Chapter Track: All Alone – Gorillaz

Craig doesn't normally tune into the emotions of others. He doesn't understand people, not really. Other people seem to turn small things into huge ones, seem to freak out over things that Craig doesn't think anybody should give a damn about, like prom or whether or not there's going to be a pop quiz. He doesn't give a damn, and he cannot make the connection in his mind about why other people do care.

But Kenny and Bebe are acting weird. He switches off his music to stare across the table at them, where Bebe has hardly touched the food she brought from home, and Kenny is slumped over her shoulder, mouth open and fast asleep. Bebe looks gaunt, like she fell asleep in her makeup from the day before and came to school without washing it off. It isn't like them. They're usually energetic and irritating and painfully attractive.

And Tweek has lunch detention for calling his Trig teacher an asshat.

Craig feels along the still-tender bruises on his arm, feeling morose and pissed off without reason. Or maybe the reason is because Kenny and Bebe have each other, and Craig doesn't have Tweek. He clung onto Tweek throughout the entire weekend. He knows he did. Tweek probably knows he did too. Craig won't admit it out loud, but it feels good to have somebody that wants him around again. And he likes the kissing. Now there's touching, too. He hasn't quite built up the courage to stick his hand in Tweek's pants like Tweek is so blasé about doing to him. Craig's never handled a dick sober. He isn't afraid, really. It's just that he doesn't want to fuck anything up.

Craig pokes at his factory-made school lunch. He hasn't been able to work up an appetite for a couple days now. Every time he thinks about eating, he remembers Thanksgiving and shudders, unwilling to touch food.

After a couple minutes of staring at the goopy food, Craig shakes his head and pushes aside the Styrofoam tray. He pulls the third issue of Are You Mental? from his pocket, flipping through the drawings and words without processing them. He turns to the back, where people have begun to write into Tweek's PO Box.

"Dear Mental, my boyfriend is ready to have sex and I think I am too. The only problem is…"

"Dear Mental, sometimes I think that nobody sees me as a person, just a school machine…"

Tweek responds to each question carefully, sounding a little strange – but then, Tweek is a little strange – but also helpful. He details solutions, and they're only interesting to Craig because he includes bits and pieces from his own life.

"Hey," he hears from beside their table. Craig stuffs the zine back into his pocket before he realizes that it isn't a school security guard.

He swings his head, surprised to find Token standing at the foot of the table, looking uncomfortable but determined. He's in much better shape than Craig is in, wearing a spotless oatmeal colored fleece and fashionably distressed jeans. Craig has no doubt that Token is going to appear in the yearbook as Best Dressed. He always looks like a million bucks, probably because has to spend about that much.

Craig, meanwhile, forgot to shower again and is wearing the same hoodie that he's had since he was thirteen, with holes in the cuffs that he sticks his thumbs through.

"What."

"May I talk to you?" Token asks carefully.

Craig doesn't like it. Even more than Clyde avoided him those first weeks after Craig broke his jaw, Token has made a point of expressing his disappointment. Not anger, not dislike, not disgust – disappointment. That's what he said after he dropped Craig off while Mr. Black drove Clyde to Hell's Pass that day. I am so disappointed, Craig. Like a disapproving parent – the functional kind, not the kind that Craig has. The worst of it is that Craig knows, like he knew then, that Token doesn't do bullshit. It's one of the reasons why Craig appreciates him so much. He's straightforward and succinct. He's not ramblingly passionate like Kyle Broflovski or emotional and ineloquent like Stan Marsh.

"I guess," Craig says, even though he's afraid to know what Token is going to say to him.

"In private?" Token cocks his head toward the back exit of the cafeteria, a mere few feet from Craig's table with Bebe and Kenny. He slides a glance over to them at that thought. Bebe blinks at Token and Craig curiously while she runs purple acrylic nails through Kenny's uncombed hair.

"Yeah. Okay," agrees Craig.

