Tweek Versus Sanity
The gnomes strike back.
Oneshot
By: Rai-Child
Fandom: South Park
Disclaimer: I do not own South Park or any of the characters.
Summary: They were back, and this time it was certain... They were after more than just his underpants... Oneshot.
Author's Note: Haven't written anything for South Park for a while- this seemed like a good idea. X3 So much fun to write… Enjoy! xx
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It was a Saturday afternoon the first time fifteen-year-old Tweek Tweak saw them again.
It was purely by chance, the tip of a red, pointed hat appearing over the window ledge and then disappearing from sight. By the time he had made it to his feet and was half way across the room, it was gone. He stood in shocked silence, as if someone had pressed the mute button on his world, his surroundings seeming to spin and-
"Tweek? Tweek- get the hell outta the way!" Craig yelled, wildly hammering buttons on the controller, twisting a little in his seat to see the television screen. Tweek jumped and stepped to one side, just as Token's character flew in from off-screen and the words 'ONE HIT K.O' flashed in large, red lettering.
"B-bad luck, C-Craig." Cut in Jimmy, ignoring dark-haired boy as he flipped him the bird.
"What was it this time...?" Clyde asked over the yelling, looking up from his position on the floor, leaning against the couch. "Aliens? The living dead?" Since the rise of the gnomes several years back, Tweek had been highly suspicious of both the supernatural and extra-terrestrials.
"No." He said, twitching a little, completely serious despite Clyde's raised eyebrow. "No, n-not this time."
"Look, just sit down." Ordered Craig, still somehow managing to scowl at both him and Jimmy at the same time. "You completely destroyed my winning streak, dumbass." He turned his attention back to the screen, wincing. "Can we just start another game already...?" It was mocking him. All he needed now was monotonous, computerised laughter to add effect. Token ignored him, choosing instead to savour his victory.
"How can you be thinking about your stupid game at a time like this?" Tweek threaded both hands into his hair, tugging at the blonde strands. Clyde was suddenly very, very glad that his parents were out for the day. Everyone fell silent.
"Okay, C-Craig, you lost to T-T-Token. It's m-my t-turn now-"
"Do you know what that was?" Tweek pointed animatedly at the window, jumping a little on the spot. "It was there! I saw it!" Clyde shrank back against the couch.
"Saw what...?"
"Aww, c'mon Clyde, you saw it, right? Tell them you saw it!" More silence. Tweek laughed, his voice breaking a pitch higher. "Fine! You can stay here and act like nothing's wrong! I'm leaving!"
The door slammed shut behind him.
Token and Clyde made it to the window just in time to see him race off down the driveway, screaming incoherently at some innocent lawn ornament and sprinting along the road and out of sight.
"Erm... Isn't his house that way...?" Token raised an eyebrow.
"What the hell's his problem?" Craig muttered sullenly from the couch, red lettering still flashing in his eyes.
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"They're on the move again..." Tweek mumbled as he stared out of the gap in his bedroom curtains, eyes frantically scanning and rescanning the length of the street. "They're rebelling. They're out to get me..." It had become something of a mantra; if he said it enough, maybe the problem would just go away.
He could hear the laughter, and the patter of miniature feet on the floorboards-
Gah-!
"I know you're out there!" He screamed out of the open window. Something under the snow-covered hedge across the road shifted a little, and then lay still. A few passers-by on the street below gave him funny looks before continuing on their way. He shrank back into the darkness of his room, shutting the window tightly.
Gnomes.
Just-
Gnomes. Nothing new there.
They'd left him alone for a while. Still, he'd felt their presence and now it was stronger than ever, little eyes watching his every move, following every step he took...
Paranoia had always been his worst trait.
It dawned on him that, despite the fact that the world outside was evidently infested, he hadn't thought to secure the immediate perimeter to ensure the problem didn't infiltrate the house too. A fatal mistake to make. He scrabbled for the light switch, eyes wildly scaling every wall and exploring every nook and cranny as his hands fumbled across the wallpaper...
