Seated at the accustomed table in the cafeteria where he frequently sat, the already overflowing trash cans a few feet away and eking a semi-noxious gas that was strongly reminiscent of how the boy's bathroom smelled after Cartman passed through, the double doors close by and thrown open to tempt in the final shuddering summer breaths before autumn, Craig Tucker was joined by his friends. Olive green button-down still not fastened properly, a black tee-shirt with the Tweak Bros. logo beneath, Tweek was perched on one side while a "dashing figure" in the red lettermen jacket would have taken the other, where he not with the rest of his team. Token, hair tied back and reading glasses perched atop his nose in the interest of maintaining his healthy vision into the distant future, might also have welcomed Clyde's presence at his left - or even the right - lateral if he were with them today. Nice and boring, just the way Craig liked it.
And yet there was some bullshit brewing.
Across from the two besties, Token was surrounded by his usual mountain of brand new text books as he used the extra time to touch up an essay that was due later or cram for a test that they had coming up, his lunch neatly nibbled on as he studied. Today he was dinning on some exotic salad with fish and beets, a fancy foreign lemonade imported from Christ knows where, and a single oatmeal cookie. Tweek was sipping his coffee and munching on some celery sticks and carrots that he had packed himself, spending his break reading the messages and mail he couldn't get to while in class. Gawking across the moderate expanse of the cafeteria from where he sat with the rest of his team, Clyde was frowning at his real friends between hearty bites of his face-staining sloppy-Joe. Craig didn't like the way that the brunette was looking to him for answers, probably attempting to form some kind of direct telepathic channel while he was at it, and he liked even less that the team seemed to be running their mouths about the most recent batches of chatter.
Did you hear? No, what? Craig Tucker gave the new kid his digits! Did you hear Craig Tucker gave the new kid his contact information? Did you hear that Craig Tucker gave his cell number and a dime bag to the new kid? No, I heard it was a baggie of shrooms! I heard from Mike who heard it from Annie who overheard Kevin talking to Scott when they were ditching gym to watch the new Star Wars trailer in the AV room that it was crystal. Do you think it's true that Craig Tucker gave the new kid his number and some E in exchange for a blowjob? No way, I always thought Craig had more class than that! I heard that Craig Tucker and the new kid exchanged digits, as in an index right up the brown eye! Did you hear that the new kid is already hooking up with Craig Tucker? What a slut! No way, I heard that the new kid was hooking up with Craig AND the entire football team, having nasty butt-sex in the school showers! That was how the rumor mill worked, and after Bebe personally saw Craig giving the new kid his phone number in the middle of class and told Wendy and the other cheerleaders about it, the unstoppable machine was whirring heatedly passed overtime by lunch. Thankfully the student body were still collectively laboring under the assumption that the new kid was a boy, or else the rumors probably would have been even worse by then.
"Gah!" Throwing his battered old brick-of-a-phone back to the chipped, silvery tabletop with a loud, metallic clink as if it had tried to bite him, the blonde stared at Craig as if he thought that the raven-haired male would suddenly snap and go berserk, which was completely unCraig-like. That wasn't a particularly new reaction by any means, but this time Tucker had the sneaking suspicion that he knew exactly what had set his excitable friend off. "Y-you're sl-sleeping with Hunter?!" Twitching uncontrollably at the idea, his right eye seemed to have found a rhythm all its own. "I th-thought that -Ah!- Kenny liked Hun-Hunter, man!" He screwed up his face and thought more about what he knew of their relationship, not quite as scarred since Hunter's apology had been passed on. "She kept staring at h-him in class," the class in question being government/economics, which the entire gang had together, "they were even texting all period!" Craig could easily believe that the two would be doing everything but their work after just sitting with them through astronomy, especially the new girl, but from where he was standing there was no proof that they were actually texting each other. Although in hindsight he had been in front of McCormick and the new kid, so he he couldn't possibly have seen any of that with turning around. "I saw them smiling at each other as they l-left the classroom! Gah, I'm so confused man!" Good, the wearer of blue chullos and stopper of giant pirate guinea pigs thought, maybe if they hook up that will make it so she's not too distracted after school when we work on the project. Yeah, he thought as he scarfed the rest of his own meal, and maybe them getting together would have exactly the opposite effect.
