HOLY CRAP WE'RE ALIVE!

Hello friends and readers of all persuasions, and welcome to the sixth installment of the New Kid Stories- my series of stories which entail the adventures of my New Kid from the South Park games Stick of Truth and Fractured but Whole. I write these stories in an episodic fashion, with each story containing a plot all its own while also contributing to a long-term arc and overall mystery. You're welcome to hop in wherever you like, as I try to include enough callback and recap in each story that it can be picked up by a new reader without going through all the shit that came before, but there will be details in each individual installment that foreshadow that which is to come. Y'know, for the crazies out there who dig that, like me.

What you need to know about the story: My New Kid is a Cisgendered, Pansexual [disaster] girl who has presented as male since moving to South Park because of personal fears that she won't be able to hang out with the guys if they find out she's a chick. Her ability to influence people online is a facet of a legit superpower that is yet to be fully understood and has IRL uses that function via her voice, so she is generally silent minus a select few individuals who appear to be immune. She still fights crime as Buttlord, partnered with Mysterion and Callgirl, and her and Kenny began dating in secret in story #3.

What you need to know about me: This story is my JUST FOR FUN PROJECT. There will be mistakes. Previous stories are messy and have inconsistencies on how old the kids are, what grade they're in, and the first story in particular is clunky as hell. I write these fics when I'm too stressed out for my professional projects. A lot of the writing is done seat-of-the-pants style with references to the Wiki when in doubt, and South Park can't keep it's own goddamn canon consistent. There will be silly mistakes. There will be spelling errors. There will be goof-ups. You're welcome to respectfully notify me when I've messed up a sentence structure or some shit, but do not expect me to go and re-write a whole chapter or do find and replaces on the whole series because I flubbed something. If it's an honest fuck-up and I think it's important, I'll clarify it in the future. If it doesn't matter, I'm not spending energy to fix it or stress out about it. This fic is just for fun. Do not harass me over content you are getting for free. I tried humoring people at the beginning, and people were abusive ass hats.

Now that I've scared off everyone who thinks I'm little more than a whiny snowflake,

ON
WITH
THE
FIC

OWTF!

::Sneaker's SnacShak – Thanksgiving's Briefings::

Butters and Kenny had run a gauntlet of toddlers just to get up the stairs after getting a text to meet Dee in his room. Butters thought all of the cousins were kinda cute, what with all their energy, but he could understand how a quiet guy like Dee would find them really annoying. He liked his space, and kiddos weren't really known for respecting that. Once they were up the stairs, and a scary old lady on the couch had shouted at the little ones trying to follow them, Kenny had knocked on the door in a reserved manner that barely got over the din coming from downstairs.

The door didn't open right away. There was hesitation.

"Maybe he's takin' a nap?" Butters posited. As someone who had recently gotten out of the hospital himself and was taking prescription pain medication, he knew from experience that sleep was a primary activity. Did they give the knock-out pills to people who got stitches? He'd had surgery to fix internal bleeding after getting shot, but Dee's injuries had all been external; lacerations, burns.

Kenny glanced down. The fact that he hadn't dressed up at all for this made Butters feel a little weird next to him. Thanksgiving was a Sunday best sort of day at his house, and he'd stuck with that tradition. White button-down, black slacks, and shiny shoes he'd left at the door upon request. Kenny, on the other hand, had stuck with his usual; orange parka, ratty jeans. He'd unzipped the coat when they came inside, but he didn't take it off or remove the hood from his head, the fur lining obscuring the spray of messy blond hair he had. Beneath he had a faded yellow scarf that hung around his neck, and a well-loved gray shirt that had been patched at least three times and stained much more than that. Heavy boots had also been left behind, and his toes stuck out through holes in his socks.

Then Kenny smiled, and it didn't feel so weird anymore. Different was okay. "Nah, give 'em a sec."

The door opened. Kenny faced forward and grinned. Butters turned, too, and was faced with Dee in one of his fairly common outfits; hat, T-shirt, and cargo pants. It was a getup that landed him between himself and Kenny- the three ran the spectrum of church to not leaving my room today.

He didn't even notice at first.

