Mysteries and Lies
Chapter 7: Butters
written by Margaret Delancy - illustrated by phunthyme and SalemNeko
-SalemNeko-
If this is what Kenny had to go through every single time he was killed then I didn't blame him for obsessing over finding a cure to his curse. The pain was too much—I couldn't focus on anything. Kenny and Eric were yelling, but the sound was jumbled together in my mind. The last thing I can remember was the sound of another gunshot.
I woke up to the intense heat—much stronger than anything I'd experienced in the alternate dimensions I'd been in before. For being as hot as it was, you'd assume that it would be just as bright—but that wasn't the case at all. When my eyes opened, it was to the murky blackness of Hell.
I couldn't be here. This was impossible—I might not have attended church like I should have, but I'd been relatively good my entire life—as short as it might have been. This had to be a joke. I tried to take a couple steady breaths, to calm myself down. Because really, what else was I supposed to do—I was in Hell.
Kenny really had been telling the truth about Hell—he'd tried to explain it to me once, on a quiet night when we were out patrolling the city. But it was a little hard to grasp the imagery from Kenny's nonchalant attitude about the entire situation. Now I knew what he meant; when Kenny told me about the basalt-filled caverns, he forgot to mention the huge geysers of flaming molten rock. When he mentioned the spacious living arrangements, he seemed to forget about the sky of fire above our heads.
I hadn't realized it until now, but the gaping wound where I had been shot in the chest was gone—the pain along with it. I quickly stripped my jacket off, feeling for some sort of indication that I'd been shot in the first place. Kenny hadn't mentioned this.
"You are an impossible human to track," A voice from behind me spoke. I turned, shying away from the sight of the man in front of me. Past experience had taught me not to trust strangers who appeared out of nowhere when I was in a foreign place. This man was tall and well built—not that I was looking, or anything. It was hard not to notice the muscles beneath his completely black, formfitting outfit. There was darkness in his eyes that I'd never encountered before; it was as if this man was well and truly evil.
"Do not give me that look, Leopold Stotch. I am here to take you to Kenny McCormick. That asshole killed himself and is running rampant through Hell looking for you." He sneered, as if the thought of Kenny doing something so sweet was disgusting to him. "The son of Satan reduced to a mere delivery boy." He scoffed to himself. This man was the son of Satan? "Come with me." He held out a hand, glancing away as he did so. If he really couldn't stand the thought of Kenny or me, why bother at all?
"And why should I come with you?" I responded with a frown. "How do I know you aren't goin' to take me off to some—some dungeon somewhere and have your way with me?!"
The bark of laughter sounded odd on his lips. "You are most certainly not my type, Leopold. If you do not come with me soon though, I'm afraid that my father's demons will be around to collect you. And I do not think you want to know what awaits you in my father's chambers." I wondered now if his face was always like that, or if everything about the situation was truly disgusting to him.
I stood up, wincing at the dull ache that filled my chest. I guess the pain wasn't entirely gone.
"Come along." He grabbed me by the arm—and suddenly we were standing in front of Kenny. He blinked, momentarily stunned by our appearance, before pulling me into a bone-crushing hug.
"Fuck—thank you, Damien," Kenny said into my hair. "I didn't know what else to do—thank you," He was deliriously happy, and I wondered just how long he'd been searching for me. My sense of time was completely destroyed under this sky of fire, and as it was I was having a hard time focusing on anything but the man in my arms.
"Kenny," I gripped the back of his jacket with both hands, sighing happily as he obliged me with a fierce kiss. He pulled back, and the emotions in his grey eyes were just as powerful as his kiss had been.
"I'm sorry, I should've been able to protect you. Damn it—I was trying so hard to protect you—" I silenced him with another kiss.
"This wasn't your fault, Ken. I was bein' stupid. You did as well as you could've, given the circumstances—" Kenny tugged me back to him, burying his face in my shoulder.
"You're never stupid, Butters. Never."
"I beg to disagree." The man Kenny called Damien chimed in. I'd forgotten he was there for a minute, and pulled back from Kenny with a bashful expression on my face. "I find both of you to be idiots, in fact."
"Shut the fuck up, dude." Kenny snapped at him. Was he even allowed to speak to Satan's son like that? "Don't mind him; Damien's a nice guy, he's just kind of a jerk."
"Like Eric?"
