Failure To Thrive

by fujillamaparadise

Slice-of-life snippets about two idiots who don't know the difference between love and pain. *trigger warnings listed in first chapter*

19. Dawn

August 4, 1997

Gone.

All simplicity was gone, but time crept on like an injured frog through mud.

Vivid memories pumped through veins, memories forever stripped bare.

So, so much blood, hiding in plain sight everywhere.

Scraping, scraping, scraping. Flakes of dry skin clung to the metal as his laughter faded, the flesh just above his knee forming a neat, white line which itched as if prickly hay had rubbed up against his leg. Deafening chittering drifted into the kitchen from the unhearing insects in the backyard. Further he dug, scraping until the white eventually gave way to a stinging pinprick of vivid pink. Deeper, deeper, deeper. Slowly, he dug in deeper, stroke by painful stroke, metal gingerly caressing flesh as it slowly coaxed red out from beneath pink with a deceptive tenderness. Lurid morning sun seared into parting skin that wasn't quite as soft as a pincushion. Welling up in a vibrant, fat bead, a miniscule globe of shining red surfaced before his typically indifferent eyes. Faint music from that one homeowner's insurance commercial bled through the thin walls, muffled snickering slithering out from the living room. Pausing for a moment, armpits damp, he stared at the tiny scarlet fissure in his mildly burning skin as that familiar- but never comforting- metallic odor filled his nose. Screams of unseen children playing outdoors seeped into the house. Beneath strained red shorts that had been outgrown long ago, the sticky kitchen tiles were slick with sweat, hot sun harshly penetrating the soiled window a few inches above the freshly washed sink. Frantic, high-pitched screeching pierced through the back door as a pair of birds fought over the only worm in the drought-cracked backyard. For a split second, he was tempted to raise his hand in anticipation of thrusting the metal into the freshly opened hole in his skin, but his spine remained erect and his shoulders stiff as his slackened rather than raised grip allowed the stained metal to clatter onto the damp tiles in a merciful reprieve instead, nudging the quivering bead of red onto the tip of his finger that instantaneously flattened into a dirty smudge while the shallow strip of scarlet on his leg clotted quickly. Thudding footsteps punctuated the elapse of precious seconds as oblivious laughter drew closer. Over time, the vivid red line would fade into a mild white scrape, but for now, the color stood out against his skin as a stark reminder of how weak he had become. Fabric shifted as the smell of sweat and kerosene settled beside him. Weak. Stubby fingernails with dried dirt wedged underneath jabbed into his shoulder repeatedly. So weak. Greasy curls with that usual yet always indescribable smell scraped against his cheek like a match head to its box. So, so weak. Those familiar, dirty fingers slightly blackened at the tips by smoke and ash latched onto his shoulder. Weak, weak, weak. Worn out wood creaked as the warm body by his side leaned against the loose cabinet doors, spoken words hanging in the air rather than reaching his ears. Oftentimes, it was like he was being pulled down beneath leagues of numbing water without a single moment to catch his breath, let alone see or hear what was right in front of him. Rather than receiving the usual grimace and occasional teasing about being a "sad Elmo" or something, his unusual lack of response prompted a rough shake to the shoulder. Reaching his own hand up, a few cuticles slightly bloody, Butt-Head tightly grasped the grimy fingers that had begun to reach up and curiously slide over the stubble on his cheek as if the guy beside him had never seen facial hair before. Geez, sometimes Beavis acted more like a kid than someone a few months away from becoming a legal adult; despite having been forced to take on fairly adult responsibilities from a young age like finding food or medicine on the streets and learning how to clean toilets with noxious chemicals at sketchy fast food joints, the severely immature guy was always invading everybody's personal space, breaking things that shouldn't have even been possible to break, and shoving blatantly inedible items into a dentist's nightmare of a mouth. Well, Butt-Head wasn't much better either, but his own shortcomings were beside the point; he was totally way more cool and mature than Beavis would ever be. Kicking the slightly stained metal across the unswept tiles with one outstretched leg, he yanked the twitching hand in his firm grip away from his unshaven face and turned to face Beavis, squeezing the smoke-stained fingers tightly as he silently debated whether he should smack the blond upside the head or switch up the routine with a rough tug on the ear.

"You're a cactus!" Beavis randomly blurted out with no further explanation as if he hadn't just been staring at the scarlet line on his companion's leg with a somewhat morose albeit confused look in those careless eyes a few seconds ago. Momentarily loosening his hold, Butt-Head blinked, his internal debate interrupted by whatever the heck this guy was going on about. Cactus? He wasn't even wearing anything green, just an orange shirt bearing a Cheetos logo that he'd shoplifted from a dollar store last month after he and Beavis had finally gone to see what they had believed had been the fourth RoboCop movie after a year of waiting but had turned out to be a super cheesy knockoff about metal fish called RoboCod, and those stupid red shorts that were cutting off the circulation to his butt. Maybe it was because his legs were slightly hairier? Or because he hadn't shaved for a little too long? Well, neither of them had ever had a good track record for useless stuff like shaving their faces, except for those not-quite-uncommon occasions Butt-Head made fun of Beavis' pathetic, patchy fuzz until the latter actually shaved it just to shut him up. Butt-Head squinted his beady eyes as he stared at Beavis' dumb face, squeezing the twitching fingers in his grip harder in the hopes it would hurt or maybe even snap a bone; thankfully, he was too dumb to realize Beavis actually kind of liked it, which would have probably led to a gory crime scene if he had been aware of that. While Beavis busied himself by picking his nose with his free hand, Butt-Head pondered this most thoughtful matter for a few seconds too long. He didn't know how he could possibly be considered a cactus if he wasn't green, just kind of hairy like tons of guys were. He couldn't even tell if being a cactus was a good thing or bad thing. He wasn't sure if that even mattered, yet here he was, having his reality being upended once again by nobody but the booger-sniffing Beavis himself. At least normal people got to have midlife crises or identity crises, but Butt-Head just had to be stuck with whatever the heck this was. Christ, it was a cactus crisis.

"Uhhh… what?" Butt-Head looked down at his bright orange Cheetos shirt for the third time in the past four seconds as if he genuinely needed to check that no, he had not magically turned green. Better safe than sorry. Not that he was ever safe. Or sorry. Or a cactus.

"What." Beavis stared back blankly, a wet booger stuck on the tip of his right index finger since his left hand was still crushed in Butt-Head's sweaty hold. Butt-Head's hands were always really sweaty. They were almost as sweaty as Stewart's butt; Stewart had left this massive butt-shaped sweat stain on the curb of the Maxi-Mart during Beavis' morning shift last week and it had been hilarious.

"Huh?" Now Butt-Head was kind of confused since Beavis was laughing a little harder than usual, still staring at the booger like he expected it to sing and dance like that magic wooden boy in that one cartoon movie or something. Then, he remembered what he'd been asking about in the first place and his laughter, which had faltered slightly, resumed its usual cadence. However, before he could open his mouth, Beavis interrupted.

"Uhhh, I don't get it." Beavis' laugh had that slightly confused hesitance as he stared blankly, wiping the warm booger onto Butt-Head's dumb red shorts since they were already really old and had holes in the butt. For some reason, the latter always wore those when he wanted to poke himself with sharp thingies or something stupid like that. There was no reason either of them needed to hurt themselves since they always got beat up by Todd or chased by loose dogs every two days or so, not that Beavis would ever acknowledge how much hunger actually did hurt; he had been hungry all his life to the point that the familiarity of the pain had become comforting in its own twisted way, and it wasn't like he was making himself all bloody or something like that. Besides, those stupid red shorts didn't even fit Butt-Head well anymore, and it wasn't like they were the only pair of shorts in the house. Maybe if Beavis burned them, Butt-Head would stop trying to hurt himself. Whoa, wait, he was kind of smart.
"What, no, get what? Uh, cactus, why'm I a cactus?" Butt-Head stifled the urge to smack Beavis since that would only make him more confused as proven by plenty of past experience, instead choosing to pick the booger off of his shorts and flicking it at a fly a few feet away, missing by a long shot and laughing. Wherever the booger landed would be a mystery for years to come. Nearly every single day for at least the past decade, the teens had uncovered ancient boogers between the couch cushions, on the walls, inside of magazines, on the toilet bowl, in the bedsheets, all over the microwave, and somehow inside of the remote control once when Butt-Head had tried to change the batteries. All over the house, no matter where they went, there would be dried mucus galore.

"What, ohhhh, yeah, yeah, uhhh, cactus, you're a cactus." Snapping back to attention after staring at those red shorts with a slightly manic intensity just like when he looked at a lighter or match box just out of reach, Beavis tilted his head slightly and nodded eagerly while laughing, once again not elaborating on what that was even supposed to mean as if it was totally normal. Moments like these made Butt-Head wonder if maybe Beavis' head was actually cluttered with pure nonsense rather than simply empty; though he often did appear incapable of forming a single coherent thought most of the time since Butt-Head did most of thinking, Beavis also had an uncanny tendency to latch onto absurd conclusions absolutely nobody ever prompted that just had to be the result of some unusual but undeniably thorough train of thought. There was no other way to explain it; whatever went on in his head must have been a real mess.

"Wha- why?" At this point, Butt-Head's laugh was starting to take on that slightly nervous lilt that not even Beavis noticed half of the time, though he made sure to keep his stance fairly bold like he always did; feigning ardent confidence was basically second nature after years of practice since showing weakness and uncertainty had simply never been a safe option in the kind of world he had grown up in. Was calling a person a cactus really that normal? Was he the only one in the world who didn't know what this even meant? He'd never seen other people refer to one another as cacti before, but despite how he usually acted like he knew he was doing and always spoke confidently, Beavis just had this weird way of making him reimagine the fabric of reality for the stupidest reasons.

