and he always added that he couldn't send photos of this supposed project because his camera either needed to be fixed- he usually used this excuse when he hadn't bathed in weeks or had visible injuries that weren't the type seen at construction sites so that he wouldn't need to send photos of himself as well- or because he needed to adhere to a nonexistent "confidentiality law" he had hastily made up on the spot one time when he had been interrupted by one of his fellow soldiers who had suddenly come running back to the encampment with a severely wounded arm, having narrowly survived a toe popper mine while crawling through a patch of thick brush. Oh, and the letter Bradley had written for his mama and papa? It had been chock full of detailed updates about how the war was going, every single sentence drenched in white lies to keep up his family's morale as if they were the ones fighting instead of him. Sometimes it really was like his life wasn't his own, but he only dwelled on that if he really needed a weak semblance of twisted motivation; currently just another forgettable guy in the infantry despite the pretty good reputation he had already, he would one day become an important leader among the Marines just like his papa had once been even if it was too late to make him happy. Besides, whether he felt like he was in control of his life or not did not mean that his actions did not have any consequences at all.

Fun fact: his actions always had consequences.

None of it had bothered him at first. None of the shapes around him had looked like real bodies at first. None of the noises around him had sounded like real voices at first. He hadn't registered them as real humans. He had been living in his own little fantasy world, playing hero and defeating the "bad guys" just like his mama and papa would've wanted him to be. He'd slaughtered chickens for his grandmama before she'd died in that stampede. He'd been hit by his mama and papa. He'd been pushed around by his brothers. He'd seen what happened when predators got to the livestock when nobody else was watching. He was used to violence and brutality. He was used to blood and death. He wasn't bothered in the slightest. He was tough. He was fearless. He was powerful. He was brave. He was in control of his own life. He was likable. He was admirable. He was respectable. He was lovable. He was good. He was strong. He was an adventurer. He was a strategist. He was a leader. He was a real man. He would've sworn on his grandmama's grave that he hadn't been bothered at all if she'd ever been buried, which she hadn't; stampede victims typically didn't leave much behind to bury. He hadn't been bothered at all. He was fine. There was nothing to be bothered about. Not at first. He'd always thought that he could deal with anything and everything that came his way. That this was no big deal. That all of his hopes would come true if he played the role of the hero. That he could handle it, and he did. Until he didn't. He hadn't known that his facade would slowly erode beneath the insurmountable pressure every relentless day. He hadn't known that he couldn't pretend that none of this was real for much longer due to the inescapable logic of it all. He hadn't known that he had been living a lie for too long, nor that the truth was notorious for being impatient. He hadn't known just what he had become until it was too late to change a thing. He hadn't known that he had known everything and was just lying to himself. He had known everything. He had known it all. He was just a liar and he knew it.

It had been another beautiful day in this hellscape wrought by bullets, chemicals, blades, explosives, and acts of raw brutality that would never make it to those history books that disinterested high schoolers would reluctantly peruse a few decades later. Nobody was innocent in the jungle and he was a fallen herald of justice.

Oh, how gorgeous had the world looked on fire! The beautiful fires had been so hot that they had burned off everybody's eyelashes so that their hot allure would be in clear sight, and it was unlike anything else he had ever seen. Those peasants had looked up at him as if he'd been his mama's beloved Almighty Himself, and it had done wonders for his self-esteem. For just a fleeting moment, he had been God.

Then, without warning, his precarious fantasy had suddenly shattered within the suffocating grip of reality's inescapable weeds.

What kind of God bothered bringing Hell to Earth when Satan was more than capable?

Here on Earth was a place recklessly bastardized as Vietnam or 'Nam.

Here on Earth was a homeland whose real name was Việt Nam.

Here on Earth was a home, just like anywhere else.

Flowers, everywhere.

Flowers were like little headstones because the fields were graveyards. That was what silly little Bradley had been forced to learn when he couldn't stop running away from what had been right in front of him the whole time: consequences. So many consequences, all his. There were so many consequences, and they had all been the result of his actions. Who was he to ever have had hope that he would ever be a good strong boy when all he had ever done was bring suffering upon those with the misfortune to have ever met him? He had only wanted to be something that could have been worth something in his family's eyes, going so far as to write falsehoods about impressive feats he'd never been anywhere near accomplishing in his letters as he trudged through this wretched warzone that reeked of corpses that had once been happy, vibrant flowers, the barren fields that had once yielded fragrant rice ruthlessly ravaged by bullet-bearing weeds until they were nothing but graveyards littered with withered flower petals that had been left to rot under a harsh sun instead of peaceful headstones that would never be erected by uncaring men. All he had done was desecrate humanity under the false pretense of leadership and courage. This wasn't a political blurb in the newspaper, this was the doomed struggle of real, breathing humans on all sides of the war being drowned beneath inescapable waves of death delivered by squabbles among governments that couldn't get it together. Only, these weren't humans anymore. Precious things that had once been alive and loved, yes, but no longer humans. These were only flowers. Flowers, nothing else. It was the only way to cope. God, Bradley should have known better- wait, actually, he had known better. He'd grown up savoring every free moment he could get with David, for crying out loud, and it wasn't much of a challenge to unearth the latter's opinions and basic values even if they had disagreed a lot. Well, since Bradley had pushed aside his own doubts just like he always did out of nothing but his embarrassingly selfish wish for his mama and papa to like him, it would forever be his fault that he would never get those flowers out of his head. Those strangers that reminded him of the familiar faces back in Highland, Texas. Those high schoolers who wore soldiers' uniforms. Those starving children who spent every day searching for anything to put into their mouths even if they ended up poisoning themselves. Those bellowing men with dead eyes who led steadily dwindling troops. Those women who had their bodies taken by men speaking different languages. Those enemies who hid in the trees and collected prisoners to torture. Those exhausted civilians who hid among the rubble of abandoned buildings drenched in noxious chemicals that would leave survivors ridden with cancer and their offspring deformed. Those bleeding flowers who screamed like they were being torn apart limb by limb from within the walls when the hungry fires sunk their teeth into everything in their wake until it appeared that there had never been anything in the first place, the ground reduced to flat expanses of ash dotted with brittle teeth that had survived the heat. Nobody was innocent in the jungle, but they had all once been somebody, even the worst of brutes and the most deceptive of sweethearts.

Nobody here remembered who Bradley had once been.

On the battlefield, Bradley was a proud god.

Despite how much of a natural leader he was turning out to be and how much everybody in his infantry regiment respected him like nobody in his life had ever done before, which admittedly was addicting and nearly better than anything else he'd ever felt in his life, Bradley would have been a complete liar if he said that he wanted to return to a place like this where the flowers fell and the teeth reigned supreme; yet, whether he liked it or not, he knew that he belonged in places like these where everybody was forcefully dehumanized, because he could have just died like David probably would have done in his boots instead of choosing to have done all of this. He couldn't bring himself to eat up that overused excuse so many of his companions used that maybe life-and-death circumstances brought out the worst in people, not when he knew that he was inherently gruesome because of what he had chosen to do. Nobody was innocent in the jungle, and he wasn't immune to guilt. Had he been tried in a court, he most certainly would have been convicted of several war crimes and found to have enabled even more by using his status as a leader, which had been unofficially appointed by his fellow infantrymen due to his utter strength and confident prowess in all things strategic. That was the sick truth of it all. He'd chosen to have done all of this and there was no sugarcoating it. His mama and papa weren't the ones fighting because, no matter how strong their presence had always felt, he was the one making all of the decisions. Just because his survival instincts were all jacked up didn't mean he needed to have done the things he had done. Just because he had wanted so desperately to do what his mama and papa would've wanted him to do didn't mean that he should have carelessly slaughtered people like insects or have just stood there like a useless maggot with a rotten heart, watching the fires burn everybody alive. Just because he had wanted to be a good strong boy didn't mean that he should've enabled some of the most gruesome acts that would haunt his conscience behind his accomplished, prideful appearance for the rest of his life. He'd chosen to do everything he had ever done and had therefore become a monster that David, ever the level-headed advocate for pacifism and the beauty of life, would undoubtedly hate; it was certainly how he felt about himself even beneath all of the boosted self-esteem. He was a leader for a lost cause, and yet he couldn't quit pretending that the fight was all worth it even though it was clear that nobody was getting anything good out of it. Not even he really knew why he kept going, but he was very aware that from an outside perspective, it almost seemed as if he was only still fighting for a power trip and the sheer thrill of bloodshed itself. Was that the reputation he was going to have to maintain and polish for the rest of his life? So be it. Once he'd been perceived as something, he would have to commit to the bit; it was a habit that had been beaten into him at an early age. Well, he didn't really have much of a choice, did he? Besides, he'd done a very good job establishing his role already. It really wouldn't be that hard to keep up; it'd actually be harder to stop keeping it up because the paranoia here was strong. God or Satan, he didn't care which he was, he had a role and he would fulfill it as always. It was his duty. Now that he had human blood on his hands, it was the very least he could do in memorializing them, even if it meant framing their deaths as his victories; words were cruel, but forgetting was far worse.

