The first time it happened, they were twelve.
Tweek woke up to the buzz of his phone, not that he was actually asleep, since his late night rituals consisted of him doing anything but. He was tossing around his bed, staring longingly at the ceiling of his room, watching how the moonlight draped on the walls, and oh, he spent hours to no end trying to figure what in the actual fuck was going on in this fucked up universe.
Not to mention the goddamn gnomes that left him with no underpants to spare, no matter how hard he tried to stop them from stealing his shit this time. Tweek was so exhausted, so spent, that even the bags under his eyes were tiring him out from their weight.
He was about to blink heavily and see where he could go from there, when the ringing of a new text message stopped him from doing so and managed to snap him back to reality. He shuffled toward his nightstand, squeaking when another text message followed immediately after the first one.
Tweek could count the people who knew his number by hand, and even fewer who would bother to waste their credit and text him at - he glanced at the clock and saw its hand hitting half past 3 am - this ungodly hour.
The light of his phone screen assaulted his already tired eyes, and after adjusting the brightness with a shaking finger, Tweek was assaulted yet again with a nonsensical sight.
It was him, texting Tweek way past his bedtime with not just one, but two consecutive texts, one after the other; multiples, not singles. That was, if he could remember correctly, something which the other boy despised and called anyone who couldn't get their point across with one message nothing but annoying assholes that deserved to be crucified for their insolence (Tweek learned that the hard way).
Already feeling anxious and on the brink of nonstop spasming, Tweek sent one prayer to god, hoped this night would end well, and opened the texts for further inspection.
As it turned out, all that was just wishful thinking.
Craig:
- I Love U So Much
- I Love U So fcking Much
Tweek blinked, once, twice, thrice, then almost on autopilot, he answered like any sensible twelve year old boy would given the situation.
Tweek:
- What the fuck?
Tweek watched, in absolute horror, as his lock screen filled with text notifications. Craig wasn't just double texting anymore, oh no, the boy followed with endless streams of messages, texting Tweek like there was no fucking tomorrow.
"Oh god!" Tweek threw away the phone like it was poison, the sounds emitted by his device almost driving him insane. "Oh Jesus!"
He had his hands covering his face, but from a small gap between his fingers, he could see parts of Craig's last messages popping up on the screen. He grabbed his phone, got up on his feet, and took the best course of action.
He sprinted toward his parents' room, screaming into high heavens.
Since the Tweaks' residence was infamous for never sleeping like a proper human household, Tweek was not surprised to find his mother awake and sitting in front of her dresser, midway through applying a mask on her face.
She blinked rapidly at him. Tweek screamed some more.
"Honey?" his mother asked, trying to make her tone as gentle as possible. It would have worked if she didn't look like she was pulling a loch ness monster with all that green shit on her face. "Do you need something?"
To explain the situation thoroughly, Tweek opened his mouth and released the highest shriek he could muster.
His mom, however, didn't seem to get the memo. "What happened, sweetie? Did you forget to take your medications?"
"It's Craig!" he exclaimed loudly, using one of his hands to pull on his hair. He ended up plugging some blond strands out of their roots. His mother winced at the sight. "He - he's being brainwashed, mom! Oh god, it's horrible!" he took a risky glance at his phone, and regretted it immediately. "GAAAAAH!"
"Calm down, sweetie-"
"He's saying something about the mall!" he told her, "They've invaded the mall, mom!"
"Who?"
"I don't know!" Tweek snapped, "P-Probably Stan and them or-" he gasped, "Oh god, it must be the aliens! I told you- I told you this would happen!"
"Come to think of it..." His mother glanced at the clock, then at the empty side of her bed, as if she had forgotten something very, very significant. Tweek couldn't blame her, since he himself didn't bother to notice what was missing. "Your dad hasn't come back from the mall either..."
After a whole minute of extreme and uncomfortable eye contact, the realization seemed to click in his and his mother's head at the same exact time.
"Oh god, oh Jesus! That was seven hours ago! It's FOUR A.M.!" Tweek was, unsurprisingly, delivering on his earlier promise of nonstop spasming. Which included him running around the room and shouting like a madman. "I'm going to lose both my best friend and my father in the same fucking night! What should we do?! What should we do?!"
