Sorry for the long wait! I've been doing this singing thing all week, and I've had exams at the same time. The beginning part of the thing is Tweek's POV. It's shorter than I wanted it to be, but you'll hear more from him later in the chapters. Enjoy! :)
I can't sleep. At all.
I mean, this is a usual thing. I never can get myself to close my eyes. It's too big a risk—I might get killed in my sleep! But tonight, it's a different reason.
Whenever I close my eyes, I see Craig.
Craig, the unreadable, emotionless-and probably soulless—boy I grew up with. I never really knew him, though. He was just there, throughout my life. I never bothered to learn more about him—he, to me, was just the guy that flipped off everyone and anything, for what looked like no reason at all.
Until now.
Now, I know what lies beneath the surface. Underneath the stony look in those stormy gray eyes lies something that no one can see.
Except me.
I can see it. I can see how he actually cares about things. He actually cares about his family, his friends, school, everything a normal kid would care about. The difference is that Craig hides it. He forces it away where he thinks no one can see it, into a small piece of his mind that he has hidden under lock and key.
And, for some reason, Craig has given me—of all people—the key.
Me, the twitchy, obsessive coffee addict. Me, the kid who never bothers to brush his hair and twitches so much he might as well be on vibrate. Me, the freak.
I can feel my hands fisting my hair, and I think about what he said today in the main office.
"Don't pull your hair. I like it."
The thought only makes my fists clench.
Today was definitely a confusing day. First, Craig says that he likes my hair.
My hair is probably the craziest in the world. It looks like I spike it or something, but I don't. It just looks that way—big, unruly tufts poking out from every direction.
Who the hell would like that?
Second. He puts a crapload of whipped cream in my mouth.
Why couldn't he have made Damien or Clyde share theirs with me? That was pretty puzzling, to say the least. Craig isn't one to share, really. When we were little, he'd always make us bring our own Megaman toys from home, and never let us use any of them. My mom never got me a Megaman—she said it'd be a bad influence on me to watch shooting and violence at my age, and with my problems—so Token had to lend me one of his many action figures if I ever wanted to play.
Anyway, third. That mug exploded.
I didn't even break the damn thing myself. I wasn't even shaking, due to the wonderful aroma that was radiating from the mug. Yep, just the smell of coffee calms me down.
But the point is, I didn't even do anything. I was holding the cup of joe like—call the presses—a normal person.
Odd.
Lastly.
Craig kissed my hand when he helped clean up my injury.
That doesn't faze me much. I kissed him once—on the forehead—when he came over to my house. It was merely an experiment for school, nothing more. But here, Craig didn't have to kiss my hand. He had a choice there. And he did it.
Why?
Anyway, it was the way I felt afterward that makes me queasy. I was lightheaded the whole time afterwards, and, in some moment of mass stupidity, my body rebelled against my mind and I snuggled up to Craig like it was no big deal.
But it was. It's a huge deal!
I can feel my mind racing about a hundred miles an hour, trying to decipher the paradox that is Craig Tucker. But, I can't bring myself to figure anything out, because the fog of sleepiness is clouding my thoughts.
Finally, I give in.
Time to sleep.
And...here I am. In my dreams. Subconsciously, I groan. But no, in my dreams, I'm happily walking, hand-in-hand with Craig. His face is animated—yep, this is a dream—and he's talking and laughing and grinning at me like I'm some sort of god.
In my head, I'm telling myself that I'm dreaming. He's not real. No one could be this perfect.
He's squeezing my hand tighter with his own and looking into my eyes in amusement.
Wake up, Tweek, wake up! It's no use. Damn it, why'd I have to fall asleep in the first place?
Now he's tracing my jaw lightly with his fingertips, and I'm smiling like a complete idiot.
I'm screaming on the inside now. Stop it, Tweek. Stop fantasizing. There's only going to be that disappointment when you wake up, like all the other times.
No. Dream-me thinks differently. Dream-me thinks that, this time, Craig's gonna be real. When I open my eyes, he's gonna be there. I just know it.
I'm losing this battle within myself. Craig's leaning in, and my back's against the wall of a building.
Fuck it. I can be disappointed when I wake up, that it was all a dream. I just want to feel that lightheaded feeling again.
And there it is. His lips are against mine, and they're moving perfectly together. I'm tangling my fingers in his perfect black hair, making less perfect. His lips are warming me up, even though they're only touching one part of my body. I can feel the slight stubble on his cheeks as his face rubs against mine, and it's making me giggle slightly from the ticklish feeling. Soon he's laughing, too, and he's broken away from me, telling me quietly how much he enjoys being around me, how he doesn't know how he could live without me, how he lo—
Okay, I'm awake again.
"CRAIG! DINNER!"
"CRAIG!"
"GET YOUR ASS DOWN HERE!"
I guess I didn't hear my family calling me about eighty times for dinner. Oh, well.
When I finally do come down, Mom is giving me a death glare, and Dad is already eating.
"Finally." Ruby says, digging into her chicken.
I put some food on my plate and sit down, flipping her off in the process. She returns it before putting a big mouthful of food in her mouth.
"What the hell were you doing? We were calling you." Dad asks, his mouth full of broccoli.
"Homework." I say flatly.
Dad shoots me a glance that reads Really? Why aren't you doing normal social crap with other rowdy, horny teenagers?
Well, Dad, the answer is simple—I fucking hate rowdy, horny teenagers.
"Son, you should be out with friends. Socializing." Dad points out.