As he follows Token out into the much quieter hallway, he realizes that this must be able the Clyde incident in the bathroom. Fuck. He shouldn't have been as much of a dick as he had been, but he can't baby Clyde – if he does, Clyde will attach himself to the idea that their friendship still exists, which it does not.

Craig rocks on the balls of his feet and stares at the floor. He can feel Token's gaze on him, and he hates it. It makes him feel like he's little again, and his mom caught him getting into shit that he wasn't supposed to.

"Your jacket looks nice," mumbles Craig, because he's tired of uncomfortable silence.

"Thanks. It's Burberry," answers Token. As good a guy as he is, Token enjoys namedropping designer labels when he's complimented on his outfits. This time, it makes Craig smile a little. He misses hearing it, even if he does think that is a twat kind of a thing to do.

"What do you want?" Craig finally asks. This conversation makes him feel uncomfortable on a painful level, one on which his brain nosedives into reminiscing about movie nights and going to Clyde's lacrosse games with Token and the Donovans, after which they'd be taken out to pizza and spend the entire night together. Craig would show them card tricks he'd googled or bitch about his parents not letting him bike. Token and Clyde would talk about hot girls and Craig would pretend to be interested, thinking about how he didn't find anybody attractive.

Now Craig's Friday nights are not spent at lacrosse games, pizza parlors, and the Donovans living room. They're either spent alone in his room with his pipe and his guinea pigs, at work, or at the party of some kid he doesn't know, throwing up into the downstairs toilet.

"Clyde misses you," says Token, snapping Craig back to reality. The words are a slap on the face. Craig knows Clyde misses something, but it isn't Craig. He misses what Craig misses – the good times. Clyde is naïve.

"I know," responds Craig, "He told me. I told him that he's being stupid."

"I miss you too, dude," Token goes on.

Craig stares incredulously, "Why would you do something like that." His question comes out flat, like most of them do.

"Because you're my friend," Token says, "I'm talking to you because this is getting out of hand."

"Huh."

"This isn't fucking normal, Craig. You're a fucking mess, and I'm concerned, okay?" Token's lips turn down as he assesses Craig. At least he can't see the bruises, and the hickeys that spot the top of Craig's chest. Craig flexes his fingers – they're starting to itch. They do that sometimes, when he gets sad. They star to itch because his reflex is to pet one of his guinea pigs. Once, when he'd just woken up from a nightmare in Chemistry class, he started feeling around his table before he realized that his lab partner (Gary Harrison, the irritating prick) was looking at him funny, and that he didn't ever take his guinea pigs to school.

"Man, give it a rest," Craig says, "I'm a bad person. I get it. I don't need to have another discussion about it."

"You're fucking dense sometimes, Craig. Really fucking dense. You're not a bad person, which is the goddamn issue at hand. I don't know what's going on in that thick-ass head of yours, but I want you to get it together, alright? I miss you, Clyde misses you, and we want things to be right again."

Craig doesn't know what to say to this, and so he just stares. Anger bubbles up as usual, but he isn't angry at Token, he's angry at himself. He fucking get why they can't let this alone. The issue is closed. Craig attacked Clyde when they told him that he needed to get help.

"Okay," Craig states at last, not knowing what else he should say.

"Okay? Does that mean you'll talk to somebody?" asks Token.

"It means 'okay,'" responds Craig.

"You know, we don't care that you like guys," Token says, "Like, really not a big deal. At all."

"Yeah? Well, it's a big deal to me," says Craig. He turns around and pries open the back door to the cafeteria, plopping down in front of his now-cold lunch, making it even more unappetizing than it was before, and it began pretty damn gross. He wishes that he didn't like guys. It would make his life a whole hell of a lot easier. His dad thinks he's scum because of it, and the student body of Park County High won't fucking give it up. You do something a little bit different, veer a little off the beaten path, and suddenly, you're disgusting.

At the table, Kenny is awake again. When he catches Craig's eye, he asks, "What was that all about?"