Gnomes. They were dangling off the light. They were on, in and under his bed, sitting on his pillow. They were moving across the floor, climbing up the walls, swinging from the ceiling. Gnomes on his wardrobe, gnomes in his sock drawer, gnomes on the windowsill-
The switch clicked and the room was bathed in clean, white light.
The gnomes were gone.
"You're here, aren't you?" He announced loudly, flattening himself against the wall. "You're here, playing your stupid mind games with me! Messing with my head!" A faint giggle came from over his shoulder and then was lost to the silence. "F-fine! That's fine! I don't care!" He could wait. Oh yes, he certainly had more patience then a gnome. He would simply wait and then they'd be forced to show themselves...
A pause.
"DAMMIT!" Tweek turned and reached for the light switch once more, turning the bulb on and off repeatedly, watching as those eyes flashed wide in the dark and seemed to disappear into nothing as the light invaded. That laughter, that taunting, impish laughter that had always driven him so dangerously close to the edge was-
Was…
There was a popping noise as the filament broke.
Tweek was plunged into darkness.
Hundreds of eyes blinked simultaneously, and then narrowed-
"AIIIIIIIIGGGGGGGHHH!"
-----
"Man, you look terrible..."
"Thanks, Token."
"What happened? Haven't seen you since yesterday." Tweek shrugged, still nursing that same cup of coffee he had got himself an hour ago. It was cold, but he didn't seem to notice.
He was huddled on a bench looking over Stark's Pond, having finally found a gnome-free environment in which to recover in peace. Knowing the gnomes, they would know he was intending to go to school and would have already set up camp there. He had to pool his ideas, find some way to stop the little buggers-
"Tweek? Hey- Tweek? You home?" Token was waving a hand in front of his face.
"Wuh? Oh... You're still here, huh?"
"Yes, I'm still here, now are you gonna talk or do I have to force it out of you?" Tweek sighed.
"Shouldn't you be at home? It's not safe to be out in the open, you know. Especially around here. It's kinda lonely- not many people around. If they attack, you're on your own..." He trailed off, muttering incoherently to himself. Token frowned, trying to pry the cup out of Tweek's winter-frozen fingers.
"I think you've had enough..." Tweek jerked, spilling the cold liquid over both of their hands. "Gross-"
"I can't go home. The house is infested. They've set up their base in my bedroom, hundreds of 'em. All watching me, they're watching, they're watching..."
"Tweek-"
"Constantly, I see 'em everytime the light goes off and then I blew the bulb in my bedroom..."
"Tweek-"
"-spent all of last night sleeping under the kitchen table, 'cause there's knives and stuff in there, you know? Good for self-defence. Very good for self-defence. But then you gotta be certain they don't get their hands on anything dangerous-"
"Tweek!"
"Wha?"
"What the hell are you talking about?" Tweek gaped at him, before gesturing widely. Token ducked under the arm, just in time.
"Gnomes!" Tweek exclaimed, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "They're everywhere! Sweet Jesus- you people are blind!" He started to shake the other boy, grabbing him by his collar with all intention of smacking his head against the hard surface of the bench; anything to make him open his eyes and-
And...
"THERE!" He yelled, jumping to his feet and leaving Token on his backside in the cold snow. He made it a few metres towards the water, watching as a hole the size of a tennis ball seemed to be carved out of the surface from below.
The tip of a pointed hat began to emerge-
"D'you see it?"
"See what? Jeez, Tweek, my pants are soaked-"
"There! Look, dammit!"
"I'm looking! There's nothing there!" Token yanked his arm free as Tweek grabbed it, before rolling his eyes and setting off for school again. "The sooner they pack you off to the crazy-house the better..."
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Tweek turned to the instructed page, sighing in frustration.
The gnomes were loose, and they expected him to do chemistry?
These people are out of their minds...
"All right then class, settle down. Let's pick up where we left off last week on ionic bonding. We'll start with the chemical equation for gnomes which is a metal, and gnomes which is a non-metal..." Tweek looked up in surprise from the squat, bearded creature he had been scribbling in the margin to stare at his teacher. Miss 'I-think-setting-homework-is-fun' hadn't missed a beat, noting down a few symbols on the whiteboard. The marker squeaked unpleasantly against the shiny surface.