"It's probably nothing, sugar plum." His mom smiled, trying to sound reassuring, even though she was already reaching out for her car keys.
"My last words to my dad would be 'ngh gah'!" Tweek went on, "Oh god, mom! What if the aliens are dissecting them as we speak?! Then we'll have to go and rescue them, and if we didn't make it on time they'll - they'll be - Jesus christ, that's WAY TOO MUCH PRESSURE!"
Between Tweek getting overwhelmed with hysteria and his mom trying to bring back his sanity, the two somehow managed to step inside the car and get on the road, his mother dressed in her nightgown and robe, loch ness mask still on.
The pop-up notifications on his phone, at that point, were making him so anxious Tweek was having a hard time breathing, even the seat belts not being able to stop him from jumping every other second.
Craig: [14 Unread messages]
- We Should defaintly...
- Lmao I Just Saw...
- Tweek Did I Mentio...
- I LOVE YOU
- L
- U
- V
- U
- Tweek
- TWEEK
- Honey
- Babe
- FUCK U
- lololol smth Just catched Fire...
"GAAAAAAAAAAH!"
"Oh, the Valmers already put up their Christmas decorations." His mom commented gleefully, "Tweek, look how pretty it is-"
"Who the fuck cares about that?!" Tweek's phone fell on the floor of the car in his rage. "Were like, ngh, in November! It's way too early for this shit!"
"You know, sweetie, Craig is an amazing boyfriend," his mom said, "But I don't like the language you picked up from him..."
"Gah! He's NOT my boyfriend!" Tweek shouted, "And he and dad are being abducted by aliens while you're admiring GODDAMN CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS!"
"There, there," his mother replied with the most calm tone. She reached out for the glove compartment, picking out a fidget spinner that she and his dad always seemed to carry around somewhere. Just in case. "Busy yourself with this."
"But -"
"Focus on the fidget spinner, sweetie."
"Ugh!" to appease his mother, Tweek span the goddamn stupid toy that never seemed to do anything, clenching his teeth so hard his jaw was hurting. "But… But the aliens, mom!"
"Honey, aliens don't exist."
"They do! You haven't seen what I've seen!" Tweek yelled at her, "They abduct people at night and rape their rectums with gigantic probes to control their minds and use them as puppets to serve their master plan of taking over the ENTIREFUCKING UNIVERSE!"
"Alright... but still," his mother hummed, not looking too disturbed at the horrid information. "I'm pretty sure it's not them."
"But you're not seeing what Craig is sending me!" he banged his head on the dashboard. His mom picked up the fallen fidget spinner casually and put it back in his hand. "Nothing else could possess him to say these things! Nothing!"
"Your dad is sending me weird messages too." She halted at a traffic light, squinting at her phone. "It looks like he's… yeah, he's definitely drunk texting me."
Tweek jumped, "Is he... is he confessing his undying love too?!"
"Uhm, no. He's talking about how much he appreciates his… new suppliers?" His mother frowned, "But we didn't hire any new suppliers..."
"WHAT-"
"And he's saying that nothing could ever taste better than our ' spiked' coffee?"
"WHAT THE-"
"And uh- huh, he seems to really enjoy something called met?" she blinked at her phone, "Oh that was a typo. He says he meant meth."
"GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"
"There's nothing to worry about, sweetie." His mom insisted. "You should never take a drunk man seriously."
Tweek clutched at the useless fidget spinner, feeling reassured, yet worried shitless at the same time, "So Craig doesn't mean what he's saying?"
"What is he saying?"
Tweek rubbed the back of his neck in confusion as he read the last couple of incoming messages.
Craig:
- Tweek?
- Y Are U So fcking Cute
- Serisly
- Fuck You man
"Oh." His mother smirked in amusement, "No sweetie, Craig definitely means what he's saying."
Thanks to his mom's clever input, Tweek was left to overthink the shit out of the situation during the rest of the ride, so much that his brain was on the brink of detonating. He trusted his mother's words because she was an adult and… yeah, that was it, the only reason he believed her was because she was an adult, a blind airhead maybe, but still an adult.
But why? To be honest with himself, his dad being a drug lord in disguise who was feeding meth to half of the town was way more credible than Craig being… this goddamn obsessed with him. Tweek honestly thought it was the other way around for the past couple of years.