There was a pause, awkward. Dee was... anxious. It was on his face, the way his jaw was tight and his eyes were a little too wide. Butters figured it had to be because the house was so full of people he barely knew; Kenny had explained to him how Dee didn't really know his family at all. It had to be scary to suddenly have so many new people in your house. Heck, Butters was known to get a bit spun up from just one relative visiting because his grandmother was terrifying in every conceivable way.

"Hey dude." Kenny greeted with his smirk, turning and slipping by him to enter. Butters waited until Dee stepped aside, waving a hand that welcomed.

Butters got maybe three steps in, the door shutting behind him, when it struck him. Something about Dee was different. Not usual. Out of place.

He turned around to look at his friend again. To examine his anxious face as he remained by the door, his hand lingering after he'd secured the lock to keep his cousins out. Nothing looked particularly different there- his hair was still a curly red mess- one that would have fallen to his shoulder-blades if he hadn't contained it with a black knit hat, but the way he wore it let his bangs spill out all the same. Green eyes stared from beneath brown eyebrows that evidenced the origins of his hair color to be a dye kit of some kind- all that was the same as always. He still had some gauze wrapped around his forearm, covering healing cuts from a week and a half ago and protecting stitches used to keep the lacerations closed, but that wasn't abnormal. Dee was scrappy; this was hardly the first time Butters had seen him wrapped up for something.

He blinked. Maybe the T-shirt was the weird part? But he saw Dee wear shirts like this in gym class every day since middle school had started, when his usual big blue hoodie would have gotten him in trouble for not following dress code. Butters still remembered how surprised he'd been the first time, though, since he'd always assumed Dee was kinda chunky under his bulky every-day wear. Instead, it turned out, he was a pretty small dude who liked to wear big clothes.

That's when it hit him.

Dee's chest looked different. It was usually... well, flat.

Today it was not.

Kenny started laughing somewhere behind him. It made his face color up, and he had to assume it was some kind of joke his friends had planned together- so he laughed, too. A shaky little chuckle as he ended up staring at the apparent appearance of one of his friends with-

"Dee, are you wearing f-fake boobies?"

They look pretty real.

Kenny snorted, and started laughing harder, plopping himself down on the edge of Dee's bed as he put a hand over his mouth to contain himself. Dee shot the tall beanpole of a boy a glare.

"They're not fake, dude." Kenny informed once he got ahold of himself enough to speak. "Dee decided that... well, she wanted to tell you the truth about this."

She?

Butters looked at Dee again. He- she-? They were looking back at him, and there was no joking smile or laughing. No, no, Dee had a face that could speak without speaking, expressive in a way that Butters found easy to read. The anxiety he'd read before had morphed into a sort of plea with big green eyes and a tight mouth that meant to beg. In his head, it said I'm sorry for keeping it a secret. Please believe me. This isn't a joke.

"Whoa, fellas... fellas, I- but, Dee, you use the little boys room, and-" He shook his head, working through a couple years worth of memories. Girls didn't hang out with guys, and they didn't act like Dee! Dee farted, texted around links when good porn without viruses was found, and laid logs in the boys bathroom without flushing to gross out classmates! Dee got into fights in the playground, and sat with other guys at lunch, and didn't dress cute or wear make-up. Dee didn't hang out with the girls, and seemed to actively avoid them whenever things got spun up in that sector of the student body. If Dee was a girl, why did she spend all this time preforming everything that constituted being a boy?

Was it all an act, something she pretended for the past couple of years?

Did he know Dee at all?

"Oh, hamburgers-"

He felt Kenny's hand on his shoulder. The tall boy had gotten back to his feet while Butters's brain had been locking up in confusion. Grasped, he found himself pulled a little bit, and then a lanky arm slid around him. Kenny slouched forward, his other hand coming around to put a finger up, wagging it at Butters and getting his full attention away from staring at Dee as if they were some kind of unknown specimen in a lab. "Calm down, dude; it's okay."

"B-but- Dee doesn't- you don't act like a girl." Butters addressed Dee directly, trying to give words to the confused tumble of thoughts.