"He and Clyde like to periodically remind me of how much of a shitsack I am," Craig grunts, "I'm gonna go out for a smoke. You wanna come?"

Kenny glances at Bebe with raised brows, and she shakes her head. He responds to Craig anyway, "Yeah. Let me get my cigarettes."

Kenny and Craig set up camp in the blind spot between two cameras. Craig eyes Kenny's cigarettes and says, "Can I bum one?"

"Did you invite me just to mooch cigarettes?" mumbles Kenny, his own cigarette bouncing between his lips as he lights it.

"Yes," says Craig. Kenny rolls his eyes, but passes Craig a cigarette and lights it for him before replacing his cigarettes and lighter in the pocket of his jeans.

"You alright, man?" asks Kenny, probably feeling obligated to make conversation.

"Yeah," lies Craig, "You okay?"

"Fuck no," Kenny laughs bitterly on a smoky exhale. He rolls up the long sleeve of his black shirt, revealing a round, puckered burn wound on the inside of his arm, near his elbow, "Kevin did that to me when I fell asleep on the couch yesterday. I've barely been able to fucking sleep as it is, and when I do, he puts his fucking cigarette out on my arm, like I'm a goddamn ashtray and not his little brother. I fucking hate my family."

"I'll smoke to that," Craig agrees, "I fucking hate this town."

"Amen, dude," Kenny agrees, "Amen."

Craig is glad to have someone with a family like his, even if Kenny does have a luxury of having a little sister that thinks the sun shines out his ass no matter what he does. Craig has Ruby, and Ruby doesn't give the faintest shit about him. They're alike in that respect, because Craig doesn't give the faintest shit about her, either.

This is the Kenny that Craig enjoys being around – moody realist Kenny, the one that realizes that they live in a shithole in the middle of nowhere with the worst people on the planet. Not chipper, happy-go-lucky, romantic Kenny. Craig can't stand when Kenny gets that way. Maybe it's cruel wanting somebody down on Craig's level, but at least if there's somebody just as knee-deep in shit as Craig is, he won't feel so fucking alone.

But when they return to the lunch table, Craig still sits with an empty spot beside him, and Kenny still leans down for a kiss from Bebe.

Craig loves being alone, but he hates being like this. He hates being lonely.

o.o.o.o

Craig snaps out of his sleep when he hears a noise. He cranes his neck from its place on his pillow, but sees nothing but his dark, messy bedroom, with no sounds but his shuffling guinea pigs. When Craig was a kid, he had the same idea as other kids – that he'd be safe if he was just tucked in under his covers. It wasn't for the same reason, though. Craig never believed in monsters. Even as a child, he was too logical for that.

Or maybe he did believe in monsters, but they weren't the kind with red eyes and claws and sharp teeth. Craig's monster wore – and still wears – unironed button-downs, outdated jeans marked by their slightly-too-high waists. He wears old, faded Super Bowl t-shirts and smells like cheap aftershave.

He lives across the hall.

Only when Craig was a child, his father beat the shit out of him for different reasons. For disobeying, mostly. Refusing to abide by his bedtime, refusing to share with his little sister, refusing to take a bath or take out the trash or do his homework that they knew he had because "We talked to your teacher, dumbass."

Now they hate him because he smokes and kisses guys. They hated when he didn't have a job, too. Called him useless. Told him if he wasn't going to bother with his schoolwork, he'd better make something else of himself, because they're not keeping him around a day past when he turns eighteen. That's good. It's fine, because Craig has planned since he was six years old to move out the instant that he could. He doesn't know where he's going to move, but he's still going to do it. He'll find a way.

There's a noise again. Something bangs against his window.

Craig rolls and flops into a sitting position, rubbing his eyes before he moves the plaid curtains aside.