They made the last turn and yup… there it was, the South Park mall, or more accurately, what had remained of the South Park mall.
True to his words, the fire Craig was talking about was definitely there, swallowing about half of the parking lot, its flames reaching high to the sky. Every single car in the perimeter had their alarms triggered, deafening whoever went near. The fountain at the side of the mall was destroyed to pieces and the water was sprinkling into every corner it could reach. People were running and shouting all over the place. There was a mountain of bodies stacked together in front of the entrance, though none of the people forming it really seemed dead, just wishing to be as they wailed in agony.
Stan and his wretched group of friends, of course, were in the center of the chaos once again. Kyle and Stan were vomiting on each other, being nice enough to take turns as they projectiled all sorts of shit into each other's directions. Someone had killed Kenny again, as the boy was casually lying dead on the side in a pool of his own blood. And to put the cherry on top, Cartman was crying like a fucking baby behind them, begging for someone to get his mother.
Tweek was almost tempted to take out his phone and record that scene, until he remembered that Craig was there too, probably in a similar condition.
So Tweek went into action immediately.
And of course, by action , he meant shouting manically until his vocal cords ached.
Even his mother didn't try to stop him, since she herself had her jaw hanging as she absorbed the mayhem surrounding them. There weren't any aliens in sight, sure, but this was still not very far from their worst case scenario.
Miraculously, Tweek's shouting didn't turn out to be as useless as it always was, since it only took him about two minutes of continuous high pitched cries until someone tackled him on the ground.
"Tweeeeeeeek!" Craig's arms grabbed on him like an octopus, the unusual tone of the boy's voice making the hairs on Tweek's arms stand in discomfort.
"Dude!" Tweek punched him away violently. Because one, they just saw each other five hours ago so this really wasn't as exciting as Craig made it seem. And two, Craig's face was way, way too expressive; it creeped the shit out of him. "Dude, ngh, WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED?!"
Craig giggled. No, Tweek wasn't going crazy, not yet, Craig actually fucking giggled. He giggled like an absolute maniac then went off on a tangent, explaining in a slurred and overly gestures manner about how Mel Gibson came out of nowhere and offered a sample of schezwan sauce to anyone who could beat him in a drinking contest. And naturally, since everyone knows how shit goes with szechuan sauce, utter madness and barbaric behavior ensued from every single resident in South Park who happened to be a Rick and Morty fan. In which Tweek wasn't; it was probably because he didn't have a high enough IQ.
"I managed to take three shots of Mel Gibson's mystery drink, Tweek!" Craig tried to straighten himself, but ended up falling over. Tweek had to hold him in his arms before the boy collapsed, which made their positions look way too dramatic from there and on. "That was- That was two more than fatass! And Randy- that crazy son of a bitch! He had like-" Craig squinted at his hand, holding up three fingers. "Fifty two shots, man!"
"MOOOOOOOOM!" Tweek exclaimed in horror, gracelessly dropping Craig on the floor with a loud thud. "H-hurry! Call an ambulance! Mr. Marsh … MR. MARSH IS GONNA DIE!"
The second time it happened, it was about two years later.
Tweek found himself in Token's house, rummaging through the cabinets in the downstairs kitchen and trying to find a cup big enough for the large serving of coffee he made. He hummed when he finally found one that didn't look like it was a part of a collective addition worth more than the coffee machine itself, then poured himself a generous amount of bitter goodness.
It had been a while, and Tweek allowed his nose to take in the delicious aroma that was steaming out of the cup, his eyes rolling to the back of his head at how content it made him.
Tweek hadn't had coffee in a long, long time, possibly not more than once in the past year or two because, well, ever since the night he heard the phrase 'spiked coffee', Tweek had developed a new paranoia to add to the already growing list he had to suffer with.
He had stopped testing samples since then, and had to cut off his daily twenty seven cups of coffee completely, without any earlier notice, causing his and his father's relationship to sort of go to shit from there.
Their relationship wasn't anything to brag about to begin with, since Tweek either forgot about his dad's existence half of the time or wished he couldn't remember it the other half. But alas, Tweek couldn't even remember the last time they talked when his beloved pops didn't express his disappointment or cried like a little girl because of Tweek's betrayal.