"Nah—I'd say Cartman is at least twenty times worse than the antichrist."
I was about to respond in a huff, ready to defend Eric's honor, when Kenny continued. "Cartman was just as worked up over you getting shot as I was. I don't know what happened after the guy shot me, but I'm sure Cartman and Ike took him down."
"I have the best friends a guy could ask for," I smiled up at him. "Eric, and Ike... and you."
"Ike isn't half bad, after all. If he'd quit flirting with my sister." His tone was only half-joking, and I would bet money that Ike was the only level-headed one out of the three men left in that alley after I was gone. "Shit—Karen. She's going to flip her shit when she hears the news."
"You realize that Leopold will not remain here for long, right? He's been marked by Cthulhu—it's not his destiny to be here now." Kenny and I both stiffened. This wasn't permanent; I would be able to go back to South Park with Kenny. "All of your dramatics were for nothing, as usual."
"I was not being dramatic. I was just—I care about this kid, okay?" Kenny's near-bashful tone brought a smile to my face, and I hid it in the folds of his jacket, burying my face in it and breathing deeply.
"That is probably the stupidest thing I've ever heard from you in all the years we've known one another. You were not meant to be."
"To be what? You don't know what the fuck you're talking about. Butters, c'mon. I'll show you around Hell—my second home. I've always been Satan's favorite, anyway."
"Excuse me?" Damien growled. "I need to speak with you before you leave, Kenny. Alone."
"What? I'm not leaving Butters alone after all the trouble we just went through to track him down."
Damien let out a long sigh, "Fine. Have it your way—but the two of you better not throw a fit about what I have to say." At this point I figured that whatever he had to tell us would be nothing in comparison to what we'd been through already. "This destiny of Leopold is not..." He faltered, and Kenny seemed to find this incredibly significant. He left my side, taking a step closer to Damien. "Cthulhu intends to sacrifice him when the time is right. That ring, the one that makes it possible for him to return to the living world, only does so because Cthulhu wishes it."
"A sacrifice." Kenny repeated. "What the fuck are you talking about? That's not possible. That's not possible."
"There's more, I'm afraid." Damien glanced at me, as if expecting to hear an objection. I was stunned into silence though. "The law holds true in this case as well—only an immortal may kill another immortal, Kenny. You have always been at Cthulhu's whims; I fear you should not grow so attached to Leopold at this point."
That must have been Damien's way of telling us that Kenny was going to kill me. I guess there was really no hope after all.
I sunk to my knees. Kenny was going to kill me.
"Hey, baby, it's okay. I won't do it, I won't." Kenny was on his knees next to me, wrapping me in his embrace. I didn't know what to believe.
"Once you fulfill your own destiny, Kenny, your own curse will be removed. You can live a normal life once Leopold is out of the living world for good. And I won't have to see your face here for another good sixty years, if we're lucky."
"Is that all you fucking care about? Not seeing me again? Fuck you," Kenny snapped. He pulled both of us to our feet, not sparing Damien a second glance as he steered me out of the cave and into the depths of Hell.
"Kenny," I stopped him once we were far enough away from Damien that he was starting to calm down. "If this is our destiny, there's nothin' we can do to change it; I mean, that's why they call it a destiny, after all. Not that I think this is our destiny or nothin'!" I was quick to add at the furious look he gave me. "I just—sometimes I think—well... maybe things would be a little better for everyone if I wasn't around."
"Don't you ever fucking say that." He grabbed me by the shoulders. "Things would not be better if you weren't here. I would—I would go insane. Jesus Christ, I can't figure out why the fuck I never noticed you before, Butters." He looked as sincere as I'd ever seen him; the mask he usually hid behind was gone in that moment, my breath stolen along with it.
"I've been here the whole time, waitin' for someone-" He kissed me again, and I melted. I knew I wouldn't get sick of this—of Kenny's kisses. I could spend a dozen lifetimes just kissing him and never get sick of this.
All at once we were being pulled apart, though not by any particular person, but by nature itself.
The feeling of returning to earth was almost like going between dimensions if I could relate it to anything. Even that was a bit of a stretch—this was more of a rebirth, like a feeling of beginning anew in the world than just teleportation to a different dimension.
The end destination was the same, of course. I opened my eyes to the plain white walls of my apartment. It all seemed too quiet, too easy to just slip back into the living world without anyone being the wiser.
