Nonsense About Romance
Chapter 9: Making a Name of Cinnamon Buns and Dentists
written by domolovesyou - illustrated by Noxicosis and SynnesaiThe Stan and Kyle liking each other conundrum stayed on Kenny’s mind for the next couple of days. Anyone who would say that he didn’t care for his friends because of the way the four of them might seem clearly didn’t know him well. So yeah, Stan and Kyle were good friends and Kenny and Cartman did understand each other more than Stan or Kyle understood either of them, and yeah Kenny did care more about himself than he did for them. But he still valued their happiness. It’s one of those things you can’t help after you’ve been friends for so long.
It was an issue, both because he wanted Kyle to get over his bitching, and since he knew this, because he did want them to get together (though Cartman had said, “I don’t want to see those fags makin’ out and shit all the time,” which Kenny didn’t understand. He thought it’d be pretty hot, actually). The day after, he still couldn’t believe what Cartman had told him. It was always likely that Cartman had lied to him, right? Though he couldn’t imagine why he’d do that.
He brought in one of Chef’s pornos to school the next day, and in the one class he and Stan had together (English), he pulled it out and showed it to Stan.
“Aw, dude, not in here!” said Stan when he saw it, glancing away.
Kenny grinned. “Don’t worry, no one’s looking.” This was true, since their teacher was too busy ranting about how she was pretty sure her husband was cheating on her with another man, which was another way of saying that none of the other kids gave a flying fuck and were talking and doing whatever they wanted, too.
But: “Seriously, dude, this is school,” said Stan.
“Don’t be a pussy. Besides, Chef was the one who gave this to us, and only you and me can use it.” Kenny flipped open to a random page and felt himself get a little bit aroused, though not as aroused as when he thought about Butters nowadays. “Look! Tits and girls!”
Stan laughed and seemed to try to get himself interested, but after a few of Kenny’s attempts and his own forced chortles, Stan said, “Sorry dude. I guess I’m not really into tits and girls right now. Tell Chef I’m sorry that I’m so useless.” And then he chuckled.
That was when Kenny concluded that Cartman was right about Stan liking Kyle, because while Stan hadn’t been big on dating recently, he was pretty sure that any teenage boy who wasn’t into another teenage boy would have come at seeing the porn magazines Chef had given him. Kenny hadn’t only because he knew that there was something that he liked more than this porn, and he was pretty sure Stan was the same way now.
He couldn’t talk to Cartman in school about it because the Super Best Fags were always around them when they were together, and talking to Cartman privately would seem suspicious. Besides, it seemed like Cartman was still much too busy trying to buy that necklace, though Kenny didn’t know why or what for. He didn’t think he wanted to know that, though, so he didn’t ask.
These things were still on his mind when he stayed after school with Butters again today (Butters always offered for his parents to drive him home, but Kenny usually said that Stan was driving him or that he was walking. He wished he could accept Butters’s offer, but he’d seen the way Mr. and Mrs. Stotch had looked at him that one time when he’s gone over, and was pretty sure that they didn’t like the way he looked after that. At least, the way he smelled). When Butters’s dance practice was over and they were walking out of the school, talking and laughing with Kenny’s arm lightly strewn around his waist—Butters didn’t seem to think this odd at all—Butters asked him.
“Wanna come over again today, Kenny?”
He’d asked this all brightly and Kenny was sorely tempted to say yes, but after his first night at Butters’s house, he realized that Butters wasn’t one to care about others’ appearances, unlike his parents.
“No, it’s okay,” he told Butters. “Actually, I was going to ask if you wanted to come to my house today.”
“Y-Your house?” Butters’s eyes went wide at this. “Are you sure ‘bout this, Kenny? Didn’ you say that your house was all dumpy an-an’ stuff?”
“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean that you’ll not like it. I assumed that you wouldn’t because no one else likes my rat hole of a house, but since you never even came over, I don’t think I should assume that.” Besides, Butters was like a giant flower of optimism. He kept saying nice things whenever Kenny complained, like “look on the bright side” or “at least Eric’s real smart!” so it was dumb of him to have thought that Butters would have minded.
Even though the other guys usually avoided his house when they could. But Butters wasn’t one of those guys.
