This is mostly an introspective character study piece. One day, I asked myself why Craig would get involved in another one of Cartman's schemes if he hated going along with them so much. Either Crack Baby Basketball was JUST THAT COOL, or something happened to mellow Craig out a little bit. Yes, this fic is just as full of crack as "Crack Baby Athletic Association." I almost didn't finish it after I looked at the outline and wondered what the hell I was on. Still, I love character studies, so I went ahead and finished it. It did take a lot of re-writing, but I'm pretty happy with the end result. There are some similarities to "You're Getting Older." Oddly, I wrote those parts before the episode aired. (I SWEAR.) Anyway, happy reading.
-
Fate. Inevitability. Craig talked about those things a lot lately, playing with the words as if he had a deep, spiritual understanding of what they meant... But he never really said why. It all started with his impromptu vacation to the country of Peru, where, according to the accounts of the others who'd gone with him, he saved the world from extinction at the paws of giant guinea creatures. But while Stan, Kyle and Cartman talked about the adventure at length and in great detail, Craig never spoke a word about what happened there, except to call it the 'Peru Incident' Any attempts that anyone made to get more out of him were met with shrugs or other dismissive – and sometimes rude – gestures.
Most people had given up on Craig, but not his best friend.
Clyde's elbows rested on the somewhat sticky Denny's table as he propped his head up in his hands. Just across from him, Craig sat quietly, continuing a trend that began as soon as they arrived at the restaurant: Utter and complete silence. In fact, most of the days they hung out with each other were the same now, in that Clyde would attempt to strike up a conversation with Craig, only to be met with one-word answers and more silence. Even granting that Clyde wasn't the smartest kid in the class, he knew that his best friend was hurting – somehow – even if Craig wasn't showing it on the outside.
Their waitress brought a plate of fries for each of them.
"Awesome, I'm starving!" Clyde said, nearly tearing his plate from the waitress' hands. She rolled her eyes and gave him a good-natured, tolerant smile, before setting the other plate down in front of Craig.
Without a word, Craig methodically began his meal.
On a whim, and purely to see if he could at least get some sort of response, Clyde reached for the bottle of mustard, and poured it all over Craig's fries.
The result was slightly more intense than Clyde expected, but that didn't mean much. Craig simply sighed, momentarily closed his eyes, and ate around the mustard as if it wasn't there, or it didn't bother him, despite the fact that he hated mustard. No yelling, no one-finger salute, and not even a call to the waitress to bring him a new plate! Defeated, Clyde sunk down in his chair, pouting, and sticking fries between his fingers so he could pretend to be Wolverine.
"I miss you," he said when he'd gotten nearly his whole plate of fries stuck between the fingers of both hands.
Craig looked up from his plate without even cracking a smile at the stupidity with which he was presented. His friend, nearly ten years old, was clearly playing with his food, and people were staring. Instead, he said, "I'm right here."
"Nah, man. You're still in Peruvia or somethin'," Clyde replied.
"Peru."
"Whatever. You didn't deny it."
Craig went back to eating his fries.
Clyde tried again. "R—remember when we used to hang out and play video games, or play 'Who's the Ugliest in the Class'?"
"Yes," Craig responded.
Clyde sat there expectantly, waiting for the reminiscing to begin, which would surely be awesome and marvelous and re-kindle their friendship and they could go play Rampage or something and forget about Craig's clearly deep emotional problems, but instead, Craig went back to eating.
"Well?"
"You asked if I remembered. I said yes."
Emptying his Wolverine claws back onto the plate in front of him, Clyde went on. "Well, d'you want to go play X-Box or something?"
"Does it really matter what I say?" Maybe he noticed that Clyde was becoming frustrated; for just a single moment, there was an expression other than the normal blankness on Craig's face. More quietly, as if embarrassed, he added, "It doesn't matter. Whatever we're going to do today is going to happen, Clyde."
With that insight, his concentration returned to his plate.
"I'm done," Clyde said, standing. "You get to pay. Bet you didn't see that coming."
As Clyde walked away, he heard a bored, flat voice behind him say, "Nope."
-
That night, Clyde asked his father how he could help his best friend. After hearing the normal crap that most adults seemed to spew when confronted with anything serious – namely that Craig was getting older and was therefore growing up – Clyde went up to his room. This wasn't about Craig growing up. Why didn't anyone seem to understand that there was something seriously wrong with the kid? No fourth grader acted that way in the history of ever.
So Clyde had to get help from someone else. Maybe some Divine Intervention would help where no one else could.
Turning on his computer, he looked through his bookmarks until he found the one he was looking for. iGod. Repenting made easy... And hopefully, it would also make helping Craig easy, too.
: ClydeisCool2000: hey god
: iGod: Hello, my child. What is your name?
: ClydeisCool2000: clyde. I have a question for you god
: iGod: Go ahead. Ask your question.