She winced, like he'd smacked her, shoulders rising a little bit in a subtle flinch.

"What does that mean?" Kenny asked him pointedly.

"Huh? Whaddya mean? The girls all pack together, an' they're pretty, an' they go shopping, an' they all sit together, an' they make lists an' gossip and-"

"Act like girls?" Kenny responded with brows arched high but the lids of his eyes narrowed, creating a testing expression. "I had trouble with this too, dude- but we don't decide what makes someone a boy or a girl. They do. Performance isn't gender. Dee acts like Dee, and she wanted to tell you this about herself because you've been a good friend to us, and she trusts you."

That struck him. This wasn't the first time Kenny and Dee had confronted Butters with a secret; he was the first person to know that they were dating, after all. He still remembered meeting up by Stark's Pond, the pair of them holding hands as a gentle way of letting him know why Dee was turning him down for the homecoming dance; the fact that they and Kenny were going out in secret. It was because of Butters that the secret pair were actually able to go to the dance together, but not as a couple. Instead they'd gone as a group of friends, with him covering for them. Dee and Kenny hung out a lot with Butters as their ostensible third wheel, turning things that mighta looked like dates into stuff that looked like just some guy friends hanging out- stuff like walking around the park, getting food, and going to the movies.

Honestly, it was the longest Butters had hung out with any group without getting picked on or made to do something humiliating or gross. There was a part of him that had been waiting for the other shoe to drop, expecting a prank or something terrible to happen. This felt like it had to be it... but there was Dee, staring at him again, and either wearing the best poker face in the history of the universe or genuinely desperate for him to believe that this was real.

"Does anyone else know?" Butters asked in a small voice.

He watched Dee's posture melt. Square shoulders that had been stiff coming down, and a long exhale leaving her in an audible sigh of relief. Exhaustion was accompanied by a small smile that anyone could read.

Thank you.

"Wendy guessed it the day she moved in." Kenny responded with a chuckle, leading Butters over to have a sit on the edge of the bed where Kenny had been before, joining him with a punctuated flopping of his person in surrender to gravity. "And Dee told me after the first day of school this year."

Butters watched in some mild amount of wonder as Dee took steps over to her rolling chair in front of her computer, turning it and plopping into it as if she'd just run a marathon. She sat like she always did; slouched over so far her butt nearly hung off the seat. Literally nothing had changed about her, and yet Butters could not stop looking for signs that she was somehow different aside from the obvious.

He ducked his head when Kenny ruffled his hair, laughing again. "Dude, you're staring."

"S-sorry!" He squealed, tucking his hands into his lap and focusing his eyes on his knuckles; he couldn't stare if he didn't look. "I just... uh... can I ask a question?"

"Go for it." Kenny welcomed, covering for Dee's inarticulate state as he frequently did.

"How..." He paused, and then looked up at Dee again. "How did you make your boobies disappear?"

That got laughter from both of them. Kenny's was free, a barked spurt as he leaned back a second before coming back to his seated position. Dee's was snorted behind a hand that clapped over her mouth, muffling the noise.

"Through the strange black magic that is a binder." Kenny intoned dramatically. "It squishes 'em down and helps Dee pass when she's gotta wear something lighter than her hoodie."

"Pass?" Butters looked back up to Dee quizzically. "Pass what?"

"Pass as a boy." Kenny rephrased. "Like during gym and shit."

Dee nodded along, approving of the phrasing, though she did so with a grimace. Butters got the sense that while the binder helped with appearances, it probably hurt to keep something constricting on during gym class when running and such were expected.

"Dee's worried she can't keep it a secret for much longer... wearing the binder all the time can fuck you up six ways to Sunday. So far she's just been letting people keep their assumptions, but she knows once she starts looking like a girl to people, it's gonna be a big deal." Kenny looked back to Butters, slipping from his role as translator and speaking to him, dude-to-dude. "She wanted you in her corner before that happened- back-up, y'know? So when everyone is yelling at her to act like a girl or shit like that, she's got people who won't be assholes about it. Think you can handle that, dude?"