First things first, Craig calmed his blonde down before he could even address the new kid and the other blonde that they sometimes hung out with, taking deep breaths and encouraging Tweek to follow suit before he could go completely overboard. "It's ok Tweekers, just relax." Mostly just ok when he did it, Craig thought of the jitter factory as if we were Stripe, placing his hand over his friend's in a comforting fashion, which he had discovered long ago seemed key in easing the anxieties of both man and beast.
Fidgeting as he collected his breath to exhale in a peaceful - admittedly somewhat rough and patchy - manner, the blonde nodded at his anchor. "O-ok." Like Stripe, Tweek had what could only be described as a cute nose twitch that only revealed itself after a meltdown.
"Bebe's just being a stupid cunt again spreading rumors." Even Tweek knew that if Clyde were there he'd try to stand up for the blonde girl and insist that she just told her friends something she didn't see properly or misunderstood the context of, that it was the other girls on the squad who were maliciously coming up with these crazy stories and telling everyone else. "That's just what girls do." Truth be told, the leader of the outfit didn't really hang out with any of the females in the school (anti-social, he barely hung out with anyone outside his circle of friends), and the few times that the brunette had brought the head cheerleader around, she actually did seem like a semi-descent human being. Much like how he viewed Wendy because of her relationship with a douche like Stan Marsh, he deemed Bebe to have some grain of goodness to her, seeing as she had been putting up with dating Clyde all this time.
Token - who was a pretty plugged-in guy in general - knew Craig better than most (excluding Clyde and Tweek, who knew the apathetic teen just as well), so the richest boy in town already knew that there was nothing behind the gossip to back any of it up. "That's right Tweeks, Kenny's our friend, and friends don't go around digitizing each other's girlfriend's while getting a handjob in the middle of class. It goes against the bro-code."
Compelled for a moment to point out that Kenny and Hunter weren't by any means dating the last he knew, the guinea pig enthusiast figured that it wouldn't help Tweek mellow out any, so he kept his mouth shut. "That's right." If his friends had expected him to elaborate further on the lies that were currently circulating, they would be in for bitter disappointment, as Craig was not the kind to prattle on needlessly when his point had already been made. Besides, the chullo-wearing teen was almost positive that if everyone else was seeing what he was seeing as a certain quartet made their way through the eatery to take their usual seats, it should have been more than enough to prove his innocence in the eyes of his peers. Not that he particularly cared what any of them thought about him.
Broflovski endured his fair amount of shit, and McCormick too, but that was just the guys being guys; otherwise, the blonde was pretty much "too cool" for people to touch, just one of those kinds of people that set the trend and determined what was black and what was white for the rest of the idiots, and being the super best friend (cough, butt-buddy, cough) of the captain of the football team, Broflovski's hell was kept to a livable minimum. Craig pretty much avoided all that bullshit as best he could, but he had never really been in a situation where he had to rest on the laurels and prestige of others for protection. So far, since they were visibly in the new kid's corner at the moment and standing at either side like sentinels, that would stave off some of the hearsay. Again, he really didn't care one way or another how that situation all played itself out, but for the sake of their project, he didn't want the new girl to get sucked so far into their shit that she'd become useless as a project partner.
Shrugging it off, Craig returned to his miserable school lunch and thought back to how much he missed what was served in elementary. Some of that was shitty too and nowhere near as good as what you could make at home with the right skill set, but at least there was actual effort put into having a variety of options, as opposed to now. Not that'd he admit it, but lunch was one time when he actually envied Clyde - ok, maybe not so much Clyde but his ability to happily devour whatever was put in front of him. Or maybe Clyde's stomach just knew which menu item to select. Finishing his milk carton in a moody, leering silence, he shoved his tray away and grabbed his backpack to search for the script he had been working on. Even as he grabbed for it, he was wondering if he should ask for some input yet or not.
Middle finger up to the sky
(throw it up)
In the sky-y-y
In the sky-y-y
(throw it up)
In the sky-y-y-y-y-y
No longer in class where it was more or less mandatory (the strictness of the rule tended to fluctuate with the amount that the teacher cared) to turn off your phone in class, Craig's incoming text tone chirped to life just as his hand grasped what he had been hunting for, the phone itself vibrating in his pocket. In an unrelated afterthought, maybe it was about time he considered changing the tune. Mmmm, no. This worked and it wasn't getting on his nerves yet, so there was no need to bother.