"Uhhhhhh… oh, yeah! Cuz you're a cactus." Beavis beamed, those crooked teeth Butt-Head didn't exactly hate but definitely didn't love on full display as he laughed. The old energy in that laugh had slowly been returning throughout the past few months, but it wouldn't ever be the same as before. Butt-Head would be a liar if he ever tried to say that he never missed that old laugh, but he would take what he could get; a beggar for as long as he could remember, he almost never had the chance to be a chooser. Raising his eyes from crooked teeth that definitely hadn't been brushed in at least a few days, assuming that Beavis hadn't lost or destroyed his toothbrush again, Butt-Head looked up at Beavis' gleeful eyes. Regarding the cactus allegations, Beavis certainly seemed very sure of himself.

"... I swear to God. Why. Why am I a cactus, you dumbass." For some reason, Butt-Head didn't smack him like he always did when Beavis was being especially difficult to deal with. He should've smacked him, but he didn't. Instead, he just tightened his hold on Beavis' gross fingers again, which had stopped twitching a while ago since his own hand had slackened earlier while he had questioned everything he had ever known. Maybe it was the confusing conversation or maybe it was because he could still vividly see that bright red drop of blood in his mind, but for whatever reason, Butt-Head was still kind of subdued.

"What. Uh. I don't know. You're a cactus. Cuz. You're a cactus. You're spiky." Beavis looked at him and continued laughing as if it was the most obvious thing in the world, his left hand still remaining motionless despite the returning pressure around it. Every single bone in his hand could be crushed at any moment, yet he couldn't care less. Honestly, Beavis kind of wondered what it would be like to break the bones in his hand since he'd actually never done that before, only having had his hand impaled and a finger or two poorly sewn back on. Wait, did hands even have bones? He had no idea, now that he thought about it. Maybe that was why fingernails felt hard: they were bones. Oh, but weren't bones supposed to be under skin instead of on top? Geez, this whole bone thing was super confusing. Whoever invented hands must have been all hopped up on caffeine or something because there was no reason for something stupid like a hand to be so confusing. Clearly, the only bone that was actually worth thinking about was the one that gave people boners. Putting aside the unnecessarily complicated philosophy of the human hand, Beavis did know that he sort of liked getting his fingers squeezed even though that meant Butt-Head was getting his weird sweat on him; although they had held each other's hands before on a few wimpy occasions- Beavis shuddered slightly at the memories, having just enough self-consciousness to be embarrassed that he'd enjoyed it and still having no idea what the heck Butt-Head could have possibly thought since they had never actually talked about it- he had never had his fingers squeezed before. Beavis couldn't help but kind of like the new sensation, even if it meant that he would have to sacrifice his hand if Butt-Head did decide to try to break it. After all, getting his fingers squeezed felt a lot nicer than getting smacked or suckerpunched. Much stronger people had slapped and punched both of them in the past but never squeezed their hands, so maybe it was just an inherently nice thing to do, not that Beavis had ever cared about anything remotely nice since it was way more fun to make people super mad and watch their faces get all red. Yet, the chance that maybe he could have something maybe a little bit nice was kind of cool, but he would never say that out loud; he would sound like Stewart and would have to sleep on the floor for the rest of his life if Butt-Head even let him stay in the house at all. Still, he let himself pretend that maybe getting his fingers squeezed was secretly something nice and Butt-Head was too dumb to even realize it; however, Beavis wouldn't mind getting his hand broken either, because now he actually kind of wanted to know if hands had bones or not. Too many confusing voices and fragmented images were running through his mind to really think about anything deeper than that.

"Uhhh… okay, Beavis." Butt-Head didn't really know what to say to that; Beavis was just "like that" a lot of the time, so the former had learned to either shut him up or pretend he had never said anything in the first place. Spiky? He was spiky? Maybe it really was just because he hadn't shaved. One time, when he'd fallen asleep during one of his many failed attempts to grow a killer mustache like what the guys had on the TV show they had been watching that night, he must have slumped face first onto Beavis' neck or something because he had woken up sprawled out on the carpet hardly a minute later. Apparently, Beavis had flipped out and pushed him off of the couch because his facial hair had been "stabbing" him or something; sometimes, it was simply impossible to tell what would set the guy off. Geez, if Beavis had been a girl, Butt-Head probably wouldn't have even lived long enough to get to middle school; he had heard other guys at school complaining about having girlfriends and sisters who were all crazy and moody because of periods or commas, or something like that, and the mere thought of Beavis' usual chaotic bullshit being any worse could nearly make a grown man weep.

"Oh, yeah, wait, take off your pants!" Beavis bluntly commanded after another quick glance at those ratty red shorts, looking Butt-Head dead in the eye and smiling with that carefree expression he always wore when he wasn't about to beat the living crap out of somebody or scared about something for a reason that only made sense by Beavisian logic. Though neither of them would ever acknowledge it, that expression had gone missing for months and it hadn't been the exact same since then; it was better than nothing, but that didn't mean Butt-Head didn't miss the old smile Beavis used to have every single day ever since it had first disappeared. Unbothered by the drastic direction he'd steered the conversation, Beavis waited for Butt-Head to strip off those shorts, his fingers resuming their twitching as he visualized the brand new match box and old bottle of dwindling lighter fluid he had stashed in the firecracker cabinet a few days ago after burning all of Mr. Anderson's boring mail.

"... What the hell." Not even bothering trying to squeeze until he broke every single bone in Beavis' slightly blackened fingers, which he probably could do a little too easily, Butt-Head just gave him a scrutinizing frown and released his mildly bruised hand. They'd mooned complete strangers and jacked off in the tool shed together tons of times before, so it wasn't like they were shy about their bodies, because they really weren't unless they were teasing each other relentlessly about something stupid like how Butt-Head's nose was kind of shaped like a schlong at weird angles or how Beavis had the wimpiest chicken legs ever. However, having just tried to scrape something inexplicable out of himself despite the countless attempts he had failed to do so before, he really wasn't in the mood to ask what the heck Beavis was even thinking about at the moment; the blond somehow always had an explanation far more bizarre than any assumption taken at face value and it often took a great amount of the little brainpower he had to process anything like that. Butt-Head was too drained to try to decipher Beavis' cryptic desires at the moment. A few feet away, that stained piece of metal laid on the floor like a discarded photograph, his eyes latching onto the glint of sunlight that bounced off of the slender item. There was no point in any of this. No matter what he did, he would never be able to cut out what really mattered. All he could do was live with it, just like he had always done. No matter how tired or weak he felt, he would just have to suck it up and live with it for the rest of his life, at least until he could drown himself in numbing alcohol in a few years. Yet, nearly against his will, his stubby fingers twitched slightly as if he was already in withdrawal, unaware of how Beavis' smile faltered. His eyes were on the metal to which he had given a bit too much devotion, sharply glistening in the muted sunlight. Honestly, it was draining.

"What." Beavis' laughter had dulled, his eyes also having wandered to the metal rather than the fabric he had briefly fantasized about burning. As if. He could never do anything right. A dark part within him had already won this round, having told him how they had both been doomed from the start and how useless it would be to even try to salvage anything of the person beside him, how it was all his own fault just like it always had been and how there wasn't anything he could ever do to stop it. Their lives had always been nothing but a joke, a stupid game forever rigged, odds stacked against them so high that all they could do was laugh and pretend everything was fine because there was absolutely nothing else they really could do; they would never know what it would be like to live better lives because they never had known any better. Why should they bother pursuing something they had never even gotten a taste of? They were fine this way and that would always be enough for them, no matter how confusing the ever-changing rules were or how other players never had to go to bed on empty stomach. Beavis and Butt-Head were playing a cruel game and losing every single round with no end in sight but death itself; even those damn kisses were still a game despite the veil of Truth Or Dare having been stripped away long ago, and of course every round just had to be a loss. Acid trickled down Beavis' throat like bile down a drain, one of the many things a cheap band-aid could never fix in this rigged parody of life. Then, his laughter as well as Butt-Head's had stopped for a moment, just long enough for a beat of silence to unfold and fully blossom in all of its deafening glory. For just a second, an eternity of an excruciating second, their ears rang.

"What are you doing?" Cheap cotton spilled across the floor like blood across fabric, a pair of too-small hands clutching a bright blue stuffed animal missing its head. "Just what do you think you're doing?" An ugly little butthead gaped up at his mother in wordless response, eyes that could have belonged to a sewer rat visibly widening out of fear. Resting on the kitchen tiles a few inches to his left was the toy's head, the cartoonish face of a neon blue shark joyfully smiling up at him. Judy's fingers spasmed and her veins throbbed, her body slowly having begun to wither under the withdrawal she had been subject to for the past few days since that boy's damn braces had taken a massive bite out of her paycheck; a teacher with a somewhat familiar face who she'd never taken to time to get to know at the elementary school had pestered her with increasingly intrusive questions for the past two years about her boy's welfare with that condescendingly soft voice and blatantly feigned care in his eyes, so after years of struggling to keep up appearances under the scrutinizing eyes of busybodies who liked separating families and sending bruised children to strange homes that would only turn those bruises into hot, bleeding wounds, Judy had finally gone and paid for her kid to get braces to make it at least seem like somebody cared enough to provide him with expensive dental care for those horrid teeth that had been painfully crooked since first grade. In a lawless world where everybody either had to beat or get beaten no matter how young or old, Judy Head was a generous god. However, the thought of how much those future orthodontic appointments would cost was too much to handle at the moment, so she simply didn't think about it and dealt with the present just like she always did, living day by day. Yet, now that she had paid for her hellspawn's mouth to get plastered in metal with minimal support from her deeply distrustful aunts and uncles, her paycheck had run as dry as her liquor cabinet and the resulting sobriety was tearing her apart. Every single dumpster in town only offered empty bottles, not a single drop spared by a brutal summer heat that gave birds heatstroke, and she just couldn't risk her relationship with the liquor store owner by stealing, not when he'd already done her so many favors and she still had so much to reciprocate. Slowly dying of an all-consuming thirst that would never stop sucking on her drying bones, Judy's patience had worn painfully thin and absolutely none of it would be spared for this little waste of space that she should've aborted long ago instead of pouring out the last dregs of her hope onto a fake family. Generosity always came at a price.