Tweek put up his hand.
"Uh, Miss?"
"Yes?
"Could you repeat that last part? I don't think I heard correctly..."
"We're bonding a metal and a non-metal. Gnomes and gnomes, okay?" The wild-eyed look she recieved was ignored as she addressed the rest of the class; Tweek was left to mouth words that he couldn't seem to voice-
"Is anyone else lost?" The majority of the class raised their hands. "Right. Let's recap-" Tweek glanced over at Clyde, who was sitting further to the front on the next row.
"Clyde? Hey- Clyde!" He hissed, his hand blindly reaching for something on his desk. Clyde turned just as the pencil hit him in the side of the head.
"Ow- what?"
"Lemme see your notes!" The book was passed back to him as the teacher turned to write something else on the board. She really was completely clueless.
Tweek ran a bitten fingernail down the page until he came to that day's heading. He frowned.
The chemical equation for-
"Uh… B-Bebe, what do you have? He's written down oxygen, and-"
"Yes, that's right." Said the blonde-haired girl sitting next to him, pointing out the symbol for oxygen clearly written in her large, curly script. "Gnomes."
"Gnomes? It says oxygen."
"Wuh- are you okay, Tweek? Who said anything about gnomes?"
"You did, just!"
"No I didn't- I said gnomes. G-n-o-m-e-s."
"Gah! You just said it again!" There was a thud as a fist came down on the front desk, and everyone snapped to attention. The teacher frowned at them, textbook in hand, the other pressed flat against the desk.
"Enough! Whatever's going on in that back corner, surely it can't be as interesting as gnomes now, can it?"
"No Miss." Squeaked Bebe.
"Care to share, Miss Stevens?" Bebe shot a doubtful look at Tweek.
"I'm not exactly sure myself." Everyone laughed. Tweek passed Clyde's book forward again and sunk lower into his seat, murmuring something under his breath. By the time the lesson was over, the notes had deteriorated into nonsensical scribbles. He could hear them laughing at him, giggling down his ear…
"Right then, back to the lesson. When you've got the chemical symbol for gnomes-"
Can't… Can't take it…
Half an hour later, they were dismissed. The moment Bebe met Wendy in the corridor, she pried her friend off of Stan Marsh and tugged her to one side, whispering rather loudly in her ear-
"You will not believe what I've just had to put up with… Some rubbish about leprechauns or pixie folk or something like that..." Stan and Kyle looked at each other, before shrugging and continuing off to basketball practise.
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He was armed. Armed and completely untouchable.
No gnome would ever be able to get to him.
"Dad, I need the key to the shed."
"Why?"
"The gnomes are back. Do you have that old baseball bat?" His father did have the old baseball bat. It made for a very effective weapon.
Tweek was crouched, poised, ready. Hidden underneath his bed, the bat in one hand and an old torch in the other. An old bucket that hadn't seen good use for years, (mainly due to the numerous holes in the bottom of it), slipping down, nearly covering his eyes. He pushed it back up to it's rather haphazard perch on the top of his head, before moving the rest of his body out and into the open too...
A bitten finger moved for the switch on the base of the torch, slowly, deliberately sliding it to the left...
He had done the calculations.
If I can kill them at a faster rate than they breed, I should be done in...
About three years.
Yeah. Three years... They don't stand a chance against me...
The room was plunged into darkness, suddenly matching the black of the sky beyond his window. Shadowed figures moved for him, little hands outstretched, a strange, eerie moan flickering through the crowd as they moved in one mass...
Tweek was on his feet. The bat was poised, ready. The clear plastic protecting the bulb of the torch shattered at it hit the floor, sending its pointed shards skidding into the corner. They were sliding down the walls, jumping towards him, hanging off the ceiling, laughing, chattering... He swung his weapon blindly.
There was a creak, a crunch and a sudden scream.
He only hoped it was some gnome's spine snapping in two.
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"I'm so sorry to bother you at this late hour-"
"Really, it's fine. I can understand why you're concerned..."