Jesus fucking Christ, exactly when had silly little Bradley, once a friend of sweet gentle David, become a lonely maggot who trudged across this tooth-littered graveyard of cold, motionless flowers infested by warm, throbbing bloodworms?

When had that seductively hellish fire renewed his life with an addicting sense of gloriously hot purpose?

When the beautiful fires he had generously allowed to run free had ended up destroying his priceless box of letters in a gorgeous blaze, he couldn't help but think that it was only fair, though it was a bit minimal given the circumstances; he never dwelt that much on what he did and didn't deserve since he barely had enough time to eat let alone ruminate on matters that didn't involve planning his next strategic moves as the responsible leader he was, but he still did think about what he deserved from time to time and was well aware that he had probably deserved much worse than only losing a box of letters in that moment. Well, maybe this most recent mix up with the addresses had been karma, as trivial as it seemed. After all, here he was hoping that after this mistake, it wouldn't be too late to regain favor with his mama and papa so he could stay home to help with the farmwork and maybe find a wife they would approve of as if this massacre had never happened, but he couldn't even think about David without breaking out in a cold sweat. Oh, goddamnit. It probably was too late. Of course Bradley had to be a dumbass and ruin everything with one tiny mistake between two letters. After an indescribably brutal day trekking through ruins where there was nary a trace of a single person save for silent teeth and those mutilated flowers drenched in blood, the mortification Bradley had felt when he'd received a cold, terse letter from his mama and papa informing him of his error concerning the misaddressed letters rather than their usual empty words that tried and always failed to imitate encouragement had been almost as bad as the silence from David's end. Almost.

Bradley was still proud though.

Those fires had been hot.

Needless to say, David hadn't said a word ever since receiving that letter except when he gave Bradley a bouquet in the most sarcastic manner imaginable upon his return from the war, every single lie exposed under the bright Texan sun where the winds blew free and vibrant wildflowers grew tall; the bouquet had ended up crushed beneath Bradley's boots. Aside from that cold encounter, David wouldn't so much as look Bradley's way until nearly a full decade later, when the latter would vigorously study and apply for a job at the local high school after opting out of his esteemed position among his fellow Marines when his bad femur had apparently interfered with his demanding lifestyle as a tireless, powerful leader; yes, Bradley would end up voluntarily leaving the Marines, and no, he would never tell a soul- well, maybe there was one exception- about the real reasons that had slowly pushed him toward that most unusual decision. However, David's silent treatment would've actually only lasted for another three months with maybe a passive-aggressive remark to finally break the silence after Bradley's treacherous return from the war in Việt Nam. Although David never had been the type to truly hold grudges since peace and forgiveness were vital aspects of his character, Bradley's dishonest betrayal had shaken up his trust and therefore merited an outstanding exception for a few months. David had never been so consistently lied to for so long and it had completely upended his steadfast perception of who his childhood friend really was, making him question their entire friendship and if it had all been a sham; he felt as if he had been used although he wasn't quite sure how he might have been used, but nothing could negate the sting of being so violently backstabbed by the idiot of a person he had so dearly trusted and loved. Bradley was supposed to have been his best friend, not some boisterous soldier bragging to his parents about a killing spree of all things, describing people like toys for him to knock down or break apart; David had nearly lost his lunch when he'd first fully read through the mistakenly addressed letter, the details far too specific to have been fully fabricated. Yet, he had hoped against hope that Bradley was just lying as he was wont to do when his parents were being overbearing; his friend had lied many times before to get them off of his back, so surely the letter could have been fake? After all, those letters about that stupid construction project were all fake, weren't they? Ha! Who was he kidding? Obviously Bradley had been lying to cover something up, and David had a bad feeling that it wasn't a construction gig that was the issue. David hoped against hope that the gruesomely explicit details of cold-blooded murder and promotion to a leader who ordered others to carry out his crimes were all fabricated, but he really had no way to debunk it. At this rate, he wasn't sure if he even wanted to find out the truth. He had tried to hope that the killings were just a grand lie, but he didn't know for sure. By the time David would have been ready to drop the silent act out of unbearable curiosity and that draining loneliness that had been nagging at him for the past few years despite the fact that he had other friends who were objectively better people, Bradley would have been long gone, having fled to the Marines hardly a week after his return to Highland and inadvertently driving each other further apart for even more years instead of a few more months. Ever since his mama and papa had practically crushed his ability to fully trust anybody else from an early age, Bradley had learned to assume the worst from anybody, which apparently included his harmless friend David now. After all, a maggot bearing "Buzzcut" for a joke of a name belonged nowhere but graveyards populated solely by teeth and ash, not back home where the flowers were all happy and alive since the weeds always had their eyes set on distant lands. On top of that, he would never forget David's mocking bouquet.

Regardless, Bradley was still proud.

Who wouldn't be after unleashing the hot fires of Hell like Satan himself?

Well, the whole mess with David would've happened at some point anyway, letters or not, because nobody just goes to war without anybody else finding out, right? Still, the turmoil over the letters hadn't helped at all. Admittedly, the letters had probably made everything worse because it hadn't just been David that had been affected. David would always be his first choice despite his trust issues, there was no debating that no matter what everybody else might have assumed of him, but that didn't mean that there was no second choice; his mama and papa, forever stuck in second place, would haunt his every decision wherever he went until the day he died. All it had taken was one little mistake with a pair of letters and now Bradley had screwed up not only his relationship with David but also the chance to ever make his mama and papa proud. By the time Bradley had moved on to become a Marine, he wouldn't be fighting for his mama and papa anymore, though they certainly would always haunt his every move and silently berate him for every wrong step; he would only be training, yelling, planning, fighting, and leading other cold-eyed men just to pretend that he still had some sort of purpose left in his life, doing things he'd never dreamt of doing but forced to embrace just so he could live up to that bought name he would never love. Buzzcut. He was a maggot named Buzzcut, not a good strong boy. His mama and papa had always wanted him to be their good strong boy but he'd never been able to fulfill their perfect vision, so he would be a lone Buzzcut without a maggot family to match. See, his mama and papa had not liked finding out that he had still kept in touch with that no-good flower-loving David even when he had risked his own life overseas and consented for the weeds to continue strangling his real voice, becoming a harbinger of suffering to flowers- had he ever been a flower himself was likely a matter that would never be worth a second of anybody's time in contemplation since he'd never been treated like one anyway, nor did he want to be treated as such- who couldn't escape the roots tethering them to the treacherous ground just so he could try and pitifully fail to be that good strong boy he had always been commanded to be. Bradley the maggot had sacrificed nearly everything he had ever wanted and had done everything that he knew how to do just for his mama and papa, nobody else, but he had still messed up because God forbid he have one thing for himself like a letter from his only friend in the world. He would never be a good strong boy even if he died for a Purple Heart or had kids with every woman in Texas just because his mama and papa hadn't liked that he had still kept in touch with David even after years of telling him not to do so. Perhaps it had never been David that had been the problem, though. His mama and papa hadn't liked how he had kept in touch with David, that was true, but that really wasn't the real issue, was it? He'd been dodging the real problem his entire life because he was actually too much of a weak, little coward to accept the truth, but the truth had no patience and thus had inevitably come crashing down on him that horrible day when he had stood all alone with neither friend nor family in sight at that lifeless payphone in the gas station after David had deliberately hung up on him for the very first time.