"Who do y-you think you are t-to believe I want you?" Those beady, pleading eyes looking up at her as if the unwanted creature that people often mistook for a little boy wanted something from her made Judy want to break the nearest object in her proximity if not the creature itself. "D-do you have any idea how s-stupid you are?" That thing she reigned over always had to make life so much more difficult for her. Always. Yet, here it was, staring up at her as if it truly believed it was worth her attention let alone her affection. Staring up at her as if it hadn't just made a massive mess, ripping apart an unfamiliar toy it must've stolen- never had she ever wasted her hard-earned money on something so fickle like a trashy toy for a creature that probably didn't even deserve to stay in this house- and tossing cotton into the air like the seasonal myriads of butterflies amidst those pre-drought wildflowers. Staring up at her as if her generosity could ever be the same as a mother's unconditional love. Fun fact: it was not. Her life was so miserable and the only excuse for the cause of this suffering that she could find at the moment was the thing cowering before her, Shirley having gone with her own creature to some trailer park for the weekend. Judy was in so much unthinkable pain that she just had to break something, anything. Her head felt like it was splitting and tremors wracked her body, foul nausea rooted deep in her stomach. Without drink, the next best thing she could do was spread the bloodthirsty agony that was far too fierce to keep hidden within. Unlike those devout foster parents who had preached false sermons with cruel intentions, Judy and Shirley had never become feeble worshippers. Ever since they had grown out of the foster care system and gotten a taste of independence for the very first time in their lives, those women would never bow down to another authority ever again. No, they had been far too strong and bold to be reduced to a couple of meek worshippers. They hadn't fought for their lives with all of the strength they had only to bow down once more. After years of barely surviving and never thriving, they had learned just how capable they were of wielding formidable power, and they sure as Hell weren't going to let it go to waste. Therefore, Judy and Shirley had become their own gods, ruling over this goddamned house with the only remaining power that had yet to be stripped from their vengeful hands. Never able to find quite the right thing to pin the pain on but always aching to release the raw power that ate at them from within, moments like these were inevitable, and everybody who had ever set foot in that atrocious house knew this truth far too well. What should have been mother and child had long ago devolved into monster and creature, fallen god and wretched demon. Although all of the alcohol had drained from Judy's veins after days without a single drink, the neverending pain was still there, and the love she had suppressed for so long had festered into something unbelievably vile. What could have been love had reluctantly come and callously gone long ago, sparing naught but abundant violence in its wake. She was a generous god, but generosity was not love. To love a child was an endeavor far too late.

"S-s-stupid, you're s-so stupid!" Words went in one ear, but not all made it out the other. "Stupid! S-stupid! Stupid!" Some of those barbed words would wedge themselves into that space just behind his eyes and skew everything Butt-Head would ever see for the rest of his life. Having been roughly dragged off of the couch and into the kitchen right in the middle of a rerun for some cheesy sitcom, his mother had shoved the toy into his hands, clearly upset about it for some reason and accusing him of stealing; evidently, she had found the toy shark Butt-Head had stashed behind the canister of rat poison in the kitchen cabinet. Surely she of all people couldn't have been serious about accusing him of stealing, though she wasn't ever home enough to know just how often both Butt-Head and Beavis actually did go dumpster diving and shoplifting for a bite to eat; still, even an oblivious kid like Butt-Head could see how stupid that was coming from somebody like his mother who stole anything and everything, his feeble mind still holding onto those last traces of clarity before his memory would forever be corrupt later that night. Besides, he hadn't even stolen the stupid toy, not that he had ever dared to speak up when she got that crazed look in her eyes that always made his stomach hurt. Was it really that much of a problem to have one nice thing for himself? Everything always had to break, didn't it? Everything always had to break. Young and thoroughly panicked by the relentless yelling, he had impulsively torn the cheap toy apart without thinking, ripping its head off as his mother continued to scream at him about things he couldn't understand as if she had never stolen a single thing in her entire life. Now, all he could hear was the word "stupid" being repeated over and over as if it was a bad thing, a word most people took offense at which he would quickly force himself to embrace rather than be ashamed of. At that moment, though, it was impossible to not be ashamed, not with the way her dark eyes bore into his severely stunted frame. Still helplessly staring up at the woman who had brought him into this world yet cruelly refused to take him out, only thrashing him about like a bobcat would a field mouse, he silently clutched that decapitated toy to which he had accidentally grown so fiercely attached. Unlike that stolen stuffed frog Beavis had told him about a few years ago shortly after the toy had been burned, a story which had made Butt-Head slightly jealous for multiple reasons that he kept to himself, this little shark had been a gift. Nearly a month prior, Beavis hadn't been able to find any Wolverine action figures at a comic book store that would shut down later that year- for some reason, Butt-Head had gone through a bit of a Wolverine phase that year- so he had bought a discounted stuffed shark instead since it had only cost a dollar, give or take, and that Shark Week thing on TV that Butt-Head was looking forward to had been supposed to start soon so the timing would have ruled; along with a drawing of Butt-Head as a shark, or something vaguely resembling that description, that stuffed animal had been the brunette's only birthday present for the year since neither of their mothers ever gave them regular meals let alone gifts. At first, Butt-Head hadn't been very thrilled since 11-year-olds were allegedly way too cool for stuffed animals, but whenever Beavis had to spend a few days at one of those trailer parks or seedy apartment complexes with one of Shirley's most recent boyfriends, that toy shark quickly became the only reason the brunette could sleep at night; before he knew it, that toy had become his only source of comfort whenever Beavis wasn't around, not that he would ever admit something so wussy. Needless to say, the dingy cotton carpeting the dull kitchen tiles along with the words that wouldn't stop stabbing into his ears did nothing to ease the steadily rising panic in his chest. For a fleeting moment, nothing but pure fear flickered across his mother's face and darkened her eyes; she had always worn an unmistakable bitterness in those weary eyes that belonged more to a little kid forced to grow up way too soon rather than a parent. Then, in an instant, that naked, vulnerable fear morphed back into the usual veneer of anger and unbridled pain. When his mother lunged toward him just like she always did when the liquor took hold of the wheel even though there was no alcohol seeping out of her pores this wretched night, he didn't remain frozen like a petrified rabbit that had made the mistake of hopping in front of a hungry rattlesnake just like he always did. No, he didn't stay still and silent this time. Instead, he laughed for the first time in the past three hours and ran. God, he ran.

Insects he couldn't name filled the air with their nocturnal trilling, the inky blanket of the sky shielding the stars from the harsh, artificial light cast by crooked street lamps. Unlike if he had gone running outside during the day, Butt-Head had hardly broken a sweat as he scampered down the sidewalk, save for his armpits and the back of his neck. One of those funny green bugs skittered across the sidewalk as he ran underneath the glaring lights, small socked feet bearing down urgently on the pavement as a mild nighttime breeze caressed his face with a tenderness that his own mother's fingers would never have. Butt-Head had never been able to tell the difference between a grasshopper and a cricket until third grade, which was when he had realized that grasshoppers were probably the bugs that were the same color as grass when it wasn't dead and crickets were therefore the opposite, so that bug that had just ran across the sidewalk must have been a grasshopper because it had looked kind of green. Although his mother hadn't followed him, the physical pain that had accumulated over days of withdrawal having reached the point that walking had become a head-pounding nightmare for her, Butt-Head ran on regardless. Away. He just needed to get away. He just needed to get away and then maybe he would be okay. Laughter coming in short bursts between quick breaths, he ran down the sidewalk and rounded the corner, heading nowhere in particular as long as it was away from the house that had never been a home. Sometimes, he thought that living on the streets would be safer than living inside of that house. Even now, running around this sleeping town in the summer night's breeze felt like a safer option than shutting himself in the bathroom, the only room in the house which had a lock that wasn't broken or too confusing to use. Outside, nobody could bother him. Nobody was watching him. Nobody was yelling at him. Nobody was hurting him. Nobody was following him. Nobody was chasing him. Nobody was chasing him, but he ran on, laughing all the way. Nothing could possibly go wrong now that he was out of that house. Nothing. Having run away of his own accord, he felt in control of his life for once. He felt safe. Bathed in cold moonlight silent as death, he felt safe.