"I've already called Mr. and Mrs. Black, the Stotchs, and Sheila Broflovski, but it seems no one's caught sight of him..."
"He hasn't been around here, I'm afraid... Our Clyde went to bed about four hours ago, and he hadn't seen him since school even then."
"Oh dear... Richard's been taken to the hospital- broke his nose, you know. He'll be fine- but after we heard screaming... We went up to his room to see what had happened, and he just swung..."
"I'll keep an eye out for him. Try not to worry."
Clyde was crouched at the top of the stairs, running a hand sleepily through his hair and yawning. It was two in the morning- surely anyone calling this late... It had to be important. The telephone had woken him up, along with the rest of the house, it seemed. His mother had muttered swear words under her breath as she trudged down the stairs and into the kitchen.
"Who was it, Ma?" Clyde asked, his voice still thick from sleep. Mrs. Donovan shook her head.
"Nothing. Go back to sleep, young man, you have school tomorrow."
"Well that sucks-"
"Clyde!" Clyde squeaked and shuffled back into his room, closing the door behind him. As if he would face his mother's wrath. He wandered aimlessly back to bed; his head barely touching the pillow before he was asleep again-
Well...
He would have been asleep, had it not been for a sudden yell from outside... He froze.
Footsteps were heard outside his door as his mother returned to her room.
How the hell could she have missed that...? He got out of bed, wincing slightly at the cold floor beneath his feet and padded over to the window...
A minute later, Craig's mobile went off. No one in the house was best pleased.
"What the hell is that...?" Came a voice as the door was opened abruptly. Craig sat up in bed, sleepily flipping his sister the bird and reaching for the phone, which lay on his bedside table. The girl huffed and slammed the door as she left, prompting more shouts from further down the hall...
"Wha' the hell d'you want, Clyde?" Craig mumbled sleepily into the mouthpiece, yawning widely.
"Craig? That you? There's something weird going on over here, dude..."
"If it's Butters again-"
"It's not Butters-
"Tell the little fag to go home-"
"Craig, it's not Butters!" Craig growled, reaching for his lamp and sitting up in bed. He rubbed his eyes.
"This had better be good..." He started, ominously, "Or else I'm g-"
"You can kick my ass later," Clyde said dismissively, staring out of the window. "This is... Urgh. My Mom got a call just, something about someone breaking their dad's nose or something dumb like that..."
"And this is relevant because...?"
"Craig, I have a Tweek on my front lawn."
"Tell him to fu-"
"That's your solution to everything, isn't it?" Clyde opened the window, leaning out a little.
Indeed the blonde-haired boy was in front of his house, yelling and swinging what looked like a baseball bat wildly over his head, as if fighting some sort of invisible army...
"You hear that?"
"I can hear it, yeah. What the hell's he doing?"
"I dunno, but he has a bucket on his head, if it helps... Oi- Tweek!" Clyde frowned as he went unnoticed. "Tweek!" Tweek blinked, and then looked up at him. He didn't stop swinging.
"C-Clyde, hey it's you! What are you doing he- argh!" He jabbed twice with the bat, backing off a little.
"I live here, Tweek."
"You do? That's nice." He evidently wasn't paying attention. "Look, Clyde, you gotta help me- they're back! And... And they're after more than just underpants this time!"
"They're after the rest of your wardrobe too...?"
"Clyde?" Craig's voice came from down the phone. Clyde turned away from the window to speak to him. "If he won't shift, just throw a rock at him or summat. That usually works."
"...How many rocks do you keep in your bedroom?"
"Well, use this as a lesson. Always keep a good supply of rocks in case Tweek goes insane." Clyde shook his head, sliding the windowpane shut and pulling the curtains over again. It was too late to be dealing with underwear-thieving gnomes and their mentally unstable target.
"...If you haven't got a rock, try a book or something." Craig offered oh-so-helpfully. Clyde slid back into bed, keeping the phone to his ear.
"I'm just gonna leave it..." He murmured, already half-asleep. "He'll probably have been arrested by morning anyway..."
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lol X3
Ally