Things seemed to be going well. Smiling, finally hopeful that he'd found a way to fix his friend, Clyde took a deep breath and asked God his question.
: ClydeisCool2000: my friend craig is really sad lately and I was hoping you could cheer him up
: iGod: How well do you know this person?
: ClydeisCool2000: does it matter
: iGod: It matters to me.
: ClydeisCool2000: oh okay. craig is my best friend. him and me are like brothers.
: iGod: That's alright. OK with me too. How long has he been your best friend? Are all him and you like brothers?
Clyde blinked, staring at the screen. He wasn't quite sure he understood, but perhaps the words of the Most Holy were hard for most mere mortals to understand. Or maybe God was talking to someone else at the moment and had mis-understood what Clyde had said. Perhaps he should clarify?
But what if clarifying made God angry? What if God was all-knowing like the books said, and Clyde was stupid? That seemed more likely.
: ClydeisCool2000: oh great and powerful God, he has been my best friend since we were babies. I think him and me are the only him and me. but I can't be sure. Are there more clydes and craigs?
: iGod: Ahem. Thanks for your support. When was this exactly? Since when? All of them? Why not? No I don't think there are any.
"Uh..." Clyde began. Maybe he ought to simplify things a little. God was, after all, a very busy deity.
: ClydeisCool2000: so can you help my friend
: iGod: Dude! Certainly, I have an extensive built-in help system.
Dude? Well. At least he'd gotten the answer he wanted.
: ClydeisCool2000: oh thank you God. I know you are busy so I will go now.
: iGod: How can I help you? You are quite welcome! GOD rules. Oh. I will tell my botmaster you said I am busy so you will go.
Unsure of what he'd just experienced, and completely confused as to what a botmaster could be, Clyde logged off and turned toward the comfort of his bed, knowing that God was on the case, and that Craig would soon be his old self again.
-
MEANWHILE, AT THE HALL OF THE SUPER BEST FRIENDS...
"Um..." Moses paused, rolling his eyes. "There seems... There seems to be a problem. Is anyone here?"
After a tense few seconds, Moses heard the familiar voice of Krishna. "Yes, Moses?"
"That... Internet Robot that Jesus set up. It. Um. It seems that there's been a serious request." The whir of a dot matrix printer was already filling the hall. "Printing out the request."
Krishna looked the printout over and contemplated the request for some time. While the young one had asked God for help specifically, certainly any method that aid could be brought to his friend would be most welcome. Patient, ever wise and considerate, the avatar pondered over the request for hours before he came to a well-thought solution.
-
In all honesty, Craig didn't care that people wanted to hang out with him, nor would he have cared if they all stopped wanting to be around him. Because no matter what he wanted, things were going to play out as fate decided. There wasn't any escaping it, so he gave up trying the moment he returned home from Peru. After all, it appeared for all intent and purpose that he was some sort of cosmic slave to destiny, which was a concept that he should have been too young to even grasp. In the end, he hadn't wanted to save the world, but he was forced to do so anyway, simply by walking a couple feet in a direction that he'd imagined to be 'away' from the Guinea creature conflict. Instead, he put himself right in the middle of it.
Nothing felt important to him anymore.
The other kids in his class didn't get why he felt so small and unimportant because of the Peru Incident, but on that day, something in his fourth grade brain had clicked, and he felt as if he GOT IT. That one person might be doomed to live on the street their whole life, and another might be elevated to the status of world savior, no matter what they did – or didn't – do to end up in their respective positions. All he wanted, all he asked for, was one thing. Control. And that control turned out to be the biggest myth of all time. The more Craig thought about it, the more he knew it to be true.
Once he gave up notion that he actually had some sort of control in his life, the rest became rather easy. Which is why he'd allowed Eric Cartman, along with Butters Stotch and Kenny McCormick, to drag him out of his house and to the mall.
Cartman elbowed him. "D'you want to go to Gamestop or the toystore?"
They were looking at him expectantly, though he couldn't understand why his decision mattered. He could pick one or the other if he wanted to make them happy, but he'd always valued being truthful, if nothing else.
"I don't care," he replied flatly.
Because no matter what he decided, they were either going to end up at the Gamestop or the Toystore, or they would be randomly diverted elsewhere, because there were at least a million other stores in the mall. Less likely, but still plausibly, they would simply continue on in a straight line and end up on the moon, for no reason other than the same cosmic prankster that liked making Craig save the world would find it amusing if four fourth graders imploded from lack of air pressure.
And that's when he felt little tiny stabs of pain all over his body.
Despite his conviction that things would just happen as they did, with or without his input, Craig felt somewhat concerned when the pain began, and even more so when it seemed that black hair was very slowly growing from all his pores. It was actually microscopic at the moment, almost as if they were very small, very dark freckles, but he could feel it growing, and the sensation made his skin crawl figuratively as much as it did literally. He muttered a syllable that sounded something like "Euugh" as he stared at his bare arm.
