"Just a large double-double, please."

Life had changed a lot, Tweek noted to his self as he quickly pressed in the buttons on the touch-screen. He momentarily panicked over if he had pressed "large" or "extra large" before pressing "done", but after quickly triple checking, it turned out that he was worrying in vain yet again. Tweek seemed to do that a lot. When he looked up to tell the man his total, he realized he had been making the man wait for a little longer than normal and panicked again.

"T-two-f-fifteen, sir," he mumbled to the man, only just audible enough for guy to hear. That was new too. The stutter, that is. He had managed to force his paranoia into his mind to only a certain extent before quitting therapy in the eighth grade. He promptly shook his head and forced his thoughts towards work once more. They were way too distracting and he could live in his head forever. He didn't need to think of such things here. Tweak didn't need to think of such things at all.

Although the purpose of getting the job at his parent's old coffee house wasn't for sentimental reasons (or so he tried to convince himself), the smell of the coffee beans and freshly baked goods seemed emanate the warmth he once felt from his family. Tweek had decided when he started this job that he only needed to feel the warmth and not think about why he did when he started this job. It'd only make things harder for him and God knows he didn't need that at all.

Tweek spent the next hour or so absentmindedly making coffees for customers, after a fellow employee (a young high school student, much to Tweek's dismay) noticed his distress at the register and directed him towards the drink station. He knew it was extremely sad that a fifteen year-old girl, almost six years younger than him, was more capable with customer service at the coffee house he was practically raised in, but Tweek couldn't bring himself to care. It was just one little thing in a big pile of shit that just added up for him every day.

He seldom glanced at the clock at work. Why would he? Tweek wasn't waiting for a break, or to go home. He was simply basking in his environment and solely focusing on his work. Yulie, his teenage coworker, tapped him on the shoulder lightly (knowing from previous experience that moving quickly and/or roughly could cause catastrophes around Tweek), before blandly stating, "It's your break, Tweek. Take a half an hour. You've been working at the station for four hours already and you haven't stopped once." One could almost assume she cared for him by those words, if she hadn't added, "I get in shit when I let you do this, you know, so get out of here already."

He paled at her reprimand, as he did six other days of the week, before quickly stuttering out a thank you (which she didn't even wait for him to finish). Face red in embarrassment, he quickly escaped through the back door to the side of the building for a smoke break. Apparently, he was having a half hour smoke break today.

With trembling fingers, most things become harder to accomplish. But one of the hardest things by far, in Tweek's opinion, is grabbing smokes and lighting a cigarette. This particularly sucks when you happen to be a chain smoker, which Tweek most definitely is. He stuck his hand in his back pocket, trying to draw out the pack that was in there. Of course, as he did almost every day, he fumbled it and the king-size pack fell right into the snow pile in front of him. He scowled as usual, and mumbled to himself something along the lines of, "thank god these come wrapped in plastic," before bending down to retrieve the oversized pack of smokes.

Tweek knew it was bad, but he had this habit of only focusing on certain little issues and not the world around him. If someone gave him one thing to watch, or do, he would obsess over every little detail. But if someone gave Tweek a variety of things to do, he becomes unable to do any of the tasks at all, even though he could complete them individually. This is why he's accepted the fact that if he wants to function in life at all, observational skills of things more than one foot in front of him or that aren't blatantly obvious are just going to have to be cut out. Which is why when a pair of black leather shoes appeared in the snow in front of him, he let out a "dignified" squeak with the choice words of "Holy fuck!" and fell on his ass on the cold and damp cement step behind him.

"Still as jumpy as ever, I see," came a deep, slightly nasally voice from way above. It sounded slightly amused, but mostly monotone. His mind automatically began to draw conclusions, albeit most of the farfetched as hell. He highly doubted "God," or "faerie king" were the correct answers, so he shoved those ridiculous ideas into the corner of his mind before snatching his smokes out of the snow and standing up. But nothing could have prepared him for the surprise when he looked up. And by up, I mean way up.

Tweek knew he hadn't really grown since the sixth grade, and was one of the shortest guys he knew (he refused to admit he actually was the shortest) standing at a solid five feet, but usually looking up wasn't so… strenuous. But when he got past the slim-fit black dress pants and the stylish black trench coat, nothing ever could have prepared him for the face he had to take a moment to put a face to.

"…Craig? C-Craig T-Tucker?" he stuttered out, too caught up in surprise to even notice he stuttered over his words. When the man himself slowly flipped him off, he somehow knew he wasn't hallucinating again. He also knew he needed a smoke more than ever. Tweek quickly ripped one of his cancer sticks from the package, before promptly shoving it in his mouth and lighting it, taking a huge drag. There was silence for a moment before he heard a long sigh, which almost sounded exasperated… and annoyed? Maybe the man got better with his emotions when he left town in the fifth grade. Tweek hoped he did. At least one of them needed to improve slightly and he was anything but the candidate.

"Smoking is bad for you," he looked up to see the outrageously tall man in front of him looking down upon him with disapproving eyes. Tweek felt himself shrink a little in slight fear.

"It… It is," he decided on, after a few moments of indecision. What was he supposed to say? Or Do? The cigarettes were the only things keeping him from running himself into the ground. They gave him a little bit of piece in his otherwise emotionally chaotic, but mostly just mundane life - in his opinion, anyway.

After a couple moments of awkward silence, and under very careful scrutiny from his old classmate, Tweek had managed to completely finish the one cigarette off and quickly shoved a new one in his mouth once again, lighting it and taking yet another massive drag. He figured he should make small talk, but like was stated earlier; he was never too good at social situations. He went over a few scenarios in his head, but he decided going simple and to the point was probably the best thing he could do at this point.

"Wh-what are you doing b-back in town? You l-left like… eleven years ago," he asked, mentally berating his self when it took him a moment to calculate how long ago it actually was. This was why he was a barista in an unimportant coffee shop. He knew he was too dumb to actually manage anything else.

"I graduated from Colorado-U last week, and have already set up a job here for the summer as an intern. It's also my birthday tomorrow." It was an almost automatic reply to his question, which sounded like it'd been said to many other people as well. It brought a lot of questions to his mind, but before he could properly sort through his thoughts between taking quick, deep drags of the smoke in his hand, which was almost finished as well, Craig beat him to the next question.

"…Can I take you out for coffee sometime?"

Tweek immediately went into his old calming exercises from that sentence alone.

A/N: So this is the first chapter of hopefully many. It's also my first fanfic ever (since I usually write original or RP), so please judge me… gently? Also, constructive criticism would be appreciated. I'm without a beta for the time being, so sorry about that as well. ;-;