“Oh. Well all right then!” said Butters happily. “I’m glad you want me to come over, Kenny! I thought you just wouldn’t want me snooping around y-your stuff!”
“Nah, snoop through my stuff all you want,” said Kenny, waving his hand. “I don’t have anything to hide.”
So they walked to Kenny’s house, which was a good mile away from the school. Well, technically it would’ve been longer if they had taken the main road, but whenever Kenny walked home he usually cut through the forest, which didn’t take very long. Though he’d died a few times because of wild animals, but he just ended up waking back up in his bed, anyways. Sometimes he debated if after school he could just kill himself so he could get home faster, if Satan was in a good mood that day.
“Are—Aren’t there bears in this forest, Kenny?” asked Butters fearfully as he followed behind him.
“It’s okay, I’ll protect you,” Kenny assured him. They heard a branch snap and then Butters leapt up in fright, clinging to Kenny’s shoulder as if Kenny really could protect him. (He, amused, thought of when they were in superpower!mode, and Butters was an evil villain and Kenny was Mysterion. A superhero protecting a villain. It did sound pretty kinky.)
“W-What’s that?” asked Butters.
“Probably like, a squirrel or something,” said Kenny.
Butters relaxed. “Oh, okay,” he said, taking his hands off of Kenny. “I like squirrels! They’re cute!”
“Yeah.”
Kenny sort of missed having Butters touching him.
When they got to his house, Butters said, “Hey, this isn’t so bad! Where are your parents?” He looked around the living room.
“Mom’s probably grocery shopping, Dad’s probably out looking for a job since I heard them fighting about that last night.” Again. “Hey Karen,” Kenny said to his sister who was watching the broken television.
“Hi Kenny,” she said. “Kevin’s out at the auto shop and won’t be back till tonight. We gots the Poptarts though.”
“Cool. More dinner for us.”
Kenny led them upstairs. Butters asked, “You eat Poptarts for dinner?”
“Yeah,” said Kenny, turning to him, surprised. “I thought you knew. Doesn’t everyone else in town know?”
“Well I heard about it but I wasn’t so sure!” said Butters. “I thought they were just exaggeratin’ or-or whatever.”
“Nah, it’s okay. Poptarts are good.” Kenny pushed the door open to his bedroom. “They fill us up, too.”
“Aren’t they unhealthy?”
“Well yeah, but when you’re poor all you eat is unhealthy so it’s not like it makes a difference.”
Kenny chuckled to himself, but when he turned back around, he saw Butters rubbing his knuckles together and fidgeting nervously.
“I-I can get you some better food for you an’ your family to eat,” Butters said, not looking at him.
Again, Kenny was surprised. “It’s cool,” he said. “I don’t want to trouble you. The guys have offered before—actually, they haven’t,” he mused to himself, “but it’s not like we want it. We’re fine like this.”
“B-But Eric always says how you’re poor so you’re unhappy, and you don’t have a lot, an’ I was just thinkin’ that I can help you out of it so—so I should!”
Kenny laughed. “You’re hearing things from Cartman, Butters,” he said. “It’d be a lot better for my family if we had a little bit more money, but we’re not unhappy. And besides, this helps us toughen up.” Though he still wouldn’t say no to free stuff or on-hand money. But what he’d told Butters was true.
“Oh. Well. Okay.” Butters didn’t seem to know what to make of that.
He looked around Kenny’s room, as if inspecting it. He didn’t seem to mind the littered around trash or the grimy carpet or the walls with peeling paint. “What’s that?” he asked, walking over to Kenny’s bed and picking up a magazine. “Hey, why are there pictures of naked women in here?”
“That’s porn, Butters,” said Kenny, amused.
Butters dropped the magazine and jumped back as if burned. “M-My dad says that I’ll be grounded if I’m caught watchin’ porn.”
Kenny rolled his eyes. If Mr. Stotch were his dad, he didn’t know how he would live. “I’m not watching it, technically,” he said. “I’m reading it.”
Butters relaxed. “Well okay,” he said. “Reading is good for you, right? Though I dunno how you’d read pictures.” He glanced back at the magazine dubiously.
“It’s easy,” said Kenny, picking it up and sitting on his bed. He patted on the space next to him and Butters joined him. “You just stare at the pictures for a long time,” he said, leaning over to Butters so that his shoulder was touching the crook of Butters’s neck and collarbone.