Was fear really that useless?
Because he couldn't hold it at bay.
"What the..." he started, despite himself.
"Craig, dude, are you okay?" Kenny asked.
He tried to maintain his calm. He tried to tell himself that whatever was happening to him, he wouldn't have had any sort of choice in the matter, anyway. That even if he could have chosen this, the ultimate decision was never in his hands, and he should just go along with it, because –
Because...
Why?
By now, the others noticed the hair growing from his arms. Butters took a step back, while Kenny at least made a good show of looking like he wanted to help. With each passing second, though – with each tiny increment that the hair grew – Craig could sense the fact that this thing that was happening to him was also screwing with the solid grasp he usually had on his emotions. This became particularly obvious when Kenny laid a hand on Craig's shoulder.
The response was a literal, feral growl. Craig covered his mouth.
While everyone nearby found this to be disturbing, and rightfully so, Cartman, being the great idiot that he was, decided that it was best to point and laugh, so he did. "Check it out, you guys! His eyes are as wide as fucking dinner plates!"
For no reason that Craig could fathom, he attempted to bite off Cartman's finger. Thankfully for both of them, the fatass was surprisingly quick when it came to self-preservation, and pulled his arm back just before Craig's teeth snapped down on it.
As their eyes met, Cartman was no longer laughing. In fact, for that moment, Cartman actually seemed somewhat concerned, taking a step back as Butters guided him to do so. "S—sorry—Hh" Craig stuttered through what felt to be changing teeth. His voice was noticeably not his own anymore. In fact, he started to feel as though his sense of self was deteriorating completely as the changes accelerated, and the hair growing from his skin became a thick coat of jet black fur.
A switch flipped, and suddenly everything in his world was pain.
His arms, legs, even his face felt like they were being shattered and stretched and re-formed. He had a good idea what he was becoming, but at that point, the only thoughts in his head involved how painful this whole experience felt. The others were shouting, but he couldn't hear them because of the pounding in his ears. Kenny was pushing the others back, standing in front of them, eyes staring down at Craig with a mix of caution and pity.
His vision started closing in on him until only a haze of blackness and shadows remained. He also threw up, not because he hurt so badly, but because, for the first time in a very long time, Craig was absolutely, completely terrified.
-
Butters backed up a few steps as Craig thrashed. In all the years they'd known each other, the black-haired boy had been disinclined to outbursts of any kind, and so, Butters thought to himself, this must have been particularly frightening, what with all the hair-growing and big scary teeth coming in and all. Once, Butters had become a vampire! And that had been pretty scary, but it hadn't really hurt. The look he could see in Craig's eyes, well... It just seemed like the kid was in some pretty awful pain.
In the end, the creature that Craig became – which wasn't actually much larger than he'd originally been, save for the fact that he was now covered in a shaggy, black fur coat – looked like a cross between a wolf and a demented badger. Some extra muscle and the increased length of his arms in particular had caused his clothes to shred, which now hung in tatters across his chest and back. The only item spared sat on the wolf-creature's head between two large ears, but even Craig's blue hat went flying when, disoriented, he shook his head. Butters picked it up off the floor, as its owner would probably want it back at some point, probably when he had less fur.
"Craig? Y—you all right?" Butters asked, wringing the hat between his hands as he took a tentative step forward. Craig snarled a clear warning to keep back, the hair on his back and shoulders standing nearly perpendicular as he met Butters' eyes.
"Get out of there, Butters!" Kenny whispered.
Briefly, Butters looked over his shoulder. Standing around him and the wolf were dozens of people, all waiting to see what would happen. It was as if everyone decided to hold their breath at the same time, it was so still. No one was awestruck, though, it was just that no one on either side had any idea what the hell to do. Turning back to the animal standing in front of him, Butters clearly saw recognition and calm returning to Craig's eyes, and then Cartman hit him across the back with a folding chair.
Stunned, Craig collapsed to the ground, and the familiar look in his eyes turned bestial and unrecognizable in a matter of seconds. The sound he made would stick with Butters for a long time, too – something between a yelp and a growl and a howl of pain.
"See?! You just gotta show these animals who's boss!"
But it didn't seem as if Craig got the memo. Yowling, he lashed out with one huge paw at his attacker, Missing by the smallest possible margin. Most people would back off at that point, but not Cartman. Cartman felt that it was absolutely necessary to swing the chair at the enraged animal once again, which, of course, only made him angrier.
"Not cool, dude!" Kenny reached for the chair, trying to pull it back. "That's Craig, you asshole! He's probably scared!"
The point for any reasoning had already passed, however. The wolf was rightfully angry, Cartman was still holding the chair, and Kenny stood directly between them. Like a wall. A wall in an orange parka.
It took a mere fraction of a second for the scared animal to make the decision to attack, and it didn't end well.