Butters was quiet a moment, realizing what was really being asked of him here. It wasn't as complicated as he made it out to be in his head- and the end of the day, what Dee wanted from him was... well, something he was very good at. She wanted him to be kind to her.

That thought got him to smile, and his nod was so enthusiastic it got his whole upper body to bob. "No problem, fella- ah- uh- buddies?"

Dee waved her hand at him, air expelled out of her nose as she grinned in a silent laugh. Fellas is fine, I don't care.

Thanksgiving chaos was the order of the day when the trio finally went downstairs to get food. Things had been set up buffet style in the kitchen, and people were invited to eat wherever they could park their butts. Dee's various cousins had been arranged by their parents to gather in the living room, keeping their mess contained to a single location [and single rug that would likely be thrown out after the fact], while adults resigned themselves to standing room only and surrendered seats like the couch to the grandparent generation. When she, Butters, and Kenny passed through the line to get plates and food, it was fairly easy for them to slip upstairs again without garnering the notice of anyone who might want to keep them downstairs to socialize. The errant squawk of one of the toddlers crying unfair as the adolescents were spied slipping back up the stairs was just another noise, one the kid was yelled at for instead of their complaint being addressed.

Dee mildly suspected that her parents knew full well she and her friends had escaped, and allowed it due to sympathy. They were adults, they were the ones who invited the family here after she had taken action to end the continuous attempts by the government to surveil and kidnap them. Adults who still, after explanations, suspected their kid might have some kind of cheesing problem... and though they were extremely wrong, her sudden gaining of a new cat without their permission certainly did not help suspicions.

Mom was worried, but Dad was the bulwark of understanding. He'd defended her right to, for lack of a better term, be a person who made decisions. If her decision was to adopt a cat, have a few select friends over during holiday chaos, and hide in her room... well, he'd let her go, and Mom would sigh and deal with it as he insisted it was for the best between smiling at relatives.

Getting back to her room, she returned the door to its locked state while balancing a full plate of food on the other hand. Butters and Kenny both sat on the floor, and she joined them. Said cat, who had been in hiding since her friends arrived, poked his butterscotch nose out from beneath her bed and meowed plaintively, no doubt just as interested in turkey and gravy as anyone else.

"Oh hey, it's that fucker." Kenny smirked, looking over as the fluffy beast emerged, slinking forward with his nose working furiously. "Uh, Junior is what you decided to call him, right?" He asked, looking back to her.

Cartman got his official name noted as Cartman Junior, since he was with me during registration at the vet's. I'll stick with Junior. She nodded a bit, crawling a hand on the carpeted floor and skittering it this way and that to get the cat's attention... but getting to her meant crossing between the boys, and the feline appeared unwilling. He kept his belly low, and instantly dashed back towards the bed when Butters reached out a hand to attempt to pet the animal.

"Easy dude, he's shy." Kenny snickered. "You gotta let cats come to you."

"Can I feed him some turkey?" Butters asked, staring at the animal with wide eyes that desperately wanted to appease the feline so that he could pet him. He looked first to Kenny, who shrugged, not knowing Dee's ruling on the subject. Next he looked to Dee, who frowned sternly.

Fuck no, the son of a bitch gets the runs when you feed him people food. I hate cleaning that shit outta the litter box... and his fluffy butt-fur, for that matter.

"Awe... darn."

Despite this, Junior meowed again, slinking close once more to sniff at Butters's elbow, his tail swishing across the carpet as he did so. He rose up a little, following his nose to peer over the boy's arm as he held statue-still, not wanting to scare the kitty off unless he tried to steal something off of his Thanksgiving plate. Slowly, very slowly, it looked like he just might relax a tiny bit, his ears coming up and forward and his body not clinging so tightly to the floor.

In the rapt silence, someone's phone vibrated, the cat spooked, and he disappeared back under the bed.

"Dang!" Butters uttered like he were actually cursing, and Kenny snickered while Dee fumbled out her phone. It was hers that went off, and checking her scuffed and scratched screen let her know that Wendy had shot her a text. Eyebrows arched as she read it.

[Received, 3:44] Hey, sorry if I'm interrupting your holiday, but could we meet up ASAP?
[Received, 3:35] It's about the folder.