In reality, they had never liked Bradley at all.

Absentmindedly rubbing at his severely receding hairline, Bradley mentally reviewed what he needed to buy as he ambled through the Tractor Supply. Chronic strain from years of untreated neurosis had wrecked the subtle curls he had once had as a child, the dull strands now limp and straight on his head despite having let his hair grow out in a sad attempt at a crew cut ever since he'd left the Marines. Premature hair loss wasn't a very pretty sight, not even for a self-proclaimed stud like Bradley; the fact that he was aging on top of that didn't help very much, but David still looked pretty good and that was all he cared about, though David would probably always look pretty good to him. An entire year had passed ever since Bradley had lost his job as a full-time teacher, which had happened two years after stepping down from his position as a coach, due to a combination of parents continuously complaining about his general aggression toward the students and his singular heart attack incident during a fire drill that hadn't been that big a deal. He couldn't even coach for the local sporting clubs unaffiliated with the school district thanks to his dumb femur which hurt like a bitch in the winter and not much less in the summer; the pain itself wasn't the issue so much as the impact it had on his mobility. Needless to say, he had a lot more free time on his hands in the past few years than ever before. Bradley had tried getting a job at the nearest oil field facility about 20 miles out of town for a more consistent income, but he'd gotten in a fistfight with the most annoying prick of a guy ever… who had turned out to be none other than his goddamn interviewer, so that backup career option was out of the question unless that guy retired. Oh, and the perpetually understaffed fast food joints? No way in hell would he work alongside his old students; he tried to put as much space between the little maggots and himself whenever he could, thank you very much. He didn't really like kids. They were too happy and carefree, always laughing at dumb jokes and easy to please as if they didn't need to please others. They got to have friends and go on dates, playing all sorts of games and learning how to do new things on their own without their parents behind them. They got to do everything that silly little Bradley had never been allowed to do without lying and sneaking around. Lucky bastards.

Naturally, Bradley had become a heartless bully who definitely didn't care about his students because the chance to see David's face at least a few more times before he eventually died was the only reason he'd ever even given up on the Marines to become a teacher in the first place; David was the only friend he had ever had and therefore the only person who he could ever hope to have a mutual relationship with. Bradley did not care about his students. That was what he had tried to tell himself at first, and to be quite honest, he had believed it for years. After all, he had beat them up, yelled at every little mistake, and wished painful deaths upon them all of the time; children unfit for this world ought to be put to death rather than suffer this life, as was his merciful opinion when the envy passed. All reasoning aside, Bradley had been a weak bully picking on kids and he had known it. Those scattered incidents when he'd saved those abhorrent little maggots from drowning or defended them against people like Mr. Manners had only been done out of obligation so he could keep his job. At least, that was what he would insist if anybody ever asked. Well, he had kind of enjoyed teaching, and not just because of the power dynamic; it had given him some sort of purpose which could have had the potential to be fairly good if he just hadn't screwed it up by being a general asshole. He couldn't have cared about his students that much, though, because then he never would've been able to forgive himself for being unable to keep from losing control of himself and hurting them. Besides, he genuinely did dislike them most of the time; their greasy faces and awkward voices weren't very charming, and their behavior wasn't much better. Sure, Bradley was stern and respectful most of the time though he always did have a bit of an outdoor voice, but he was also downright mean in many unnecessary ways; after all, teachers were supposed to be in classrooms, not on battlefields. Most of his decisions were deliberate, that was undeniable, but his actions had a tendency to spiral out of control in ways he would never have intended. There had been so many times when he had just lost himself , watching from out of his body as he insulted and injured countless kids who hadn't even deserved a fraction of what he'd initially intended to deliver; anger had a way of making everything else blank out and he'd never figured out how to prevent it from happening on his own. There was a fine line between discipline and denigration, and he'd crossed it many times. He'd wanted to be a disciplinarian and a good leader, not whatever the hell all of that was. That wasn't care, that was abuse. Ever since he had finally untangled his mama and papa's confusing web of lies, he knew that love and pain would never be the same; not even tough love was supposed to be like that . He knew that he was in the wrong and he knew that he should have just died back when he was just another faceless guy in the infantry. There was just something indescribably damaging about directing that anger and pain outward rather than inward; obviously, the kids got the brunt of it because they were the ones being harassed, but Bradley wasn't exactly oblivious. He was painfully aware of what he'd become, and for years, he hadn't done a thing to change. Sure, he hadn't known how to change because he hadn't known how to ask for help, but he'd still stayed in classrooms where a bunch of vulnerable children were subject to his authority. He was too proud to do anything for anybody but himself. If that wasn't fucked up, then he didn't know what was. He was the maggot, not these kids who came to school to escape their mamas and papas just like he had used to do at their age.

Despite his pride, there had been times when Bradley really had wanted to stop being a maggot since he couldn't figure out how to redirect all of his anger toward himself, but the only options he could think of were institutionalization or suicide, neither of which were very appealing nor convenient. He'd rather keep being proud. Besides, he couldn't remember the last time anybody had ever stopped and listened to his real voice, so if he'd ever known how to ask for help, he'd forgotten a very long time ago. Thus he would have to live with the pain of knowing that not only had he been doing something wrong, but he had been letting it happen until the day he lost his job. Letting it happen with pride. There was a reason why he was seen more often as a villain rather than the hero he had once gullibly believed he was. Bradley knew that inaction was one of the greatest mistakes a soldier could make, but there he had been, idling in a state of inaction and hurting everybody around him in the process because he was addicted to pride; he had done this both on the battlefield and in the classroom. He could never escape his consequences for long. The day he had lost his job as a full-time teacher had been difficult, to say the least. He'd failed his mama and papa, he'd failed David, and he'd failed kids that he'd never even let himself get close to beyond a crappy imitation of tough love that was more like abuse. He'd failed kids he should've looked out for, not bullied. Kids he shouldn't have punished just for existing, even if they were all as annoying as a wild bat in a coffee shop. Kids he should've listened to because that was what he would've wanted back when he was a kid. Kids who were a lot like him. Kids who were nothing like him. Bradley was fully aware of all of his shortcomings, which would've hurt more if he had allowed himself to think of that thing in his chest as a heart at the time; maggots like him weren't supposed to have hearts, though, so whatever he felt on the rare sober night was unreal. He was too proud for that. Until he wasn't. What was his problem? Why did he have to be like this? In trying to please everybody, he had ended up failing them all, just like he always did, and the only person he could blame was himself. Why did he always have to let the worst parts of himself win over? What was so bad about him that he just couldn't be good for one person in his life? Not even big tough Bradley could keep the defeat from slipping out from beneath his forced pride, his weakness on full display in his eyes. He hadn't known that his eyes had never gone cold like most eyes were wont to do after witnessing a few too many deaths. He hadn't known that his eyes had never lost a piece of the silly little boy with the subtle curls that shone in the sunlight. He hadn't known that his eyes showed more than he would ever know. He hadn't known that his eyes had already said more than words ever would.

