I was sitting on my porch, ass cold, with slivers of smoke from my cigarette snaking through the air, watching as they dwindled away. It was one of those days where it was snowing out of turn in August for the love of God. Trying not to breathe so as not to disturb the white tendrils, muted gray ashes fell, staining the fresh snow. It was chilly enough that my breath shown and I didn't like it when it mixed with my smoke. Little white flakes of snow were traipsing around everywhere like a drizzling of rain. I was waiting for one to land on my cigarette and put it out. That would've been perfect.
Actually, I was waiting for Tweek. He'd said we'd do this tutor thing tomorrow yesterday, but never specified a time or place. I had forgotten we had a class together again and left before getting any actual details. In the back of my mind, I wondered idly if he had come to our table at lunch again to see that we weren't there. It was kind of hard to leave Panda Express once you were in the building; we had stayed the entire lunch hour.
Clyde had gotten angry when I ripped open my fortune before eating the cookie, then told me that it wasn't going to come true. Well, thank God, I'd thought. "Behind an able man, there are always other able men" wasn't necessarily what I wanted to hear. Sounded like a gay orgy to me.
The brunette had then preceded to show me how a real fortune should be undergone. He had been so excited to read his stupid slip of paper that he'd swallowed the whole damn cookie in one bite and would've read it to us, except after reading it himself first, he hadn't wanted to. I'd had to steal it from him before laughing in his face over his stupidity. "You are surrounded by fortune hunters" it had foretold. Just to fuck with him I'd said, "I might have to take this and put it in my fortune collection."
Token's had nailed it, though. It was nine words that had essentially been the epitome of who he was. "You display the wonderful traits of charm and courtesy." Now that had been real fortune telling.
The sound of boots padding down the sidewalk, crunching in the snow, diverted me from previous memories. My eyes lifted from the half dead cigarette resting between my fingers. Tweek was glancing nervously between my house, me, and his boots. "You know where I live."
He stopped at the driveway as if that was as far as he could go, except it wasn't like I had a force field dome around my yard or anything. "I have Token in my first hour. He gave me your address. I'm not some creepy stalker or something. I barely even know where my own house is."
I chose to ignore his ranting and focused on the first thing, the only important thing, that had come out of his mouth. "Token's in all AP classes." My legs stretched out as I stood and snow fell into a pile at my feet where it had collected on my lap. Tweek furrowed his brows like he had the other day. He took a tentative step forward.
"I know," he mumbled.
"Really?" I asked, disinterested. I just wanted him to hurry the hell up. Now that I was standing, my warmth wasn't huddled and the cold was spreading fast. The fact that my legs were bare from the knee down, damn cut offs, didn't help in the slightest.
"We have four classes together."
"Oh yeah?"
He nodded his head, following me up the steps with this cautious look in his eyes. He was acting as if my porch was going to grow a mouth and eat him. "That tends to happen when two people take weighted courses. You get put in the same class."
"Did your smart ass classes give you that smart ass mouth, too?" He stopped suddenly, just outside the front door. I wanted to rip his face off because the inside of my house was right there. The door was open and its heated contours were teasing me, but this kid was such a fucking wimp.
"I'm sorr—"
"Don't worry about it. Just get inside. I'm freezing my balls off out here." To show him I meant business, I grabbed his jacket protected shoulder and shoved him through the opening. He squealed, tripping over his own feet.
"You didn't have to push me, man."
"What was that?" I lied, treading my way down the entrance hall with the expectation that he'd follow. He did. Very quietly, very hesitantly, just like a mouse.
"Nothing." That's what I thought.
When he took forever and a day to peer around the hall, into the kitchen, and through the living room, I finally stopped to wait for him.
He seemed genuinely interested in my house as he stared awe-eyed at the kitchen table set for four places, the stainless steel fridge with the reminder board pinned to it where the only actual reminder was one from Ruby telling us that she was disgusted by me, the row of pictures hanging above the television, one of which was my favorite because it was Token looking like a charming young man, offset by the two retards next to him: me piggybacking on Clyde.
My family owned a regular couch, with a regular coffee table. We had carpet, and an organized rack of movies, and the walls were painted beige. I didn't understand why Tweek had to be so amazed by our living conditions, unless maybe he lived in a barn.
It had to be the coffee table. He was probably drooling over the thought of how many cups of coffee have ever been placed upon its pristine surface. Which was none. The Tuckers hated coffee.
"Upstairs there's two bedrooms and even a bathroom. They're all painted the same color and the bedsheets you can find at JC Pennys." I made my eyes go wide and wiggled my fingers in front of his face. Tweek didn't look happy that I was making fun of him; his cheeks pigmented.