Let me stress that my father isn't exactly the smartest man out there. He's often fighting against the hippies in our town, alongside with the other hillbilly assholes. He's the tallest guy in our town—explaining how I got the "gift" of height—but that's where the similarities between us end. Dad's got red hair, and his face is round and sort of chubby. My face is made up of too many sharp angles and, obviously, I've got black hair. My dad is a big, muscular guy, while I've got a lanky sort of build. Ruby told me once that I look like a giant praying mantis. In summary, I'm nothing like the guy. At all.
"Dad, my friends suck." I inform him, diving headfirst into the heaping plate of food in front of me.
"So? You should be enjoying your life." Dad replies. "When you're an old geezer like me, you won't be able to."
"Thomas, don't say stuff like that." Mom scolds.
My mom is the polar opposite of my dad. She's short and thin, with blond hair and brown eyes. She tells me every day to do my homework, and that good grades are the most important thing in life right now. School first, she says. Friends after.
Why she married my dad? Beats me.
Frankly, I agree with her. I don't want to end up like Kenny McCormick, working at Burger King with nothing to show for my education but a high school diploma.
"It's true, hon!" Dad retorts. Ruby shoots me an eye roll. Her and I are used to our parents seemingly incessant bickering. "Our kid needs to be out and about, or he'll end up alone later in life!"
Mom is drilling holes in Dad's head with her eyes.
"He needs to do his schoolwork, or he'll end up on the street with no job!"
Wait. Can someone please explain to me how I'm not adopted?
"Look at our son! He's got two friends, Gail! Two!"
"Two is enough! He'll have way more in college!"
"For God's sake, he hasn't even got a girlfriend!"
"So?"
"So? Our kid's a NOBODY!"
Nice, Dad. You played that card, huh?
If he said anything more, I swear, there would be steam coming out of Mom's ears.
Her voice is quiet and shaky. She takes a quick breath.
"That's not true. Craig, are there any girls that you're interested in that we should know about?" she gives me an apologetic glance, her eyes softening.
I rack my brain for a minute. I've kissed a girl. Once. Not with tongue and shit, though. That's fucking gross.I didn't even want to kiss her, I was dared to by Clyde. So I marched up to Bebe in fifth grade without a doubt in my mind, pushed my lips against hers for half a second, flipped her off, and walked away. The end.
Ladies and gentlemen, the wonderful love story of Craig Tucker.
But...a girlfriend? No. Never. Girls are too much maintenance. They cry and whine and squeal and...ugh. They're disgusting.
"No." I finally say. "They're all sluts."
Dad's head goes into his hands. Mom gives me a small, reassuring smile before returning her attention to Dad, arguing again.
It's like Charlie Brown. All I hear when my parents talk is a shitty trombone playing.
Wah, waahhh wahh wah wah.
So I finish my food without bothering to care about what my parents are jabbering about, put it in the dishwasher, and slink back up the stairs. Ruby follows, flipping me off before heading into her room.
Before I can pull on my headphones, I hear my name being used from downstairs, through the din of the trombone.
I have a small grate in the corner of my room, and through it you can see the dinner table downstairs. When Clyde and I were little, we used to look through it and spy on our parents.
I laugh at the thought and peer down, trying to keep quiet.
"Gail, our son hasn't so much as looked at a girl since he was ten years old. Don't you find that a little...strange?"
I feel my eyebrows go up.
"Sure, it might be a little...peculiar." Mom admits. "But Craig's a very handsome boy. He's ought to find someone soon."
Holy shit, they're agreeing on something? I should record this and remember it for the rest of eternity.
"I know, I know." my father says, sighing. "What I'm concerned about is...will it be the right person?"
I don't need to hear that twice to realize that all the color has drained out of my face.
"What do you mean?" Mom asks.
"I mean, he's been hanging around those two guys for a long time." Dad points out. "What if he's grown ... attached to them?"
Pshh. That's going to happen at the same time as Damien crying over a kicked puppy. Clyde is the pinnacle of the word "Jock", and Token's, well, Token. Probably one of the straightest guys in school. Trust me, if I went for either of them, the girls would be pulling out my heart and shoving it down my throat.
Nah, scratch that. If I was ever in love with them, I'd probably kill myself.
"That might be the case." Mom nods.
"Oh, God." Dad whispers. "We might have a gay son."
"I know it's a lot to take in, Thomas." Mom pats Dad's back. "Who knows? Maybe he's just... not ready yet."
"Not ready? He's sixteen, for Christ's sake!"
"Don't worry about it, Thomas." Mom says, wrapping her arms around my dad. "I'll talk to him."
Dad nods and picks up his plate, along with Mom's. She soon disappears from the table, and I hear footsteps come up the stairs.
Oh, fuck.
CLIFFHANGER (ish.)
Okay, the pun of the chapter isn't really a pun. It's just irony, and it ACTUALLY HAPPENED TO ME!
I was playing Scrabble today with this girl, and she spelled the word "whore". The score, when the points from the word were added, was 69.
She got the word WHORE for 69 POINTS! AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
I died, in short.
The next chapter might not come as soon as usual, because I have to sing till, like, forever tomorrow, and I have a concert Saturday. So, Sunday, probably. If I can get it in anytime earlier, I'll try.
PLEASEPLEASEPLEASE review! I love reviews so very much, and I haven't been getting as many lately. It makes me so happy to see the email thing on my phone that tells me that I have a review! I literally get high off reviews... xD