The folder. That was code for the stack of documents Dee made sure Wendy got; copies of the information packet the good Doc Kartwright had delivered.

The data from when her parents were studied by the government. From the facility where she was born.

They'd agreed to never refer to it directly in electronic communication; Kartwright didn't trust that their messages weren't being monitored by someone, even if the main Agency that dealt with this shit had been made to properly fuck off. The woman may have been a somewhat paranoid CDC agent with a gun, but she was also the only federal employee on their side right now... her advice was accepted as good advice. Wendy had been trusted with a copy because Dee certainly didn't have the mental skills to skim through all the fucking shit in those folders and draw any meaningful conclusions. If she couldn't punch it, it wasn't her problem... that's why she had a team of friends she could lean on with this crap.

She supposed she could have asked Kartwright to read the files and give her the cliff-notes; the woman was a legitimate scientist... but Dee didn't fully trust her. She'd apparently come out to South Park for her own reasons, besides delivering the data, and would not share the details with 'a bunch of kids with mild delusions of grandeur'- so they both had their secrets to keep, and their own work to do.

Sometimes a little paranoia is healthy.

"- dang it she's spaced again- Dee, come back to earth!"

Her shoulders jolted, and she blinked a few times to look up and find that Junior had found his courage to go around the boys and try to get to her plate while she was off in la-la land, and that the only thing preventing the cat from licking up the well of gravy in her mashed potatoes was Kenny extending his leg out across the floor to create a barrier between skittish cat and delicious dinner.

"Are you okay?" Butters asked earnestly, eyes as big as saucers. She didn't usually space in front of him- then again, they usually spent time with him when they were ignoring the heavy shit to act like regular kids.

Her mouth actually opened as if she were going to verbally respond. She then snapped it shut, and passed her phone over to Kenny. Butters got a look while it was in transit.

"Ah, shit." Kenny huffed as Junior put a paw on his leg, looking like he might chance a hop over.

"Folder? What's Wendy talking about?" Butters asked.

Kenny looked to Dee. He knew, but whether or not he explained was not his call.

She winced, unsure. Sure, she wanted to trust Butters with more- that's what today had been all about... but she felt like they'd dropped a lot on him today. Adding on the whole government experimentation thing might be a little much.

If you can find a way to phrase it that won't make his brain ooze outta his ears, go for it.

"Dee, are you in trouble?" Butters pressed as Kenny bumped up his leg, spooking Junior but not quite driving the cat all the way back to his hiding spot. He skittered off a few steps, then rounded and began nosing up again. "... did you fall behind in school? Is Wendy helping you catch up?"

She and Kenny shared a glance. She supposed an ominous mention of a folder would get that reaction from an average student. It would make a convenient lie...

"Nah, it's not like that." Kenny shook his head. "Just some heavy shit going on with her and her family right now- we're pretty sure Dee's got legit superpowers."

She blinked as Butters's expression opened up from worry to surprise, but also excitement. "REALLY?"

Junior bolted back under the bed, and Kenny laughed. Dee found herself with a faint chuckle behind a closed smirk.

Leave it to Kenny to save me from myself. Again.

:THE AUTHOR'S CORNER:

HOLY HELL IT'S BEEN A COUPLE MONTHS. HELLO FRIENDS.

I decided this fic needed to open with some shippy goodness, because I'm prolly gonna end up dipping back into the horror pot. Also... Butters.

Also Dee being a flawed human being who frequently underestimates people and has some serious trust issues. Kenny is many things; a liar? He is not. He won't let her do that shit just cause she's scared.

A heads up that my lovely just got back from deployment; I suspect updates will be slow as I adjust to him being back in the house. In the meantime and between time, y'all are welcome to hit up my Tumblr [same username as here], where I draw art for the story, answer asks as Dee and co, and post a lot of adorable animal pictures.

Also, please- if you are reading this, take a second to review. Every little bit of feedback is precious to me, and it lets me know that this just-for-funsies story is still worth all the effort I put into it... which is honestly more than I expected to. XD

Thank you, thank you so friggin' much.

ONWARDS!

-Buttlord