Kenny gurgled, then went silent.
Butters fell over himself in his attempts to back away. "Kenny? Oh, Jesus, he's dead!"
Blood pooled on the floor around them now, and the panic it caused meant that those who were simply watching before were now active participants in the chaos, running away, screaming, knocking over benches and tables and trash cans – even the occasional potted tree. As Butters tried his best to escape, he managed to catch the wolf's eye, and in it, he clearly saw not an animal, but a very terrified friend, who was staring at the blood on his clawed hands.
"Craig, get out o' here," Butters muttered. It seemed enough to pull the wolf from his confusion, but just as he turned to run, the unmistakable thundering echo of a gunshot filled the enclosed space of the mall and reverberated loudly as silence fell upon its terrified occupants. There were whispers among those close enough to hear, people wondering if anyone had been hurt. Or if they'd misheard and it wasn't a gun at all... Or perhaps the bullet just spent itself into a wall or the floor. Just when the mob seemed about to give up on the eventual target, their eyes turned toward Craig, whose paws pressed desperately against a heavily bleeding hole in his side.
The silence lasted only a second before the screams resumed in earnest, and the mall cop who'd taken the shot was closed off from his prey.
At that point, the only way out was through an area where there were no people. Butters had no idea why Craig ran directly for the nearest vertical wall, but as soon as he reached it, he leaped nearly ten feet up its surface, catching the bricks with his claws, and climbing upward toward a band of decorative windows between the first and second floors. Likely, they weren't meant to be opened, but the wolf made short work of one of the panes, smashing through it as easily as one would tear through paper.
And there he sat for a moment, catching his breath and looking back down into the crowd. The people seemed less terrified now that the animal was not only injured, but trying to escape, and as their running and panicking ceased, Craig's brown eyes scanned through them for one person in particular.
Finding Catman, he lifted one paw, middle finger extended, before dropping outside and out of sight.
-
Many, many hours after a special report aired carrying the warning of a wild animal loose in South Park, Clyde Donovan, who had very little use for the news, slept peacefully in his bed, oblivious to the day's earlier happenings. He had no idea of the supernatural transformation that had befallen his friend, because Clyde, who wasn't necessarily stupid but WAS relatively unobservant, had spent the day playing video games. He'd never thought to check whether his conversation with iGod produced results or not, because like so many children of his generation, Clyde preferred to live in the moment.
Either that or he'd forgotten the conversation entirely.
Late at night, he dreamed up the sound of his window opening. At least, he thought he had, but when the shuffling of various things around his room reached his ears, Clyde shook himself out of his sleepy stupor and realized that his window actually was open, and that he hadn't dreamed it at all. By the light of the moon, he could see something quickly running around his room, something small but hairy, which didn't stay in one place for very long. He thought he saw the briefest flash of its eyes, and then it dove into the shadows.
The shuffling continued.
Afraid, Clyde reached under his bed for his baseball bat, only to have it caught and torn from his hands by whatever creature had invaded his bedroom. The thing climbed up onto his bed, tossing the bat aside, and Clyde squished as far as he possibly could toward the back wall. A moment later, the creature turned on a flashlight, shining it onto a lined notebook that it held in its large hand-like paws. Scrawled on it in red crayon were the words 'DON'T PANIC' in large letters.
"Uh..." was all Clyde could manage to say.
In the darkness, he still couldn't see what actually held the sign. It grunted something, then it grunted the same thing again, and again, until Clyde could make out actual syllables in the gruff, animal-like voice. Understanding, he reached for his bedside lamp and turned on the light.
The sudden brightness forced his eyes closed, but with a little time, he could open them enough to try focusing. Though it was still too bright to really see what sat at the end of his bed, the shape started to make more sense as the seconds ticked by, until he could determine that some sort of B-movie horror creature had stolen his homework notebook in order to make signs at him at—
He looked at his clock.
"C'mon, dude," he muttered. "It's like three o'clock in the morning."
The wolf creature tore the first sheet out of the book and set it on the bed so it could write something else. It was pathetic watching it write with paws, but somehow it managed to form letters out of the uneven red-crayon lines that it made. Eventually, it seemed satisfied with its work, and held up the notebook again. It had drawn an arrow pointing upward to its face, with one word – CRAIG – written in unmistakably deliberate letters just underneath.
At that moment, Clyde half-recalled the news report about a wild animal loose in the South Park mall.
It still didn't make any sense. He couldn't parse this situation while still half asleep. Perhaps he was still dreaming, and he subconsciously remembered the news reports just enough to make this strangely real vision come to life in his mind as he slept. The animal that called itself Craig fidgeted, one hand leaving the notebook to rub at its side. The hair there was matted, and in the yellow light of the flashlight and the lamp, it appeared to have a red cast. Whatever had created the mess had congealed; the sticky lumpiness of it suggested blood.
