Chapter Index

1. Butters 2. Kenny 3. Butters 4. Kenny 5. Butters 6. Kenny 7. Butters 8. Kenny

-SalemNeko-

I know that what I spend my evenings doing is a little strange to most.

Okay, it's pretty fucked up; I'm not going to lie. What adult spends their nights running around town in a mask and cape—aside from the ones in a mental institution, I mean. Nobody knows—or maybe nobody cares—that Mysterion is still hanging around keeping the streets safe for the general public. If I'm going to live with this fucked up curse, might as well put it to good use, right? At least now I've got a few connections at the police station here, and the one in Denver, too. It definitely makes coordinating sting operations easier, though with the shitty police force we've got here coordination doesn't help that much.

Sometimes I think that I should've gone to school to be a police officer—but that would involve school, and god knows I never want to go back there. At least this way I'm not constricted by any one set of rules—plus I can fulfill my weird ass need to take care of the people around me.

"Good evening, Mysterion."

"Haven't we gotten past the stage of formality, Henrietta?" I grinned at her begrudging expression as she let me into the house. Henrietta was still living with her mother, who I guess had gotten divorced sometime shortly after the events involving her brother Bradley and myself. Her mom worked late hours, making these late-night meetings much easier to plan since I'd still kept my identity a secret from her all this time. I don't think her mother would take to kindly to a guy Henrietta technically didn't know hanging out at her house late at night.

I strutted into her house with an easy familiarity, mostly because it annoyed her to no end when I did so, and she slammed the door shut behind me. I let myself into her bedroom, making myself comfortable at her desk while I waited for her to relay what she'd found to me.

"We might have, if you'd take off your mask for me," She responded. Henrietta had certainly changed a lot since we were children; she was still Goth in every sense of the term, but she had toned down the harshness of her look considerably. Her long, black hair flowed freely down her back, shimmering in the candlelight, and her eyes, rimmed in black eyeliner, gazed seductively into mine as she leaned over the chair I'd settled into.

I leaned a little closer, feeling bolder this evening than most. I wondered what she would do if she knew that it was Kenny McCormick, resident poor boy and supposed man-whore that she was flirting with. Of course, I didn't plan on revealing myself to her any time soon, and told her just that, "You know I can't do that."

She sighed, reaching past me, and giving me a lovely view of her cleavage, as she snatched a folder off the desk behind me, "Of course not." She stepped back; sweeping the hair that had fallen into her face over her shoulder and sitting cross-legged on the bed across from me.

"So what have you got for me?" I asked, watching her closely as she flipped through the folder.

"Right" She began distractedly, "So about that ring this friend of yours has..." Her eyes met mine over the top of the papers she was holding, and I felt a surge of awareness run through me. "Is there any way I can take a look at it? I'd like to compare the engravings to a couple of ancient carvings I've come across."

I knew she would ask to see it eventually, and honestly, I was surprised she hadn't done so sooner. Henrietta was incredibly considerate of my privacy in all of this; more so than anyone would have expected her to be, judging from her appearance. She was just as hungry for the knowledge of what was going on as I was, so I knew it must have been hard for her to accept me without actually knowing the whole truth. I was incredibly grateful for her help and friendship throughout this.

But bringing him into my drama was not something I was looking forward to doing, even if it meant getting the answers that I had been searching for. If there was some way, any way that I could keep Butters out of this, I was going to do it. Bringing Henrietta into this was already putting more people at risk than I would have liked, and I wasn't going to do that to the kid. No way in Hell.

He looked so crushed when I'd told him so, though. Big blue eyes so filled with shock and hurt—I couldn't even stay long enough to give him a reasonable explanation.

It would be better this way, for both of us.

"Well, what if I told you we weren't exactly on speaking terms?" She wouldn't be happy with my response, but at least it would keep everyone safe.

Henrietta made a pinched face. "Damn it. How am I supposed to help you if you won't cooperate with me? You understand that there's nothing I can do without that ring, right?" She huffed, tossing the folder on the bed beside her and crossing her arms. She always managed to make me feel like a jerk for trying to protect the people in my life.

"I get it, hun. Just give me some time, and I'll get it for you." There had to be some way to work this out; get a picture, somehow. Her expression told me she wasn't going to budge on the issue and I knew I had no other choice.

She watched me for a moment, and I adjusted my hood to keep the shadows covering my face. After all the time that we'd been working with one another I was sure that one day I would show up and she would just know that it was me under the mask. It hadn't happened yet, but she was bound to find out sooner or later.

"Good. Here—" She handed me the folder she had previously tossed to the side. "I've been collecting as much as I can find on the place you described to me yesterday, and I believe you were actually in Yemen—the Roba El Khaliyeh, to be exact. It's the only place that seems to accurately match the description you gave me."