Eventually, his quick footfalls settled down as he slowed to a casual walking gait, laughing at anything that caught his eye in the dim atmosphere and marveling at how the flashing signs on the few open stores in town lit up the dark sky looming overhead; the faint smell of weed lingered in the air and occasionally grew stronger at odd intervals as he walked on, red, white, and yellow flashing across his face as he passed by the flickering storefront signs. He felt like one of those cool guys in the movies who went on adventures all night long, going on car chases and shooting at enemies. It was fun, though it probably would've been a little bit cooler if Beavis had been there with him. Beavis. He remembered, actually, that Beavis was supposed to have been staying at that trailer park next to the public playground. That wasn't very far, so maybe he could actually go find Beavis and drag him out for a super cool night adventure! Although neither of them had ever been especially good at navigating, their town was small and Butt-Head had walked with him to the playground plenty of times before since that was where the guy who sold them cigarettes usually hung out at, so it probably wouldn't be too hard to find Beavis even though it was kind of dark outside. Passing by cracked windows hiding behind thick metal bars, sagging chain-link fences entwined with dry weeds that never died, and that one lady's severely wilted gardenia flowers that had never even stood a chance trying to grow in this climate, Butt-Head began to walk in the direction toward the playground, planning to find the trailer park once he got there. Crossing the bridge while keeping close to the edge in case a car came speeding down the road, his hair whipped about his face, the water below shallow from drought but still suffocatingly brutal as ever. Step by step, he slowly made his way across the bridge beneath the sparse moonlight while making sure not to lean too heavily on the flimsy rail lest he fall over the edge, a loose strand of hair getting caught in the edge of his mouth as he squinted against the wind. He couldn't have possibly known that he would never reach the playground that night. He couldn't have possibly known that he would trip over an abandoned bumper memorializing a recent car accident a few feet ahead and fall down, scraping both of his knees on the asphalt and no longer laughing. He couldn't have possibly known that the guy who would drive up and see him in the glaring headlights hadn't gotten out of the car out of a neighborly desire to help. He couldn't have possibly known that a stranger never should have been trusted in the first place. He couldn't have possibly known that rough hands weren't unique to only his and Beavis' mothers. He couldn't have possibly known what kind of people his and Beavis' mothers had been sheltering them from this whole time. He couldn't have possibly known that his house actually was safer than other places. He couldn't have possibly known. Forever destined to suffer violence no matter where he went or who he lived with, he couldn't have possibly known. He couldn't have possibly known, but he should've known. Had he been less stupid, he should've known much better. Only in retrospect had he stupidly realized that no, not even beyond those confining walls comprising what was supposed to be a home, had he ever been safe.

Hardly 20 minutes later, adrenaline the sole reason he had made it home on his own two feet, Butt-Head stumbled back into the house so generously provided by the two grown-up girls masquerading as gods, a building that he had once mistaken for a prison of pain but had now begrudgingly accepted as the only place he could ever be safe. Seemingly forever would he be stuck in this damn house, so he might as well have gotten used to these bleeding walls before he lost his mind to the deceptive hope he had once trusted. Stalking across the carpet and leaning against the wall separating the living room from the rest of the house, he snuck a peek down the unlit hall and laughed quietly as he saw that the bedroom door was shut, his mother apparently having gone to bed not long after he had run off. Something kind of hurt and it felt weird, but he didn't dare tell her; he hoped that if he let her sleep, she would forget about the shark toy and him running away, thus sparing himself whatever punishment she might come up with. Making his way to the kitchen with shaky legs, he laughed a little louder as he found the broom and swept all of the spilled cotton into the trash can, clinging to an illusion of normalcy just like he would for years to come because he genuinely had no idea what else he could do. He didn't even understand at least half of what happened most of the time anyway, so it wasn't a big deal, especially not now. Everything that had happened in the past 24 hours had blurred into nonsense, and he was fine with that. He would remember more bits and pieces throughout the following week, but it wasn't like there was anything he could do about it, so he would just suck it up and watch TV or something just like he always did after his mother hit him or when Beavis was dragged away by Shirley for days on end. At this very moment, dumping the last bits of stray cotton into the trash can to make sure his mother wouldn't see the mess and remember their earlier altercation, all he could really remember was the smell of damp dirt and the coolness of grass covered in dew. A cockroach skittering across the floor interrupted his thoughts as it crawled onto his foot and up his leg; fascinated, Butt-Head considered adopting it and wondered what he could possibly name it. Maybe "Cock" would be a good name, but as he set the broom against the wall, the bug jumped ship and ran off to hide in some random crevice, so there was no point in naming it after all. Without Beavis around, it was getting kind of boring and he couldn't really think of anything to do that didn't involve leaving the house alone, so he staggered over to the couch and flopped down in the middle while digging between the couch cushions for the remote; eventually, he would occasionally go out on his own again without Beavis by his side, but it would be a few years before that happened, and it wouldn't be very common, either. There wasn't really much else he could think of aside from wondering if Beavis was still awake and if there would be anything decent on the TV he had taken care to mute lest his mother wake, fiddling with the remote as he flipped through channels; without Beavis or that stupid shark toy, which was for dumb crybabies like Stewart anyway, Butt-Head probably wouldn't be getting any sleep that night. He wasn't a dumb crybaby though, he just had trouble falling asleep if he was alone. No matter how tough and invincible he tried to appear, Butt-Head had never liked being alone and he often feared being far weaker than he could ever bear to reveal. Right now, all alone in a quiet room in the middle of a too-wide couch, he needed to find something to watch as soon as possible before something vulnerable could creep into his consciousness; even if nobody was around to see or hear him, there was no way he could ever let himself be weak, no way. Settling on a rerun of that sci-fi show with the space guys that Beavis liked despite neither boy ever having actually understood about half of whatever the space guys even said, Butt-Head leaned back against the couch cushions and stared ahead blankly, vapid laughter and dramatic sound effects chasing away the ringing silence the living room had been festering in. Though it would have been better if Beavis had been on the couch beside him so they could watch and laugh together, Captain Kirk and that weird Spock guy eased something in the back of Butt-Head's mind that he hadn't even been aware of, everything in his head mellowing out as he relaxed against the couch cushions and laughed stupidly as if he didn't have a care in the world. Stupid. He was stupid. He was stupid and he was totally okay with it. He was stupid and happy. He was stupid and proud. His mother had been right, he was stupid, but he wasn't ashamed of being stupid like he had been earlier when she had been staring at him with a petrifying intensity. He was stupid and he liked being stupid. That precious childhood clarity had been crushed and his world had gone fuzzy, so all someone stupid like him could do was laugh and go along with it just like he had always done before. Nothing would ever really make sense again and all he could do was laugh. He had always been stupid and he had always laughed. All he could do was laugh.

"What am I doing?" Butt-Head stared at the abandoned metal on the kitchen tiles, his quiet laugh slowly getting louder and louder while Beavis snickered along; between laughs, the brunette ran his tongue through his newly spacious mouth and over the smooth surface of his teeth, finally having scrounged up enough money and courage to go to the orthodontist and get those awful braces removed as of last week. Really, what was he doing? What was he doing sitting here in the first place with a cut on his leg? Nothing was simple anymore, was it? Everything was confusing and weird, too many things he couldn't explain making everything he did so much more complicated than it needed to be. He'd always just laughed along with Beavis while doing whatever he felt like doing. He'd never cared about anything but getting something good to eat and hitting on a hot babe or two. Sure, maybe over time, the need to score had somehow become slightly less urgent, slightly, but that wasn't important. Until he finally got a babe of his own, which definitely had not happened yet, he would always flirt with every single chick he saw. Sometimes, he really did feel like he was doing something wrong and that he would never get to score, but he always pushed those worries aside for the sake of whatever sanity he had left. Still, after years of countless rejection, doubt and something a tad bit darker had slowly begun to creep into his mind, feasting on whatever was left of the pure, unadulterated carelessness that had gradually been tainted over the course of his childhood; years of bravely putting himself out there and doing his best to win over hearts in hopes of somebody, anybody, wanting him in return had inadvertently done more harm than good. Yet, despite how weird and confusing everything had become, Butt-Head continued acting like everything was fine and that he didn't care about anything, because that was what he had always done and therefore would always do. There was no reason for everything to be so weird now, not when he had never cared about or had much of an issue with pretty much anything in the past, with the exception of being pestered by Stewart. There was no reason for everything to be so weird when the world had used to be so simple and straightforward. Everything had always been simple and straightforward because Beavis and Butt-Head had always been simple guys. Eat, watch TV, flirt with a hottie, eat again, maybe have a fight, fall asleep, and repeat. Simple as that, nothing more to it. What was in the past would stay in the past, not corrupt the present. There was no reason to not laugh at everything and everyone around him, there was no reason to leave those embarrassing marks on himself that showed just how weak he was, there was no reason to stay awake at night with something suffocating and heavy in his heart, and there was absolutely no reason to question whatever he decided to do with Beavis even if neither of them exactly understood the full implications of what they did. Nothing really was simple anymore, but he sure as heck wasn't going to waste his brain power on the matter. That didn't keep him from wondering sometimes, though. After all, it was his life, and it was hard to ignore all of the confusing things that had piled up in his head after years of ignored questions. Everybody had a breaking point, even someone as easygoing as Beavis had a breaking point as made evident when the guy had decided to just not eat like he was some stupid toddler or something, and that meant Butt-Head wasn't nearly as immune to snapping despite how invincible he liked to make himself seem to everybody around him. When he had snapped, exactly, was hard to say because time was an incoherent blur in his mind, but he knew deep down that he had already snapped a while ago. He had snapped and he had no idea what he was doing about it. He had no idea what he was doing at all, honestly. Really, what was he doing? What was he doing to himself, and why? What was he doing with Beavis, and did it mean anything? What was he doing, and did any of it matter? What was he doing that was so wrong that he couldn't ever have anything nice for long? What was he doing wrong that kept hot chicks from scoring with him? What was so wrong with him that everybody but Beavis had jumped ship and never returned? What was so wrong with him that he could never understand anything? Just what was he doing wrong?