Whether there was anything good or not left in him was irrelevant, even if there had ever been anything good at all.

He was proud and he would stay proud.

Ever the perceptive one, David had been mildly perturbed by the visible pain in those dark yet vibrant eyes- somehow mostly unchanged from the same set of eyes he'd seen all throughout his childhood- when Bradley had walked out of the school all alone after losing his job with neither friends nor family waiting at home; the latter had become exceptionally good at keeping people away by then, glass bottles comprising most of his company. So, David had stopped by Bradley's apartment to talk to him about something unrelated to school that wasn't just another random disagreement or heavily guarded flirtation for the first time in years. They'd gradually gotten closer as teachers and held full conversations, but they'd never been able to fully restore their original friendship at that point in their lives; of course, David was still Bradley's first choice, just like always. Bradley, who had willingly let him into the apartment, knew that David hadn't come to see him out of pity like anyone else would have done because ever since they'd been little kids, David never had been like anyone else. David had always known Bradley too well to even think of giving him pity, because although the former did take pity on sweet little animals all of the time, he knew that pity was something that the latter had never wanted nor needed. David had always cared about Bradley like nobody else alive ever would. David had always been there for Bradley even when he couldn't see anyone else but his mama and papa in every crook and cranny. David had always listened to Bradley and shared secrets so he wouldn't feel alone. David had always given Bradley more chances to try again than he thought he had ever deserved. David had always forgiven Bradley even when that probably wasn't the best course of action to take. David had always kept an open, welcoming heart even when silly, little Bradley had begun to push everybody else away as his true maggot self slowly clawed its way out of a membrane of thick blood and stark heartlessness. Even after years spent apart in spirit if not in body, David, who had somehow always managed to coax things out of Bradley's mouth that he hadn't even known had been in his head in the first place, had sifted through the weeds strangling his real voice until long-forgotten truths finally came forth that day. David had always understood Bradley in ways nobody else had. Even then, after years of separation, David had understood Bradley. Once Bradley had started talking in that typically loud voice of his, he hadn't been able to stop despite his doubts, and as always, David had listened. Only this time, Bradley wasn't furiously ranting like a madman like he had used to do during classes full of unhappy students. This time, he was talking with his real voice. Just like when they were kids arguing about which crayon color was the best, David had listened to Bradley's side of the conversation instead of abruptly chiming in. David listened and understood even though Bradley was still proud in all of the wrong ways. The day that Bradley had lost his full-time job as a teacher- a career decision with crappy pay in an equally crappy building that was inspired by the chance to see David above all else- was, ironically, the day David had gotten a piece of his friend back, because there was no way he would settle for crumbs. With a stroke of luck and an intuitive visit, those days of paranoid pining and grasping at mist were no more. No matter how many arguments they had, they had always gotten along fairly well and nothing would ever change that, not even years of deception, guilt, and loneliness. So, in that cramped apartment on that sullen day, Bradley and David had really looked into each other's eyes for the first time in too long and, at the exact same time, the world had brightened as their dormant hearts had reawakened.

Of course, that hadn't absolved Bradley of his rightful- and likely unforgivable- guilt about everything he never should have done overseas. At first, even David had a difficult time coming to terms with the fact that his friend had not only participated in a war instead of resisting- Bradley had never been a hippie or pacifist, but he had understood David's perspective very well before being sent off to war like a pig to a slaughterhouse- but he had also let a lot of people burn to death in a series of raging fires without lifting a finger. At least thousands. Maybe even over a million. However, David had come to suspect that Bradley might have been paralyzed by shock just like when the latter's grandmother- or as Bradley had used to say, "grandmama"- had died in a stampede in brutally clear daylight, but he had never pointed out the potential vulnerability since Bradley had understandably never liked acknowledging things like that; details like those always ended up concealed behind Bradley's tough shell, and anybody that didn't know any better would have never guessed. David knew that Bradley wasn't innocent and still had a lot of explaining to do- especially in regard to the people he had directly killed in combat- before they could fully trust each other again, but maybe he wasn't exactly the monster he thought of himself as. Maybe it was just because David had always tried to look for the good in everyone, but he refused to think of Bradley as an irredeemable wretch despite the odd looks he would get from a few of his hippie friends; treating somebody who had fought in the military like a friend made him look kind of bad in front of them, but they didn't know Bradley the way he did. Many times, David would question if he was doing the wrong thing by letting Bradley back into his life- this guy had killed people and done who knows what else, and that just wasn't the sort of thing that could be brushed under the rug- but it was so hard to imagine permanently cutting ties with the person who had once been his childhood friend. He wasn't sure what it would be like if he had to spend 50 years without Bradley to talk to when he'd barely made it through three years with a bunch of letters, which he had kept even after the mix up that had changed everything; even when his trust had been rattled, David had still clung onto the Bradley he had used to know. Believe it or not, David had been fairly miserable behind that gentle smile when Bradley had left him behind, and he wouldn't have gotten halfway through college without those letters as well as a good stash of weed. He just couldn't cut Bradley out of his life. He didn't know how to do that. Sure, Bradley was tough, mean, and regretted many things, but he wasn't a complete monster. He couldn't be. He'd changed the rules and risked punishment countless times to get out of doing even worse things, so that meant something, right? David's side of the story was drastically different and painfully pure. That was the worst part for Bradley, who could never be good for someone like David. Bradley regretted many things, but he regretted them with pride and confidence. David was wrong and Bradley was right. David could believe what he wanted but it wouldn't change a thing.

Bradley still disagreed.

Bradley still left out details.

Bradley still felt very, very proud.

Despite David's overzealous hopes, Bradley still felt that he could have done more to stop those things from happening, though he realistically would've been proclaimed to be a traitorous spy and tortured to death; whether that would have been better or worse was difficult to determine most of the time, though he did have his fair share of days pondering the benefits. Without his mama and papa's physical presence to beat him into submission because they were the only two people in the world who had ever had any real authority over him, Bradley had become a leader and, secretly, a rebel; the silly little boy who had been raised to follow the rules had broken them and made his own instead. Sure, he would pridefully boast about countless tales of victory- many of which were grossly exaggerated- that would leave the patriots back home awestruck and constantly emphasize how passionate he was about his country to the point that he would seem like a caricature of a veteran. In reality, though, all he had done was feign an air of authority that hadn't exactly matched his actions after the fires had melted his fantasy away, instead using his companions as pawns who acted for him. In fact, he had considered himself a massive coward for not being able to bring himself to commit over half of the crimes against humanity he personally witnessed that had been done in the name of his country. The fact that he had sent other men in his place to commit those acts of cruelty actually felt worse than if he had done it all himself. Using the sharp brain and quick tongue he had used to restrain in school, Bradley had made up many rules and given false grounds for letting people go with an amazingly convincing confidence to seal the deal, but his crimes still outweighed any smidgen of good he might have done; in fact, there was a massive chance that he may have let all of the wrong people go while executing the innocent which would have made everything even worse, but he would never know for sure because there were too many liars in the jungle who would take their secrets to their graves. It was best to believe that nobody had ever been innocent in the jungle if he wanted to stay sane.

