October 24th, 2016
Craig opened the decrepit chamber door with bated breath, trying to conceal himself from the uncertain stillness in the next room, his vision tunneling to contain only the grain of the dark wood before him so that he may be as ready as possible to confront the evil that had taken residence in this cursed mansion. He raised up his pistol to the level of his eye, braced for anything, and yet he still trembled at the sudden pierce of a haunting scream. "Craig!" Tweek wailed as he surged up from behind, his crooked fingers clutching to his beloved for dear life.
"Jesus!" Craig expelled all the air from his lungs at once in the throes of unholy terror, twisting to look over his shoulder at Tweek, eyes open wide, needled pupils reflecting a life flashing before his eyes, but when he turned to look there was nothing there. So arrested by his astonishment, Craig was unable to react in time- the shambling monster he had been on guard for was upon him, its fetid maw agape, putting jagged teeth to his neck, ripping him apart from throat to chest, sending swaths of his lifeblood gushing over the floor. The last words that he heard before he died: "We need to win the couples costume contest!"
"What?" Craig blinked out of beat. Dark red blood pooled together as the world faded to black, forming the words 'game over'. "We need to win the couples costume contest!" Tweek repeated. Craig selected 'continue' from the game-over screen, loading back to his last save. "Why?" Craig asked, opening the inventory screen and leaving it there once the game had loaded. He took off his Playstation VR headset and waited for a good answer. "Because..." Tweek trailed off and let go of Craig guiltily, realizing what he'd done. If Craig ever grabbed him like that while he was trying to play VR, he'd never let Craig hear the end of it. That said, Craig was playing it the most between them since Clyde had given it to them. Clyde was an Xbone dudebro, so when he won the PS VR set from a Taco Bell promo he let them have it. "Because," Tweek reprised, "Red told me that she heard from Millie that someone made a post on the school message board that said that the Halloween couples costume contest last year was rigged to make us the winners, and that we only won because we're the only openly gay couple in school, and the school board just wanted the publicity!"
"Nuh-uh," Craig droned. "Yeah-huh!" Tweek puffed up, "whoever it was deleted the post, but some people saw it, and it's turning into a rumor- no, it's probably been a rumor for weeks now, and this is just the first time we're hearing about it!" Craig objected, "our Super Craig & Wonder Tweek costumes were definitely the best last year." Nevermind that the couple's costumes were mostly a pair of his normal blue jackets with some construction paper flair taped on. "Whoever posted that is a dipshit. Even if the schoolboard did just pick us for PC brownie points, maybe that's a good thing. Maybe we won't be the only gay couple nominated this year, because other people will want to try and win."
Tweek looked aghast at the prospect of more competition before bristling up anew. "Gah, we still need to win- that's the only way to kill this stupid rumor! Please help me think of the perfect couples costume before next week, and keep it top secret!" Craig relented, "alright," before going back to his game.
October 28th, 2016
"Hailing tightbeam signal 301, requesting permission to land."
The Old Star in the sky dimmed ominously, telling of its advanced age. The star's solitary sentient-hospitable planet would have to be evacuated in the coming eon, but the planet's once nomadic people seemed to be returning home in greater number instead. Once too arid to live comfortably on, the planet now proliferated with enormous pollinating plants and insects as general fauna died out. Bringing the ship down to the surface, one had to be wary of passing migratory swarms that might pick a ship to pieces if it had something attractive on the hull. "You can't go out without your helmet," Craig warned his anxious crewmate, holding him back from the breach, trying to fit it over him with a gentle touch. "There." Spaceman Craig kissed his forehead and carried him to the exotic alien world just outside.
"You finished Stripe's costume?"
"What?" Craig looked up at Tweek, putting Spaceman Stripe down on the alien planet set he'd made. "Oh, yeah," he confirmed, returning to task and readying his camera phone before Stripe could try and eat something on set.
"It's cute," Tweek said earnestly, sticky fingers draped in pumpkin innards, turning a carving knife in his hands. He got the urge to lean down and kiss Craig on the cheek, and after a year of being together, he felt comfortable to just go on and do it. It gave him a giddy feeling. He hoped it didn't disturb Craig, who remained intensely focused on capturing a photo of Stripe in his Halloween costume. "Did you put some thought into our costume?"
"One sec," Craig took multiple pictures (with the flash off) and then handed Tweek a crumpled sheet of lined paper from his fanny pack. Tweek chirped with curiosity and sat beside the low table in the living room, his knee touching Craig's, setting down his knife to open up the sheet he'd been given. In Craig's scratchy, blocky shorthand-writing Tweek could make out the following costume ideas: Ivan Drago x Rocky Balboa, Khal Drogo x Daenerys, Cloud x Tifa, Rin x Akira, Junkrat x Zenyatta, Legolas x Aragorn, Red Racer x Gold Racer, Sailor Moon x Tuxedo Mask...Tweek's eyes glanced up off the page, though it kept going past where he'd read. "I don't know...I don't even recognize some of these! Oh Jesus, why did I put this off for so long- there's only three days left!" his eyes scrabbled over the page looking for more. "It has to just- jump out and scream perfect! Like- Ahh!" Tweek screamed unintentionally. "Calm down," Craig tried to say soothingly, but he inwardly cringed, remembering too late that that was a phrase Tweek loathed to hear.