"What am I doing?" Butt-Head raised his eyes from the sewing needle that had belonged to a grandmother he had never met on the kitchen floor as he repeated the question and actually looked at Beavis' eyes for the first time in who knows how long, laughing harder; in response, Beavis blinked- he had zoned out pondering whether hands had bones or not and if feet also had bones- and supplied a very unhelpful shrug with a perfectly timed fart. Nothing was quite as funny as anything had used to be, but they both laughed regardless, shooing away the ringing that had sat heavily in the room for an agonizingly silent second. They had always laughed no matter what, the laughter always resuming even if one of the two did stop laughing for an extended period of time; taking into account that they'd both laughed nearly nonstop for pretty much every day of their entire lives, it was basically a tic that they probably couldn't even control most of the time they were awake. Looking into Beavis' eyes as they laughed at nothing together, Butt-Head wondered if maybe he had been missing something for a long time. It was really easy to just miss everything going on around him, and that often included Beavis despite their near-inseparable physical proximity. Of course, Butt-Head had never understood the people on TV who got all mushy and poetic as if they were looking at a brand new candy bar instead of someone's dumb eyeballs, but that didn't mean he had never noticed the little things about Beavis' eyes. He definitely wasn't one of those annoying saps with way too many fancy words and not enough toilet humor in their vocabulary, but he still noticed little things here and there even if he never knew how to exactly describe them. He had to, honestly. Beavis, the only person who could never hurt him in the ways that actually hurt, was all he had, so how could he not notice? That zoned out glaze when Beavis wasn't paying attention and needed a smack upside the head? Butt-Head noticed. That silly but undeniably happy look Beavis got whenever Butt-Head let him choose what TV show to watch? Butt-Head noticed. That hard glare when Beavis was really mad and about to start a fight or smash something into smithereens? Butt-Head noticed. That unseeing yet seemingly enlightened daze that settled in Beavis' eyes whenever Cornholio wanted to pay a visit? Butt-Head noticed. That too-eager glint Beavis got when something nobody else could hear kept goading him on to destroy something? Butt-Head noticed. That wide-eyed stare when Beavis was itching to burn something and possibly needed to be restrained for his own sake if nobody else's? Butt-Head noticed. That subtle change in Beavis' pupils when something genuinely freaked him out and he couldn't calm down on his own? Butt-Head noticed. That weird sort of darkness in Beavis' eyes when something was wrong? That same kind of wrong that had flooded his own eyes one summer night years ago? The same kind of wrong that nobody ever wanted to talk about? Oh, God, Butt-Head noticed. Together, they had always both been alone. Together, they had always been alone and practically insane.

Stupid, worthless piece of shit. You don't know anything. You can't even answer his question. You will never do anything right. Why do you even try? Just give up already. What are you doing? Stop trying. Give up and die. You don't deserve him. You won't do anything good for him. You never have done anything good for him. All you do is fight with him and make him mad. He needs someone better, not someone like you. Have you ever actually even made him happy? Listen to me. You don't know anything. Stop trying and let him find somebody better. You don't matter to him. He doesn't care about you. He deserves so much better. He needs somebody cool and hot, someone like Todd or Tanqueray. You're not cool or hot at all. Listen to me. Stop ignoring me. What are you doing? I'm right and you're wrong. You need to stop ignoring me and face reality. Stop pretending you matter. Stop pretending he would ever actually like being around you. You know you're the reason he hurts himself. You know you're the reason he has trouble falling asleep at night. You know you make his life worse. You know you always make a mess. You know you always cause problems. You know you always ruin everything. You know you always make his life harder than it should be. You know you've always been a burden on him ever since you were little. You know it's all your fault. You know you shouldn't like him the way you think you do. You know he won't like you the way you want him to. You know there's no point in trying. You know that everything would be better if you went away. Listen to me. Stop trying. Stop. Just stop. Just stop and listen to me for once. Stop ignoring me all the time. Listen to me. I'm right and you know it. Stop doing what you think you want to do. I know what's better. You don't. Everything is always better when you listen to me. You always make everything worse whenever you do what you want to do instead of what you actually need to do. You make everything so much worse when you don't listen to me, you stupid idiot. You make everybody's lives so much worse when you don't listen to me and you ruin everything. You need to listen to me if you want to stop ruining everything. Just because listening hurts doesn't mean that you can't do it. You can handle the pain, you stupid crybaby, so just listen to me. You need to do the right thing and listen to me or else you'll just keep making him miserable for the rest of his life. Not even a selfish bastard like you would want him to be miserable forever, right? For the love of God, just stop trying already! Listen to me and do the right thing. Listen to me, you fucking sack of unlovable dogshit. You can't even answer his question, so listen to me.

"Oh, hey, wait, I almost forgot!" Hoisting himself up with a white-knuckled hand gripping the edge of the kitchen counter, Beavis hastily got to his feet and yanked open one of the drawers while snickering with considerable enthusiasm, blatantly ignoring those stupid and somewhat embarrassing things in his head that nobody else could hear; although he had kind of caved in like a total flower-picking wuss for the past year, he still had years of unmedicated experience in dealing with all of that crap, after all. "Yeah, yeah, I almost forgot, but I remember now! I came in here cuz I was gonna tell you there's this new tattoo place where that video store used to be, you know what I'm sayin'? Oh, yeah, yeah, don't worry, I got money." Rummaging through the cluttered drawer while Butt-Head also stood up, Beavis triumphantly yanked out a wad of bills he had apparently saved up rather than immediately spending them on soda and nude magazines; he must have been especially excited about the whole tattoo thing to have actually remembered so quickly, given how easily he could be distracted. As Butt-Head picked out a wedgie, Beavis quickly limped across the dirty kitchen tiles as he chattered away about how cool it would be once they finally got tattoos since they had never been able to get any in the past; the latter had been limping for the past week ever since the former had pushed him down the concrete stairs in front of the orthodontic building for making a poorly timed joke about how the dentist dude would probably fuse the braces together instead of removing them, and Beavis' slightly twisted ankle had gone untreated since then because it hadn't gotten all bloody or anything cool like that, not to mention that going to the doctor would have been a massive waste of precious time that could have been spent in front of a TV. Limping down the hall and swallowing acid, Beavis stuffed the money into one of the pockets of his shabby gray shorts, which still fit, as he looked around the house for his shoes. Trailing behind, Butt-Head veered off into the bedroom to put on decent shorts that actually fit, tossing the overused pair onto the floor; later that day, those same shorts would be tossed into a raging fire. Once both guys had all of their clothes on- sorry, ladies- they stepped out of the house and blinked in the fervent summer sun like a pair of sewer rats that had emerged onto land. Without hesitation, they continued laughing as they quickly strode with purpose, eager to finally get tattoos this time. Both teens had an oddly strong sense of misguided determination no matter how many times they failed, but only if they were genuinely interested, as was the case with anything relating to tattoos; for instance, they could spend hours outdoors every single day for the entire summer trying to hit on chicks despite the nonexistent success rate, but neither of them would ever spare more than five seconds, if any, to read the instructions on a single assignment they were given during the school year. Walking on, they steadily made their way to the brand new tattoo parlor, which had recently replaced the video store for "adults only" that had gone bankrupt shortly before Butt-Head had turned 18. Seemingly unfazed by their rocky history with luck and always staying a few steps ahead of the past with well-feigned ease, they walked on. Despite the doubt and weariness that had slowly begun to accumulate over the years, they walked on. Living day to day was the only thing they knew how to do, so they walked on.

Everything is alright. Don't you dare think it's not. Everything is alright. You have nothing to complain about. Stop thinking about what you don't have. You don't even know what you don't have. You're too stupid to know what you don't have. You're too stupid to know anything. Why can't you make do with everything you have right now? Be grateful for once, you spoiled, shitty brat. You have everything you could ever want, you know that? You have everything you could ever want, and here you are, whining to me like a crybaby over what you don't have. Do you even know what you don't have? No, you don't. You don't know. You don't know and you'll never know. You don't know so stop it. Stop thinking about what you don't have. Stop thinking about what you don't have when you don't even deserve it. You don't even deserve what you have right now. You don't deserve any of this. You shouldn't be thinking about what you don't have when you already have so much you don't deserve. Stop looking at him, you freak. You're in public and you're going to ruin his chances of getting chicks if you keep looking at him like that. Just because he's talking to you doesn't mean you have to stare at him like that. You're such a lunatic. Why do you always have to follow him around? He must be so sick of you by now. I bet he can't wait until the day you leave or die. He'll never want you the way you want him. You shouldn't even think about wanting more from him like you are right now. You should be thinking about doing him a favor and leaving, not trying to make his life worse by staying. He'll be so much happier without you. Everybody will. The only reason he hasn't left you yet is because he doesn't have anyone else to hang out with right now, but just you wait, the moment he finds somebody else, he'll be gone in an instant. He'll be gone as soon as he can away from you, and you will never get back all of that time you wasted thinking about wanting more. You don't deserve him, so just suck it up and focus on the present, because this is all you're ever going to get. Stop trying to think about what you don't have when you don't even deserve to be by his side at all, you stupid little son of a bitch. Oh, wait, you're not even a son of a bitch. You're just, what, a worthless little piece of shit not even a mother could stand to stay in the same room with, aren't you? Such a goddamn waste of space that you made both your mother and Butt-Head's mother leave. You're such a failure. You're such a fucking, pathetic failure. Just stop thinking about what you don't have as if you already don't have more than enough right now. You don't even deserve everything you already have, so just stop. Just stop it. Don't do that.