No matter what he did, Bradley hadn't been able to avoid everything. He'd needed to kill- it didn't matter if it was by his mouth or his own hands as long as it was a kill- if he wanted to avoid suspicion and stay alive even after his revelation, and so he had killed. He had killed, and he had done so in some of the most brutal ways imaginable. He'd been pretty damn proud of it all, as well. What was the point in pretending he hadn't done a thing and letting David try to tell him otherwise? He had still committed atrocities, even if many had been by proxy, and he had been proud . He wasn't brave enough for his mama and papa, and he wasn't pure enough for his friend. He always did everything wrong for everybody else, so the least he could do was allow himself a bit of hard-earned pride. After all, he had still committed multiple murders and allowed even more people to die by his own hands, hadn't he? What a brave and righteous person he was! He had sentenced strangers in a warzone rife with liars of all ages and backgrounds to death because they had been demonized as commies or spies, which was the only excuse he had been given to work with; he had disagreed with his designated enemies' views and still did, but there had been a few times he had the gall to doubt if it was much of an excuse for the unmentionable ways they had been executed. He had watched countless civilians, even the ones who might not have been spies or soldiers in disguise, struggle to survive another excruciating day because of his own conscious, deliberate actions; at least he had taken pride in what he had done. He had discovered that his mama and papa had been very wrong about what it meant to be a respectable, lovable hero; having become what many would consider a fearsome villain if not a nuanced but undeniably superior god, he had been a fool to have ever hoped to be a pure hero who would've been loved unconditionally. He would have to keep repeating the same bits and pieces of flimsy propaganda he had been bombarded with all his life to keep up his big tough reputation because that was all he would ever be seen as; he was great at committing to the bit even when his heart wasn't, and repetition was the perfect way to beat his heart into submission just as his mama and papa had demonstrated so many times. He was just another weak sheep in a wolf's thick hide that had willingly gone down the wrong path under the illusion of choice; he was a proud zombie of an animal if not a born monster.

He was damn good at what he did.

He was proud to be an executioner.

Even if he had rarely ever been given a chance to think for himself for most of his life, Bradley always did have a woefully sharp mind.

Sticking his thumbs into his pockets while he listened to the chicks chirping from somewhere in the back of the store, Bradley's left thumb brushed against his old wallet, his bad habit of using things until they fell apart quite evident in the state of its battered plastic cover; David wasn't a fan of leather wallets and had nearly picked a fight over the matter, so Bradley had humored him and used a plastic one though the quality sucked. He didn't have much cash on him, just 20 bucks, but it'd be enough for a bag of chicken treats; David had rescued a small hen with a sprained leg from who-knows-where while on a hike the previous day and had taken her to the vet, who had said that her leg would finish healing in about a week or so since the sprain was fairly fresh. Today, after David had returned from one of his hippie conventions, he had sent Bradley to get her treats as if they hadn't already been spoiling her with leftover chunks of watermelon and sliced strawberries. That chicken had something good going on for her, that was all he could say. However, where exactly David was going to release her once she had finished healing wasn't clear yet since the whole town knew that he would never dream of eating her, but Bradley knew that it wasn't the right time to ask; David got attached quickly and needed time to prepare for letting go, which unfortunately wasn't a sentiment exclusive to animals. Bradley had learned that the hard way. David had not been alright when Bradley had suddenly disappeared to work on an alleged construction project, David had not been alright when a very unwell Bradley had fled hardly a week after returning to Highland from a war, and David had not been alright when Bradley returned only to become a coworker instead of something more than just an estranged friend. Their mistakes were their responsibility and no amount of yoga or yelling would change a thing, so they had lived day to day doing what they did best. They still did. Bradley was a big tough brute and David was a sweet mindful hippie. They had roles to fulfill. What else were they supposed to do, go back in time and tell soft-spoken David to ask silly little Bradley's mama and papa why they had forced their youngest son to change his last name, or tell the hard-hearted maggot named Buzzcut to quit being a coward and accept David's taunting bouquet? Bradley didn't want to waste his time thinking about all of that, though he sure did have a whole lot of time to waste these days. That was all in the past, and it was only the present that was worth thinking about with maybe a few seconds devoted to the future. Despite their persistent differences and painful entry into adulthood, he and David had finally gotten together and intended to stay that way. Why, here he was now, shopping for a chicken that he didn't even plan to eat just because David had told him to do so. That little hen sure had lucked out, hadn't she? Here he was in the present, catering to a literal chicken. It was so ludicrous, he nearly felt like a kid in a man's clothes for a moment.

What was he even doing with his life anymore? Who knew that he'd end up neither as an alcoholic nor a deadbeat dad like many of the people in his old family, but instead as a guy who went shopping for chicken treats because his friend had rescued a hen? Well, they weren't really friends at this point in their lives, but they couldn't get legally married, the sound of "boyfriend" was too juvenile for Bradley's taste, and they didn't feel like brothers. Oh, definitely not brothers. First of all, that would have been a massive slap in the face to David, whose family history was a stark contrast to his sweet demeanor; that topic was almost always off-limits. No, Bradley wouldn't dare call himself David's brother like some close friends were wont to do. Them seeing each other as brothers would have been so wrong on so many levels, and not just because they were aware that what they had wasn't strictly platonic, though that was also true. Although David always had looked at least a decade younger whereas Bradley looked at least a decade older than the age they shared, they were both making their way toward 46 years old and very aware of small things like how they felt about each other at this point in their lives; it wasn't very hard for them to admit to themselves- they honestly didn't care as long as they didn't have to end up separated from each other again- so much as it was inconvenient for their public images since everybody else in town was either extremely straight or dead silent. Aside from that rabbit hole, them seeing each other as brothers would have been wrong in all of the ways that hurt the most, for family could be a cruel thing. Both men were very well aware that what was supposed to be inherently loving had the capability of also being inherently hateful; naturally, both of them had been born unto sets of parents who embodied the latter. In fact, even if gay marriage had been legal, both Bradley and David would have hesitated to take action, and not just because of the inherent danger of coming out from behind their intricately woven veil of secrecy against the public eye. They certainly would have loved the reassurance of being bound together, but they also didn't want to risk tearing apart something they should've appreciated sooner, like the simple friendship they had lost decades ago. There was just too high a risk that if they ever married in a world where their sort of relationship was legal, their illusions of peace would snap beneath the haunting burden of family, even if that family had been created themselves; they had just never had much luck with their families in the past and had lost faith in the hope for family in the future. Like many people in this godforsaken town, both men shared a fear of the concept of family. Maybe this town was cursed or maybe it was just some sort of grand punishment, but healthy, happy families were few and far between here. Even big tough Bradley noticed how the hair on his arms stood up if he so much as thought about the subject. Now that he was physically free from his mama and papa, Bradley didn't want to think about his old family if he could help it, and he definitely didn't want to compare David to his family; it was hard enough feeling like his mama and papa were judging him for everything he did even when they were miles apart, and it would be a grave injustice to associate David with any of his brothers who had done a lot of unnecessarily cruel, unspeakable things for the supposed sake of building his character that, in retrospect, really should not have been done. Merely thinking about his old family prompted him to look back over his shoulders a few times, checking to make sure they weren't also in the store since, as far as he knew, they still ran that cattle ranch though rumor had it that they were down to only three cows and had run out of chickens decades ago; though the likelihood of another encounter was low, Bradley wasn't in the mood to run into them and would actively go out of his way to avoid them, a consistent sentiment he had maintained over the past few decades. Nobody in sight except for one of his former students at the cash register- and it just had to be the crybaby, too- Bradley strode past the pair of galvanized stock tanks in which the chicks either napped or pestered each other beneath their heat lamps, his dark eyes set on the aisles ahead. Despite how pointless it seemed, shopping for a chicken definitely didn't cost as much as the booze or resulting emergency hospital visits he'd witnessed firsthand all throughout his childhood, so it was an okay way to pass the time. Chickens didn't care about alcohol or power trips, so Bradley didn't have much of a problem with taking care of a hen for a week or so, even if he wasn't going to get any meat or eggs in return; the sentiment would've made all four of his brothers- assuming they were still alive- gag, but they weren't here, so they didn't matter. Somehow, David had always managed to bring out a different side of Bradley when nobody else was involved; well, nobody else that was human, because David made sure to remind him that chickens as well as other livestock were somebodies and not just edible objects like the media wanted people to believe, but Bradley continued eating meat whenever he could regardless of the typical lectures. It was either David's weird way of opening his heart or just a matter of Bradley getting old and senile although he wasn't even in his fifties yet, only two years older than Shirley Beavis and Judy Head would have been if they were still here; having been born in 1952 like David while Miss Beavis and Miss Head had been born in 1954, Bradley hadn't known them very well since they'd been in different grades when they were all schoolchildren, not to mention how generally difficult he and the girls had been to get along with at all, but he was fairly familiar with their names because they had ended up in the local circle of gossip often and had even been featured in the newspaper a few times for assorted acts of delinquency. Besides, their little demons- er, sons- were hard not to recognize from a mile away. Anyway, he was going to spend his day shopping for chicken treats, not stressing himself out about demon children that had taken a few decades off of his lifespan, so he pulled his thumbs out of his pockets and idly let his hands fall loosely to his sides as he idly gauged the prices for the various food products advertised to enhance egg-laying or assist chick growth.