He didn't drink coffee made by any of his parents, for that matter, just in case his mother was also an accomplice, and certainly didn't drink it if it was made in their shop, house, or anywhere closer than three hundred sixty five meters to either locations (which was a strangely specific number, now that he thinks about it). For a while, he didn't even eat their homemade food, which caused him to lose an unhealthy amount of weight in a very short time and to almost die from malnutrition like, twice.
Thankfully, his mom cried less than his dad did and instead decided to stop talking to Tweek completely, so that was less drama to deal with. He didn't expect much from her, really, but it still hurt from time to time when she wouldn't even bother to look at him in the eye, or when she would hiss at him like a snake whenever he was near.
Craig suggested that it might've been her recent pregnancy that was causing his mother's strange reptilian behavior, but Tweek assured him that he was capable of differentiating between hormones and organic hatred. Besides, he was pretty sure that his parents' decision to have another child correlated with his refusal to drink coffee; it was just so... them.
It was also worth mentioning that the severe withdrawals he suffered with allowed him to befriend the entire emergency staff at the hospital, considering how frequently he got seizures and had to be hospitalized (Craig befriended them as well, because sadly enough, he visited him way more than his own parents did). There, he learned that he was full out gay and possibly a cougar, because fuck, he had like, the second biggest crush on Ben, that one hot as fuck nurse that looked like an adult Craig with those goddamn blue eyes and fucking beautiful jawline-
But, yeah, anyway, it did take some time, but something had changed. He didn't know what it was, exactly, but somehow Tweek felt calmer, more stable, his mind less hectic, his vision clearer, and his body shaking less and less like a goddamn laundry machine. Now it was shaking like a vibrator, a very poor quality vibrator, a very poor quality vibrator that started vibrating in very random but reasonable intervals.
Not that he knew anything about vibrators, to be honest. Kenny gave him one he stole from Mr. Slave that one time, but Tweek was too much of a pussy to actually attempt to try it.
Moral of this side story, whether Tweek Bro's coffee was spiked or not, Tweek felt as if quitting it had changed something deep within him, and no, he was not talking about the length of his bones, since he was still short as fuck, or his sexuality, which he had been struggling with ever since a certain group of Asian girls decided to fuck with him. He was talking about his overall demeanor, which had changed for the better. Even if his parents refused to see it and ended up forcibly sending him to rehab then later to a therapist, and he was pretty sure that sketchy ass looking priest that came over to their house a year ago was an exorcist, but he didn't dwell on it.
Sighing, Tweek remembered Craig's reminder to hurry back, so he ascended the stairs and headed back to Token's room. The black boy was introducing a box of chocolate from Mr. Black's secret cabinet to the rest when Tweek decided to excuse himself. Since, contrary to popular belief, Tweek did not enjoy overly sweet things, and the fact that that small box was bought with a fortune made him too nervous to even look at it for too long, let alone eat from it.
Upon entering the room, Tweek was confronted with absolute and complete disarray.
He could hear Token puking the living shit out of his guts in the bathroom, the sounds he was uttering making him wince in pain and almost pushing Tweek to join him.
Jimmy was swaying in the corner, bringing out all of his strength and willpower in order to finish a sentence since god knows how long. It didn't work, and an extreme and neverending stuttering episode ensued. "Magical songs of encha- encha- enchaaataa… Magical songs of encha- en- encha- enchat… Magical songs of encha- cha... Magical songs of encha-"
Clyde was just laughing at nothing and everything as he crouched on the ground and observed the scene, reaching out for even more wrappers because apparently he wasn't fucked up enough.
And Craig… wait, where the fuck was Craig?
He felt something clutch at his ankle, so he looked down in fear, and there Craig was, on the floor. And just like a goddamn walker who had their legs malfunctioning, yet their thirst for brains uninterrupted, he started trying to lift himself up and reach for Tweek's upper body.
The scariest thing about the whole thing was the fact that Craig looked completely calm, not one sound coming out of him, not one grumble, not one giggle. Just intense eyes looking at Tweek with determination. Possibly because he hasn't eaten since the apocalypse.
It was a good thing that Craig looked positively healthy (and that Tweek was in love with him), otherwise he would have been having a full blown out panic attack. Because, yes, he admits, he still had constant nightmares from that one episode of The Walking Dead Clyde forced him to watch two years ago.