"Don't do that, asswipe," Butt-Head chastised in disgust when he looked down from the skydivers floating down in parachutes through the sky over to Beavis, lightly slapping at his shoulder and laughing at the stupidly startled look on his face. "Your throat looks like it's gonna pop out." Flinching slightly rather than screaming at the touch like he usually would, Beavis jerked his head back down, slightly embarrassed at having something so random pointed out by Butt-Head of all people; nobody had ever mentioned anything about his throat before and Beavis himself had personally never even given thought to it until now. All he had done was tilt his head back to squint up at the sky when Butt-Head had pointed out a couple of skydivers up above, not expecting to be criticized about his throat of all things. He wasn't even sure what that was supposed to mean or why he had even gotten sort of embarrassed in the first place when he had never cared about anything remotely resembling criticism for most of his life. Visibly confused, it quickly became apparent that he was absolutely unaware of just how clearly the trachea in his throat strained against his skin whenever he craned his head backward, his esophageal anatomy unintentionally on full display before Butt-Head's beady eyes. Yet, before he could open his mouth to ask what Butt-Head had even meant, Beavis was interrupted by something only he could hear in his head and only continued to laugh instead, deciding not to press the issue despite how ardently his natural curiosity begged for an answer; for a tiny moment, he had feared being a bother, an unusually self-conscious desire that overtly defied the sort of person he was and something he rarely ever acted on. Resisting the urge to look back up at the guys floating down in parachutes overhead, which took a lot of conscious effort because skydivers were super cool, Beavis kept his head level and walked alongside Butt-Head, sweat dripping down their backs as they rounded a corner and sped up slightly since they were now on the same street as the tattoo parlor. Hopping over a couple of broken beer bottles while Beavis occasionally stooped to snatch up cigarette butts for his collection, Butt-Head kicked aside a stray shard of glass and glanced over at him, feeling like he was kind of quiet or something. They were both laughing just like always, but Beavis seemed slightly less talkative today. Though Butt-Head should've been grateful for any form of peace he could get out of the guy who may as well been the Tasmanian Devil incarnate and always at his side like a tick, the lull in chatter was undeniably off-putting. Beavis almost always talked back or argued whenever he was told to do something, yet here he was, laughing at a flattened cigarette butt pinched between his fingers without looking back up at the sky. Maybe Beavis was acting weird because of earlier, when he had walked in on him in the kitchen. Yanking Beavis away from a lump of fresh, fly-covered roadkill- whatever went on in his head would never be able to fully restrain Beavis from being, well, Beavis- Butt-Head couldn't help but feel the tiniest twinge of what could have been shame despite how often he reassured himself that he was in the right, somehow a little too aware that Beavis didn't like seeing those too-neat cuts even if they were mostly shallow. Ugh, this whole thing was so unbelievably stupid. He shouldn't have even had cuts in the first place, not when he had always been so strong before… well, before last summer. Seriously, though, everything was so, so stupid now. Neither he nor Beavis were supposed to ever worry about anything. They were supposed to only laugh at everything and never think too much about stuff that had already happened. Even now, Butt-Head was wasting his time thinking about Beavis walking into the kitchen even though that had happened, like, a million minutes ago! Geez, he needed to get a grip or else he would end up like Mr. Van Driessen, picking flowers and singing about feelings. Wrapping his stubby fingers around Beavis' wrist, the blond still looking back over his shoulder at the mangled lump of roadkill slowly drying out on the side of the road, Butt-Head dragged him over the threshold and into the tattoo parlor after an overweight lady with gray hair pushed the front door open while exiting the building; well, at least Beavis and Butt-Head wouldn't have to choose between pushing or pulling the door open this time since it had already been opened for them.

Hurry up, asshole. You're going too slow. He wants to get inside and you're blocking the way. Stop blocking the way, you worthless cunt. You always take up so much space. You always get in the way. Stop taking up so much space. Stop getting in the way. Just move already. You're going too slow and you're blocking the way. Stop making everything so much harder than it needs to be. Stop ruining everybody's lives. Stop looking at that stupid roadkill. You're so fucking selfish. Who cares what you want? You're never satisfied, not really. You're never satisfied, so don't even bother. Just because you want that roadkill doesn't mean you're going to actually get it. Even if you did get that roadkill, you wouldn't be happy. You'd still be the same whiny brat, nothing ever being good enough for you. You're not even good enough for yourself. You don't deserve to be this healthy, let alone having everything you have right now. How did you even become so entitled, you stupid prick? You will never be good enough for anybody or anything else in the whole entire world, so how can you possibly have standards for anything? You could eat dog food and it would still be too good a meal for you. Seriously, you should be grateful you even get to be by his side at all instead of looking at him over and over again like you want him to give you something. He's given you way more than you will ever deserve in your entire life, and all you've ever given him in return is a miserable life. Seriously, stop looking at him. You're being such a freak. You're blocking the way and staring at him just like the creep all those girls always said you were. Get out of the way. It's been, like, almost two whole seconds and you're still standing here, blocking the way. Stop taking up so much space, you're not going to get the roadkill and you're not going to get whatever the heck it is you want from Butt-Head. No, stop trying to look over his shoulder at the fucking roadkill. You don't deserve it and you're not going to get it. You don't deserve anything so don't expect anything. Suck it up and move on already. All you're doing is taking up space in a world you should never have set foot on. Move.

Reluctantly promising Beavis that he would let him take the corpse home after they got their tattoos in order to convince the guy to actually step inside, Butt-Head released his grip and pulled the door shut behind them once they had both set foot inside of the dim lobby, giggling excitedly. After a really confusing conversation with the bearded guy at the front desk who didn't even bother asking for their ages and kept insisting that Beavis only had enough money for one tattoo, both teens sat down in a couple of crappy plastic chairs to wait for their turn while dingy lights flickered overhead, their fingers brushing against each other's hands for a second before they began discussing what sort of tattoo Butt-Head would get; it kind of sucked that they wouldn't be able to get their first tattoos at the same time, but Beavis had pretty much promised that Butt-Head would get a tattoo and wouldn't back down on the matter, not that the latter would be so generous as to let Beavis be the first to get inked anyway. It would be another two years before either young man would figure out how to give themselves tattoos for free, so here they sat in a dim, clammy waiting room that reeked of chemicals and burned rubber, bored and restless as they waited for an overpriced tattoo. Half-heartedly looking around for any hot chicks, there were only a couple of other dudes in the fairly empty room, but neither of them seemed to mind. All other unconscious worries forgotten in the novel thrill of getting a tattoo, even the constant pressure of trying to score despite getting rejected every single time had faded away as both guys leaned forward and excitedly fidgeted in their seats, Beavis ranting about how cool it would be if Butt-Head got a skull tattoo just like that one guy on TV had while the latter considered his options. Shivering slightly as the sweat that had accumulated during their previous walk outdoors dried up in the cool air conditioning of the lobby, Butt-Head nodded along and just let Beavis talk instead of trying to shut him up like when he got too riled up; sometimes, he kind of liked listening to him when there wasn't much else to do, especially now since the crummy lobby was nearly empty and the only magazines in the room were about fish, but a part of him thought that he still would've listened even if the lobby had been full. Had a woman walked into the lobby, she definitely would've made for some great eye candy and probably caused a couple of boners, but something in both Beavis and Butt-Head had kind of fizzled out lately whenever they tried to interact with the female portion of the population even though they'd been fine with it since middle school; up until the end of fifth grade, all girls had been considered icky and full of cooties. Of course, Beavis and Butt-Head were still horny beyond what was considered socially acceptable, not that they knew or cared about what was "acceptable" and what wasn't, but something had changed whenever they were around women. At first, flirting with chicks who never reciprocated had slowly become more and more of an obligatory chore that they did out of some sort of indescribable pressure rather than simply enjoying the experience like the lackadaisical pastime it had used to be. Then, much more recently, they had both begun to feel kind of jealous whenever they tried to hit on women even though they probably had nothing to be jealous about in the first place. There was nothing to be jealous about. Nothing, except that maybe whatever those stupid kisses could have meant hadn't been so stupid after all. Nothing, except for the fact that maybe those kisses had never been as much of a game as originally presumed. Nothing, except for that multifaceted maybe. Looking down at his blemished forearms and then at that fresh mark just above his knee, which was maddeningly shallow and tiny despite all of the painstaking time he had devoted to barely breaking the skin, Butt-Head decided that he didn't want a tattoo on his butt like he had imagined the last time he had tried to get a tattoo. Nope, not on his butt. Although he knew he would probably regret this decision later, knowing full well that he would never ruin a tattoo just to cut himself and not being able to cut would drive him positively crazy, he didn't care. Consequences could go crying to their mommies. Well, that actually didn't make any sense at all and it hurt his feeble brain too much to think about, but that was beside the point. Consequences sucked. Butt-Head was going to get a tattoo of, like, this super cool skull that was on fire just like the tattoo one of his and Beavis' favorite rock stars on TV had, and it was going to cover the marks on the forearm opposite his dominant hand, his favorite spot to cut when he had nothing better to do; a totally killer tattoo was going to cover up those marks and there was no way he would ever mess that up, not when tattoos were to Butt-Head as that old Queen chick was to the British. For once in his life, he was putting actual, genuine thought into something, but it wasn't for himself. He wasn't doing this because he wanted to hide those little telltale marks that gave away how weak he was. He wasn't doing this because he wanted to show off the tattoo more easily, because come on, it actually would kind of suck to have to pull down his pants every time he went out in public in order to show off a tattoo on his butt whereas he wouldn't have to do a thing if he got a tattoo on his arm. He wasn't even doing this because having a tattoo on his arm might just look cooler since the guys on TV never showed off their butt tattoos if they even had any; he still did want to get a tattoo on his butt, though, just not today. Despite how difficult it was to concentrate on pretty much anything a good 90 percent of the time, Butt-Head was putting enough thought into this decision to rival a seasoned gambler's musings, and he wasn't even really making this decision for himself. Honestly, he was making this decision for Beavis.