Butters blushed pink, which was obvious against his pale skin. “Y-You’re a little too close to me, Kenny,” he muttered, his breath hitched at their proximity.
Kenny pretended not to hear him, and flipped the page to reveal a naked woman with huge boobs clutching her neck provocatively. “See?” he said. “Reading.”
“Th-This doesn’t feel like reading.” Butters was still extremely nervous at Kenny’s touchiness. “I-I mean, what’re you supposed to read?”
“Her face, her body, her legs,” said Kenny, his eyes still focused on the magazine as he became more aware of the parts of Butters he was pressed up against. Butters’s small thighs were warm, and his soft silky angel-blond hair was brushed up against Kenny’s cheek. Kenny suddenly noted how small Butters was—a bit taller than the average teenage girl, but only a bit.
“O-Oh. It doesn’t seem very interesting, though.”
Butters’s words snapped him back to reality. Kenny regained control of himself and pulled away from Butters before he could let his imagination run wild. This was fun and nice, yes, but he wasn’t too sure if Butters was enjoying this as much as he was. (If at all.) He needed to get more of Butters’s trust before he could make a move on him.
“That’s okay,” he said to Butters, closing the magazine and bending down to pull out Chef’s box that he kept under his bed. “I have more.”
“You have more of these?” said Butters. “Gosh, Kenny, is this all you read?”
“Yeah.” A thought suddenly struck Kenny. “Hey, Butters, you know what porn is, right?”
“Yeah!” said Butters. “It—It’s that stuff that you’re not supposed to watch, or look at, o-or—it’s just bad stuff!”
Clearly he didn’t. “Your parents just told you not to watch it, didn’t they?”
“Well you can only watch it, right?”
And clearly no one had ever explained to him what reading porn was. Oh well. That made things more fun.
He brought the box up onto his bed and started fingering through them, looking for the hottest ones to show Butters. “Oh, this one’s really fun to read,” he said, pulling out a copy of Making a Name of Cinnamon Buns and Dentists, to which he’d had one of the best orgasms ever. “And this on. Oh, and this—the back cover’s my favorite of this one.”
“Kenny,” said Butters, “these all have pictures of naked women in them!”
“Is there something wrong with naked women?” asked Kenny, raising an eyebrow at him.
Butters blushed and rubbed his knuckles together, as if afraid he’d said something wrong. “No! I-It,” he stammered. “Naked women make me feel all—all uncomfortable an’ stuff.”
Kenny pushed his box aside and leaned in closer to Butters. “A good uncomfortable?” he asked, tracing patterns on Butters’s pants. “Or a bad uncomfortable?”
“Y-You’re making me feel uncomfortable right now!” Even though he said this, Butters didn’t make any move to push him away and Kenny didn’t make any move to stop. “A-A bad uncomfortable I guess, since right now I’m uncomfortable ‘cause of you, b-but this one feels good!”
Kenny took his words nearly as a love confession, and inexplicably a smile spread across his face.
“Sorry,” he said, pulling back now. God, he was almost as bad as Kyle was with Stan.
“Kyle’s what with Stan?” said Butters.
Oops. He’d probably said that out loud.
“Oh,” said Kenny, starting to think up a lie, when he saw the innocent and oblivious look on Butters’s face. And then he reasoned that there was no way that Butters would think badly of them, or do anything stupid, because this was Butters. Cartman was a manipulative little shit and Kenny just wanted them to spill the beans, but Butters knowing wouldn’t affect anything. Besides, telling him a secret would give more reason for Butters to trust him.
“I probably shouldn’t be telling you this,” he started, but before he could go on Butters had covered his ears.
“If you shouldn’t tell me,” Butters said loudly, “then I shouldn’t listen! La la la la I can’t hear Kenny—”
Kenny laughed and took Butters’s hands off his ears. “No, it’s okay, you can listen,” he said. “It’s just that this is a secret so you shouldn’t tell anyone else, okay?” He put his finger to his lips.
“O-Okay.” Butters looked nervous. “Can you let go of my hands now, Kenny?”
“Oh!” He hadn’t noticed that he was still holding them. Suddenly feeling embarrassed himself, Kenny let go and self-consciously put his hands in his own lap.