Since a single chicken didn't really eat as much as a whole flock would, Bradley didn't expect to really spend that much money today. Despite the prices having gone up since the last time he had gone shopping for anything related to livestock, he still had a fair idea of the costs of raising chickens after a childhood spent tending to them; although his family had gotten most of their profits from the cattle, they had also raised a small flock of chickens because his grandmama had used to love fresh fried chicken. Anyway, a bag of treats wouldn't put that much of a strain on his budget, which was why he had refused David's offers to lend money. Well, even if he had been buying something expensive, Bradley would have wanted to spend his own money instead of mooching off of someone else. Granted, his income was much more meager these days, but it was still enough for him since he didn't really care as much about shopping as David, and he didn't have to pay full bills anymore; he and David split the bills now. After failing to land a job in the oil fields, the local school district had let Bradley make a few bucks here and there with sporadic substitute teacher gigs or the annual sex ed class as long as he followed through with a medication prescription which he suspected was just a bottle of placebos. Naturally, he complained at least thrice a week about having to take the medicine until David would shut him up with The Look, which actually wasn't very threatening but somehow always worked on Bradley anyway. Besides, there was a chance that the pills had made a tiny difference, especially since David was actually insistent on Bradley taking them regularly. David, who would consciously refuse life-saving medicine if it wasn't organic or something along those lines, was actually encouraging Bradley to take those little pills even though they were most certainly not organic, so maybe there really was something special about them. It was hard getting used to this new lifestyle now that David was the main breadwinner, though. It was so different from anything he'd ever known, and sometimes he felt like he was doing something very wrong just by being alive. After a lifetime of barely having enough time for basic things like eating a warm meal or sleeping more than three hours a night, Bradley now had more time than he knew what to do with. Sometimes it almost made him feel like an imposter, like his mama and papa were watching over his shoulder with a nearly tangible disappointment because he obviously wasn't doing enough to make himself useful. Luckily, he didn't have to worry about not being able to pay the rent for a crummy apartment anymore, not since David had let him move in after the whole job fiasco. Sure, the house constantly smelled like incense and was a bit too New Age for his taste, but it was David's home and that was what mattered most. He could've lived in the house of his dreams and it just wouldn't have felt right… Christ, now that he thought about it, he didn't even have a dream house. Maybe he might've missed out on more than he thought he had. Anyway, Bradley was very grateful to have a strangely familiar place to stay, but he really didn't want to be a freeloader. He wanted to earn his spot, even though David had always tried to say that it wasn't necessary. However, Bradley had never just been given anything without any strings attached before, so he wanted to give back as much as he could before karma struck again. The silly little boy inside of him that had never fully died still believed in those things all these years later, by the way. Karma. Ghosts. Bigfoot. Aliens. He still believed in it all. Maybe the belief wasn't as genuine anymore, but traces of the old wonder and curiosity were still there. Nobody would ever take that from him. Even if he put up a no-nonsense front, he still believed in it all. In fact, there were a few specific conspiracy theories that he occasionally pondered for the thrill of a guilty pleasure, but there were some theories that he just couldn't bring himself to believe. That phony Hollow Earth theory would never be believable and he would never be able to bring himself to defend it even if it meant being sent to sleep on the couch for three nights in a row. Sorry, David.

Digging into his pocket, Bradley tugged out a stick of gum and tore off the wrapper as he debated whether he should get the cheap, generic birdseed mix that David always put into the birdfeeders or that slightly pricey brand of dried mealworms that the chickens of his childhood had loved with all of their little hearts. Popping the gum into his mouth while shoving the crinkled foil back into his pocket, he hastily grabbed the smallest bag of mealworms on the shelf in front of him and mentally instructed himself not to yell at the wussy cashier; this small decision would unwittingly start another argument later when David, who had apparently been expecting fresh produce, would take offense at Bradley bringing a bag of dead animals into the house although the latter saw no issue with the gesture since he thought that it was common knowledge that free-range chickens hunted for bugs on a daily basis. Making his way toward the front of the store with a slight limp, each footstep interrupted by the chirping of baby birds, he stopped by the galvanized stock tanks and peered in at all of the little chicks swarming beneath their heat lamps while some mediocre country song played from one of the speakers overhead. Most of them were huddled together in sleepy piles of fuzz, three were drinking water or pecking at medicated crumbles from the feeders in the center of each tank, one little troublemaker kept pecking at another, and a few were playing what appeared to be a clumsy game of tag together. Clenching his jaw and grinding the wad of gum between his premolars, Bradley couldn't help but feel jealous of these animals who looked so content and probably didn't have a care in the world. Had it not been for the medicine he'd been taking with effective consistency that did wonders for his self-control, he probably would've knocked over one of the nearby display signs like a petulant child denied a toy. God, he just couldn't get himself together, could he? What a mess. These were animals. Animals. They were probably going to be eaten, for crying out loud. Subtly shaking his head, he clenched and unclenched his fists as he sacrificed three seconds to do that stupid hippie breathing thing David had forced him to do on multiple occasions. It probably didn't help, but he did it anyway as he walked slightly unsteadily past a display of shirts plastered in puns about goats and horses, not really having a better way to help himself. Yeah, he did that now. He helped himself. Not much, but a little. It was nearly alien to him since he was used to doing basically everything except taking care of himself. This new self-help thing, which made him cringe sometimes but wasn't as bad as he had initially thought it was, was mainly David's doing after five months of obstinate wheedling; only David could match Bradley's stubbornness and weasel into the cracks in his armor. Had literally anybody else suggested this whole self-care crap just one time, Bradley would have blatantly ridiculed them and shut down the whole premise without a second thought, leaving no room for further argument and maybe a bruise or two. Frankly, David was one of a kind, even if he did always give those scoundrels Beavis and Butt-Head more chances than they deserved.