Shut up. All of your ideas suck. Shut up already. Seriously, a skull? Even if it was on fire, that would still be so lame. Butt-Head would want something way better than a stupid skull. Everyone has a skull tattoo these days. Skulls aren't actually as cool as you think they are. That's why Todd always had to beat you up and why Butt-Head is probably going to leave you as soon as he can. You were never cool and you always talked way too much even when everyone told you to shut up. Your ideas always suck, so stop talking. He's going to get a tattoo, so it can't be anything lame. You need to come up with better ideas or else he'll be stuck with a lame tattoo forever. If you don't come up with something better, it'll be all your fault when he gets beat up all the time for having a lame tattoo. Why do you keep on talking about that stupid skull? It's not cool and Butt-Head probably hates your idea. Look, he doesn't care. He's not talking anymore, he's just looking at you. He must be so disappointed at how stupid you really are. He must be so disappointed at how horrible all of your ideas are. He's just looking at you. I can't even imagine what he must be thinking right now. You always let him down. You always have and you always will. Stop talking about that stupid skull, it's not cool enough for him and you're only going to make him embarrassed or really mad. You can't get into a fight right now because then you'll probably get him kicked out, and if you get him kicked out, then he won't be able to get the damn tattoo! You talk way too much, you know that? You talk way too much and everyone gets sick of you because of that. Nobody wants to be around you because you're so annoying and never know when to shut up. Stop talking already. You're talking way too much and all of your ideas suck. He's still looking at you. Stop bothering him. All you do is bother him. You're either going to start a fight or make him disappointed, and you don't want either of those things to happen, so shut up. Stop talking about the stupid skull that outdated rock star had and let Butt-head come up with his own ideas. All of your ideas suck and his are always way better. Just because you think it's cool doesn't mean it's actually cool. Let someone who's actually cool talk for once. Let Butt-Head talk. Let him talk so he can come up with a tattoo idea that's actually cool. Your ideas will never be cool. Nobody will ever like your ideas. Nobody will ever care about a stupid skull the way you care about it. Nobody will ever care the way you care. Shut up.

"Uhhh, Buttons and, um, Beevil?" Having learned long ago how to recognize his name no matter how badly pronounced it was, Butt-Head instantly turned his head toward the hoarse voice while Beavis paused his spiel to look down at a cockroach that had skittered between his feet, clearly not registering that they were being called upon and oddly invested in the insect. The person who had called out the terribly mispronounced names was some skinny guy who looked like he had more tattoos than skin, beckoning Beavis and Butt-Head to follow him down the hall that led out of the waiting room. In response, the brunette yanked the clueless blond up by the hack of his shirt collar, frightening the cockroach away with the abrupt movement; although the tattoo dude wasn't very familiar with these two young men, the town was small and their faces aligned with the butchered names fairly well enough to be somewhat recognizable. Catching sight of the guy covered in tattoos, Beavis immediately forgot about the cockroach he had been trying to practice that "telephony" thing on, which was a super cool power a girl had in a movie he saw a few nights ago; thrilled by the sight of the tattoos, Beavis didn't even have time to be disappointed that he never got a chance to make the cockroach float in the air or spontaneously burst into flames. As if a switch had been flipped in his head, he eagerly squirmed out of Butt-Head's hold and quickly limped down the hall even though he wouldn't be getting his own tattoo today, just watching. Within a matter of minutes, Butt-Head had settled into the main chair in the center of one of the back rooms while Beavis gaped up at all of the sample illustrations hung up on the walls, the tattoo artist rummaging through his work table. After Beavis had nearly tripped over the trash can in the corner with a loud clatter and unceremoniously sat down in one of the cheap plastic chairs off to the side, the artist began to stencil Butt-Head's forearm based on the questionable but serviceable description he was given while looking repeatedly looking over his shoulder at the blond idiot every few seconds, reasonably wary. Then, out came the needle. Instinctively tensing up, Butt-Head's eyes widened and his laugh faltered at the sight of the tool. Ever since he had been a baby, he had hated needles and had to be restrained by at least two nurses on the occasions he couldn't sneak out of a vaccine appointment. Unlike what he did to himself, this sharp metal was held in the hands of a stranger. At least when he dragged cold metal across his own skin, he was the one in control, but this? The needle in another man's hands? This was something he had no power over, something that subjected his body to hands that weren't his own. This was something that made him feel unbearably helpless. Even with Beavis' laughter floating in the air, Butt-Head flinched when the tip of the needle brushed against his skin. Yet, he didn't fight back this time. He had no control over this needle, not like the one that he had left on the kitchen floor back home, but he let it feast on his flesh regardless of those years he had allowed for unspoken fears to fester in his veins. Just how did he sit still through the entire procedure, one may ask? Well, frankly, it was because of those sticky fingers. From the very moment that the needle had sunk into his blemished skin, those familiar fingers had wordlessly wrapped around his hand. This time, he hadn't been alone.

You worthless, nasty piece of shit, just shut the everloving fuck up and listen t-

"Whoa, check it out!" Blinking against the blinding sunlight after being cooped up in a dark room for who knows how long, Beavis jabbed his finger into Butt-Head's sore arm as they stepped over the threshold and onto the pavement below, blatantly not listening to the especially nonsensical bullshit in his head; Beavis would always be Beavis and nobody could take that from him, not even himself. "You're, like, a rock star now, or something! Heh heh, like, what's-his-name, you know, that one guy!" Well, that sure was a helpful description. Yet, it was slightly disconcerting that Butt-Head genuinely understood Beavis well enough to understand what "rock star" he had been talking about despite the lack of detail. Suppressing a pained grunt so he wouldn't look like a wuss as if he just hadn't been visibly terrified in front of a tattoo artist for the past half hour, Butt-Head jerked his arm away from those prying fingers as Beavis kept trying to peek at the tattoo even though he'd already gotten a solid two minutes to study it right before leaving the tattoo parlor; to say that the blond was fascinated would be an understatement. Although the skinny tattoo dude had wrapped this weird plastic thing all over Butt-Head's arm, the tattoo was still visible, and it looked pretty cool; Butt-Head secretly thought that his tattoo was actually a little bit cooler than the tattoo that the guy on TV had, but he didn't want to say that out loud or else all of the ladies would immediately swoon over him, and his arm hurt a little too much for him to focus on flirting with anybody at the moment. Occasionally nudging Beavis away whenever their fingers strayed too closely together to be good for their public reputations as they walked over dried up worm carcasses on the sidewalk, Butt-Head relaxed as the chill of the tattoo shop's air conditioning caught in the goosebumps on his skin quickly melted away underneath the sun's pervasive glare, the stifling heat leaving both young men drenched in sweat within a matter of minutes. Heat distorting the air and seeping into the worn soles of their shoes as a dust devil rose up not far ahead, they trod through their familiar town together. Making crappy jokes that didn't make sense and laughing anyway, they passed by countless windows obscured by thick metal bars, sagging chain link fences intertwined with dry weeds, and the abundant cacti that had taken over an abandoned yard which had once belonged to a long-forgotten old lady who had failed to nurture gardenias in this scathing hellscape years ago. As the sun beat down on the surviving animals below like the fists of gods on their worshippers, the plastic on Butt-Head's arm unraveled as sweat loosened its bond and seared into the freshly punctured flesh. With endurance honed by years of gritted teeth and choked down cries, even if a forearm might have burned a tad too harshly and an ankle might have throbbed too deeply for comfort, those two feral animals bearing the surviving souls of children scampered down an uncaring sidewalk that'd been cracked for their whole lives together.

"Mine."

Shorts.

"You took what was mine."

Kerosene.

"You took what was mine and you never gave it back."

Matches.

"You took what was mine and you never even stopped to ask."

Fire.

Not quite sure whether he had ever actually whispered those words out loud but not caring as long as he didn't accidentally wake the sleeping beast a few rooms down the hall, he flushed down the mess that had been dragged up his throat by sheer adrenaline and crept back into the living room perfectly dry-eyed, settling back in front of the TV all alone without anything soft to hold but almost perfectly fine. Almost. Anger would run through his veins with a burning passion for years on end, but he was fine with that. Anger and violence would chase away any vestige of weakness threatening to shake the carefully crafted illusions he had so heartily relied upon for years long past and would rely upon for years yet to come. As long as he would never have to grieve over what he had lost, he would be fine enough. What he had lost wasn't important, it was what he would do that mattered. As long as he could stay strong and one day break free of the ones to whom he still bowed down, he would be fine. He was strong and could deal with anything that came his way, even if that meant giving up soft for hard, play for work, love for pain… anything, he could deal with anything, even if that meant giving up everything. It wasn't like he had much to lose anyway. He never did have much to lose, so what damage could the anger he deemed strength possibly do? Well, that was what he would tell himself for many years, anyway. Butt-Head never had lost anything. Rather, somebody had tried to take something from him. That wasn't the same as just losing something like how a first grader would lose a sweater on the playground. No, that was like having something forcefully ripped out of the fiber of his being. He had not lost anything, but that wouldn't fit his narrative, so there was no point in thinking of it. Setting those unreasonable doubts aside, all he would have to do was hide from the beasts that ran this rigged joke of the game he was supposed to accept as his life until the day they finally left. After all, he was still a beggar, not a chooser. He was just a worshipper, not a god. Well, not yet, anyway. Not yet.