Guarded more jealously than Fort Knox, Craig's number was a rarity that a few select people had been granted, so the teen had to seriously question who the fuck was calling him. Tweek and Token were right there at the table with him so that would have just been stupid, and speaking of dumb things, Clyde was now throughly engrossed in whatever "humor" the jocks could muster up, so that only left McCormick (who he had to block like every other day), someone in his immediate family, Kevin Stoley, and the new kid. Thomas and Laura never seemed bothered enough to call their son and he returned the favor by never dialing their number, and his sister rarely even bothered with him when he was at home, so he was pretty sure that it wasn't any of them. Stoley would be in the computer lab right about now, so theoretically it could have been him as he was usually too absorbed into whatever it was he got up to, so it was highly unlikely he was the culprit. By process of elimination, that really only left McCormick and the new kid; McCormick would call just to piss him off because he found that kind of thing to be funny, but the new girl had painted a slightly more respectful image, so he was fairly sure that she would heed his words that she was only to call for the assignment. If it was indeed her, that had better be it: Craig was not going to get involved in any of their bullshit.
Retrieving his cheap "for emergencies only" cell from it's sable jean cave, fingers brushing a set of keys as he extracted the trim rectangle, he glanced cautiously at the screen to see that he had a text message from his little sister. Oh yeah, breathing a metaphorical sigh of relief, he forgot that because of some kind of testing - academic or else for health, he couldn't recall, nor did he care - she only had a half-day at school. At least that cleared that up.
Rents gone 4 date nite. Gone 2 Karen's 4 nite.
Really, date night. Wow. Well at least them all being out meant that he would have the house to himself, so, uh, yippie. Seriously that would have stoked most teens to hear the news that their folks would be out and that they'd have complete reign of the house, but for the most part his family stayed out of each other's hair even when everyone was there, so he didn't mind one way or another. On the bright side, if they decided to work on the project at his place that would mean fewer interruptions and possibly even a longer allowance for time before his partner had to bail for the night. If that was still even a plan. He probably should see about that, but heaven forbid he disturb the "happy couple" as they flirted closer to the danger zone.
Noticing the raven gazing at his phone, Tweek wondered out loud if anything was up. "Wh-who was that?"
Rolling his shoulders in a gesture more commonly known as a shrug, Craig pocketed his phone and collected his script (plus a pencil for editing), laying it gingerly on the table before answering his friend's question, knowing that neither of them would abuse the information. Clyde, on the other hand, would have been much more prone to spill the beans and make something out of it, but the teen knew that it was just a terminal yet harmless case of stupidity and having a big mouth, so he never was able to hold it against the other boy for long. But thankfully the brunette wasn't even there, so it was moot. "My sister. She's spending the night with her friend tonight."
Turning a page in a text book for one of his AP classes, Token peeked up from the squiggly lines and words to stare at his friend in that straight-laced matter-of-fact way that annoyed them all so much. Craig couldn't speak for the rest of the guys, but when Token looked at them like that, he was reminded of Broflovski when he got all judgmental. But at least with him, they knew that Token was dropping the truth on them because he cared. "Karen McCormick?" Why did he ask when it was obvious that he already knew the answer, it really wasn't necessary. "Karen's a good girl, I don't have anything against her, but you do realize that there will probably be a boy there?"
Doing the mature thing, Craig raised his hand up so his friend couldn't miss the gesture and he flipped the other boy off. Token rolled his pretty onyx eyes with a soft groan, and despite it not being aimed anywhere near him, Tweek flinched as if he were about to be struck. Of course there would be, she was at that age. Why was it so hard for them to understand that it wasn't his job to police her every move? If she was going to be that stupid and play the starry-eyed waif then that was on her; that wasn't to say that he wouldn't be there for her if she really needed him.
Author's Note:
Well this chapter didn't have to be re-written like seven times lol
*Update 12/22/16*
Reordered some text and cut maybe five line worth of material. So far I'm just changing so much... Note the sarcasm that text can't always relay haha.
Permanent disclaimer.