June 3, 1997

Blood blossomed across the smoke-stained pillowcase that had once been a young woman's favorite shawl as Butt-Head's beady eyes widened slightly, the teen jerking upright amid severely unwashed sheets and tilting his head backward while he sat upright, instinctively snorting down the warm blood bubbling up deeply within his nostrils; the pulsating mess dripping thickly down the back of his throat with each snort had likely been the result of too little electrolytes and too many walks beneath the severely dehydrating summer sun, neither Beavis nor Butt-Head having enough money to buy a car let nor enough practical knowledge to successfully hijack one without getting caught within three minutes. As Butt-Head choked down warm, coppery blood rather than caving in and letting a gloriously scarlet mess spill onto an extremely worn pillowcase that had seen far better days, silence permeated the dreary house save for the occasional hum of the clunky air conditioning unit next to the hall closet, Beavis apparently having already left to tend to the morning wave of unfortunate customers at Maxi-Mart; ever since Beavis had been hired, foot traffic in the convenience store had become noticeably sparse on the days the blond was usually scheduled to work, and it wasn't exactly a coincidence. Sniffing for a few more seconds and clumsily wiping at whatever blood had trickled down his face, Butt-Head disentangled himself from the stiff, yellowed sheets and slid off of the bed, stepping over a severely overdue movie he had rented from Blockbuster and had never bothered to return as he crossed over to the bedroom doorway without making an effort to change his blood-stained shirt. Maybe he'd get some Count Chocula or see if there were any leftover crumbles of the chips he'd been eating the night before. It was just another regular day, after all. Life never stopped for a breather, so neither did he. Butt-Head was fine. Beavis heard things and Butt-Head saw things, but they were fine. Butt-Head wouldn't be caught dead telling the things he saw, of course. No, not in a gazillion years, or not in however long that sex ed class had lasted when they weren't allowed to laugh. Showing weakness was humiliating and it was bad enough to be stuck with stupid little marks on his skin that didn't look anything like those super cool scars in the movies. Blood was a cheap thrill that dried quickly, and it was becoming nearly as flimsy as those walls that had begun to crumble after trying to keep them up for years in front of a staticky television. Beavis had it way easier because he was dumber than basically any other living creature and the dumbass forgot pretty much everything.

Well, maybe sometimes Beavis did remember things here and there, but he never remembered anything the way Butt-Head remembered things. Never. Butt-Head wasn't smart at all, but he wasn't nearly as forgetful as most people assumed he was. Sure, he didn't bother remembering boring stuff or anything he just didn't care about, but he always remembered the things that hurt the most no matter how desperately he wished he could cut those memories out of his body- nobody else's- forever on those sleepless nights. When the TV was off and the moon cast an unapologetic light on the little dark things that were always just out of reach of the sun, he remembered everything with a daytime clarity; not even those gut-wrenching epiphanies of all of those times Beavis could've died but hadn't could have rivaled anything the brunette remembered. When Butt-Head actually remembered things, he never forgot. He remembered those faces that had blurred over the time but always had something in common that he'd never really been able to identify but had never failed to send an unsettling icy prickling down his back. He remembered how searing sweat had run into his eyes and down his cheeks in trails that could have been mistaken for wimpy tears. He remembered the rough hands and flushed cheeks of alcohol. He remembered how scorching asphalt had scraped his bruised skin raw and bloody when he'd tried to fight back a few seconds too late. He remembered bitter, salty odors with metallic undertones. He remembered feeling dirt in every single crevice of his body as he laid somewhere hard and cold, all alone. He remembered smiles that had an undeniably sour sweetness like tainted lemonade. He remembered not being able to do anything. He remembered being weak. He remembered not understanding anything. He remembered feeling everything. He remembered how his mind had gone blank at first. He remembered how he suddenly remembered everything within a week after it happened, every single time. He remembered how life had just gone on regardless. He remembered being stuck on a carousel that went round and round but never stopped to let its passengers off because he didn't know any better and therefore wasn't entitled to anything better. He remembered nearly nothing of whatever he'd ever been taught by teachers. He remembered nearly everything he'd ever been taught by complete strangers. He remembered everything he didn't want to remember. Oh, but life? Oh, life just went on. No big deal, really. Just suck it up and move on. Look at the TV to feel like a normal person without a care in the world. Hit someone weaker to feel power. Break the neighbor's stuff to feel fleeting satisfaction before something dark and heavy sets back in. Steal random things to feel fulfillment that can't be derived from anywhere else. Hit on a chick to feel like a real man instead of a complete fraud. Trust nobody to feel truly secure for at least a short amount of time before something else comes along to darken the world a little more. Hold back tears at sunless hours to feel strong because the alternative is too humiliating. Don't ever get close to anyone to feel safe in a house that had once bled every night for years on end. Avoid anybody who could ever intervene, even if they're nice wussies like Mr. Van Driessen or that one counselor lady with the sagging boobs who had wanted to talk about feelings in middle school, to feel in control of a body which he would never understand had never even stood a chance in the first place.