Despite his doubts, Clyde asked, "Are you bleeding?"
Craig flipped another page and scribbled something else.
SCARED, CLYDE
"I know, dude, what the hell happened to you?"
The wolf shook his head and shrugged, hurriedly tearing out another page so it could write something else. Clyde, however, reached for the crayon and shook his head. "It's okay, Craig. You can tell me later."
If an animal could look relieved, Craig did at that moment. He sighed, pushing the notebook aside and returning both hands to his injured side. He breathed heavily, though it almost seemed to be more out of fear than pain. Clyde crawled closer, reaching for the clasping paws, in order to move them aside so he could take a look at the damage.
"Hrrr," Craig said.
"You gotta let me see how bad it is!" Clyde responded, giving one hand a good tug.
Craig barked, and, embarrassed, covered his mouth with both hands. This, of course, freed up the injured area so that Clyde could see it, while at the same time whispering an angry, "Shut up, Craig! You're gonna wake up my parents!"
The absurdity of the situation was enough to crack Craig's perpetually stoic armor just enough for the quietest of whines to escape through the wolf's black lips. At that point, Clyde looked up to meet his friend's eyes, recognizing the warm, deep brown that hadn't changed at all despite the transformation. If any doubt remained as to the wolf's identity, it was gone at that moment, as Clyde recognized an emotion that he'd never – to his recollection – seen in his best friend's expression. Fear. Even before the Peru incident, Craig hadn't been particularly emotional. He was still trying to hold his feelings in check, but he couldn't hide the fact that whatever happened to him was scaring him.
"'kay," Clyde said. "If we're quiet, I think we can get to the bathroom without wakin' anyone up. I can clean this up or something. Think you can make it?"
Craig nodded, and the two boys slid off the bed. Clyde let the way, pushing open his bedroom door and peeking out into the dark hallway. No one seemed to be moving around, and the only sound was the quiet hum of the refrigerator coming from the kitchen downstairs. Down the hall, he could see the minute glow of the bathroom nightlight... Unfortunately, the trek would take them directly past his parents' bedroom.
"We're gonna have to be really quiet," Clyde whispered. "My mom can't sleep through ANYTHING. If we make any noise, she'll wake up, and I don't think she'll like seeing you very much."
Craig rolled his eyes and nodded toward the hallway, clearly meaning for Clyde to stop talking and get going already.
"Fine, but don't say I didn't warn you if she comes after you with a broom or somethin'."
They ventured into the hallway with the shimmering nightlight as their goal. To Clyde, it felt like it took forever, and that every step he or Craig took caused the floor to squeal loudly enough to wake even the deepest of sleepers. He kept imagining what could go wrong – either his father would wander into the hallway on his way to the kitchen for a drink of water, or his dog, Rex, would smell the strange dog and start barking. Thankfully, neither came to pass, and when they reached the bathroom, Clyde carefully and quietly shut the door.
Both boys breathed a sigh of relief.
"Mom dyes her hair, so she's got... hang on, lemme find 'em..." Clyde paused, opening the cabinet under the sink. He pulled out a box of Band-Aids, a bandage strip, and spray bottle with some sort of antiseptic in it. Finally, he pulled out a box of latex gloves, and snapped a pair onto his hands. They were several sizes too big. "See?"
Craig tried to say something. The words were almost intelligible, too – enough so that Clyde could interpret what he couldn't quite understand. "I know you don't have any diseases, but I don't want blood on my hands, dude."
Craig rolled his eyes, reached down, and tried to pull some of the hair out of the way so Clyde could see the wound.
-
It felt strange to feel so humiliated and frightened, but Craig was so tired that he no longer cared. He didn't realize how much of an effort it took to not allow himself to feel until now; the past few hours it had taken him to pull his way from the mall to his best friend's house had taken all the stoicism from him. His nerves were just about shot, his emotion raw. How had he managed to hold everything in such careful check for so long? And more importantly, why? Despite the pain, it felt good to feel, to allow the fear in, or to be angry with that mall cop who shot him.
It didn't hurt as much as it had at first, but when it occurred... Craig couldn't remember feeling anything so painful in his life. They always said that a shock like that could make a person see stars, but he didn't believe it until he actually DID see stars, which materialized as little points of light in his vision as he struggled not to pass out. Surely the bullet had gone deep enough to damage something vital, like his appendix or something. Anyone would have been terrified, but not Craig. At that point, he forced the fear down, refusing to let it take him over again as it did when he first changed. He used his brain, he thought things through, and came up with an escape, fleeing from the public eye until, exhausted, he had to allow the feelings of defeat and fear back in.
But along with those came the memories of companionship, of trust. Hope. He knew that if he could make it to Clyde's house, everything would be okay. And now that he was there and he could see himself in the vanity mirror, Craig wondered how he'd managed to push his terror away for so long.
"Dude, did you get shot?" Clyde asked.