It's snowing, just barely, and standing in the middle of his lawn is Tweek. He's bundled up more than usual, with a knit hat pushed on his head and a multicolored scarf wound around his neck. A canvas bag is slung over his shoulder, and a Cheshire-like grin lighting up his long face. He waves a gloved hand when he sees Craig's face.

Craig opens the window and leans out, whispering harshly, "What are you doing here?"

"I wanted to see you," Tweek says, as though that explains everything.

The words make Craig's chest feel a little sore. If anybody else were standing on his lawn, he'd give them the finger and tell them to fuck off. But he doesn't want to do that now. He feels his lips twitch, in the mostly unfamiliar sensation of wanting to smile.

Tweek goes on, "Come down here, assclown. And dress warmly."

Craig slips out of his bed as quietly as he can. He fumbles around in the dark, pulling on his threadbare Vans and heaviest coat. He pulls the covers off of his bed to find where his hat managed to slip off of his head, tugging it over his ears. He follows standard sneak-out procedure, ungracefully sliding down the drain pipe, and padding through the crunchy grass over to where Tweek stands.

"You're gonna get cold in your jammies, idiot," Tweek greets, gesturing to Craig's Batman pajamas.

Craig rolls his eyes and leans up, coiling his arms around Tweek's neck to bring him into a kiss. His mouth is warm and wet, and Craig liquefies into the kiss when Tweek strokes his piercing against Craig's tongue. God, he could stay like this forever. Craig doesn't know what's so appealing about being tucked up against a tall, big-eyed kid in a trench coat, but he does know that he likes it. He likes it a lot.

When they part, Craig yawns and rubs at his eyes. He asks, "What are you doing here, fuckface?" again, because as pleasant a surprise as it is, Craig is bewildered.

"I'm painting," Tweek says, "I want you to come with me."

"Why."

"So I don't get lonely," replies Tweek. And as simply as he knows the sentence was meant, it strikes Craig as profound. He nods his consent, and Tweek gives a crooked smile, before leaning down again and taking Craig's lips into a sloppy kiss.

They take off toward the small square of commercial buildings. Craig isn't certain there are any left for Tweek to cover in his art, though the county has started painting over some of the work, much to Tweek's dismay.

They stop at City Wok, slipping into the slim alley between the Chinese restaurant and a commercial building that a small biking company has rented out. It smells like piss and garbage. Craig wrinkles his nose and pulls out the new pack of cigarettes that he bought off of Kenny after school, hoping the scent of the smoke will mask the foul aroma of the alley. Tweek drops his canvas bag onto the ground with a clunk.

"I almost forgot," he says, and he pulls a metallic thermos out of one of the huge outside pockets of his trench coat, passing it to Craig, whose fingers are already going numb at the tips, "I made you some coffee."

Craig doesn't say thank you, but he does arrange his cigarette and thermos into one hand so that he can yank Tweek forward, pushing his handmade scarf down to kiss his neck, biting down hard enough to make Tweek whimper.

"What are you painting?" asks Craig. He hoists himself up to sit on top of one of the plastic, industrial-sized trashcans sitting in a row, watching Tweek while he paws through the canvas bag on the ground. He pulls out two spray paint cans, pocketing one and wielding the other.

"I dunno yet," he replies, and he sprays a curved line onto the bricks of City Wok's side wall.

"You don't know," Craig echoes. He takes a sip of his coffee, which is made thankfully the way that he likes it, plain black. He wonders if he should feel flattered that Tweek knows that.

Tweek glances back as he makes the line of black paint into an arch. His eyes flicker to Craig's cigarette, and he pauses to rummage in the inside pockets of his trench and remove the electronic cigarette that his mother bought for him. The end glows blue as he sucks in. He pushes it into a front pocket, and resumes painting.

Craig watches, mesmerized, as the lines become shapes, and shapes become things. He nurses his coffee and smokes silently, realizing that he's never seen Tweek paint before. He's seen him draw with his crayons, and doodle with gel pens in classes, but not this, not the obscene and gruesome paintings that litter every building in South Park, and still mark the lockers in the school – turns out that spray paint is a bitch to get off.