Cut to feel pleasure. Cut to feel pain. Cut to feel pride. Cut to feel shame.

Feelings are stupid and don't even make sense. There are way cooler things to do than think about feelings like some stupid baby who picks flowers and kisses puppies.

Shoving a dirty cereal bowl into a cluttered sink that had been clogged for a solid week thanks to Beavis' habit of sticking old bubble gum everywhere, Butt-Head crossed the darkening house and stepped through the front door into the steamy yard since the outdated music on the kitchen radio had been interrupted by one of those tornado watch announcements. Tornadoes were super cool and Beavis would be so jealous since he had to work that day and Butt-Head didn't. Already tinted a reddish hue, the morning sky severely lacked its usual medley of winged creatures, the sweaty brunette standing in the front yard amid eerily stagnant air as he kept an eye out for any clouds resembling telltale schlongs. Though one of his old neighbors, Daria, had called him stupid a few years ago after he'd gone biking with Beavis when a couple of twisters had hit town, Butt-Head hadn't cared because it had been tons of fun, and if being stupid meant having decent fun, he would gladly accept the title. Stupidity forever reigned supreme; no amount of wisdom could ever hold a flame to the virtues stupidity carried within. Everything was so much better under the burial shroud of stupidity, even when the mourning veil of awareness was lifted, because nothing would ever make sense in the ways that hurt the most, though Butt-Head himself was too stupid to even be aware of it. All he knew was that things he liked and didn't like happened, and all he could do was go along with it because he didn't really know what else to do anyway. As long as being stupid meant having fun, that was all that mattered. Smart people sucked anyway. Besides, the tornado was probably going to be a good one, because there were already a few sparks of lightning off in the distance and the clouds were rapidly blackening as if the once-red sky had been set on fire by its own sun.

Stepping onto the sidewalk, Butt-Head squinted his right eye shut as a hot bead of sweat dripped into his sclera, wincing slightly as it stung but walking on regardless. He wanted to drag Beavis out of that stupid gas station so they could run around in the storm together, both teens still convinced that they could get superpowers like the Flash if they got struck by lightning; despite the sweat dripping down his back, Butt-Head walked through the cloying air because both of their bicycles had ended up mangled beyond recognition after accidentally ramming them into Todd's car. Crossing the street without bothering to look for oncoming traffic, Butt-Head stepped onto the curb of a sidewalk that bordered the street just outside of his neighborhood when the first cold winds began to blow. Picking up the pace, he swiped leftover sweat off of his brow as loose strands of overgrown hair whipped messily about his face while he continued making his way toward the Maxi-Mart before Beavis missed the storm; though he absolutely hated thinking about it, Butt-Head had probably become a little mushy over the years since he probably would've just let Beavis miss the tornado and laugh when the idiot got upset if they'd been a few years younger. A fat, cold raindrop landing on the tip of his nose, Butt-Head meandered down the cracked pavement smeared in faded chalk as hair got in his eyes, not really sure how he'd gotten so disgustingly sappy but continuing to walk regardless. Maybe it was because he didn't get to work with Beavis anymore so they saw each other less often. Maybe it was because he was just getting more used to Beavis being annoying. Maybe it was because Beavis was the only person he could really trust to stick around and never get sick of him. Maybe it was because he liked how enthusiastic Beavis always was about being shown cool things like crimes, traffic accidents, and storms. Maybe it was because he'd secretly gotten a tiny bit shaken up when Beavis had begun looking like a stick insect for a while and had entirely stopped laughing for a few consecutive weeks last November. Maybe it was because he'd kind of made out with Beavis a couple of times because they'd been bored and alone though they were way too cool for those ultra wussy moments to really mean anything; the way they'd been leaning against each other on the couch without shoving the other off anymore probably didn't mean much either. Maybe it was because Beavis had barely laughed at all yesterday. Maybe it was just because tornadoes were too cool to miss. Maybe it was because Butt-Head was secretly just a nice guy deeply misunderstood by everybody as if he'd never ridiculed or harassed anybody a day in his life. Yeah, no, that last one was most certainly not the reason he was walking all the way to the crappy Maxi-Mart, the thought so ridiculous that Butt-Head couldn't help but laugh to himself; nice guys never scored and were only good at being hated by everyone with half a brain, like that big baby Stewart who was probably hated by, like, the president, or something. Ugh, just thinking about those lame nice guys who read books and ate vegetables was already making Butt-Head want to break something. He wasn't a nice guy, he was a cool guy. Whether all of the other maybes were true, however, he couldn't say.