“So what’s the secret?” Butters asked curiously.
“Oh, right,” said Kenny. “Well basically, Kyle has a gay little crush on Stan and Stan has a gay little crush on Kyle, but they don’t know and Cartman and I know.”
Butters widened his eyes. “Really? Why does Eric know?”
“Dunno, Stan told him for some reason or something.” Kenny shrugged. “So I want them to get them to tell each other—well, for Kyle to tell Stan, really, since Kyle’s more girly and he has to man up some time. Kyle’s never gonna tell, though.”
“Then they’ll never know?” Butters looked terrified of the aspect.
Kenny patted his back. “Don’t worry about it,” he said to Butters. “We’ll find a way to get them together. Eventually.”
The next day he and Cartman actually did have an opportunity to talk about it, since Kyle had gotten sick and stayed at home and Stan was moping around because he didn’t have his Super Best Fag around and didn’t pay a lot of attention to Kenny and Cartman. He mostly hung out on his own and looked like a part of him was missing, as if no one could ever possibly replace Kyle Broflovski. Which, to him, was probably true.
Stan had resorted to the library for lunch, which was a dumb resolution but there was nothing they could do about it. Kenny and Cartman were the only ones of their group at the lunch table, which probably wasn’t exactly the best situation considering that they still hated each other. Even though they were friends.
“Don’t look at my food, Kenny, eat your own!” said Cartman after Kenny glanced at him mindlessly.
“I’m not looking at your food, Cartman,” he said, rolling his eyes and picking at his tiny sandwich. “Though it wouldn’t hurt for you to give some to me.”
“Aye! I’m not giving any of my food to a goddamn poor kid!”
“Why am I even hanging out with you,” Kenny muttered to himself as he slowly took out his bologna slice and started nibbling on it.
Cartman wolfed down on his two large burgers, five large packs of fries and twelve packs of ketchup, along with drinking his two liter chocolate milk. As he inhaled a bag of chips, Kenny said to him, “So... about Stan.”
“Yeah?” Cartman stuffed seven chips into his mouth at one time.
Kenny made a face, and decided to look more at his food instead. “And Kyle.”
“Oh.” Somehow, Cartman managed to swallow all of his food down. “You wanna talk about their fag situation, don’t you?”
“Don’t you?” said Kenny. “I mean, if they like each other they may as well just get together, and—”
“And if they get together, they’ll always be together and kissing and hugging and calling each other names like ‘Snuggly Buffiebums’ and ‘Teensy Tootikins,’ and it’ll just be me and you, Ken.”
“Did you get those nicknames from what your mom always calls you?”
“Aye!”
But Cartman didn’t say yes or not to that and Kenny smirked; he thought so. Then he sighed and took another bite of his bologna. “Anyways, it’s not like it’s gonna be any different than the way things are now,” he said. “I mean, look at Stan. Ignoring the fact that he likes him, he’s moping around just because his best friend isn’t here?”
“Yeah, well, that’s just the way fags work. It makes me want to take a brown.”
“Dude,” said Kenny. “Stop saying that.”
“It’s more mature than ‘taking a shit.’”
“No, it isn’t.”
“Yes it is!”
It was at that moment when Butters came over to them, beaming, with his tray of school lunch food in his hand. Kenny couldn’t help feeling envious. Butters was tiny, and he still ate more than him. “Heya fellas!” he said, plopping down on the bench next to Kenny.
Cartman eyed him. “Who said you could sit here?”
Butters flushed pink and glanced at Kenny, then back at Cartman. “I-I just thought—since Kenny here an’ I—”
“Don’t worry about him, you know how Cartman always is,” said Kenny warmly, and then smiled. As lame as Butters was, he certainly made better company than fatass. “You can sit here. And you shouldn’t even need our permission, anyways.”
“Yes he should,” said Cartman.
“It’s a free country,” shot Kenny.
“Yeah, it’s a free country for anyone who’s not poor, a minority, or a loser like Butters.”
Butters looked hurt, and Kenny snapped at him, “Shut the fuck up, Cartman. Remember that time when I moved away for a little and you were the second poorest kid here?”
“Yeah,” muttered Cartman.
“And remember how Butters was the one who told you this?”