"I'm just surprised there's no demon lurking around. I wasn't expecting this." The sad thing was that he sounded one hundred percent honest, as though he really believed that I roomed with a paranormal entity.
"Don't worry, you still haven't seen my room." The fear that bubbled over his eyes and took a toll on his face would've looked awesome had he really been inside the gateway to hell, but he wasn't. He was in a ghost free zone, as far as I knew, and there were no legitimate hauntings around the neighborhood. The only beast he had to look out for was Ruby but she was with her lame, little buddy down the street.
I knew that because I'd been the one to take her there.
Turning around to head to my room, I only got so far before I noticed that Tweek still wasn't following. "That was sarcasm," I told him, referring to my sarcastic hint that there was literally a demon in my bedroom.
"C-Could we just work out here?" He shifted his weight, eyes never leaving the floor.
"Are you serious?" When he didn't answer, just continued fidgeting, I started walking up the stairs. "I'll be down in a second." God damn, that kid was such a fucking pussy. At least it gave Clyde some competition.
As I entered my room, I didn't bother double checking for malevolent spirits—because there were none—only grabbed my stuff and left.
Downstairs Tweek was sifting through his backpack on the couch. I landed on the third step wrong, issuing a creak that caused the blonde to scream. What the hell had this kid's parents done to him as a child?
"Calm your tits. It's just me. Let's hurry up and get this over with, alright?"
Two hours later I was face-planted into the coffee table trying to drone out the blonde's voice. He was talking too much about triangles, had been since we started. After a while I'd become interested in how I was sitting crisscross across from him, and that was literally how interesting things had gotten. Although in my case, looking at the way I sat was actually quite interesting.
After about half an hour of that, it finally reached a stage that was no longer satisfying. That's when I'd decided to nap against the table's furnished edge.
"Are you even listening to me?"
"Yes." Except I wasn't. I'd just noticed the change of tone in his voice and figured it was time to pretend like I cared.
"Are you ready to try number three?" He sounded skeptical and had every right to be just so.
"No."
"No, I wasn't listening? Or no, number three is too hard for me?"
Sneaky, little shit. I knew how to play dirty too. "If it's too hard for you then you can get the fuck out."
"I'll take that as two no's then."
Touche. "Alright, you've got my attention. Can you go over everything you just said again?" The blonde dropped his head back, throwing both of his skinny arms across his face. I figured it was more to emphasize his point rather than muffle his groan.
That's right. You're going to repeat all that bullshit for talking back to me.
"I just went over w-what a sine, tangent, and secant are. You s-said you didn't know what they were." On the outside I kept up my pokerface, but inside I was feeling a tad bit concerned. I had no recollection of speaking to him, especially about declining my knowledge of trigonometric terms. I definitely knew what a sine, tangent, and secant were. Opposite over hypotenuse and all that random shit.
"Yeah, no idea what any of that stuff is." If he spent another thirty minutes talking about the same crap then I will have technically taken an hour long power nap. Then I'd really be able to get down to business. Which probably meant accomplishing problem three and calling it quits.
Tweek removed his arms, giving me a look that appeared slightly angered but that was a step above his I'm-about-to-piss-myself, pussy face so I was okay with that. He reached into his backpack to retrieve a thermos that I was positive had coffee in it. I had the utmost faith in that answer, as well.
After taking a sip, effectively releasing the scent of caffeinated beans or whatever the hell coffee was made out of, he set it down to which I congratulated him. "That's the first cup of coffee that's ever been on this table."
"Don't try to change the subject." There was a growl to his voice, but instead of interpreting it as threatening, I just imagined the big, scary doghouse that everyone was irrationally afraid of since all that was inside was actually just a puny chihuahua. "Make sure you listen this time, a-alright?" He seemed to be waiting for an answer but I just stared at him until he started talking.
I sat there for a minute, waiting for his voice to morph into that hypnotizing tone that always occurred when someone was lecturing you, before nodding off in a way that was completely obvious.
The kid never woke me up, though. Maybe he was more oblivious than I thought or maybe he was too scared. If he knew me, he'd know that I was a light sleeper, that I didn't care whether I was woken up or not. I also had an internal alarm clock that told me when my dad was about to come home from work. Whenever it went off, I knew that it was time to abandon the house.
"Blondie," I mumbled, sluggishly lifting my cheek from the table. It stuck as I pulled away and there was definitely going to be a red mark. I came to by blinking away the fog from my eyes, fucking contacts and their resilience to remoisten with my eye juices.