Thunder and lightning wrestled overhead as he stalked through the wind across the gas station parking lot with a subtle glint of excitement hidden in the set of his shoulders, squinting as itchy dust got into his eyes. Blinking a few times, he gripped the door handles and pulled as hard as he could with no luck, the doors stubbornly remaining shut. Whoever had been in charge of installing the doors to the Maxi-Mart definitely hadn't had any qualms about the direct safety violations involved with doors that swing inward, not that Butt-Head knew a single thing about anything remotely involved with basic safety; he and Beavis simply just had a hard time trying to remember whether to push or pull doors and usually just decided their following course of action impulsively, and it didn't really help that so many buildings had inconsistent doors in this run-down town. Growing more impatient as the wind grew strong enough to send a stray lawn chair tumbling down the street, Butt-Head quit pulling and pushed the sticky handles instead, his eyes bugging out slightly as he miraculously opened the doors all on his own this time; he was such a genius that this life-changing discovery was instantly forgotten within seconds, already distracted by the bright colors of product displays albeit still dead set on dragging Beavis into a tornado. Meandering in and out of aisles, he rounded a corner and snuck up behind Beavis, who was apparently more invested in smearing a booger on a poster advertising gas prices instead of mopping up a spilled slushie; without Butt-Head's guidance, the poor guy probably wouldn't have even known there was going to be a tornado in the first pace.

"Hey!" Beavis yelled, trailing off into a pterodactyl screech as he felt the back of his shirt collar get tugged from behind. Turning around just in time to get smacked across the face by Butt-Head and throwing in his usual scream, the blond quickly mellowed out as if he hadn't just been about to thrash around like an electrocuted banana peel; how he knew what an electrocuted banana peel looked like was an entirely different rabbit hole to go down and was best left unelaborated upon. "Oh, uh, hey, how's it goin'?" That stupid grin Beavis always had plastered on his ugly face quickly grew strained by tenfold and his laughter tapered off awkwardly as he took in the dried blood all over Butt-Head's shirt, not-so-gullible thoughts going through his head while the brunette chewed him out for not even knowing that there was going to be a tornado. By now, Beavis knew better than to dismiss the bloodstains on Butt-Head's clothes and dark smudges on odd spots in the house; he had never learned anything easily, not even when he was actually interested in something, but over the past few months, he had learned to look out for blood and fresh cuts out of some urgent sense of necessity although he didn't even know what to actually do about anything; he had no idea what to do and it showed. Really, there probably was nothing he could do, but that didn't stop him from looking. There was just no way two people, no matter how stupid or oblivious they may be, could live together for so long and not be able to eventually notice when something was just wrong. Neither teen had ever been especially perceptive about anything, but they had always noticed the things that mattered.

Dragged out of the store by Butt-Head's rough grip on his wrist while lightning lit up the sky, Beavis swallowed acid in his throat and blinked as cool, solid gusts of wind tossed his messy hair into further disarray as he listened to the brunette animatedly talk about tornadoes with that rare excitement in his voice, the sparse droplets of cold rain picking up speed and easing into a steady torrent of icy water. It kind of did seem like tornado weather, Beavis quickly picking up on the subtle changes in the atmosphere based on prior experience though he'd never actually categorized the proper meteorological phenomena to describe what he recognized since he had no need for all of that fancy schmancy nerd crap; tornadoes were one of the things he always remembered. Lingering beneath the storefront overhang, the teens tried and failed to identify any tornadoes in the dark sky through the thick sheets of water pouring down. Then, Beavis' stuck-up manager swung open the front doors and had the audacity to tell the blond to go back to work! During a tornado! Both Beavis and Butt-Head couldn't help but just stare incredulously at each other for a moment, unable to comprehend how stupid this man was. As the grumpy guy tried to lunge for Beavis' elbow to yank him back into the store to keep working, the teens instantly dashed across the parking lot laughing like hyenas on a caffeine high despite the heavy rain, propelled by sheer impulse and the general excitement that came with any large storm, leaving the manager gaping at the torrents of water that obscured anything over three feet ahead as he tried and failed to understand his employee's priorities before heading back indoors as another deafening clap of thunder echoed. Had basically every business in this struggling town not been so understaffed and poorly managed, the blond probably would've been fired by now. How Beavis hadn't gotten fired from any job pretty much immediately was a mystery to rival how Butt-Head had become an assistant manager at Burger World a few years ago. Dumb kids, dumb luck.