Craig started to nod, before gritting his teeth at the pain that followed. A moment later, Clyde held up what looked to be a spent bullet. That should have been impossible, though. If it had been as deep as he thought, Clyde wouldn't have seen it. And even if he had, it would have hurt a lot more when he dug it out.
"Well, it's almost healed. I mean, more than it should be."
Looking down, Craig felt around the area where he knew the bullet had gone in, but the wound was shallow, almost gone. It still hurt when he pressed on it, but the pain was much less than it had been several hours before. To say the least, that was confusing.
"I think this was being pushed out as it was healing." Clyde held up the bullet, wrinkling his nose a bit. "Don't worry, though. Werewolves are really fast healers. I bet you healed. Haha, heel. Heel, Craig. Ha."
Craig tried to ignore the jab at his appearance, but couldn't help reaching out to give Clyde a good shove. His friend stumbled backward a few steps, and Craig growled out a response.
"S—sorry, it was funny. Come on, you'd think it was hilarious if it'd happened ... to..." Clyde trailed off, frowning, as he dropped the bullet into the trash. "Nah. You wouldn't have. You wouldn't have even cracked a smile. I bet you would have just rolled over and gone back to sleep."
Did Craig detect a little bitterness? He was kind of ashamed to admit that Clyde was probably right, though. Running without feeling just came naturally now, as it he lived life on autopilot.
"Look, you're... You're too young to be so boring," Clyde stated, pouring some antiseptic onto a square of toilet paper. Craig winced as he pressed it into the wound. "I mean, I know you're not exactly the most outgoing guy, but, uh. Look, it's not just me that's worried about you, either. Kyle Broflovski told me this one time that he was afraid it was his fault that you'd changed and all. You know, 'cuz they dragged you along to Peru."
It all made sense.
"I dunno what happened to you there. I mean, I do..." Clyde fished through his pile of supplies until he found an Ace bandage that was long enough to wrap around Craig's middle. "'cuz of what the other guys said. But, I guess... up here." He pointed to Craig's head. Still holding the bandage in front of him, he continued.
Eventually, Clyde always seemed to reach a point where he should have stopped talking, but didn't. When provided with the opportunity to talk without interruption, he reached that point a little more quickly than usual. For awhile, he went on about his worries for Craig's well-being, and then made a singular admission that grated too painfully on Craig's already tattered nerves: "A couple nights ago, I wished that something would happen to you to help you. And I guess this is it."
The "WHAT?!" Craig shouted was too clear to be interpreted at anything else. Clyde was so surprised that he fell backward, knocking the gathered first aid supplies to the floor with a loud crash.
Clyde WANTED this to happen to him?
Despite the limitations provided by his current form, Craig was about to argue about this with his best friend right then and there, until both of them noticed the fact that a light shined into the bathroom from under the door.
"Clyde?" The voice came from down the hall, and then repeated as it got closer.
"Dammit, we woke my mom up!" Clyde hissed, looking back toward the bathroom window. Normally, it stayed closed. In fact, he wasn't even sure if it COULD be opened. And yet, this was their only hope of escape at this point, especially when he heard the scrabbling of claws at the bathroom door, and Rex started barking. Craig had the same idea. Climbing up onto the toilet, he pushed at the window until it opened outward.
Clyde's mother knocked at the door. "Clyde? Is everything okay in there? I heard a crash!"
The handle turned, and the door opened just a crack. Without really thinking, Craig grabbed his friend's wrist and jumped out the second story window to the ground below, tucking, rolling, and letting Clyde go as the two of them tumbled through the snow. He righted himself, checking on Clyde to make sure he was okay, too, before running away toward the trees. Behind them, he could hear the shouts of two worried parents, their voices growing quieter as they grew more distant.
Eventually, the two of them reached a copse of pine trees that mostly shielded them from the wind. Craig didn't feel the cold thanks to his newly-acquired fur coat, but Clyde sure as hell did. As they sat there, one shivering from fear and one from chill, Clyde finally spoke.
"I'm dumb, Craig."
Craig couldn't help a smile, but Clyde wasn't looking.
"I mean, I know I can't add or spell or anything, but I know when somethin's really wrong with my best friend. You just closed yourself off after... Jeez, it's cold out here."
Craig scooted closer, sitting just next to Clyde in an attempt to keep him warm. For awhile, Clyde just allowed the warmth in and said nothing. Once he stopped shivering, he added, "I know you hate what happened to you there. But you can talk to me about it. That's what I'm here for."
It didn't seem as if Clyde really expected a response, and Craig wasn't inclined to give one with the current difficulties he was having with his mouth being unable to form words. Out here, some short distance from South Park, in the cold, the best way he could find to communicate was to give his friend's shoulder a bump with his own. Clyde looked up, and Craig attempted another smile.
It must have been grotesque, or frightening, because Clyde grimaced, scooting away an inch or two, and Craig, defeated, sighed and looked at the ground again.