"I left for half an hour. Half an hour." Tweek said in a faint whisper, then shouted on top of his lungs. ""WHAT INTHE FUCK?!"
Everyone ignored him in favor of focusing on their respectful tasks; puking, stuttering, laughing, and… whatever the fuck Craig was trying to do.
Tweek started following the trail of chocolate wrappers, having to drag Craig along since he was still clutching onto him for dear life, and reached out for the chocolate box, flipped it over, then gasped inwardly when he read the description on the back of it.
"Wa-wa- One ounce of vodka per serving?!" he reread the nutrition facts, just to be sure, then felt himself shaking from head to toe. "J-JESUS CHRIST! How many of these did you fuckers have?!"
Craig, ever the excellent mathematician while drunk, held up two fingers, "Seven."
"GAH!"
"Twelve." Clyde supplied between waves of laughter.
"GAAAAAH!"
Token and Jimmy were too preoccupied to answer, the former with getting rid of his lunch, some of his organs, and dignity along the way, and the latter with stubbornly trying to finish his sentence.
Which, nonetheless, still made Tweek go: "GAAAAAAAAAAAH!"
"Dooon't." Craig mumbled on the floor, tightening his hold on Tweek's legs so hard that the blonde almost fell over.
When he managed to steady himself, Tweek realized that he had kicked Craig on reflex, hard, causing the other boy to groan in pain as he lied on his back on the floor, now a feet away. It wasn't Tweek's fault, not really, since he was wearing his boxing shorts and the contact between Craig's hands and his skin was way too ticklish (and intimate) to be considered safe.
Craig might've looked very calm, given the clusterfuck of a situation, but he was certainly hammered, with his blue eyes half lidded and his brows furrowed in extreme concentration. A mumble come out of the other boy's mouth, accompanied with strange fascination, something about how smooth Tweek's legs were.
"Eat a dick, Craig!" Tweek shot back, not in the mood to defend his obsession with keeping his body hairless. He did enough of that in his boxing club.
It was a matter of hygiene, goddamnit.
Nevertheless, the interruption did somehow manage to snap him out of, hard enough so he could formulate a coherent response.
Shit, he thought, realizing that, laughably, he was the most sane man in the room at the moment, and he may or may not be responsible for four people's lives.
So in order to save these four people, which was more or less everyone he cared about in this sad, lonely world, Tweek had to be rational, not rash, even if both words sounded alike.
By the time he managed to collect himself and make up his mind on what to do, Jimmy had successfully reached the final syllable of his sentence, but he wasn't sober enough to realize that and ended up repeating everything all over again.
Meantime, Tweek brought out his phone and instead of doing a quick and easy research, he, for the first time in his life, checked the sources and avoided Wikihow and Yahoo.
That's how much he cared.
He lined them up in the bathroom, forcing them to puke their guts out (Token, the poor, innocent boy, finished that task earlier than the rest since he had a good head start). After that, he gave them clean glasses of water and forced them to chug down a cup of coffee each.
If anyone had told Tweek before this that he would manage to intimidate Token, Clyde, and Jimmy that badly, Tweek would've laughed at their faces. But no, Craig wasn't the only one who pissed him the fuck off, a bunch of careless morons in a sleepover also did. Besides, while Craig looked like he didn't give a fuck when Tweek yelled at him, the rest looked scared shitless.
"Craig," Tweek tried for the fourth time. "Dude, come on, ngh, you have to puke!"
"Why?" his best friend, now advanced from hugging his legs to hugging his back, answered calmly, his breath fanning against the side of Tweek's neck, making the shorter boy shiver uncomfortably.
"Because, agh, Google said so!"
"Don't wanna." He shrugged, tightening his arms around Tweek's shoulders.
"Okay, alright, but why the fuck areyouso clingy when drunk?!"
Craig didn't take long to consider. "Because I wanna."
Admittedly, Craig was considerably less drunk than when he was in the Mel Gibson incident. He wasn't giggling, he wasn't shouting, and his face didn't give off those weird, humane expressions (those gave Tweek nightmares as well). He just seemed exhausted, and even upset. Tweek didn't know anything about being drunk, but perhaps it just intensified the person's mood tremendously. Or something. All he knew that he was less scared of Craig but more willing to kick his ass because of how annoying he was being.
