Failure To Thrive

Walkman

October 28, 1996

Head in his hands, Butt-Head sat alone with his elbows on the kitchen table in a cloying silence barely two minutes after yet another screaming match with Beavis; the latter had shut himself in the bedroom with all of the good magazines, so he'd probably be in there for a good, long while. Two sets of plastic forks and paper plates sat on the table, one coated in nothing but a few crumbs and some frosting while the other still held a generous half of a colorful slice of confetti cake Butt-Head had saved extra cash for; unfortunately, it wasn't very difficult to figure out who each plate had belonged to, the days when eating had been effortless long gone. Beavis had tried, but he'd lost anyway. Lost to what exactly, Butt-Head wasn't sure, but he knew they were losing to something. It was like a game sometimes. A game of survival. It was a game of survival, and they were the prey. Who or what the predators were, Butt-Head wouldn't dare say; honestly, he wasn't really sure and he didn't want to know anyway. The only thing he knew was that he didn't want either of them to lose. He'd seen the terror in Beavis' eyes earlier, how the blond had tried so, so hard to act normal- well, normal in the Beavis sense, it would be a dire mistake to assume he was even capable of being normal by universal standards- and try to pretend he wasn't scared of his own birthday cake. His own birthday cake. They didn't even get to have cake on some years. Beavis had always loved sweets, he used to have to be careful around sugar or else he would eat so much that he would have a Cornholio episode, but hardly a few minutes ago, he'd looked like a rabbit cornered by a coyote just because of a single slice of cake that had sat in front of him. Butt-Head had seen how the fear had won over, how Beavis had barely gotten halfway through his slice of cake before slamming the cheap plastic fork down and prompting another fight. Beavis had been trying, the fact that he would try to eat despite the absolute terror in his eyes meant something, but they didn't need a scale- not that they even had one anyway- to know that whatever he'd gained in the past couple of months had been nowhere near enough. Whether Beavis was actually anorexic or not was still uncertain, neither teen had gone back to the local doctor and they sure as heck didn't want to go to a hospital anytime soon if they weren't poisoned or bleeding profusely, but Butt-Head hadn't forgotten some of the things dumb old Dr. Winks had said when they had finally gone to the local clinic for the first time over a year. Ugh, doctors sucked. Chair legs scraping against the unswept floor, Butt-Head slipped out of his seat and walked out of the kitchen without bothering to push the chair back in. He didn't need to stay so close to the drawer where they kept sharp metal. He'd gone about two months without dragging anything sharp across his skin and he'd been trying so hard to keep it that way, hating that look Beavis would get on his face whenever Butt-Head had a fresh cut; every time he hurt himself, he felt like he was also hurting Beavis somehow. He knew that he could cut himself to get back at Beavis for making him have to watch the blond slowly rot away day by day, make Beavis feel the same hopelessness as him, but for some reason, Butt-Head just couldn't bear to spread the pain. This wasn't living. He wanted them to live again. So, as long as Beavis tried, Butt-Head would also try; they'd never made an official promise, but they mutually understood. They had to understand, despite their obvious lack of emotional intelligence, because there was no way either of them could live together and still miss the unusual sorrow in each other's eyes that should never have been there in the first place. Reaching to the back of his pants to pick out a wedgie lodged there, Butt-Head dug into his right pocket to check how much cash he had on hand. Satisfied, he shoved the crumpled bills back in as he headed out the front door and retrieved his slightly dented walkman from his left pocket, which he took nearly everywhere with him, as he headed toward the gas station for a decent magazine since Beavis had decided to hog all of the good ones. Butt-Head loved that walkman.

"H-hey, Todd," Butt-Head stammered, perched on the curb outside of the gas station with his walkman and a new magazine as his idol walked up to the front doors. Casting an annoyed glance at the teen, who was alone today, Todd immediately remembered his last encounter with the pair of idiots. About a week ago, Beavis and Butt-Head had been placing nails in the parking lot at the grocery store, resulting in a massive number of bewildered customers wondering why their tires were flat and a whole lot of inconvenience; Todd had been one of the victims, two of his tires having been punctured. He knew it'd been the teens because he'd seen the insufferable duo running around and spilling nails from the boxes they were carrying. It was more of a mystery why they hadn't gotten arrested rather than who did it. He didn't care if only one of the two teens were present, though; he wanted reparations.