"Wait, you were tryin' to smile, weren't you?"
Craig nodded.
"No—that's good, that's a start." Clyde moved closer again, for support or warmth or both. "I haven't seen you just... Smile. In a really long time."
Craig tried again. It was more subtle this time, and Clyde smiled back. "I'm sorry I asked God to turn you into a werewolf," he added.
Craig bumped his shoulder again.
"Yeah, I know it's all right, dude. Still, this isn't... exactly what I expected. Now I'm prob'ly gonna freeze to death out here and then I'll go home tomorrow and my parents'll ground me."
He met Craig's dubious glance, then added, "Well yeah, after I'm dead. It makes sense if you think about it for a second."
Craig shook his head.
They must have sat there for an hour. Luckily, the temperature was just warm enough, and Clyde's clothing was just thick enough, so that he didn't lose any toes. Still, it became pretty obvious that the still-human boy was too cold to remain outside for very much longer when he started drawing a campfire in the snow with a pine branch. It was unfortunate that at this moment, Craig wanted to tell his best friend how he felt about fate and his inability to affect his own life. He knew the opportunity wouldn't present itself again. Hell, he must have been majorly exhausted to even consider spilling his tale in the first place. Maybe after tonight, he'd just go on as usual, eventually alienating even his closest friends. Maybe even his family.
An idea struck him, and he grabbed the branch out of Clyde's hand.
"Hey—"
In the snow, he drew a very small stick figure, then pointed to himself.
"Right, okay," Clyde said.
Around them, in the acre or so of new-fallen snow, Craig continued to use the stick to draw. He made the box around himself as large as he possibly could, adding a few other doodles at intervals, like the solar system – the sun, eight planets, and Pluto. He also drew a spiral galaxy, space ships, anything he could think of to make the universe look like an enormous place compared to the tiny drawing of himself near Clyde's feet. He drew another solar system. He made the box go in and out of the trees. When he ran out of space to draw, he made wide, sweeping gestures all around to show that the box would continue forever in every direction...
And then he went back and pointed to the drawing of himself.
Clyde considered this for a moment, and then asked tentatively, "Y—you want to be an astronaut?"
Grunting, Craig buried his face in his hands.
"Okay, no."
Clyde walked around the perimeter of what Craig had drawn, trying to make sense of the crude drawings. As he figured them out, he'd say what they were out loud – The Milky Way, space ships, a galaxy, aliens, another planet... Eventually, he said, "It's like you drew the whole universe."
Excitedly, Craig pointed at him.
"Yes, that?"
Craig nodded.
Watching the wheels turn in Clyde's head was kind of painful. It took awhile, and then it took longer than just awhile. His friend was always very in the moment, very honest. Something this deep took some thought, and just when Craig had given up that Clyde would get it, the other boy said, "Oh."
"Yeah, I guess I don't get why you feel like that," Clyde went on. "I mean, who cares what's out here." He used his foot to smudge out the drawing of an alien planet. "I don't. Heh, if I worried about all this, I bet I'd find a way to do worse than an F minus on all my homework."
Clyde didn't entirely get it. Craig just felt so small, like his existence, his path in life, had been already predetermined and no amount of trial on his part could change that. He was just a part of an enormous whole. Something completely unimportant. And then Clyde said, "If we're so small, how come GOD took a minute out of his day to answer my prayer, huh? That's gotta count for something."
Damn. That was a good point.
"Craig. Just... Get it all out. Be angry for a little while. Then tomorrow we can go to school and play Xbox and you can not be such a boring asshole to be around."
Leaning against the nearest tree, Craig allowed his claws to sink into the soft pine. All this really was because he was angry, wasn't it? He couldn't accept that saving the world was pretty cool, because he'd been used, he'd had any semblance of control stripped from him, and no matter what he did at that moment, fate would have guided him directly into what it had always meant for him.
But there existed something deeper, underneath that, that nagged at him. As his claws dug deeper into the wood, he realized where his complacency really came from. He'd had the opportunity to save the world, and he'd tried to walk away. For what? Just so he could say that he'd made the choice? Just so he could look back with the knowledge that he'd made a conscious decision to doom his friends?
Maybe he would have had that choice, if only he'd chosen the right path.
So was he angry at fate and destiny, or was he angry at himself?
His fingers flexed, and he tore a large chunk from the pine tree's trunk, and then he didn't stop. He kept going, clawing the hell out of it, roaring and screaming as he did so, until he'd mauled it so horribly that gravity did the rest, pulling it the rest of the way to the ground. It sent up a spray of snow, but Craig wasn't paying attention. He'd already moved onto the next tree, destroying it as he had the last. Nothing mattered anymore except getting rid of that self-hate that he'd kept bottled up for so long.
He'd always had a choice. He just made the wrong one. And that's when fate had to step in. What kind of world would they live in now if it hadn't?
