Craig Tucker was tired.
So, so tired.
Not physically, of course.
He was tired.
Tired of seeing...of hearing...of smelling...tasting...feeling.
Tired of waking in the morning to fall asleep in the evening.
Tired of trying.
Tired of breathing.
Craig Tucker was not supposed to feel this way. He was strong. He was the one that was meant to tell the world to fuck off and give them hell when they don't. He was Craig Motherfucking Tucker. He was supposed to be there for his family and friends. Their rock when life fucked them up. He was't supposed to feel this way...
His parents needed him, to help hold their family together.
His sister needed him, to give her advice and fuck up anyone that hurt her.
His friends needed him, to help them through the days that aren't so bright.
People needed Craig Tucker.
But what about what he needed.
You see, that's the problem with being their rock. He's so invincible that no one offers him a hand when he needs them. When he's feeling down, no one notices. When he's hurt, they tell him to brush it off. When he cries, they don't bother to see.
Craig Tucker is tired.
He wasn't always like this, he used to enjoy the days as they came without a care to the wind. As high school went on, Craig's days dimmed from sunshine yellow to stormy grey. Things happened, people lost, life went on.
Only Craig's didn't.
He used and abused his own body, just to feel something other than the tiring numbness that he had become accustomed to.
When his own abuse wasn't enough anymore, he moved on. People were glad to take him...to hurt him..to break him over and over and over again.
Kenny found him once, after one of these nights. He didn't scream at him or beg him or hurt him. He never said anything at all...just sat in the snow next to Craig. He even went as far as to remove his own parka and wrapped it around the beaten and shaking shoulders of the noirette. The silence is what finally broke Craig Tucker and he cried. He cried and cried, sobs ripping through his throat and fat tears rolling down his cheeks. Kenny still said not a word as he pulled the mess that was Craig Tucker to his chest.
Kenny only said two sentences that whole night before they parted.
"I got you, Tucker. I'll be your rock this time."
And Craig believed him, he trusted him.
Kenny McCormick was many things, but he wasn't a liar.
Things only got worse after that night. Drugs got involved. He snuck out late one night and got high out of his fucking mind with the wrong group of people. The night was mainly a blur, but he could remember a few things...
How much it hurt.
How he cried.
How he begged for them to stop.
It really fucking hurt.
And how they finally left him alone and bleeding when they finished.
He couldn't bring himself to move for hours after, until he forced himself to get up through sheer force of will he had thought disappeared years ago.
He didn't go to the police.
That would have meant he was weak.
Craig Tucker wasn't weak.
He was everyone's rock.
Kenny found out. Craig didn't know how or when, but Kenny just took one look at him in the school hallway the day after. It was a look of horror that was scarred into Craig's brain. He just seemed to know. Craig skipped the rest of the day and went home. He lay in bed that whole day and well into the night, not finding reason to move. Not finding a reason to live...
He moved when Kenny bloody McCormick came in through his second story bedroom window.
Just like that night he found him, Kenny said almost nothing as he climbed into Craig's bed next to him and held the damaged boy. Those same three words were breathed into the silence.
"I got you."
Kenny was here and he would make things better.
That night, they shared their first kiss and Craig felt something for the first time in months.
He felt wanted.
That feeling didn't last though.
Craig was happy for the first time in a long time and it lasted all of a month before it crashed to Earth and utterly dissipated within him. Kenny had said sweet nothings to him everyday, every night for that month. Had said he loved Craig.
Then why was he kissing Tammy Warner in the hallway...
Craig had dropped his books and for the first time everyone other than Kenny saw tears in Craig's eyes. The blonde had broken free from Tammy and reached towards him, begging him to listen...that it wasn't what it looked like!
Craig wouldn't listen, though.
He was tired again.
Tired of hoping.
He was out of there like a bullet, Kenny calling his name, pleading with him to come back. But Craig was gone. He ran through the snow covered streets, past the homes of his childhood friends. He ran and ran and ran until he collapsed in the snow, besides Starks' Pond. A light snow had begun to fall, but Craig hardly cared as he laid there with the cold seeping through his clothes and soaking him to the bone.
He was too tired to move.
Hours passed.
Craig Tucker didn't move.
The sun set.
Craig Tucker didn't move.
The stars shone bright.
Craig Tucker didn't move.
People calling out his name in the distance.
Craig Tucker still didn't move.
He was shivering violently and staring blankly across the frosted grass and at the glittering frozen surface. He's always loved Starks' Pond. Loved skating on it as a kid. Having snowball fights with his friends...sitting in the snow with Kenny beside it. It was the one place he couldn't remember being anything but happy at.
He was so tired of living.
He closed his eyes.
The cold kept growing.
He's accepted it.
There were worse ways to go than freezing to death.
He was tired of being their rock.
"Craig!"
In the end, Craig Tucker finally got his rest.