Clyde was crying his eyes out when Tweak turned off the gaming console and television, barking at the boys to just fuck off for the night and get into their sleeping bags already.
"Look, dude," Tweek tried to move his arms to push Craig off, but the effort was laughable. Craig was already outgrowing him with a few inches, and Tweek's skinny ass didn't have that much strength to begin with. "I have to pee."
Craig frowned, clutching on him even more. "I can go-"
"Sleep!" Tweek snapped, "You can go fucking sleep!" he wrapped his hands around Craig's arms and tried to break free. Absolutely nothing happened but his pride being wounded. "Just fucking let go, dude!"
Craig closed his eyes and sighed the longest sigh that Tweek had ever witnessed in his life, making the area behind Tweek's ear tickle at the sensation. Thankfully, Craig was letting him go as he did so. "I fuckin' hate sleepovers."
Craig had been caging him for so long that the moment he was set free, Tweek had to stretch, "Then, ngh, why the hell did you come?!"
"'Cause you're here." Craig mumbled with a nasally voice, as if the question was stupid.
Tweek thought that that was kind of rude . "What about, ugh, everyone else?!"
Craig snorted loudly, which was pretty gross. "I see'em everyday. Kindof pointless."
"You see me everyday, asshole," Tweek retorted. "In fact, you see me way more than them. You see me too often, actually. You see me way more than necessary.Ugh. You should tone it down a notch, dude, before you get sick of me and like, ngh, bottle it all up and end up punching me in the face one day and knocking me out." Tweek raised an accusing eyebrow, "Like you did Clyde."
This was a pile of bullshit, needless to say, since Tweek would probably end up back in rehab for a different reason if Craig ever stopped wanting to hang out with him, but what could he say, he was just being dramatic for the sake of being dramatic.
"Nah." Craig smiled fondly, like Tweek was saying some terrible joke that couldn't garner a proper laugh, or even a chuckle.
"Okay." Tweak nodded. "Shit, I can't say no more, man, you're too convincing."
Craig shrugged. "I guess..."
"I was being sarcastic, fuckface!" Tweek shouted, feeling a nerve almost pop, "It was a serious question!"
"But..." Craig squinted for a few moments, "You didn't ask one, honey."
"UGH!" Tweek ruffled his own hair in frustration, because embarrassingly, Craig, in all his drunken glory, was keeping more tabs on the conversation than his sober self did. "Just," he clenched his teeth, "I don't fucking understand you, man! It's not the end of the world if I go out and you're not there!" he ranted, "Fuck, I feel like shit every time you're going somewhere because of me! I like it when you're there, sure, but you don't have to take it as an obligation!"
"I 'don mind, Tweek. Jesus." Craig scrunched his nose. "'Sides, what if... something happened, y'know?"
"Nothing would happen. I'm fine now." Tweek was starting to feel like he was the one being drunk, for not only showing his insecurities so openly and voicing them aloud, but because there was a cluster of untamed feelings threatening to burst out at any second. Yeah, he admits, his life fucking sucked. And yeah, Craig wasthe only one who fucking cared, who was always the first to notice when something wasn't right with him, who was always ready to be there when things went south, who was there when Tweek had a total of twenty fucking three hospital visits in the past year and a half. "Don't worry, I-" Tweek tightened his fist, "I won't put you through that again. I promise!"
As in, the next time he had a meltdown, either mental or physical, he'll make it a priority to hide it from him, instead of running to Craig for rescue. It was not fair. It was not fair for the other boy.
Craig was only fourteen and he had far more important things to deal with. Like crushes, and school, and puberty, and all the other shit that didn't have to do with Tweek's trainwreck of a life.
"Good." Craig smiled slightly, "Man, I wish you weren't fucked up so often..." he was saying, and Tweek winced at the harsh honesty. "We'll be able to have more fun together." Craig's smile widened, just a little bit, but drastic all the same since it was him. "I would be so happy..."
Tweek stared at his best friend, so intently and with so much adoration that he felt that his heart would burst.
He sighed, eventually, feigning annoyance as he grabbed Craig by the arm and started leading him to the bathroom, his friend wobbling behind.