Weaving around town aimlessly with the sole purpose of getting away from the Maxi-Mart before Beavis would be forced to go back to work and miss the rest of the storm, the teens ran through mushy mud and tall grass without sparing a thought for snakes despite barely being able to see a few feet ahead in the heavy downpour, lightning setting the black clouds on fire as intense wind tossed their hair into haphazard messes and booming thunder drowned out the heavy rainfall. A small chunk of hail hit Beavis in the head as Butt-Head yanked him by the elbow and onto the sidewalk beneath the overhang of some shop that had shut down nearly 70 years ago, the boys having ended up downtown after a few minutes of running through random patches of waterlogged grass and slick asphalt without having had any cars honk at them as so often happened; it seemed that everybody else in this hick town was too stupid to go outside and appreciate a decent storm. The ground rumbled as a tornado they couldn't see touched down on the ground a few miles away, the wind and cold rain whipping fiercely. Sitting together against the boarded-up storefront, they laughed together as they watched lightning tear through the clouds, wishing they'd brought something to use as a lightning rod so they could get special powers like the Flash had.

Although he would never tell anybody, not even Butt-Head, Beavis also knew in the back of his head that getting struck by lightning could mean death, having been a little too aware of this since that day he had been randomly overwhelmed by a ton of revelations; he'd never seriously considered safety for much of his life let alone death, and he still didn't give thought to this most of the time, but a lot of the things he had thought he had forgotten had been brought back in ways he had never imagined throughout the past year. All of those times he could have died but hadn't weren't important at all, but sometimes, he found himself thinking about them anyway, not even sure if he remembered anything correctly and if the friends in his head were just trying to rile him up. That didn't mean they weren't convincing, though. Even the things he had thought he remembered weren't quite right anymore, as if he'd been lying to himself for years and hadn't even known it. His mother never had hugged him that day when she had fed a camera to a starving fire. That hadn't been a hug. She'd pushed him away. That hadn't been a hug and it never would be. He didn't even know why he had spent years trying to convince himself that it had been a hug when it had been painfully obvious it never had been from the very start. Far worse things had happened in comparison to something stupid like that, so he'd never given it much thought before. There was no reason to wonder if he remembered other things wrong; he was always wrong about everything anyway, it wasn't that hard to see how much of an airhead he was. There was no reason to think about stuff he couldn't even understand anyway. There was no reason to even think about any of this useless crap in the middle of a storm, one of the few things that had never failed to bring both him and Butt-Head entertainment. Yet, looking at the dried blood on the brunette's shirt as the sidewalk rumbled beneath them under the force of the storm, not sure whether to believe the stain had been the result of a nosebleed or not even though he'd always believed everything Butt-Head said before, too many things Beavis couldn't understand dragged his heart down. It wasn't that he cared about death so much as he cared about whether he had remembered everything wrong. Sometimes, he couldn't help but just feel so tired of always being wrong about everything. Being stupid and believing everything had always ended up causing him more pain than he would ever admit. He knew that he was stupid and always would be, but that didn't mean he had to like it.

Adrenaline wearing off as the lightning and thunder grew fewer and farther between, both teens shivered uncontrollably as mud slowly dried on their legs and their drenched clothes clung to their clammy skin, cold water seeping out from beneath them onto the narrow sidewalk as their usual giggles died down. Without even thinking about it, Butt-Head scooted a few inches closer and slung a dripping arm around Beavis' cold shoulders even though a car could pass by at any moment and both of their reputations would be forever tainted by their public display of wussiness; most people in town simply did not believe that the two boys were capable of feelings beyond lust and anger. Yet, Beavis didn't even hesitate to lean into the embrace like he would have a year ago, both guys pressed tightly together and shivering on the wet sidewalk like a pair of half-drowned rats that had been shoved into a refrigerator. They were together and maybe not alone, but they didn't care. For a moment, Beavis let go of all of those doubts and things he would never quite understand as the clouds up above gradually lightened from black to a dark gray; rainbows would never be for him, but that didn't mean that his sky would always stay pitch black, either. For a moment, Beavis forgot the crushing hope he'd felt the previous day as he'd looked at Butt-Head passed out on the couch after throwing away his own dinner like some rich snob. For a moment, Beavis forgot the ache in his stomach and the burning in his throat. For a moment, Beavis let himself listen to what the slowing rainfall whispered to him instead of dwelling on what he had always been told by fire. For a moment, Beavis only focused on how the weight of the hairy arm around his shoulders felt instead of the blood on Butt-Head's shirt. For a moment, Beavis remembered how all of those kisses had really felt despite what the things in his head had always tried to get him to believe. For a moment, Beavis stared blankly at the slowly lightening sky while his hair danced in a slowing wind, not caring whether he was stupid or would remember this wrong. For a moment, Beavis let his sticky fingers intertwine with Butt-Head's stubby ones. For a moment, Beavis' head went blank just like it had on that sunny spring day on top of the hill, because this wasn't a picture-perfect memory that would one day melt away to reveal something ugly and cruel.

This wasn't a memory, this was reality.