Exhaling, I lay back, pressing my head against Tweek's pillow, tilting my head to one side so I didn't have to look at anything beside the slightly marked burgundy paint that still adorned his four bedroom walls. It smelt like Tweek, his pillow, the bed, the whole room. It smelt like coffee, Harbucks, sweat, humanity, bar soap, it smelt like the fabric softener his mother uses. It smelt like pain, and heartbreak, and love. Because that's what Tweek smells like to me, like angst and love.

Pursing my lips, I narrowed my eyes, wriggling a cigarette out my pocked, fumbling about with my lighter. It was a fairly awkward job, lighting it whilst adamantly refusing to sit up, but I persevered. Sitting up would mean having to look at him, and right now, after Harbucks, after the tense walk back to his house, after his gentle, quivering concern and that stupid little green apron and the way his hair stuck up in that very specific way, right now, I just really couldn't look at him. Not without doing something stupid, something harmful, something wonderful. Some wonderful regret. I felt Tweek watch me with vague disapproval; he never liked it when I smoked, he pretty much hated it when I smoked in his room. Not that that deterred me or anything, I still did it. I'm a dick, after all.

"Butters sa-said that they-they sent you to the counsellor today." He was sitting above me somewhere, close enough to sense, not so close we were touching. Close enough for it to ache, not so close it was dangerous.

"Yup."

A spattering of ash fell against my shirt. I just blinked and pushed it off. Tweek made some throaty disapproving yelp. "Jesus man, use an ashtray or a mug or something, don't get ash on my fucking bed."

"Sorry."

"It's okay, just stop. Don't... Don't smoke so much."

I blinked. "Sorry."

He just sighed, crossing his legs. "Did you get in trouble?"

"What?"

"The counsellor? Did you get in trouble?"

"No. She just wanted to bitch at me about my future. You know, careers week and all that shit." I pulled a face, taking a drag. "She just gave me a booklet for Boulder, nothing real. Nothing helpful."

I felt him pause slightly, sighing into the dimly lit room. "Boulder's pretty real Craig."

"No, it's not. It's tangible, sure, it exists, but it's not a reality.

"You could go to Boulder if you wanted. You're pretty special. I'm sure you could get in if you tried."

"I don't want to be special Tweek. I don't want to try. I just want to be normal. And I don't want to go to Boulder."

"We don't always get what we want, Craig. Sometimes we just have to do what's best."

I exhaled, arching my back slightly. "I know, Tweeks. Trust me, I know. But Boulder isn't really what's best, not… Not in the long run."

"What is best then?"

I frowned, twisting slightly, pointedly not answering him. I felt bad. Just, generally bad. I felt guilty, and ashamed, and dirty, and wrong. But I also felt heavy, and tired, and lethargic, and apathetic. And rotten, like something inside of me had died, and I'd just left it there, this amorphous mass of nothing, a decaying, rotten, heavy little lump. This horrible shadow of what I did in Denver, rotting pineapples and sour cherries. It felt so wrong.

Groaning slightly, I pulled a face, resting my arm over my eyes. "I don't want to be here anymore, Tweek."

"Why?"

"Because here's here. Nobody wants to be here."

"So-so what? Just leave. Nothing's stopping you: you can just pack your bags and go. Just get in a car and drive. You can leave. If you... If you really hate it that much, just-ngh-just go."

"It's not that easy Tweekers."

"Yes, it really is."

"What about you?"

"What do you mean?"

"I have every intention of taking you with me, Tweeks. I'm not just going to abandon you here or anything. You know what they say, no man left behind and all that shit. I'll take you with me when I leave. We'll get out together, we'll burn this shithole to the ground."

For a minute he was silent, there was nothing but the sound of sleet and darkness. Then I heard him swallow. "Where will we go?"

Smiling slightly, I shut my eyes, pressing myself back against his pillow as I inhaled another drag. "Somewhere nice and boring. Somewhere quiet and secluded, away from people, away from mistakes, away from this shit-ass town, away from fucking everything."

"Alaska?"

"Quieter. And more boring."