"Thanks, man." Tweek felt his throat tighten, "For caring. It really... fuck, you have no idea how much it means it to me."
"'Course I would... You're the one I-" he hiccuped, "-love."
No. Tweek thought in horror, freezing in place. Not this shit again.
"Uhm, sure, nice, okay, good," Tweek whipped his whole body to the side, grabbed a toothbrush from the sink (which was probably dirty), and handed it to Craig, like it was a taser that would stop him in his tracks. "Great, great."
Craig slowly, very slowly, looked down at the brush in his hand, confused as fuck.
Tweek, trying his best to imitate the blinding smile of the guy in the package, grabbed the toothpaste and honest to god said: "Colgate, so clean… you can feel it."
Craig frowned so deeply he looked like he was in physical pain.
"I don't really need to pee," Tweek said hurriedly, even though he looked like he did, considering how much he was starting to shake. But no, it was not because of his bladder. "Come on, ngh, you can wash up first!"
"Oh shit." Craig rubbed his forehead, realization just dawning on him. "I shouldn't have said that…"
Tweek was putting the paste on Craig's brush like it was the last thing he had to do to save Earth.
"I do, though." Craig's voice lowered and softened. "I really lo-"
"WASH UP!" Tweek more or less shoved the brush into the poor guy's mouth, turned him around, and opened the faucet. "You gotta wash up man! It's important!"
When he made sure that Craig's train of thought had been disturbed completely, as the taller boy only stared at the bathroom mirror in front of him in confusion, Tweek bolted out of there, shutting the bathroom door behind him as quickly as he can.
"Oh god," he mumbled, leaning against the back of the door and clutching a hand against his chest. "Oh Jesus."
Tweek was on the brink of hysteria as he paced back and forth in Token's room, worrying shitless about the fact that Craig was taking way too long in the bathroom.
He wasn't brave enough to burst in and demand to know what's taking him so long, but he sure as hell had the energy to formulate a hundred scenarios of what could be happening inside that bathroom that could lead to Craig's untimely death.
He was already trying to figure out the best way to inform the Tuckers of the tragic news when Craig finally emerged.
"Jesus!" Tweek jumped, as if Craig had just been resurrected.
His best friend just looked at him strangely.
"Ngh," Tweek twitched, putting his hands on his hips to steady himself. "R-Ready to sleep?"
Craig nodded tiredly.
"Thank fuck." Tweek exhaled in exhaustion, leading Craig to the sleeping bags he had arranged on the floor, where the three other boys were decimated by sandman long before he and Craig even started their pointless arguments. He winced when he noticed that he had accidentally placed Craig's sleeping bag between his and Clyde's, but thinking 'fuck it' anyway. "Here," Tweek opened up the bag properly so Craig can slip into it. "Get in and don't get out."
Craig was at least obedient, crouching on the floor and crawling into the sleeping bag without protest. Thankfully, he was not talking, and seemed like he had completely forgotten everything he had said in the bathroom. He allowed Tweek to tuck him in and steady the pillow under his head without saying a word.
Tweek was kneeling next to Craig as did all this, and when he made sure that Craig was all safe and secure, he straightened himself and took a careful look around the room.
The water bottles he grabbed from the kitchen were still all there, available for reach, and beside them was a tablet of aspirin that many articles told him to put close in case of severe hangovers.
Token was tucked in and beside his occasional whine, he looked completely okay. Clyde was snoring to the skies, and Tweek had to reach around Craig so he can tuck him back in place since he was kicking the bag a lot.
Tweek took a careful look at Jimmy and felt anxious. Token's chest moved up and down with his breathing noticeably, and no one with good functioning ears could miss Clyde's snoring, but Jimmy was silent, too still, that it made Tweek very, very anxious. He had a fresh urge to put his ear next to the boy's mouth and make sure he was alive and breathing, for the third time that night, since Tweek was way too paranoid to leave any of them alone at that point. They were hisresponsibility. His beloved friends. He had to make sure nothing happened to them while in this state.
He yelped, feeling a hand grab on him, hard, and pulling down.
He lay flat on the sleeping bag with a rustle, his head landing on the pillow next to Craig's head.
Blue eyes locked with green ones, and Tweek had no clue what the hell Craig wanted from him, as the boy's hand still clutched on his arm, refusing to let go and keeping Tweek still.
