The clinic is daunting, scary, big, like there are a million people in here, getting fixed, getting cured, a million people and a million more doing the curing… Everyone with something wrong in the world must be here. It's at least as big as the County High School, and that holds students from three towns…
Tweek Tweak takes a deep breath and makes his way up to the front door. He's sick, he knows that. Kyle said it, and Token said it, and Craig said it, and even Butters said he might want to see about some help. But if there are too many people, then maybe there isn't enough room for Tweek and he has to remain sick for the rest of his life, imagining the gnomes coming for him, shaking for no reason. He'll be an outcast for life, he parents would kick him out, his friends would abandon him, he'd have to live on the street and sell his body for money or do human testing with drugs and then his body would be so fucked up and he'd be even crazier than he already was and-
"GAH!" Tweek grabs a handful of hair, letting the pain ground him. If there was no room here, there were other clinics. This one just happened to be the one he saw on the internet that looked legit. They would probably give him the name of another one if they had no room. Ya… Tweek calms down and pushes his way into the building.
The reception area is bland and empty save for a small desk and two grey couches that match the walls but are off by a few shades. The woman at the desk looks up at him and smiles kindly. "Hello there," she says and her voice is soft. Soft like a peach and smooth like a good cup of coffee, sliding into his awareness and warming him like the coffee he wishes he had with him right now. But he's not allowed himself to have any. He's here to get clean.
"Ngh Hi. M-my name is-GAH- T-tweek Tweak and I need to check… AUGH It's too much pressure!" He grips at his hair again but this time there is no grounding feeling. Only the daunting of uncertainty. Once I'm in here it's all up to me to get clean and fixed and better and if I fail then the gnomes will get me and I-
"There's no pressure for anything," the lady says , and Tweek opens eyes he didn't realize he'd closed and looks at the clip-board the woman is handing out to him. "Coming here on your own is the first step to recovery." She smiles as Tweek takes the board and looks at the paper on it. Simple enough, name, home address, emergency contact, basic stuff that he can rattle off the top of his head. There is a pen attached to the wood board. "Just have a seat and take your time filling it out. Take as long as you need." She smiles and Tweek takes that as his cue to sit. He walks over to the couch and notices that it has strange stains on it that look like…
"Would you like some coffee or tea or anything while you fill that out?" There is that smooth voice again. Well, one cup wouldn't hurt… right? Right.
"Ahh… Y-yes please. Coffee would be -ngh- great th-thanks" He looks at the sheet again and takes the pen up in his trembling hand. He's half-way done the form when the receptionist comes back with his coffee.
He looks at the cup on the table, then looks at the little line asking what he wished to recover from. In his shaky script, he writes 'Caffeine' and takes another sip. Just one more, he tells himself, one more to calm me down then I'm done for a while.
A good long while.
Tweak sits in his newly assigned room and looks at his wrist. There is a red band sitting on it.
Red. Like blood. Like the blood the gnomes might be after when they find out he gets all the free underwear he needs. Red like Kyle's hair. He misses Kyle. Even though Kyle was a dick sometimes, he had been chosen by them, by Kyle.
He didn't tell any of them where he was going. Not Craig, not Butters, not his parents. He just took the next bus out and left a note for his parents. He fingered the band, lost in thought, and-
"Now, Mr. Tweak, this is how everyone starts. A red band means you are just starting. You move up in colors as you advance past your addiction, but everyone starts at red. Red means stop."
The welcoming doctor seemed nice, but so does Cartman sometimes, but he isn't. What if the Doctor-
"I'm Doctor Neusimal, but you can call me Leo." He smiled with a kind face and asked Tweek to hold his arm out.
The thought makes Tweek look at his wrist under a band. Sweet Jesus, what if there was a chip in there that meant he would always be tracked by the government? And "GAH" the chip would have to be installed by nanobots like the ones they learned about in science last year, nanobots that were installed into the bracelet, and each colored bracelet installed a different part of the chip until he was labeled by the government as someone to experiment on! Or WORSE! Aliens! Body-snatchers like the ones that visited Cartman! If they could put a satalite up an ass, who was to say they couldn't stick a chip into a wrist, and then suck him up and take him away and then he'd never get better, he'd just get worse and worse and-
"NGH! IT'S TOO MUCH PRESSURE, MAN!"