Ugh. Beavis and Butt-Head. Bradley shuddered at the thought of them as he stopped to blankly stare at a sign adorned with illustrations of red robins that read "We Are Always With You" in a nice script, clearly disinterested in the merchandise since he was preoccupied with silently reliving the horrors of working in a public high school with those two nitwits. At first, Bradley had merely envied how happy Beavis and Butt-Head had seemed about pretty much everything when he'd first started teaching them, but their laughter had quickly gotten on his nerves within a matter of minutes during that first class, and now their horrid voices still haunted his dreams on restless nights. He knew that it had been his responsibility to teach them and not much else, but he sure had been pretty tempted to pound some sense into them too many times to count and thus had done so many times. Yet, he'd never succeeded. It seemed that no matter what went on at home or how many times they were punished at school, those two idiots never cared about anything except what was for lunch and if the nearest girl in their vicinity wanted to "score" with them. Bradley had known their mothers just enough to know that they definitely hadn't been the kind of people to raise their sons right, but that wasn't anything unique in this godforsaken town; honestly, the boys had seemed to care less about their own mothers than the next movie showing at the theater, so they actually had a bit of an advantage that other kids didn't have. Bradley, who had always cared too much about his mama and papa, had always refused to go easy on his students because nobody had ever gone easy on him and he'd turned out fine enough. Back when Beaivs and Butt-Head had still gone to school, Bradley had wanted to raise these sacks of atrophy the right way, not coddle them like a couple of spoiled babies who would never learn how to walk on their own. Since Beavis and Butt-Head were already emotionally tough, all they needed was physical strength and some good old discipline, and then they'd be good to go. Unfortunately, they'd been so mind-numbingly stupid and incapable of following orders that they'd made zero progress, stubbornly remaining as weak disgraces to society. That, paired with their irritating, incessant laughter, had fueled many of Bradley's fantasies about their deaths. These kids didn't belong in this world. They had nobody to protect them and they sure as hell couldn't protect themselves. They were better off dead. They ought to have been killed by Bradley's own hands instead of having been subject to a town like this. At least, that was Bradley's reasoning. After all, he'd been conditioned into becoming an executioner years ago, well accustomed to weeding out the suspicious and the weak. For him, violence was the answer to nearly everything.

Nearly.

"Ack! It's Coach Buzzcut!" Beavis, who had managed to successfully clog three of the toilets and get the fourth to actually back up, had victoriously emerged from the mildly flooded men's bathroom and wandered around the store only to come face to face with one of his biggest semi-enemies; sometimes Coach Buzzcut was cool, but sometimes he sucked and it was hard to predict what he'd be like. Forever inept at reading faces that weren't Butt-Head's, he had no idea if Coach Buzzcut was madder than usual or not, but he knew that his former teacher was always mad to some extent. Awkwardly scuttling into the shirt display and nearly getting tangled in the fabric, Beavis stepped back into the main walkway before he ended up like a fly in a cobweb. Barely able to walk in a straight line despite being perfectly sober, there was no chance in hell that Beavis would ever legally operate any vehicle whatsoever; he had even gotten into accidents when he had used to have a bicycle, let alone anything with a motor. The thought of Beavis trying to drive actually sent chills down Bradley's spine.

"Wh- Beavis! What the hell are you doin' here!" Nearly dropping the bag of mealworms as he spun around to see one his worst students right behind him, Bradley's heart sped up in an unpleasant way. Well, at least it didn't seem like Butt-Head was here; he wasn't sure if he could handle two of these idiots right now. Beavis and Butt-Head were the worst students he had ever had. They were insolent and irredeemable idiots who had the combined brain capacity of a mosquito laying eggs in a puddle of propane.

"Uhhh.. I don't know." Very helpful. As if to emphasize his point, Beavis jammed a finger up his nose for, like, the eighth time in the past half hour. There wasn't a lot going on in that head.

"Well, what are you waitin' for! Get out of the way!" Bradley moved to shove Beavis aside but the latter quickly dodged his hands. Stumbling slightly, Bradley bit his lip as his bad femur stung in protest to the sudden movement; his agility declined every passing year.

"Wait! D-do you want, heh, money?" Miraculously, Beavis had remembered the cigarette butts stashed in his pockets. He wanted to see if he could trick Coach Buzzcut. That guy was, like, old. Butt-Head had taught Beavis that old people were the easiest to trick.

"No!" Narrowing his eyes, Bradley took a few steps away after having regained his balance. He wasn't very interested in whatever this idiot had planned.

"Wait, wait, wait! Heh heh heh, look! Heh heh! See!" Gleefully retrieving his cigarette butts, Beavis proudly held out his hands with a continuous twitch at the corners of his mouth. He certainly seemed very sure of himself.

Bradley spent a few seconds trying to decipher what exactly he was looking at.

Beavis smiled like he'd won the lottery.

"Boy, what is your major malfunction!" Bradley finally said as he realized that he was looking at garbage. He was pissed and he was barely keeping himself from lashing out. He didn't like wasting his time on pointless social exchanges, let alone with braindead scum like Beavis. Though he didn't necessarily fear confrontation like some of his past students did, Bradley abhorred having to interact with people. It was like a social game of waiting to see how long it would take until he snapped.

"What? My what?" Disappointed and confused, Beavis shoved the cigarette butts back into his pockets since his scam, which hadn't been thought out very well anyway, wasn't going to work out anytime soon. Of course his old teacher was using those big fancy words he didn't understand. School stuff like big fancy words shouldn't have been allowed to mix in with real life stuff. Vocab-you-rare-ly had nothing to do with anything that mattered.

"Ee-zactly!" Stalking away before he blew a fuse, Bradley shot a death glare over his shoulder at a very confused Beavis. He couldn't stand being around Beavis or Butt-Head. He hated their guts. Sidling up to the checkout station and biting back the urge to ridicule any of Stewart's stammered attempts at making conversation, Bradley stared up at the ceiling as he heard Beavis' laughter approaching from behind. By the time Bradley had paid for the bag of dried mealworms and shoved the crumpled up receipt into one of his pockets, Beavis had wandered back to his side while giving Stewart a disgusted look; well, at least the turd had a smidge of common sense, so Bradley would spare him a beating for just a tad longer. "What!"

"Uh, heh heh, I think I wanna go back to my house," Beavis said as they walked through the automatic sliding doors and into the balmy spring air; Butt-Head was probably home by now and Beavis wanted to see him since it'd been at least 10 hours since they'd last seen each other. It was already well into the evening by now. Suddenly, it occurred to Bradley that he had no idea how Beavis had even gotten all the way out here in the first place. Looking around the parking lot, there were no bicycles in sight; he didn't know that Beavis and Butt-Head's bicycles had been mangled beyond repair years ago. Maybe the idiot had hitched a ride. As far as he knew, neither Beavis nor Butt-Head had a car.

"And what makes you think I give a damn!" Bradley responded. He had no idea why anyone would ask him for help, let alone this maggot. Nobody had ever asked him for help, not even when he'd been a teacher. Everybody knew better than to ask him for help. He was practically a walking time bomb apt to explode at any moment.

"Heh, why not?" The high school debate team, always short on members, had dodged a bullet a few years ago when Beavis had refused to join since the cookies he had been offered as a bribe had been oatmeal raisin. Had they offered him chocolate chip cookies instead, they would've ended up losing every single debate until being forced to disband.

Bradley didn't know how to respond to that and just stared blankly at Beavis as they made their way across the parking lot. He felt like the answer should've been obvious, yet he had no idea how to articulate it coherently. All he wanted was to go home… just like Beavis did. He should've been even more pissed off, but he wasn't. He was still only moderately pissed. He wasn't sure why. Maybe it was because of those stupid pills David made him take.

Beavis stared back blankly, wiping a booger on his bloody shirt as he stopped next to Coach Buzzcut's car without touching it; even a dumbass like him knew not to tamper with that particular car right in front of its owner. Meanwhile, Bradley hadn't even batted an eye at the messy shirt despite his proficient ability to immediately recognize blood and how old it was based on its shade alone; he was used to seeing Beavis and Butt-Head all banged up one way or another. From the patch of land behind the store, crickets nestled among forgotten flowers played their evening symphony.

"You better leave me alone after this or I'll give you a good ass-kicking that'll have you whining like a stray on the Fourth of July!" Tucking the bag of mealworms under an armpit, Bradley jammed a hand into his pocket and pulled out his keys while gesturing for Beavis to get in with a tilt of his chin. The sky was already a fiery shade of orange. Though he believed in letting kids fend for themselves so they could learn from their mistakes, he wasn't a fan of letting kids like Beavis or Butt-Head wander around like brainless idiots late into the night even if they were technically adults by now; they weren't strong or smart at all, and he was technically old enough for them to be his kids anyway. On top of that, Beavis and Butt-Head had rarely ever seemed to learn from their mistakes, which really bothered him.

