This story contains topics involving eating disordered behavior, self-inflicted cutting, and vague references to past sexual abuse; exact methods are omitted because I heavily discourage these practices.

June 3, 1996

"Feed me, Butt-Head, feed me!"

"Shut up, butt-wipe, we're almost there," Butt-Head sighed, swiping at his forehead; the sun was low, but the heat lingered with a stubborn intensity. They crossed the parking lot, the heat from the pavement seeping into their shoes. He squinted as a bead of sweat trickled into his eye, smacking Beavis upside the head when the latter stopped to pry a wad of gum off of the gas station's promo poster for some sausage thingy. Now was not the time for eating pre-chewed gum. Shoving him aside, Butt-Head yanked on the grimy door handles, which didn't budge. Beavis joined, pulling with all his scrawny might. For a good thirty seconds, they pulled until some cool biker dude with tattoos all over his arms shoved them aside and pushed the fingerprint-covered doors open, the smells of bleach and fried food wafting out. Butt-Head trudged in, Beavis picking a booger off of his shirt and sticking it onto the handle as he followed.

A blur of vaguely familiar faces and bright colors later, Beavis and Butt-Head skittered out of the building with nachos and those slurpee thingies with the bear on them. Less than 10 seconds out of the gas station, sweat already began beading on their necks. Seating themselves on the curb in front of the big ice box thingy, they started to take bites between nudges and giggles like a couple of gargoyle soulmates. A few bites in, Beavis ditched his post and ran off to catch some loose dog near the dumpsters across the parking lot, a couple of flies settling onto his ditched food. Butt-Head watched on as he finished his food, wiping cheese on his arm and snatching up Beavis' abandoned chips. It'd been one of those no-breakfast and cracker lunch days, though they were becoming few and far between with the steady income from Burger World. Anyway, he wasn't one to be picky about whether his nachos were flavored with Beavis BoogersTM today. Besides, Beavis was too busy running from a mangy dog to protest. Geez, what did that idiot even want with that dog anyway? Scraping cheese off of the edge of the box, Butt-Head watched as a beefy pickup accelerated toward the exit by the dumpsters, scaring off the dog and leaving Beavis standing in the lingering exhaust. Whatever dubious intentions he had with the dog were now gone, so he made his way to his earlier perch on the curb and proceeded to blame Butt-Head for eating his food, who rolled his eyes in response.

"Uhh, it was a bird," Butt-Head said with a casual shrug. "It, like, flew down and ate it. So yeah. Oh, and it flew away. Yeah." Naturally, Beavis was convinced. Geez, Butt-Head sure was smooth with words. Within a matter of seconds, his own dinner long forgotten, Beavis was already distracted and laughing at some miserable guy nearby who spilled all of his M&Ms while fishing in his pocket for his car keys. The M&M guy jerked his shoulders and gaped at the pavement for a couple seconds, the stages of grief running through his mind, until he looked up at some obnoxious teen approaching him and asking if the chocolate had nuts. This guy had spent three hours stuck in traffic, still had 500 miles until his hotel, and he just dropped the only edible thing he's bought since breakfast, so he was about ready to strangle the giggling blond. Noticing the look in the guy's eyes after a lifetime of similar run-ins, Butt-Head sighed and stood up, resigned to trailing after the hyper blond with a knack for chaos; at this rate, he wouldn't be surprised if Beavis had used mind control or something to make the guy spill his food. Even on the days Beavis couldn't focus enough to actually eat a full meal, his energy never waned and they never had a dull day. Both boys were still on the thin side- well, Butt-Head had been getting a little chubby- but their eyes were full of life, nonetheless.

After getting yelled at by the M&M dweeb and nearly getting hit by cars twice, Beavis and Butt-Head dilly-dallied onto the sidewalk, the heat from the pavement and concrete seeping into the soles of their shoes. Butt-Head laughed, a subtle smile on his face, as he walked beside Beavis, who was ranting about how much he wanted to see RoboCop next year, his eyes bugged out and distant. They'd seen a trailer for the upcoming movie on TV last night, and Beavis was stoked, to say the least. Food and money may not have been as plentiful as the laughter in their home today, but their lives were slowly getting a lot better than they could have imagined, even though any signs of a parent returning were long gone. Beavis went on and on, his spiel about RoboCop somehow going off on a tangent about seeing Stewart's mom jogging in a tight tracksuit yesterday, then something about wanting to go back and take home the roadkill they saw on the way to the gas station earlier. Groaning, Butt-Head told Beavis to shut up, the incessant stream of jumbled words irritating and hard to process. Like clockwork, Beavis trailed off with a muttered apology, the earnest smile slipping into a neutral expression. His mind drifted to a memory of being told he always got in the way; he can't remember who the man was, his mom had too many boyfriends to keep track of, but he did remember that he had felt too big and clumsy, desperately wanting to disappear at the time. Beavis' memory might have sucked in general, but sometimes, there were some things that just stuck in his mind, like how he talks too much, always makes a mess, and takes up too much space. Sometimes he just got insignificant earworms or phrases stuck in his head, and sometimes he got thorns that quietly pricked into him. Sometimes he imagined what it would be like if he hadn't said that or broken this, if he could be quiet and… small. Sometimes he wondered if he would've been loved instead of hurt by the adults in his life, if his life could've been better if he had been out of the way and silent. Sometimes he wondered why he even bothered to wonder when he could just watch TV to take his mind off of it instead. Whatever, none of it mattered, and he couldn't be paid to say anything about any of it anyway; it was just embarrassing and wimpy, nothing more than that. Thorns never did anything, they just sat there and hurt, so it wasn't worth thinking about. Yet, as empty as his head seemed, he just couldn't resist thinking about them.

Beavis stooped to pick up a crumpled soda can and straightened up to throw it at a dusty sedan parked in some loser's chalked-covered driveway, missing by a long shot and earning Butt-Head's laugh as they resumed meandering. They walked side by side, squinting against the setting sun, as an errant breeze pushed back stray hairs from their faces. Beavis tried to keep quiet for Butt-Head's sake, knowing the latter occasionally worried the former would spill their secret and taint their supposed "cool guy" reputations in the unmistakably straight town, but he still giggled at odd intervals as Butt-Head kept his hands shoved into his pockets to avoid having the blond's sticky fingers reach for his in public. Beavis didn't want to be loved by anyone, he actually wished he was uglier and more unappealing so nobody would ever look his way, but Butt-Head was the exception and they both knew it. Butt-Head bumped his shoulder into Beavis' to steer him away from a chunk of dried dog poop, and they walked on, sweat trickling down their backs. Life wasn't easy, but it was better. They didn't have much, but they had enough.

They didn't have much to lose.

Hardly a month later, Butt-Head already missed the genuine smile Beavis had that day.