A nurse puts her head in the door frame. "Tweek? Are you alright?"
"GAH!" Tweek jumps and looks at the door. "Ngh Ya. I'm just -Gah!- f-fine. Thanks."
It was going to be a long road.
It takes the doctors almost a month before they realize Tweek is addicted to caffeine and not cocaine.
For some reason, in sessions, they never directly ask him or tell him what drug they're talking about, but Tweek had assumed they were talking about caffeine. He wonders continuously why he's allowed to have coffee as much as he wants and no one stops him, and no one stops anyone else from taking coffee either. So he just assumes that the first little bit, everyone's allowed their drug to help ween them off of it.
It's not till Dr. Baylock notices he's not getting any better that the question is asked.
"Tweek," the good doctor says during a session one day. "I have to ask. When did you first start taking cocaine?"
"COCAINE?!" Tweek shouts. His hands fly to his hair. "Have I really been NGH taking cocaine all these years? AGH! It was the gnomes wasn't it? SWEET JESUS They spiked my coffee with cocaine!"
Baylock raised an eyebrow and flipped through a few papers in a folder labeled Tweak, Tweek. "Tweek, you wrote right here that you wished to recover from cocaine."
"Ngh" Tweek twitched and held out a shaking hand for the paper. There, in his own messy writing was 'Caffeine'. "No-GAH-I said Caffeine. You've been helping me for the wrong drug? Oh god this is my fault. I'm going to die and rot and NGH IT'S TOO MUCH PRESSURE!"
"Tweek! Tweek, relax! You haven't been on any drugs and that's ok." Baylock took the paper back and scribbled something on it. "It's not your fault. We must have mis-read the paper. We'll fix the program you've been working with to better suit your needs. On behalf of the entire staff here, Tweek, I want to appologize."
It was going to be a really fucking long road.
Yellow meant he'd gone six weeks with only one slip up.
Yellow means he's gone nearly four months without a single drop of coffee or red bull or monster or even tea.
It also meant six weeks without night terrors or hallucinations and six weeks of decent sleep.
It meant he was closer to a green band; six months.
And after Green came white.
And when he hit white, he was free.
Tweek looks down at his new yellow band, determined to keep it this time. Last time he hit yellow, he kept it for about two extra weeks before slipping up and buying a coke from one of the other paitents, and a coffee from another, and a coke from another and a red bull and a chai tea and a green tea and one more coffee-
He'd been a shaking mess that day, and had been demoted back to red.
For six more weeks.
He slipped once after two.
Just one coffee.
It didn't mess him up.
And he was proud.
Eighteen weeks later he is staring at a green band.
"You are doing supremely well, Tweek," says Dr. Moskin. Dr. Moskin had replaced Baylock when it was decided he needed help not suited for cocaine addicts.
Tweek smiles and leaves his gaze on the band. "Thank you, Doctor." He doesn't stutter anymore, he doesn't twitch. His handwriting has improved, his concentration has improved, his body has improved. Everything is well. Tweek is sure he'll be able to go home soon. The white band comes in six more months, and as soon as he is handed that, he can go.
He's getting sick of the grey clothes they all wear. Reminds him too much of a prison or a hospital.
"I feel I really am doing well," says Tweek calmly. There are no ngh's or GAH's in his speech anymore either. Just plain words. Unstrained. Smooth, like the receptionist. Smooth like coffee.
He has been doing well in his classes too. His scores in the high school placement tests were higher than any other student in rehab. The tutors think he'll be able to finish the tenth grade and go into eleventh with his classmates in September, in eleven months. Eighteen months and he will have done it. Eighteen months from start to finish and he will be done. No more twitching or being unpredictable or paranoid.
Eighteen months will have made him normal.
A white band adorns his wrist.
Tweek decides he's going to frame it.
He catches the next bus to South Park, wearing new clothes that some of the doctors bought him and a calm smile.
No pressure.