Tweek is painting monsters.

In his typical form, he paints them with missing eyes, digging in his canvas bag to pull out a can of red paint to make them bleed. But they're holding their eyes in their hands, the blood squishing between their claws. One is massive and square-shouldered, with a toothy grin and broad, hairy arms. Craig doesn't like it. It looks like nightmares he used to have, nightmares where his father was a monster just like these ones.

Maybe he is fucked up.

Maybe Token is right.

Maybe it isn't normal to see a painting of a gruesome, ugly monster and think of your dad coming for you with his meaty fists.

And it's not normal to beat the shit out of your best friend when he tells you that he's worried about you.

From time to time, Tweek pauses to drag off of his silly-looking cigarette before putting it back in the small breast pocket on his trench coat, or take a sip out of a second thermos that he had tucked in the opposite pocket as Craig's coffee.

Craig wonders if maybe he should talk to Tweek. He seemed to answer the people writing to his zine eloquently enough. Oddity aside, he knows his shit. He knows about sex and drugs and being sick in the head.

But then, Craig doesn't want to tell anybody about his dad. He doesn't want to be pitied. He doesn't want to be taken out of his house by CPS a mere handful of months before he turns eighteen anyway. He doesn't want to be separated from Zim and Gir. He doesn't want people to look at him the same way that Kenny did when he saw the bruises wrapped around Craig's arms. He hates that look, and he hates that Kenny held him in his arms and told him that he'd always be there for him.

Craig hates being reliant on others. Other people are full of mile-high bullshit. You can't trust them.

But he also doesn't know what to do. Because he thinks that something is wrong, but Craig doesn't know how to fix it. He can't fix his dad, and he can't fix being angry.

Then it strikes him: He could write to Are You Mental? anonymously. He could ask Tweek for advice without really asking him. Craig takes a celebratory drag of his second cigarette, flicking the butt into some soft snow buildup.

Tweek is spraying purple across the top now.

It says: We will get you.

Craig doesn't know if there's any 'special meaning' behind the words. With Tweek, there usually isn't. Tweek thinks people that write and paint with deep meaning behind their work are "self-serving twats."

After adding the purple letters, Tweek replaces the paint cans in his bag, arranges it on his shoulder, and cocks his head back toward the exit. He walks Craig home, smoking silently. Tweek is in a mode that Craig hasn't seen before. He isn't talkative, and though he's trembling a little from the cold and his medication, he seems calm, almost meditative.

When they reach Craig's house, he's reluctant to see Tweek go. Craig doesn't know why, but tonight, he's felt so much better than he has in a long time, so much less dead and numb.

The snow has soaked through Craig's Batman pants, and as Tweek warned, Craig is freezing his fucking nuts off.

They stand in front of Craig's front door, facing each other for awhile without speaking. Tweek frowns a little as he runs his eyes over Craig. He clears his throat and says, "You look cold."

"How observant you are, dickface," Craig responds.

Tweek unbuttons his trench coat, opening it up like he's illegally selling watches or sports tickets. He says, "C'mere," and when Craig eyes him suspiciously without moving he says, "Don't be a prick." And so Craig steps forward, fitting himself against Tweek's chest. Tweek buttons two or three of the trench's buttons, wrapping them inside.

"Fuck, you are cold," Tweek says.

Tweek, on the other hand, feels like a radiator.

Craig takes advantage of their closeness and kisses along the column of Tweek's neck lazily, eliciting happy hums from him. Craig still doesn't know why he loves this so much. He's never liked being this close. He's always valued his personal space. But Tweek is different, somehow. He likes getting Tweek to make noises and swear and blush. He even likes when Tweek gets him to do those things, too.

Tentatively, Craig rubs his hand against the front of Tweek's jeans. Tweek moans a little and mumbles, "Please."