"I thought as much. What's so special about this place though? Special enough to send me and—my friend," I'd almost slipped up and told her Butters' name, "to Yemen?" I opened the folder, looking through the maps and photos and information it contained. There were ancient ruins and cave drawings, some of which looked similar to the ones Butters and I had encountered, and others that were completely different.

"Well," Henrietta began excitedly, more excited than I'd ever seen her, actually, "It's the place that Abdul Alhazred, the writer of the Necronomicon once lived. And the actual deserts there are said to be inhabited by evil spirits and monsters of death." That caught my attention.

"Monsters of death?" I repeated, and Henrietta nodded and snatched the folder out of my hands. She shuffled through the papers quickly and passed back a photograph of an archaeological site. Decorative coffins were lining the walls of a narrow cavern, and one of the coffins' lids had been shoved off, exposing the rotting body of a scaly creature draped in gold. My stomach churned at the sight and I closed my eyes against the feeling. "I—I've seen this creature before. In the other dimension." I told her. "Except it was less... dead."

"Very eloquently put," She replied sarcastically. "I wonder what they could have wanted with you."

"Who knows?"

But I knew exactly what they wanted; they'd wanted to kill me. It was the why that I was after. It had always been the why.

"Are you sure there's nothing you're not telling me?" Henrietta asked after several seconds of silence.

"Yes, dammit, I'm sure." I responded tersely. "Why would I possibly keep something from you?"

"To protect this friend of yours who went into the Roba El Khaliyeh with you." She narrowed her eyes at me. "You might think you can hide from me behind that mask, but I see the real you underneath all this mess." She gestured at my getup, and I instantly felt like an idiot in her presence. "There is absolutely no reason that you should keep him out of this, Mysterion. He's become just as important in all of this as you or I."

I knew she was right. Henrietta was always right, even when she was being a bitch about things, which was often enough to get on my nerves. Butters is a part of this.

But underneath the pleasant way my body reacted when he was close, something about him was distinctly unsettling about his sudden presence in South Park.

I woke up the next morning to the obnoxious blaring of my alarm clock going off at six-thirty in the fucking morning. Damn, I hated working the morning shift at the Photo Dojo.

Like anyone actually took pictures anymore. Everything was digital: digital cameras, digital watches, digital concerts and girlfriends. I found the entire thing disgusting, personally. Not that anyone would ever ask me. Sometimes I wondered what society would do without their precious electronics. Would everyone run around without a clue as to what they were doing, like decapitated chickens? People were way too fucking dependent on that shit; and for what—a couple of minutes of mindless entertainment playing some crappy game involving birds and pigs? Keeping score on some fantasy football league? Why not go outside and throw a fucking football around, Jesus Christ.

Not that I don't enjoy a good video game from time to time—I am human, after all. I just don't let that shit rule my life. I had better ways to spend my time, mainly pot and women.

Both of which had been conspicuously absent from my daily routine lately, I'd noticed.

Probably had something to do with the money I'd been trying to save for Karen to attend community college. No matter what anyone tries to tell you—women—even one night stands—will cost you a shit-ton of money. Like, no joke. I'd already cut back as much as I could on the weed, but it was the fucking women that were draining my cash flow. In an attempt to bring in a little more money I'd told my boss that I would pick up any extra hours at the Photo Dojo he'd give me.

Of course he'd jumped at the chance to take his wife and kids on the week-long vacation they'd been putting off, leaving me in charge of the entire fucking building. Job security was nice in this economy though, yeah? So I didn't argue when I found out I'd have to cover his early morning routine and open the shop up at seven in the morning for the entire week.

Somehow I managed to drag myself out of bed and make it to the shop that morning. Not that it mattered, since the place was practically dead until the afternoon hours, anyway. I hung around doing mindless busy work until Stan came waltzing into the store, bottle of wine in his hand and the smell of alcohol already on his breath.

"You can't do that here, dude." I warned him. The last thing I needed right now was for someone to come into the store and bust me for letting a drunken friend hang around.

"Kenny, come on," He set the bottle down on the counter in front of me, and I immediately snatched it away, taking a swig before putting it under the counter out of his reach. "Hey!" He reached for the bottle anyway, pouting at me when I shook my head at him. "I'm not drunk, asshole. I just got up like an hour ago."

"And that's supposed to make me feel better?" I wondered where Kyle was. If he was at home there was no way he'd have let Stan out of their house looking like he was now. Stan was telling the truth; he wasn't drunk, only a little buzzed. But the bags under his eyes and the wrinkled state of his clothing told me that he hadn't gotten much sleep last night.