In front of me, Tweek sat with his head turned against the duvet of a couch pillow. My own tutor had passed out on me. "It's time to wake up, dude." With one hand I patted his cheek and the opposite checked my phone. The time read ten until five. That left just enough time for a clean get-away.
"W-What's wrong?" The blonde sprang into an upright position, looking around blindly for a second before his eyes settled on my legs. "Why is one of your legs shaved?" When he cocked his head up, he owned a genuinely confused expression.
"Don't ask questions. Just come on." When I started for the door, he tried to pick up his things as hastily as possible. "Your shit'll still be here when we come back." My words didn't urge him to falter and when he finally had his belongings gathered, he remained seated on the floor.
"Where are we going?" His gaze was wary.
"Nowhere if you don't get up off your ass." I continued out of the living room and into the entrance hall where I warned him, "Alright, it's cool, stay here by yourself with the demon in my room." The blonde came scampering down the hallway with his face coated in displeased embarrassment.
"Where are we going?" He repeated.
"To the gas station." I opened the door and forced myself into the cold much like before in nothing but a shirt and cut-offs.
"Should I lock the door?"
"No." Bitch locked it anyways.
When I gave him a look, he dropped his eyes to the white stained ground and kept them there.
Pulling my keys from my pocket, I received my car's jingling beep as I unlocked her doors. My first priority upon entering was the heater, but that got disrupted because the second I turned her on the stereo's sound waves practically caused my brain to implode. Fuck you, Clyde, fuck you. My finger zipped toward the off button and once it was off, I noticed Tweek with his fingers in his ears and his eyes scrunched shut.
As fast as I had muted the music, I had all the air vents directed toward shut-eye Tweek. Anything was better than them facing me. The blonde just so happened to be there, but Clyde usually got the first blasts of cold air every day, so Tweek should consider himself lucky that this was just a one-time thing. That's what you got for taking shotgun.
I cranked the air escalation dial to its max, watching with pure amusement when Tweek's eyes flew open, face draining of color. He screamed a sound that was a fair match for the music we'd previously heard, although this time I thoroughly enjoyed the noise. It was the cry of terror that belonged to a person who'd just gotten the brunt of frozen air.
"You f-fucking dick!" He turned on me with lips the color of pink frosted over. Or maybe they always looked like that. I hadn't noticed. "Y-You're an asshole! You're a h-huge asshole! I can't believe you j-just d-did that! Fuck!"
My shoulder caught the force of his barreling fist as though the action would rewrite the past and take the bitter cold away. But the blonde's face had been priceless, and I was keeping it forever. That one frostbitten look had been better than Clyde's ever were.
"I think you punched harder in third grade," I told him, backing out of the driveway.
"Argh! G-God, I fucking hate you!" I considered the level of emotion he'd put into that word as a compliment. "I s-swear to God, if I get frostbite on my goddamn lips I am g-going to—fuck, I c-can't do anything! The cops'll f-find me h-hiding in a warehouse—no, a meth lab a-and then I'll get put in jail for life! Sweet Jesus, I'm going to end up a drug addict."
"Don't worry about it. I'm sure that Kenny's already been there, done that. You won't be alone."
"I don't want to h-hear y-your stupid op-pinion. Shit." Tweek fished through his backpack, hands coming out with his thermos and a small prescribed bottle of pills. I should've felt bad for making the kid cause such a raucous that he had to medicate himself.
Too bad the sorrow never came.
The only thing I cared about was that I had napped and now I was hungry. The gas station wasn't a worthy match for my stomach, so while Tweek popped his pills, I passed the Quick Trip and headed down the street toward whatever was going to end up being the first fast food place I could find. In my head I imagined it to be Jack in the Box, and that would've been fantastic, except the verdict ended up being Burger King.
Damn.
"Do you know what you want?" I asked, turning into the drive-through.
Tweek glanced up to see where we were before his eyes inevitably found his hands again. A few of his fingers were twitching. He looked like he was watching, waiting for them to stop. "I don't have any money," he muttered.
"Let's just say that you owe me."
He looked up and across at me. "I'm tutoring you. You owe me."
"Really?" I asked, braking my car beside the talk-box. A worker voiced their presence; my window rolled down. "Yeah, hold on," I told them before turning back to the blonde. "I hadn't noticed since I haven't learned anything all day." The blonde dropped his head to the side, giving me an blank stare to show that he didn't find me funny. "I'll have a number five with a Pepsi."
Tweek spoke, voice growing infuriated. "Then when you finally decide to listen and not sleep and actually learn something, that will be my payback to you. So until then I'll have a—" He craned his neck to see the menu.
I wasn't an idiot. I knew exactly what he was getting at from much experience thanks to Clyde. In my back pocket I had two fives tops—ten dollars was not going to get Tweek the whole menu. "Don't even think about it."