“That’s because he’s out to get me!” he said accusingly.
“I’m not!” Butters said indignantly, and Kenny gave him a look.
“Seriously, dude? You think Butters is out to get you?”
“Okay, no,” Cartman admitted, and then opened his mouth as if to say something more but broke off, grumbling to himself.
Kenny rolled his eyes and tuned to Butters now that he had someone much more pleasant to talk to. “Do you want a cookie?” Butters offered brightly.
Surprised, Kenny nodded and said, “Sure,” and Butters gave a cookie to him. Kenny chewed on his cookie and praised God or Satan or whoever for Butters being way too nice for his own good. Seriously, he should’ve spent more time with Butters a long time ago.
“What were you guys talking about before?” asked Butters.
Cartman didn’t look up from his lunch, and he hadn’t been expected to say anything—the question was obviously meant for only Kenny. “We were talking about Stan and Kyle,” Kenny said.
“Oh, about how they like each other an’ stuff?” said Butters.
“Wait,” said Cartman suddenly, turning to Kenny. “You told him about this?”
Kenny shrugged. “Well yeah, I mean...” He trailed off; he wasn’t going to mention around Butters that he was flirting with him. That would be too forward. “I think he’s trustworthy enough,” he said. “And even though I told him, if he tells anyone else, it’s not like they’ll believe him, right?”
“Yeah!” said Butters enthusiastically, not quite aware that Kenny had sort of indirectly insulted him.
Cartman seemed reluctant to agree to that too; but before either Kenny or Cartman could say anything more on the Stan and Kyle issue, someone else swept into their conversation.
“Cartman,” said Wendy, with a breadstick in her hand. “Do you think that you’ll be able to come to newspaper after school today?”
Cartman snorted. “When do I ever not come?”
Kenny observed the two of them with interest. Butters chattered along happily to him, completely unaware of the chemistry that seemed to be between Cartman and Wendy.
“Funny,” he said to fatass, causing the pair to look at him and stopping Butters from his rambling. “I thought you liked to go home after school and watch TV and eat Cheesy Poofs.”
Cartman shot him a dirty look, and then asked Wendy, “Why? Is everyone else unable to come?”
Wendy sighed; she seemed to be aggravated. “Yeah,” she said. “Technically there wasn’t supposed to be a meeting today, it’s all last minute, and when I told all the other editors,” (they had one for each newspaper section), “they said they couldn’t make it.”
“I’ll kick those guys’ asses later,” muttered Cartman.
“Do you think you could do their work for them?”
Wendy’s look was pleading and Kenny was sure that Cartman was going to give in, but Cartman merely snorted and said, “No, those bastards need to do the work themselves.”
“But the final copy’s supposed to be done by tomorrow!”
“Then it’s their fucking fault.”
“No, Cartman, it’s not! It’s ours because we’re the editors-in-chief and anything bad that happens is completely our responsibility!”
Kenny rolled his eyes as the two started bickering over the newspaper and its deadline, and turned to Butters. “C’mon,” he said. “Let’s go find a more peaceful place to sit.”
They left, leaving Cartman and Wendy still arguing heatedly until they both ran out of steam (but Cartman still refused to do the other students’ work). Wendy, seeing that Kenny and Butters’s empty seats were an invitation for her to stay with Cartman a bit longer, sat down where they had been and brought up something entirely unrelated.
“So,” she said, cutting off Cartman as he continued rattling off reasons why he wasn’t going to do anyone else’s work. “The other day I was at my locker when I saw someone had tried to put a CD in it.”
“So?” said Cartman, not looking up from his food. “Why’re you telling me, shouldn’t you be telling all your ho friends?”
“I did!” Wendy snapped, and then calmed down and regained her composure. “Anyways, it kind of broke and it doesn’t work, but it’s by my current favorite band and I was just wondering if you knew anything about it.”
“Why would I know anything some gay boy band CD?”
Wendy stayed silent, but she looked at Cartman speculatively. Then after a moment, she got up and said brightly, “Well thanks anyways, Cartman!” and left him.
Cartman stared at the place she had been. An odd tingling sensation started inside of him. Then it stopped, and he realized something and suddenly yelled at absolutely no one:
“Wait, where the fuck did everybody go?”