"Dude." Stan leaned closer as if he was about to tell me something important, and I wrinkled my nose at the smell. Drinking was something I'd pretty much sworn off of after high school; after taking so much crap from everyone in my life at my constant state of inebriation, I'd managed to drag myself out the hole I'd dug for myself and get my shit mostly together. "Where did you and Butters take off to after you left the apartment the other night? Kyle started being a dick as soon as you left."

Well that answered the mystery of whether or not Stan and Kyle remembered anything from that night. Not that I'd expected any differently, but still; it had been a constant thought in the back of my mind.

"Nowhere, we were just hanging out." Stan looked unconvinced, but didn't question it any further. It's not like he would have believed me if I told him the truth, anyway. He looked like he'd come here for a reason, so I prompted him, "What happened with Kyle?"

Stan laughed at my tone. "No need to get all fatherly on me, dude. He's just being a dick about Wendy again. You know how he gets."

"He only wants what's best for you, Stan. And this," I gestured to the space around us, "is not going to get you anywhere."

"Uh, Kenny, I believe you're the one working in this crappy little shop, not me." He laughed, as if he had just come up with the funniest thing on the planet. Maybe he was a little more drunk than I'd originally judged. With Stan it was hard to tell sometimes.

"You know what I mean," I snapped. I wasn't in the best mood to put up with Stan's drama at the moment, especially since it was really his decision to come back here and all. It seemed like everyone was making all the wrong decisions. Didn't they see that there was a life outside of South Park?

Didn't they see that, more than anything, I just wanted out?

The following night was a little warmer than usual, and I was glad for the fact as I crouched low in the shadows on top of the City Wok building. The breeze was still hanging in the air, though, and I frowned as it pulled at the ends of my cape. Goddammit, if I wasn't so vain I would have gotten rid of the damn cape already, but it made Mysterion look like a bad ass, so I put up with it.

The City Wok building was my favorite place to visit when the evening was slow. The roof had one of the best views of the entirety of South Park's streets and alleyways from its location in the heart of the town.

But damn it, if there was one thing that never failed to get on my nerves about these nights, it was the silence. It was so overwhelming—having nothing to listen to but your own thoughts. Why else do you think I would surround myself with so many idiot friends? I care about them, but Jesus Christ, sometimes they could be fucking retarded. They were good at keeping the silence at bay, at the very least.

I couldn't stop thinking about what Henrietta had told me, about the nameless city, about Butters and the ring, about me. Henrietta had gone on to say that she believed the ring was a conduit for the Old Ones to communicate with our world, and that for now I should be careful not to touch the ring directly. Which made sense, considering my unusual ties to the cult of Cthulhu.

I was just beginning to think about turning in for the night when I had the distinct feeling that I was being watched. I froze, listening on the wind for any sort of movement nearby.

A bang went off in the distance; one that I can only describe as an almost metallic clang. And then the silence returned. With the stealth that I had perfected over more than ten years of public service as Mysterion, I stuck to the shadows of the building and crept to the opposite side. As I grew closer to where the noise had originated, whispering from below drifted to my ears.

"You'll get the rest when the job is finished." A gravelly voice snarled. I could only make out the figures of two men in the dim light that penetrated the alley below. The taller of the two, the one who'd just spoken, tossed over a small bag, keeping his gun trained on the other man steadily.

"You just tell your boss that I want him to deliver the money personally next time. I don't want any more of this middle man shit, you hear me?" The first man let out a gruff acknowledgment and the second continued, "Two weeks. Tell him two weeks from today."

Two weeks. I had two weeks to figure out just what the hell was happening behind the scenes in South Park and take down whatever shady businesses were fucking with my town. It was shit like this that would never get taken care of if it weren't for Mysterion, mainly because the citizens' first response to any sort of crisis was to take shelter in the community center.

"Who's there?" One of the men shouted, spinning on his heel and pointing his weapon at a third figure. The man who'd received his payment grabbed the bag and took off in the opposite direction, leaving just the man with the gun and the slight figure standing on the sidewalk.

"Damn it, Butters!" I cursed under my breath when I realized just who it was. Of course he wouldn't listen to a word I'd say. I hadn't told him explicitly to stay out of trouble, but I'd told him to stay away from me, and that should have been enough.

I was sure I'd had the element of surprise from my position hidden in the shadows—but before I'd had a chance to even think about moving, Butters eyes snapped to mine. He stood frozen at the sight of a gun pointed at him, and I leapt into action as the man took a step toward him.

The gun was fired before I'd even made it down to the alley—and luckily enough, Butters had the sense to shove the man while his back was turned. I felt the bullet whiz past my ear as I landed ungracefully on the wet pavement.

"Kenny!" Butters shouted, running toward me as I stood up carefully. No broken bones, luckily.