Like a roaring sun rising up and looming over a once-silent graveyard, a raging fire blossomed in the barren backward like a searing flower cloaked in only the most lethal of not-so-delicate petals, mercilessly devouring anything and everything it dared touch. Faded red fabric was torn apart nearly instantaneously as Butt-Head tossed the old shorts into flames that greedily licked away at the offering, leaving behind nothing but ash and memories that would be wholly rotted away by the time the wind came. Smoke billowed out into the sky as Beavis dumped out the contents of the trash can he had dragged out from the kitchen, feeding the rising flames as crumpled wrappers and myriads of crumbs piled onto the ground. Stifling heat choked two pairs of lungs, all breathable air consumed by the inferno in the center of the backyard. Of course, burning a stupid pair of shorts wouldn't actually fix anything; burning was more of a practicality than anything else, especially since the county never bothered enforcing burn bans and nobody in town cared enough to run a homeowners' association, and there were always more places on his body to cut if he really wanted to see that look he hated on Beavis' face. Butt-Head was stupid, but he wasn't stupid. Not even an idiot like him expected that getting rid of old clothes would magically make everything better overnight. He could wear all the new clothes he wanted, but that would never be able to change a single thing in the past and he knew it. That was why he never bothered with the past. It was pointless to dwell on and he always had way better things to do. Why the past year had been kind of rough didn't matter, not as long as he made sure to quit dragging his feet and keep moving forward. He wasn't didn't even know why he almost always wore those stupid red shorts whenever he wanted to tear up his skin, especially since he had grown them out such a long time ago. Sometimes, if he was left alone in the house too long while Beavis was away working a shift at Maxi-Mart, Butt-Head would look at those stupid shorts and think about how he had worn them during that game of Truth Or Dare in 1993 when he had dared Beavis to kiss him. He would think about how maybe, just maybe, he hadn't deserved to be what he was pretty sure was Beavis' first kiss; believe it or not, beneath all of that feigned confidence and self-assurance was a kid who lived off of empty self-made claims he never fully believed because he had never been validated by anybody else a single day in his life. He would think about how maybe he hadn't deserved any of the kisses after that first one. How maybe Beavis might not have ever even understood what any of those kisses could have meant, because Butt-Head himself sure didn't. How maybe those kisses had taken something from Beavis like how faceless strangers had taken something from the blond as well as Butt-Head himself a few too many times in the past. How maybe those kisses would never mean anything more than a cheap thrill that dried quickly. How maybe kisses and blood, love and pain, always bled together into the same godforsaken abomination that had reigned over this house for years and would never mean anything more than that. How there were always so many maybes but never a single, definite answer. Heck, he didn't even know why he thought about kissing whenever he looked at those shorts, but left alone with those thoughts in his head and that red fabric on his skin, he had always ended up with something sharp in hand as of last year. As pointless as this all was and never quite understanding why Beavis always had such a hard-on for a dumb fire of all things, Butt-Head had sacrificed a few minutes of his life that could have been spent indoors to throw those shorts into violent flames that never seemed satisfied while the sun seemed hellbent on burning a hole into the atmosphere. Obviously, nothing would be fixed, but getting rid of those shorts had almost felt like he had stopped running away for just a moment. Just a moment.

Light flickering across his face as he sat alone in the living room all night long, he laughed, and laughed, and laughed. He laughed until the break of dawn.

Stepping around a massive anthill that Beavis hadn't destroyed yet, Butt-Head sidled up to the other teen and they stood together in front of the fire, sweat dripping down their backs and the stink of body odor sitting in stagnant clouds around their bodies. Time paused for a moment as those stupid shorts quickly withered into ash as if they'd never existed, destroying nothing of any tangible value but still seeming to lift an unseen burden. What exactly Butt-Head had been running away from, he wasn't sure, but he knew it had something to do with whatever had been buried beneath those years he had spent living with forced anger. Something had been there all along that he had never been able to get rid of, and unlike everything physical thing he had tried to keep, this hidden thing had never broken. Every single time he had tried to keep something for himself, it had always ended up broken, but this thing within him that he had never been able to escape seemed indestructible. This thing wasn't a walkman or a shark toy. This thing couldn't be scraped out of his body. This thing was something he could feel but never touch. This thing had been eclipsed by anger and violence for most if not all of his life, but unlike the things inside of the two women that had once walked through this house, it had yet to be tainted. This thing was the strength that he had mistaken for weakness all his life. No matter what happened, this strength inside of him never broke. That was the beautiful horror of it all. Everything always broke. Everything but this. Why this strength in him as well as Beavis had never broken, this strength that was almost like love, but not quite, would forever be a mystery indecipherable in the face of his and Beavis' utter stupidity and later forgotten entirely in cheap alcohol as the years dragged on. He and Beavis both shared that same indestructible strength that would outlive any television set they ever bought, and it might very well have been one of the reasons they had been nearly inseparable from birth, not that they would ever be aware of any of this; forever oblivious and slow in the head, all they would ever know is that they felt safest with each other, but that was enough for them anyway. Still, this strength must have been something special, for it had transcended memories and still remained in the present, never falling behind and always invincible. Memories had always melted away to reveal cold and cruel things, and he had been living in a web of old lies for far too long. Reality, on the other hand, rarely ever did lie. Unlike memories, reality never was quite as cold and cruel as it could have been, because in the present, Butt-Head was never alone. In memories, he was alone, but in the present, Beavis was always there. Call him insane, but Butt-Head could have sworn that disentangling himself from the past and stepping into the present like he had done just a few minutes ago by tossing those shitty shorts into Beavis' stupid fire had almost felt like walking into that hot shower after having the water cut off for a solid month last January. Everything should have been pointless, but that strength that Beavis and Butt-Head unconsciously held in both of their hearts had instilled a vague but undeniably present sense of sheer purpose into their very souls. Everything should have been broken by now, but that strength had not. Even now, his distant eyes reflecting the blazing fire before him destroying everything it touched without an inkling of mercy, that surviving shred of strength otherwise known as pure, untainted hope continued to burn on somewhere deep in his heart, somewhere so deep that it had miraculously remained untouched by anger and grief even after all of these years. Of course. Hope. Of course it had to be hope.

He laughed until the break of dawn.

Soft curls brushed against his cheek as he sat on the couch beside Beavis, the stark smell of smoke ingrained into their clothes and rubbing off on the couch. The plastic that had been wrapped around Butt-Head's tattoo had been thrown into the fire long ago after it had become undone by sweat, the tattoo itself itchy but no longer as painful as it had felt earlier. Flipping through channels until he found some semi-decent music video on MTV while Beavis prattled on about one of his conspiracy theories attributing the decline of the local frog population to alien abductions as if playing frog baseball had never had consequences, Butt-Head leaned back against the cushions, sitting a lot closer to the middle of the couch than the armrest; likewise, Beavis had also edged toward the middle, a seating arrangement they had both gradually gotten used to over the course of the past year. Just a few years ago, Butt-Head wouldn't have hesitated to shove Beavis off of the couch for scooting an inch too close for his liking, but he didn't mind nearly as much now. He had tried to convince himself that it was because he saw Beavis less often due to working at different places and was making up for lost time or something like that, but that wasn't exactly the whole story. The older he grew, the more difficult it became for Butt-Head to be separated from Beavis, and it wasn't just because they had different jobs; it was because he had tripped and fallen while trying to outrun the past. Years ago, Butt-Head had sat in the center of this same couch in a soundless room, all alone with nothing soft to hold. He had assumed that soft things just weren't for self-proclaimed "hard" people like himself; after all, he did have a tendency to break things nearly as often as Beavis did. Now, though, the room wasn't quiet, and not just because the volume on the TV had been turned up rather than muted. The room was full of laughter, something Butt-Head had been tempted to take for granted countless times but never able to fully do so, not after that night spent in a house dead silent with nobody by his side and hardness in his heart; now, in front of a crappy TV playing a cheesy music video while Beavis' stupid greasy hair got all up in his face, the temptation to grab onto something soft and never let go was strong. Gratitude was never acknowledged out loud, but it never went unnoticed, either; both Butt-Head and Beavis always took what they could get and made do with it all, quick to complain but slow to ask for more. Nothing would be fixed overnight, if at all, but they could deal with anything that came their way. As long as they stayed together, they could deal with anything almost perfectly fine. Yes, that dreadful almost would never go away, but it would always be better than ringing silence. Perfection was an illusion that always crumbled beneath the weight of reality, and Butt-Head had learned long ago that illusions would never be tangible enough to hold onto. He and Beavis would never have perfect lives even when they had tried so hard to convince themselves that they did, but that was almost perfectly fine. They didn't need to desperately hold onto illusions anymore. All they needed to do was hold onto each other like their lives depended on it. Short, sweet simplicity was forever gone and everything had risen up in a confusing mess of bloody memories that would never make sense no matter how hard they thought about it, not that they ever did think about anything for more than a few seconds at a time, but they still laughed in front of the TV all night long.

Hand in hand, they both laughed together until the break of dawn.