"Calm down?" Tweek repeated, continuing to be not calm, "if we're not the 2-time Halloween Couples Contest Winners, people are going to buy into that rumor completely! And if they buy into one rumor, they'll buy into even more! Who knows what people will start thinking about us next!" Tweek advanced on Craig, already at his knee, but pushing him to the floor in a grapple. "Give me a perfect costume idea- now!" Tweek brandished his pumpkin carving tool while pinning his struggling mate.
"Oh, shit!" Craig bowled onto his back on the floor, blustering, "what the fuck!" It was just a safety blade right? A carving tool they sell in a pack in grocery stores to kids? How does Tweek look so lethal with it, straddling Craig's torso, holding him down and assailing him in a clamor, "-give me a perfect couples costume- now! Everyone has to know how in tune we are!" Craig held up his hands, his mind racing as slimy pumpkin innards trailed across his neck from the carver, "we could, uh, you know," he stalled with bits of speech until he spat out "we could dress up as each other!"
Tweek paused to prolong the suspense, but he seemed pleased with that answer. "I could skin you and be Craig for Halloween! That's perfect!" Craig groaned, "Knock it off!" He'd complimented Tweek one too many times on his acting skills. He'd created a monster. Tweek took the blunted, flimsy safety carving tool from the grocery store kit for kids away from Craig, hugging him on the floor, kissing pumpkin innards off of his neck. "You're not mad, are you?"
Craig rolled his eyes, still struggling in the hold of a cloying embrace. "I thought we said no more tricks to try and spook each other."
Tweek mumbled in response, "I love you so much it's scary, so you started it." The oven from the kitchen dinged and he got up in a hurry to attend to it, pulling one tray out and putting in another. "Pumpkin seeds are done!"
"Bring some over," Craig requested, groping around blindly above and behind him for a cushion from the couch, pulling it down to tuck behind his head, sitting up briefly to grab the TV remote off the low table, and to adjust his junk in his drawers, having been scared stiff.
October 31st, 2016
Tweek and Craig went ahead with their perfect couples costume idea, dressing up as each other. Tweek wearing Craig's blue jacket and chullo hat, his high-waisted black slacks, and his yellow mittens. He had to roll up the legs some, being too short otherwise. Craig likewise was bursting at the poorly-buttoned seams of one of Tweek's faded green, long-sleeve shirts, a pair of dark blue jeans, and laceless black boots. Tweek did seem confident about it after all, though Craig wasn't so sure. Cute or not, wasn't dressing up as each other too easy? For Tweek's sake he hoped they won, it seemed so important to him, for whatever reason he wanted to say it was. That first year that they'd won, Tweek had cried happy, embarassed tears for a full hour. Craig held his hand tight when the two of them were nominated, too distracted to dance or keep up Token and Clyde's conversation about the best kill from the Friday the Thirteenth films.
Up on stage, out of the running for being on the dance planning committee and also single, Wendy Testaburger and Bebe Stevens in their Star Fleet Command uniforms read the results of the Judges' deliberations. "The winners are..." Wendy paused for dramatic effect, but Bebe leaned in and read it off the cart first, "Eric Cartman and Heidi Turner, for their Han Solo and Chewbacca costume!"
Sat at just the next table with Stan, Kyle, and Kenny (all three being mutually sick of seeing Cartman and Heidi together), Cartman and Heidi jumped up in glee. "Oh my god Boo, we won!" Heidi celebrated, muffled under her Chewbacca mask. "Better luck next year Tweek, I thought you and Craig had great costumes too- dressing up as each other is so clever!"
"Kiss my ass!" Tweek spat in a fury, flipping the bird at the happy couple. Cartman winked, "I'd rather kiss a wookie," and Heidi replied on cue, "that can be arranged." Everyone in earshot groaned inwardly. Cartman beamed, making his way to the stage to accept the award with Heidi. "Oh my god, you guys, seriously, how did I get so lucky to get a girlfriend that is so funny, and beautiful, and a nerd for Star Wars." Heidi pleaded, "oh, stop." Cartman refused, "no, you're the best Heidi, get over yourself."
Tweek sunk low in his chair, mumbling, "we didn't win..."
"Let's go," Craig urged, taking Tweek's hand and leading him outside. Scattered leaves skated across the frosted ground, tumbling over lawn decorations of headstones and flickering jack-o-lanters astride the steps of the school gym's back entrance. They walked home, Tweek mumbling he'd like to change into their hero costumes before going out later. Craig skirted around giving a gay little speech while trying to help Tweek feel better, but it didn't seem like anything else would do, so he stopped Tweek beside the solemn quiet of a graveyard to get his full attention. "We don't have to put on costumes or win a contest to be the best couple. That's not for anyone else to judge. No one else needs to know it but us." To seal the deal he gave Tweek a kiss. That warm, giddy feeling made things better.
"You're right, thank you," Tweek hugged Craig, watching the long shadows of the graveyard dance behind Craig, stretching and skewing, bathed in eerie green light. "Happy Halloween," Tweek cheered. He moved to pull away from the hug, but Craig was still holding him, and strangely tight at that.
Behind Tweek, the origin of the eerie green lights, something unidentifiable, some object defying scientific law in its steady hovering, quietly observing them. Craig was frozen in place beholding it, when he felt Tweek moving, he held on tight, put a hand to the back of his head to keep him tucked in at the crook of his shoulder, looking away. Whether or not they were taken that night, the visitors would not leave them with the memory of it. "Happy Halloween," Craig whispered, clutching ever tighter, eyes open as wide as saucers, reflecting pale green glow.