"You little piece of shit," The man who Butters had shoved down grabbed him by the ankle and flung him to the ground. The sight made me see red.

"Get your fucking hands off of him." I grabbed the man, and before I could even tell what was happening I was beating the shit out of him. It wasn't until Butters was grabbing at my arm, pulling me back with all of his strength that I realized something was wrong.

"Kenny! Ken, it's okay," Butters was nearly dragging me backwards, pulling my bloodied gloves off as he sat me down against a nearby dumpster. "You really beat that guy bad," His hands were shaking, whether from the adrenaline or the cold I wasn't sure. There was a buzzing in the back of my head making it nearly impossible to focus on any one thing. The gleam of the band of silver around Butters' finger caught my eye and I resisted the urge to grab his hand as he reached up to push back my hood. "He's out cold."

Butters glanced back at the man lying unmoving in the alleyway with a worried frown. I wanted to grab him and kiss the frown from his face—and Jesus Christ, what was wrong with me? I closed my eyes and sucked in a deep breath, willing the haziness and confusing thoughts from my mind for just one second of clarity.

"I-I swear I wasn't lookin' for you, Mysterion." When I opened my eyes Butters was wringing his hands nervously in front of me, looking up at me through lowered lashes. "Please, don't be upset."

So back to Mysterion, were we? I frowned hazily at him. "Butters." He made a noise of acknowledgment at his name. "I'm not going to hurt you, damn it. I've been trying to keep you safe."

"But—why? From the looks of things, you're the one who needs safekeepin'." I let out a strangled laugh at the situation, and Butters smiled back. "I just—I can't stay away from you, Kenny. Something about this ring—" He looked down at his hand, where the ring was emitting a dull pulse between the two of us. "It won't let me get away."

"I think I know the feeling." I stood up, pushing off the wall and holding out a hand to help Butters up from his crouched position. He hesitated momentarily before taking one of my bloodied hands and hauling himself up. He immediately dropped my hand as if it were on fire. "Let's get out of here," I winced at the sharp pain that shot up my side as I took my first step. It looked like Butters' attacker had gotten at least one good hit in.

I took Butters away before anyone happened to walk in on the scene in the alley. I might have had a bit of leeway with the police here, but I'm pretty sure they wouldn't believe jack shit about Butters' side of the story. We made our way to the other side of town, to Stark's Pond, and sat down side by side on the small bench along the pond's edge.

Around us the world was silent, the people with actual functioning jobs and friends and lives asleep, like we should have been. The water lapped quietly against the bank, reminding me of the Roba El Khaliyeh and of what Henrietta wanted from Butters and his ring.

I sighed heavily, slipping the cowl from my face completely and wiping the grime with the back of my hand. I must have looked like shit, and somehow Butters was still looking at me with that adoring expression on his face.

"Your costume looks nice," He remarked with a bit of sass clipping his words. I spun to face him, shaking my head at the cheeky grin on his face. Butters shouldn't have been allowed to make such honest and open—and adorable—expressions. It made keeping him at bay next to impossible.

"Knock it off," I responded, flashing him a small smile so he knew I wasn't upset with him. "The least you could have done if you were going to show up like this is come in costume. I'd at least like to keep up appearances, Chaos."

Butters instantly sobered. "I stopped playing pretend a long time ago, Ken."

I felt the ring's energy pulse between us once more, trying to draw me back to him. "Well that's the problem then, isn't it?" He looked confused, so I continued. "Don't you ever just want to get out of this shitty place? We've all been doing the exact same things since we were kids, and it doesn't matter what we say any more—the people here all think they know us. Like they know what we need. As Mysterion... they can't judge me. Think about it, Butters; you know I'm right."

"Kenny..."

"I want you." I cleared my throat, "I mean—I want Professor Chaos to come with me tomorrow. I can get you the answers you want. And keep you safe."

Butters hardly looked convinced at that. "I don't need protecting any more than you do."

"Okay, fine. Whatever." I huffed. "Just... please come with me?" He thought a little longer than necessary about the issue, and I was fairly certain he did so just to annoy the shit out of me.

"Alright. But you've really gotta learn to stop pushin' people away." Right. Like that was going to happen.

"I just want to keep you safe, damn it." I ground out.

"I'm not yours to keep safe, Kenny."

He frowned once more, and I realized that he was right. This ring was the only reason that we were talking to one another, and I was glad to know that Butters' own judgment wasn't being clouded by that fact like mine was.

"Sorry, you're right. And I should have explained the situation to you sooner."

Life is full of choices. That seems to be the only damn thing we're doing lately; making choices. The way I saw it, I had two choices; keep my peace and solitude—and sanity—or allow Butters into my confidence.

It looked like sanity would be taking a back seat this time around.

 

• « Previous Chapter
• Next Chapter »