Chapter 4! Here we go!
Damien keeps on giving me weird looks as I talk to Tweek from across the hall. Can't the guy just let the whole thing from yesterday go? I mean, I already told him I don't like Tweek. What else does he want?
"...A-and that's why the government is going to take away our toilet seats for good! It's all a part of this huge conspiracy!" Tweek finishes. I'm only half-listening to his usual rant.
"Shut up, Tweek. Go to an insane asylum and tell it to the people there." throws some asshole over his shoulder as he walks by.
It's almost like a reflex. Before I know what I'm doing, I'm standing over the guy, backing him into the lockers. I don't even lay a finger on him. Sometimes, being tall has its advantages. You can trick people into thinking you're tough, when you really don't know what you're doing. Like right now. I try my best to straighten my posture to make myself look a few inches taller. There we go, now I look about six-ten.
"Say that again." I say through clenched teeth. "I dare you."
When he doesn't say anything, I let him go, flipping him off when he turns around.
"Fucker." I mutter under my breath.
Tweek is just standing there, a look of both horror and curiosity on his face. It looks almost childish.
"You didn't even touch him, and you scared him." he says softly. I nod, looking down at my shoes. Suddenly, I feel the heat rush to my cheeks again. Damn, the second time since yesterday. Why is this happening? It's only when I'm around him. Which might mean...
Nah, I shake it off.
Just another coincidence.
"No one ever believes me." he says quietly.
"That's not true." I reply as soon as the words leave his mouth. God, where am I coming up with this stuff? I don't really feel like I'm lying, but I don't really feel like I'm in control of my brain. It's like I'm having an out-of-body experiences that are always in books and TV shows, where the person sees themselves lying in a hospital bed.
"Yes, it is!" his voice catches. "I know what I'm saying is complete—complete bullshit. But—but I can't s-stop myself. It—it just...happens. It's like I can't c-control what I say or d-do."
Did he just read my mind, or something?
Okay, okay. I can feel my mind come back to me again. Breathe, Craig, breathe. You're in control now.
"Sometimes I feel that way, too." I say, looking down at him. "I feel like I can't control what comes out of my mouth."
"Like what?"
"My brutal honesty." I say. "Sometimes I wish I could tell a white lie, but I can't bring myself to do it. It doesn't feel...right, you know?"
He nods slowly, and takes a quick swig of his coffee before responding. "I c-can see where that might g-get you into trouble."
I nod, laughing. "You'll bet it does. I can't even remember how many times I've ever been to Mr. Mackey's office in elementary school."
"I remember that, too." he says, laughing with me. It's a small little laugh, like he's afraid if he laughs too much it might disrupt the delicate balance of the universe.
"Sometimes I wish I could show emotions, too." I say, slowly turning to look Tweek in the eye. He doesn't say anything, so I continue.
"Look at my eyes."
Okay, that sounds weird, but I want him to do it.
"Can you see anything?"
Tweek blinks, looking down at his hands for a moment, and then looks back up at me.
"I-I can."
"You can?" I'm actually surprised. Wait.
Surprise? YES! That's an emotion, right? Yes. Small victory! Point for Craig!
"Yeah." he says, concentrating on my eyes. "I-I see that you...c-care."
"About what?"
"A-About me." he says, breaking eye contact, looking back down at the floor.
I really, really want to lie right now. I want to tell him that I don't care about him. I want to tell him that he's wrong about that. But I can't. It's a lie.
This is going to sound really, really gay, but his eyes are so innocent, they're almost begging me to tell the truth, like I always do.
Fuck it.
"Because I do." is all I say. He still doesn't look convinced.
"Why?"
Dammit! Cornered again.
"Because I like you." How poetic.
His face is slowly, very slowly, twisting into a small smile.
When he speaks, his voice is very, very quiet.
"And how does that make you feel, C-Craig?"
That boy is a fucking genius. He knew it! He knew that, whenever I see him, I get more emotional! Fuck. Am I that obvious?
"I guess it makes me feel happy." I say. God, I sound like a little kid right now. Great, this is going to help my case a lot.
"Happy is an emotion, you know." he says slowly.
"I know."
"So, do you feel more emotion when you're around me?" he asks, his eyes wide. I think an idea just came into his brain or something, because they practically just lit up.
"Yeah, I guess I do."
"C-Craig, I need you to come over to my house after school today."
"Why?"
"I need to do a thing on emotions for my psychology class." he explains. Wow, that clears up a lot. "I think you'd be perfect."
Why not? It's not like I have anything else to do.
"Sure, I'll come to your house."
"Great!" he says, turning to walk off. "S-See you then, C-Craig."
I nod and walk off in the opposite direction. Before Damien pops out of nowhere, I find his usual place and punch the seemingly uninhabited air.
A yelp comes out of nowhere and Damien appears, holding his arm.
I flip him off. "That's what you get for spying on my conversations, asshole."
"Are you positive that you're not gay for Coffee Boy?" he asks, raising an eyebrow.
"Can I lie?" I ask him.
"True." Damien shrugs before stalking off to his Study Hall class.
xXx
"Hey, Tweek." I greet him, making sure that my middle finger stays down.
"Hi. You r-ready to go?"
"Yeah." I say. "Where do you live, anyway?"
"Within walking distance." he replies, fixing his striped brown-and-black scarf. Well, there they are. "My mom doesn't let me d-drive a car."