"Whoa, cool! Heh heh, thank you, drive through!" Of course, Beavis hadn't caught onto the body language, but he had somehow managed to understand the subtext of Coach Buzzcut's words. Scrambling into the passenger seat with no apparent sense of self preservation, Beavis fumbled with the seat belt for a solid minute before giving up and deciding to ride unrestrained. He couldn't remember the last time he'd ridden in a car let alone know how to fasten a seat belt.

"Shut your mouth!" After starting the car, Bradley had tossed the bag of mealworms into the backseat and leaned against his backrest to watch Beavis wrangle with the seat belt out of the corner of his right eye for an excruciatingly long minute. Scoffing when the kid gave up, though he'd actually expected the outcome, Bradley put the car into gear and rolled down his car window while instructing Beavis to do the same. "Don't you stick your damn head out now! Just bee-cause the A/C ain't workin' don't mean you gotta act like a dog!"

"Whoa! How'd you know?" Beavis, who had just been about to stick his head out of the window the moment he rolled it down and ended up jerking backward in surprise instead, was impressed. He hadn't known that Coach Buzzcut could tell the future!

"Bee-cause you're a damn fool!" Though the town was small, Bradley could already tell that this was going to be a very long drive. Glancing in the rearview mirror and looking over his left shoulder despite the parking lot being empty- after years of teaching teenagers how to drive, basic habits like those would forever be ingrained even if they weren't necessary at the moment- he squinted at the setting sun and backed out of his parking spot. "Quit squirmin'! You look like a worm on a fish hook!"

"Heh heh, cool!" Beavis liked worms if they were the kind he could see and touch. Continuing to fidget, he leaned forward and started pressing random buttons on the center console to keep his hands busy. Having previously been slightly squinted against the warm sunlight, his eyes suddenly bugged out as he accidentally turned the car radio on. That was cool!

"Damn it!" Bradley, who'd already maneuvered onto the main road, noticed what the kid had done and tried to slap his hand away. He never listened to music when driving. Despite the fact that David always had a CD or recommended radio station for every drive- thank god they drove separate vehicles most of the time- Bradley had never really considered music he might have personally liked. He'd always been a no-nonsense, get-to-work sort of guy. Driving was supposed to be an interlude between duties, not something to make a big fuss over with music like it was some sort of pointless party. "Cut that out right now or else I'll dump you on the side of the road like a bull droppin' a turd!"

Beavis paid him no mind. Instead, he kept pushing random buttons until he inadvertently found one of his and Butt-Head's favorite radio stations. Realizing that he hadn't listened to music in a really long time, Beavis smiled widely, the corners of his mouth twitching. Maybe he could try to listen to music today. Looking back at Coach Buzzcut, he waited defiantly to see what would happen. The old guy gave him a dirty side eye but said nothing else, squinting against the setting sun as he drove down the road. In response, Beavis managed to figure out where the volume dial was and turned it up just a little, laughing like a maniac. For a minute, the only sound in the car other than his laughter was faint music muffled by the wind, with the occasional noisy interruption of other passing vehicles.

"Wait just a goddamn second, where the hell do you even live!" Bradley realized that although he'd seen Beavis and Butt-Head all over town together for years, he had absolutely no idea where either of them lived. He didn't know if they lived in a neighborhood, a trailer park, an apartment complex, or maybe even on the streets. As he waited for a response, Bradley reached out to the console with his right hand and turned up the volume; there was no point in listening to the car radio if the damn thing wasn't even audible.

"A house," Beavis immediately replied. It was a very simple question.

"What about your address! Do you know your address!" Bradley's grip on the steering wheel tightened, knuckles white. He didn't want to be driving around in circles all night long just because he'd ignored his judgment and decided to take this idiot home. Gas prices were already pretty bad and he was on a budget.

"What?" Beavis wiped a booger on his seat.

"Can you tell me how to get to your house!" Ignoring the booger, Bradley hit the brakes as the traffic light up ahead flashed red; he was too far back to clear the intersection. As the car came to a stop, he loosened his grip on the steering wheel and tapped his fingers against its cover rhythmically, the sound of the wind dying down.

"Uh, I think you have to, like, go the other way," Beavis said, turning around in his seat and pointing toward the rear window while waving away a mosquito with his other hand. "You passed it already."

Through the open windows, the sound of chirping crickets filtered in and meshed with the music on the car radio. Bradley chose to keep his mouth shut. Unlike Beavis and that other kid Butt-Head, Bradley had a decent grip on what he personally considered to be common sense. He was smart enough to know by now that he couldn't let himself get all wound up if he was behind the wheel of a moving vehicle, especially with a kid next to him. Had he lived somewhere like Dallas, the road rage alone would've taken a good 30 years off of his lifespan barring any potential accidents, so restraining himself when driving in this sleepy town- when he could help it, because there were a few notable drivers that were just begging to be put into their places- was for his own good as much as it was his responsibility to keep the person next to him alive for the time being; thanks to all of those years spent teaching kids how to drive, driving safely was second nature to him. Now was not a good time to pick a fight.

Once the traffic light turned green, Bradley silently pulled into the parking lot of a nearby pawn shop and reentered the main road with a tightly clenched jaw, driving in the opposite direction this time while Beavis laughed at something on the side of the road. Bradley had no idea what he was even doing with his life. With a bag of dried mealworms in the backseat and one of his worst ex-students in the passenger seat while the radio played some song he'd never heard in his life before, now would've been a great time for him to have some sort of existential crisis or something if he hadn't already had several. Instead of parking somewhere and beating Beavis up, Bradley kept driving while steadily tossing out prompts for directions before the kid had a chance to get distracted again.

"Where do I go!"

"Straight."

"Now what!"

"Straight. Hey, check that out!"

"Where next!"

"Straight."

"How about now!"

"That way. Whoa, cool! Did you see that?"

"Now!"

"Straight."

"And what now!"

"Heh heh heh! Uh, straight! Heh heh!"

"Where now!"

"That way."

"What next!"

"That way. Heh, look at that guy."

"Now!"

"Straight."

"Now what!"

"That way."

"Is this your neighborhood!"

"Uh, yeah, yeah, it is."

"Which way!"

"Uh, that way, no, that way."

"Now where!"

"There, yeah, there."

"Now what!"

"Uhh, you can stop here, heh heh, it's that house over there." Beavis pointed at the rundown house where he and Butt-Head lived, grimacing slightly as unseen fingers twisted in his ears especially painfully; it was one of those days when the pain wouldn't go away despite how there was nothing visibly wrong. Also catching sight of the house, Bradley drove a few feet further before pulling over on the side of the street.

"Now get the hell out of my car before I kick your ass to the moon!" Bradley commanded, lifting his hands from the steering wheel to make a shooing gesture. Looking up from the fat spider that'd been crawling around on the dashboard, Beavis frantically nodded while grinning like the idiot he was and scrambled out of the car. Bradley flinched slightly as the car door slammed shut and made the coins in the cup holders rattle. Yet, he remained sitting in the idling car while waving away mosquitoes as he waited until the kid entered the house in one piece. Then, he tightened his grip on the steering wheel again and drove away, accompanied solely by the distorted chirping of crickets and wind-muffled music, the faint smell of freshly blooming flowers seeping in through the open windows.

Glancing at the center console, Bradley reached for the volume dial to the car radio and, after a few heartbeats of hesitation, abruptly reset it to deathly silence with the practiced ease of a proud executioner.