Craig rests his forehead on Tweek's shoulder, looking down into the dark coat while he scrabbles along Tweek's zipper, pulling his jeans open with clumsy fingers. He feels fucking stupid, like he should know how to do this. But he doesn't, not really.

Craig reaches into Tweek's underwear. His cock is hard as a rock, making Craig wonder how long it's been that way.

" S-Shit," Tweek swears softly, "your hands are like ice."

Craig wraps his fingers around Tweek's erection. He shouldn't be doing this on the porch of his house, but he likes feeling like they might get caught. He isn't certain why. Maybe because he likes fantasizing about spitting in his father's face and shouting "Fuck you, I like dick!"

His fingers begin to move, warming up as he pumps along inelegantly, his movement not nearly as practiced and confident as Tweek's hands are when they're working on Craig's dick. He feels himself flush at the knowledge, which only makes him more determined to hide his face against Tweek's neck while he moves.

Tweek pulls Craig's hat off and kisses the top of Craig's head. He buries noises in Craig's hair and kisses him along the shell of his ear.

"Jesus, I'm gonna come," whispers Tweek, seconds before Craig feels warm liquid spurt over his hands. He wrinkles his nose, not sure he likes having Tweek's come all over him. But then he decides not to care, because Craig still doesn't want to move from the warmth of Tweek's coat and Tweek's body, which is soft and hot and quivering a little.

"Hey, Craig?"

"Mm," Craig licks over the fresh hickey he put on Tweek's neck.

"You know I call you names 'cause I like you, right?"

Craig's brows furrow. He pauses before answering, "Yeah, I know, asshole."

"Good," Tweek nods, "I have to go home. My mom worries when I'm out all night."

"Okay," mumbles Craig, even though he'd rather stay in Tweek's trench coat forever.

Tweek unbuttons his coat and Craig steps out. They kiss each other's swollen lips one last time before Tweek tromps off down the snowy sidewalk with a wave, and Craig uses the spare key to quietly let himself into the house.

He doesn't go to bed again. Instead, he washes the gummy come off of his hands and sticks a load of laundry into the washer so that his parents don't see it on his shirt, and then hops in the shower, letting his muscles melt under the hot water as he soaps the grease out of his hair and the smell of cigarette smoke and alleyway trash out of his skin.

Craig flicks on the light in his bedroom before redressing in his clothing for the day. It's already almost five in the morning. There's no point in wearing a fresh set of pajamas. Instead of sleeping, he rearranges the clutter on his desk and takes out his American History notebook, flipping to a blank page in the back. He realizes that he doesn't know what to write only when he lifts his ballpoint pen.

Dear Mental:

That's as far as he gets for several minutes.

I have a lot of problems with my dad.

That sums it up. Sort of.

It's been that way since I was little. When he gets angry, he –

He what? He hurts Craig. He bruises him, he punches him. Before Craig could hold his own, he'd throw him around like a ragdoll. – beats me up, sometimes. I can't get out of my house. I have pets. What do I do? Sincerely, All Alone.

Craig rips the page out of his notebook and folds it, tip toeing back downstairs to his dad's study, where he seals it into an envelope, addresses it with the PO box printed on the back of the zine, and sticks an American flag stamp in the corner.

Craig pads outside, shuffling through the thin layer of snow in his bare feet. Instead of putting the letter in his own mailbox, he sticks it in his neighbor's – Sally's – and lifts up the little red flag.

When issue number four of Are You Mental? comes out, maybe Craig will finally stop feeling so fucking lost.

o.o.o.o

Thank you to my amazing reviewers, as always, for being so encouraging and helpful: Bubbl3wrapguy, KirstenTheDestroyer, FunnyHats, mallorymichael, MariePierre, princessbelle212, lilykinz200, w0rmsign, Raccoon Loon, Reverse Psychology, WizerdBeards, prettyoddrydonfan, TheAwesome15, hootpoop12, and Kuutamolla.

A special thank you to Chasing Rabbits, who drew me lovely art.