I nod. "Neither does mine."
We walk to Tweek's house, Tweek huffing and puffing to catch up with me, because my huge footsteps make me cover more ground in less time.
"Slow down, man! I can't run, or my heart will beat really, really fast and I won't be able to breathe and I'll die! And then the gonverment will use me for—"
"Tweek." I interrupt him before he keeps up his rants. It's better to stop him at the beginning, because as new ideas start to come into his head, he gets more and more freaked out.
"What?" he looks so sweet, like he doesn't even know what he's doing wrong.
"You're rambling again"
"Oh." he says, blushing. "Sorry."
"It's okay."
"Oh, good. We're here." he stops abruptly in front of a normal-sized brown house. It looks exactly like all the others houses in town—mine included.
When we walk in, everything is perfectly organized. There's a china cabinet in one corner, the plates placed perfectly (try saying that three times fast) on top of the big bowls so that they balanced. The walls are a warm shade of beige, and the carpet that goes through the whole house is brown.
"Do you like it?"
I nod. This was nothing like my house. Where I live, everything is messy. My sister never bothers to clean up her shit from downstairs. I'm usually okay about it, but even then, it's never near as clean as Tweek's house.
"My mom's at w-work, so it's just us, if you don't mind."
Don't mind? I hate meeting parents. It's so awkward, how they ask you about your day when you barely even know them. Yes, the relationship between kid's friend and kid's parents has been one I've been trying to avoid for years now.
When we reach Tweek's room, I'm not really surprised to see that the walls are striped. Black and white, everywhere. It's not dizzying, though—the stripes are wide and block-like, so that it doesn't make your head spin. His desk is clear of everything but a coffee mug and a closed laptop. His bed is perfectly made, with plain red sheets.
"Nice room." I say awkwardly. Tweek mumbles something of a "thank you" and sits down at his desk, opening his laptop. It takes him three tries to write in his password, because his hands shake so much.
He boots up Word and digs through his backpack.
"Okay, C-Craig. I'm going to do some t-tests on you. Just tell me what you see when you l-look at these blotches."
He digs out a few canvases and puts them in his lap. He shows me the first one. At first, I don't really know what to make of it. It just seems like a canvas with random paint splatters on it. But then, it morphs into different objects as my imagination kicks in.
"It looks like a little girl dancing."
"Okay..." he says, typing something into his laptop. "What about this one?"
"It looks like people shooting each other while kneeling on the ground."
Tweek giggles, but writes it in his computer.
"Okay, now, I'm going to say a few words that might be familiar to you, and tell me the first thing that comes to your mind when I say the word."
I nod. Fair enough.
"Blue."
"Color." Not a lie.
"School."
"People." Not a lie, either.
"Fun."
"Whipped cream."
He gives me a questioning look.
"When I think of the word 'fun' I think of me and Clyde having a whipped cream wars on Friday nights."
Tweek laughs again, then continues.
"Satan."
"Asshole." is my immediate response.
"Friends."
"My middle finger."
"Hate."
"People."
"Love."
"Family."
Tweek writes in a few notes, then puts the list of words he made for me away.
"Okay, next I'm going to see how you respond to—ngh!—physical st-stimuli."
"English, please." I say.
"I'm going to poke you, and you'll tell me how you feel."
I laugh. "Okay."
He pokes me. Nothing, really.
Again. Nothing.
Third time. Nothing.
He keeps on poking me, occasionally asking me how it feels. I just respond with "Fine."
"Okay, let's try something else."
Soon enough, he's jabbing me in the ribs and I fall on his bed, laughing and kicking him, trying to get him to stop tickling me.
"How...does that make you feel?" he asks, trying to quit laughing as I grimace when he tickles me again.
"Ah...it makes me feel...vulnerable, I guess. AH! Stop it, dammit!" I say, laughing hard against my will.
He stops. Thank fucking God.
"How about this?" he asks, In my peripheral vision, I can see him circle around me until he's behind me. Soon I feel Tweek's fingertips lightly tracing my shoulder blades. I can practically feel all the tension from the tickling attack he launched on me evaporate underneath his hands.
"Relaxed."
"Okay." Now I can feel him slowly take off my hat. When he pushes his fingers through my hair, I can't help but slump my shoulders as I feel my stress float away to who-knows-where.
"It makes me feel...tingly."
He laughs. "T-Tingly?"
"Isn't that an emotion?"
"No, I-I don't think so."
"Oh, okay then."
He shifts so that I'm facing him. His hands pull me in closer.
"What about this?"
Slowly he leans in and plants his lips lightly against my forehead.
I want to lie. I want to lie so, so badly.
"Are you positive tingly isn't an emotion?" I ask him, feeling myself smile.
Pun of the chapter-
Person gets Chinese food for take-out. Person takes out the fortune cookie. Its smushed up into a billion pieces. That's unfortunate.
Haha.
Okay, I hope you guys liked this chapter! It was so fluffy, and I didn't want things to move too fast between these guys, so yeah. Please review if you can, and follow and favorite and stuff! But don't worry, I'm not one of those people who won't update unless people review. While I really do appreciate your feedback, I can still update without much of it, because I'M A STRONG INDEPENDENT WOMAN WHO DON'T NEED NO MAN!
Okay, I need to sleep now. Good night...:/