He gave a faint smile. "Just get me—"
"What else would you like, sir?" The voice coming through the box inquired.
"How about a fucking minute?" I tried, adding nosy employees to my list of reasons why Burger King sucked. My answer must've turned the blonde's attitude around because when he told me he wanted a small order of fries, his voice was soft like he'd forgiven me for being an asshole.
Had that medication kicked in already or was this kid a retard?
You never forgave an asshole, especially when it was me. I always knocked you around harder the second time.
When I pulled up to the second window since the first was always a storage unit these days, a familiar face was waiting with my order that I suddenly didn't find an interest in anymore.
I figured that our expressions would've been similar had I been showing mine through my blank facade. If anything, I was sure we shared a mutual lack of excitement upon seeing each other on the inside. This guy was now my main focal point as to why Burger King would forever be knocked off my food registry.
I would've driven away, but Tweek had already started a conversation and, as far as I knew, he still wanted his fries.
"I'm sorry but this is really weird, dude," Stan Marsh laughed. I didn't get what was so funny and, frankly, I just wanted to know why I hadn't recognized his voice over the speaker.
"I'm tutoring him," Tweek explained with a smile that was bittersweet.
"Seriously?" Marsh glanced between the two of us before waving to someone behind him. "Hey, come see this!"
Sweet mother of God. I was in a car with some blonde kid, not in a display case for all of his gay friends to ogle at. Gay friends meaning Kyle Broflovski who popped up next to his stupid best friend. His hair was pulled back in a pony tail. I laughed at how stupid he looked.
"Since when are you guys friends?" He didn't seem to understand that he was the reason behind my humor so I laughed harder. When he finally spared me a glance, he ripped the tie from his hair and threw it at Stan. "I told you I didn't want to wear that stupid thing." Loose curls unfurled around his pale, freckled face. I thought to myself that if he wasn't such a fucker I'd probably think decently of him.
"I thought it looked nice..." Stan muttered, offhandedly.
"Man, you guys are funnier than usual," I commented, hiking my thumb toward Tweek, who looked vaguely unhappy once again. "We're not friends. Business acquaintances at best."
Stan rolled his eyes, "Tweek's his tutor."
Kyle raised a slim, ginger brow. "Really?"
"That's what I said." The two shared a smile as if their twin responses had been the cutest thing in the world. It wasn't.
"You can keep the burger and the drink. Just give me the fries," I said, pulling a five from my pocket before tossing it through the window. Stan looked from the money fluttering to the ground then back to me.
"What?"
"I just want the fucking fries." Because I had a feeling that these guys spat in my food.
"I'm so sorry that you have to spend your day with this asshole," Kyle stated very clearly through the window. Yeah, they definitely spit in my food. "Let me go get your fries, you ass."
"They're for Tweek so make sure your mouth doesn't go anywhere near them," I called, equally blunt. "Or your ass."
"What's that supposed to mean?" The blonde asked, glancing wildly between Stan and me. "I don't want anyone's anything near my fries, man!"
I explained to him that "Sometimes when assholes order food, employees like to spit in it."
"We don't—" Stan started. "Alright, yeah, sometimes that happens."
"Sweet Jesus! I-I'm not an asshole." Sometimes you talk like one, though. And that was just as bad.
"Here you go, Tweek." Kyle reached around Stan to hand over the fries. I grabbed them, making sure not to touch the firecrotch's fingers, and offered them to the blonde. "They're fresh and not vandalized."
"He's a ginger, don't trust him," I warned, but the blonde seemed fed up with my insults toward his friends and snatched the fries from me. There was a hint of worry in eyes, though, as he gave the potato wedges a once over, then a twice over. I was hoping for a thrice over, but the chances of that were too slim.
Oh—never mind, just happened. Who called that? I did.
"Hey, Tweek. Good luck with this guy, alright?"
"Fuck you." I threw my finger up at Marsh for his pansy ass encouragement before getting the hell out of there. Their unresolved sexual tension pretty much just made me want to puke up a kidney. Some of the tension probably found its way into the food they served causing relationship problems all throughout South Park and Tweek was now a victim of that. Sucker.
When we were passing QT on our way back, the blonde spoke up unceremoniously. "I'm sorry for falling asleep earlier."
His apology was irrelevant. "It's alright. I did it first."
"Fry?" He asked, holding the shapely paper cup out to me like it was a peace offering.
"Only if you feed me," I wagered, opening my mouth, turning my head but not my eyes. From my peripheral I caught the uplifting twitch of the blonde's lips.
That's right. I knew how to be charming.