My phone on my nightstand was flashing, telling me that I had an unopened text message. The cylinder rolled from my nightstand on to the floor, and I grabbed it before opening the first message from Tweek.
Where are you? it's already 2.
The message was dated yesterday afternoon, the day after I'd died. I checked today's date; a couple of days had passed in Hell, but it seemed like no time at all. Tweek must have known I'd died by now. Or maybe it would be like Kenny had tried explaining before—nobody would realize where I'd gone, just that I hadn't been here.
I slid out of my bed, feeling oddly refreshed after my adventure in Hell. The feeling immediately vanished when I looked out the window and saw the chaotic scene going on outside.
The streets were so smoky that I couldn't see far past the other side of the street as it was, but half-destroyed buildings on fire were never a good sign. It only took a couple seconds to slip into some shoes and grab my jacket off the hook as I rushed out of my apartment, just in time for the window in my bedroom to shatter and the smoke to start pouring in. I stuffed the cylinder and my phone into my pocket as I ran down the hallway and down the stairs.
It was just as eerily quiet on the streets as I had noticed in my apartment. Everyone must have been hiding out in the community center on the other side of town.
"Shit, I thought you were gone," Kenny came jogging up to me, catching his breath before pulling me into a hug. "That fucking fat ass has gone on a rampage since you were killed; we have to find him."
"Eric did this?"
A low-pitched screeching from the opposite side of town drifted to us over the crackling of the flames. Kenny grabbed me by the arm and through the debris-littered streets we began heading toward it.
If Eric was anywhere, it would be at the center of it all. And he was.
We found him with Henrietta, the two of them blubbering over one of Henrietta's old books, shouting at one another. Ike noticed us first, shocked into silence as if he was seeing a ghost, or two ghosts, more than likely.
"What the fuck is going on?" Kenny demanded. Both of their gazes immediately snapped to us, the book between them clattering to the ground.
"Butters!" Eric exclaimed, moving just about as quick as I'd ever seen him to pull me against him. "It worked—It fucking worked!" He was crying into my hair, sobbing tender words I'd never thought I'd hear from him. He pulled away only just far enough to look into my face. "I thought I'd lost you forever—" He sniffled, trying unsuccessfully to stop the fat tears rolling down his cheeks.
Ike stood awkwardly off to the side as he watched the exchange. He was completely pale—like he wasn't sure quite what to do at our return. Eric put a stop to it immediately, holding out a pudgy hand and calling him closer. "Ike—get over here! It worked! The spell worked!"
"But Cthulhu—"
"Cthulhu? What the fuck did you do with Cthulhu?" Kenny pulled Eric away from me, gripping him by the jacket's lapels.
"I told them that it was too risky, Mysterion. With the ring acting up the way it has been, and the scroll—"
"You didn't tell us shit about any scroll," Ike interrupted Henrietta.
"That's right!" Eric cried, trying unsuccessfully to slip out of Kenny's iron grasp. I reached into my pocket, pulling the strangely colored cylinder out and rolling it between my fingertips. It glittered in the reflection of the flames.
"It's not the scroll that's important." Kenny glared down at Eric before releasing him. Eric stumbled backwards, landing on the soggy cement below. "It's Cthulhu."
"We thought that Eric might be able to speak with Cthulhu directly if we summoned him; convince him to bring Leopold back from the dead. He did have a bit of control over the god when you guys were kids, right? That must be why he brought back Leopold." Ike explained. Kenny hardly looked convinced, and I couldn't say I blamed him. I seriously doubted Cthulhu would listen to a word Eric had to say after the way he'd been played the first time Eric manipulated him.
"Butters and I came back from the dead so that Cthulhu could kill him. It had nothing to do with any spell you three idiots cast." The silence that followed was to be expected—Even I had a hard time following Kenny on that one.
But I'd already made up my mind on what was going to happen next. I stepped up to Kenny, holding out the glittering scroll to him. He picked it up—probably more out of reflex than anything—and I leaned up to kiss him one last time.
"Butters?" He questioned when I pulled away, quiet enough so that only I could hear him over the dull roar of the flames.
"This is the way it was supposed to be, Kenny. I'm finally realizin' that we can't run away from fate, no matter how hard we try."
"Wait! You can't do this!" I heard him shout after me.
Cthulhu's screeching in the distance picked up again, calling out to me, and I turned to face it for the last time.