Another tree fell. He realized that despite his initial reticence, things had worked out in the end. He'd never have to look back and wonder if he could have saved everyone, because he had. In the end, maybe things didn't happen how they were supposed to. But they happened, not because he was so small in comparison to the rest of the universe, but because at that particular moment in time, he needed to matter.
When he was finally finished, three trees sat felled in the snow, and a fourth would surely fall over within a few days. Craig was so exhausted by that time that all he could do was press his hand against the bark of the last tree, completely spent, and so, so tired. He sank to his knees, vision blurring, the light coming in stronger than the darkness and the stars...
Suddenly, Craig opened his eyes.
Startled by the sudden change of scenery, he stumbled out of bed, tripping on his sheets and falling face-first to the floor. Once able to right himself, he checked his hands, his feet, and ran his hands over his chest and face. Normal. No fur, no paws or claws or sharp wolf teeth. Everything was normal. Sunlight shone through his window, heralding a new day.
That was the most realistic dream he'd ever had.
Wide-eyed, he rubbed the back of his neck, trying to make sense out of it. Despite the fact that it HAD just been a dream, he still felt exhausted, his muscles tired and eyes heavy. Obviously, judging by the appearance of his blankets and the fact that he'd been so tangled up in them, he'd been thrashing around in his sleep. But he couldn't shake the feeling that it had really happened. Picking his way through his bedding, he reached for his school bag, pulling his cell phone out of one side pocket and dialing the one person he HAD to talk to after that strange night.
The other end rang a few times before a sleepy, nasally voice answered. "Craig?"
"Clyde? I just had the weirdest dream."
There was silence on the other end of the line, then Clyde said, "The whole thing with the wolf and the getting shot and you going all lumberjack? Not a dream, dude."
It was Craig's turn for silence. "But... I woke up in my bed..."
"Yeah, that's because you changed back and passed out. I carried you home."
He couldn't figure out how to fill the silence, and so he just sat, dumbstruck, on the other end of the line until Clyde spoke up again, less abrasively, and more concerned. "You feeling better?"
"Yeah. Yeah, are you okay?"
"Mm. Well, I told my parents I had to run over to your house 'cuz you were sick. But they still grounded me for jumping out the bathroom window and coming home with frostbite. They said I should have gone out the front door and worn shoes at least. I dunno. Parents."
He still couldn't quite believe it had happened. Looking down, Craig searched for evidence of the injury he'd received. There was still some dried blood over his ribs, as well as a faint pink scar, round, where he'd been shot. That definitely carried the proof that he needed, given that he'd never been shot before.
Of course, given his current state of dress, Craig then had to ask the most important question. "...wasn't I naked?"
Silence, then, "Y—yeah, can we just never mention that? Ever again?"
-
After a good sleep, the memory of the incident started returning to Craig in all its strange detail. Though it all seemed impossible, Clyde had been witness to it, and, much to his irritation, Kenny, Cartman, and Butters recalled his transformation, as well. Strangely, Kenny seemed just a little less inclined to hang out anywhere near Craig, though no one could really say why.
Days passed, then weeks, then months, and the incident never repeated. It appeared as if Craig's experience as a werewolf had been limited to that one event, and, being a child, he never really questioned why. Perhaps he would have if he were anyone else, but he, more than his friends, accepted that sometimes things just happened, and sometimes you didn't have control over them. What had changed, though, was that he now allowed himself to feel again, because it wasn't worth going through life without doing so. Sure, his instinct was always to push that emotion off to one side and let indifference take over, and sometimes his friends needed that cool voice of reason when, say, the town was being destroyed again by some odd danger. But he found he could smile again, and laugh, and yell, and cry if he needed to, even if dealing with nothingness was a lot easier than any sort of reactivity.
But Craig never completely recovered. The incident in Peru would always affect him to some extent. He hadn't been hurt there, but he'd been told through his attempted inaction that no matter what he did, the universe would always find a way of guiding him into exactly the right position, or making him say exactly the thing it wanted him to say. There was much more going on than the majority of people realized. Maybe fate didn't always have a say as to what happened with the world, but just the fact that it did SOMETIMES was enough to make Craig one of the most down-to-earth people in South Park. When things went wrong, he still remained the beacon of logic in an otherwise crazy town. But sometimes, he let himself chuckle at a joke... Or yell angrily at morons, which kind of became a favorite past-time.
And one day, Clyde told him that Eric Cartman had discovered the most awesome thing ever: Crack baby basketball.
He could have just let himself be dragged along for the ride. After all, Clyde was pretty adamant about Craig's addition to the team. Unfortunately, the last time Craig participated in one of Cartman's schemes, his entire outlook on life changed completely. But the idea did seem pretty cool, and the premise WAS pretty funny. After a moment's thought, Craig surprised everyone by saying rather excitedly, "Let's do it."