Tweek was still shaking slightly, not as pronounced as usual, merely slight vibrations. He was too exhausted to be overwrought, too over jacked on caffeine, Harbucks, stimulants. Medication. Who knew. Whatever it was, he was calm. Well, he was as calm as he was ever going to get, anyway. It hadn't quite stopped, the paranoia and shaking, I could still feel him, feel his slight weight rocking the bed. But it wasn't bad. It was calm. It was calming.

"An oil rig? Deep off into the middle of the ocean?"

"Yeah, that sounds pretty boring. Not very nice though, or quiet."

"An abandoned oil rig deep off into the middle of the ocean?"

"Certainly quiet. But not very nice."

"We could hang one of those basket things up. You know, the green ones, the ones with the little flowers in."

"There you go, bingo. When we're all grown up, we'll run off and live on an abandoned oil rig in the middle of the ocean. We'll take a fucking potted plant, and we'll claim it as out country, just like the Principality of Sealand did. And it'll be just us, all alone, secluded, nice and boring. Just us two, floating alone in the middle of the ocean, nothing to harm us, no-one to fuck us over. Nothing to mess with our heads. Just you and me, out there alone."

I felt Tweek sigh, leaning back as he pressed his head against the wall. "That isn't a very well thought out plan, you know. We wouldn't be able to eat, we'd have no electricity or fresh water, we'd be sitting ducks for a gnome attack. Man, there's be so much pressure just to survive. It just wouldn't work."

"I know. But it's nice to dream sometimes."

"I guess." Tweek was shifting about above me, fidgeting to get himself comfy. I just lay there, still and lethargic, blinking as I felt the mattress dip down next to me, the slight pressure that told me he was sitting closer then he had been, inching further and further into a danger zone. I just shut my eyes and attempted to fall asleep, attempted to force out my jumble of emotions and angst and pain and stupid pressuring, demanding feelings. He could ferret about above me all he wanted when I was asleep. If I could only fall asleep, I wouldn't have to fight this internal battle, I wouldn't have to force myself to remain glued to the mattress, force myself to remain distanced from him. Force myself to keep away from him.

"For real though Craig, what do you want to do?"

His voice and his scent and his room was making it very difficult to keep away from him. It was making it very difficult for me to remember why I was doing this, why I couldn't. Why I really, really couldn't. "I dunno. Whatever I can, I guess."

"You've got to have some idea."

"I really don't know."

"Craig!"

I swallowed, shutting my eyes. It was his pressured, quivering demand, his shaky little way of putting his foot down. Of demanding an answer and proving he's serious. It was adorable. I just wanted him to stop. "I really don't know Tweeks. I guess, maybe I wouldn't mind working in television or something. I wouldn't mind being a producer. I always liked playing that game."

"A producer?"

"Yeah, a producer. Or something along those lines, I guess."

For a minute he was silent, just shakes and quivers. "Why?"

Blinking, I squared my jaw, tilting my head away from him, readjusting my wall-gaze. "You can't hide when you're in front of a camera, Tweekers. When that hunk of circuits and plastic is pointed at you, it catches everything. Every twist your mouth makes, every flutter in your eyes, every blush and shiver. When a camera's pointed at you, it catches everything, all your secrets, you're entire personality, they're laid bare, offered up to a cold, calculating viewer. And no matter how well you act, the lies you tell, the smiles and congratulations you fake, someone will always be able to see right though you. They know. And that, that's just brilliant."

I felt him try adjust himself again, pressing his hand against the mattress, only a whisper away from mine. Without thinking, I reached out, gripping his wrist and holding it there. Holding him there. For a minute we were silent, him propped up awkwardly in the rough area to my left, me just lying there, my eyes shut, just clutching onto his wrist, tensing my fingers round the warm skin, the bones and tendons and veins, his heartbeat, too fast, too pressured and jacked too be human. For a minute I just clutched him. For a minute the dead pineapple cherry thing in my chest might just have shown a little sign of residual life.

Then I remembered myself. I remembered him. So I just blinked, and let him go. Without a word, I pulled myself to my feet, brushed the creases out of my clothes, and left.

I just fucking left.