But then, after a moment of consideration, Tweek realized what was happening.
This, the isolated bubble that Craig had created, not the first time, and hopefully not the last, managed to make foreign calmness seep into him. Craig had picked up on that a long time ago, how he could touch him firmly and bring their faces close together, so close that their noses would touch, that they'd have to share the breathing air in between them, so close that the boy's eyes would appear twice as large and his lashes look so separate he could count them.
That's all he needed to do to shut Tweek's mind, for at least a while.
And Craig had picked up on it, like a hack, like a goddamn party trick.
"What're you thinking 'bout?" his best friend asked, ever stubborn when it comes to uncomfortable eye contact.
Tweek chuckled bitterly, feeling all the shaking and twitching dissolve from his body, leaving something static behind. "A gazillion things."
Craig raised his eyebrows slightly. "Sounds hella a lot."
Tweek shrugged. "Heard the word from a panel show."
Craig eyes turned half-lidded. "Things like what?"
Well, that was a pretty loaded question.
For starters, he could talk about his dysfunctional family and how every minute spent in his house felt like eternal punishment.
He could talk about his grades that were spiraling down faster than he could make damage control.
He could talk about his health problems that looked like they might become permanent and officially claim him a useless handicap.
He could about his hysteria, his paranoia, his anxiety, and whatever the fuck else he had at that point.
Or he could talk about his feelings, feelings that were always threatening to erupt, that were so extreme he wondered how it was physically possible to contain them for so long, to control them enough to not shout about his crazed love for Craig Tucker to the entire fucking world.
"You're weird as fuck, man." Tweek ended up saying instead, because everything else sounded pretty gay. "Why would you even prefer my company over anyone else's?"
Craig didn't skip a beat, still staring dead into his eyes. "Why wouldn't I?"
Tweek hummed. "Token is more interesting than me. Jimmy is funnier than me. Clyde is more entertaining than me-"
"Shut the fuck up. Shut the fuck up. Shut the fuck up." Was Craig's systematic way of dismantling each and every one of Tweek's arguments.
Tweek grinned.
And that's how they spent the next few minutes, like two fucking creeps, lying on their sides, faces way too close, and faint smiles adorning their lips for no apparent reason. But Tweek was calm, he couldn't be calmer.
He didn't completely hate drunk Craig, he decided, since, unlike last time, Tweek wasn't panicking out of his mind to get Craig home and unlock his phone so he could delete all the embarrassing messages the boy had sent. This time Craig wasn't foaming and looking like he was having a seizure, similar to the ones Tweek had, which the sight of it alone made him almost lose his mind in fear.
This Craig was just lazy and looked like he was on the brink of passing out the whole time, who couldn't walk properly and liked to cling on Tweek for whatever reason, who barely had the energy to let out words out of his mouth, making them sound slurred and very nasally, just like how he sounded when he was ten, when they were both oblivious children having a blast in a shitshow of a town, children who lived in harmony... until the Asian girls attacked.
Not that he didn't like Craig's voice now, which was on its way to become deep and slightly scratchy, but every little change scared the shit out him, reminding him that time was moving and so were they, making him face the fact that nothing would ever stay the same. Craig's voice scared him in that soon he might not even be able to recognize it. His height scared him in that he would soon not even be able to make proper eye contact unless the boy leans down. His build scared him in that if Tweek didn't remain consistent with his boxing practices, Craig would become much physically stronger and would look at Tweek like he's a wimp. His choice of words scared him in that Craig was starting to sound like someone who was too careful around him, someone who was pitying him. As for Craig's touches, however, they scared him the most in that they didn't just feel like touches anymore, but something far, far more evocative.
"Tweak?"
He felt a hand on his cheek, gentle, yet barely there. "Hm?"
Craig's eyes didn't falter once. Tweek barely saw the other boy blink the whole time they spent only staring at each other, unabashed. "I love you."
All Tweek could do is smile sadly, since a part of him already knew that Craig would never say that sober.
He relished it, nonetheless. "I'm glad you still do."
Craig had confessed to him three times that night, which wasn't that bad considering that, years later, Tweek would realize this was the tamest Craig had ever been while drunk.
To be continued