No, no, no…

The word swirls around inside Craig's head, louder and louder with each passing second that he's frozen there, helplessly staring after Tweek, long after the blonde is out of sight. Not again. This can't be happening again. Tweek can't be running away from this place – from him – like this. It's not real, it can't be real, the universe can't honestly be this cruel...can it? It wouldn't put him through hell for most of the last four years, then finally give him everything he'd ever wanted only to rip it away from him at the worst possible moment. Craig has no delusions about the kind of person he is – he's perfectly aware that he's nothing more than an asshole with a serious aversion to most people – but he's still not so bad of a guy that it warrants something like this. Is he?

Even as he's trying his absolute hardest to convince himself of those things, though, Craig knows that he's lying. Of course he deserves for this to be happening. Why wouldn't he? This is just what he gets for being exactly who he is; he's lucky he'd gotten to call Tweek his boyfriend for as long as he had.

Numb, all Craig can do is sink into an unsteady crouch and slowly retrieve his – no, Tweek's – hat from the floor, crushing it tightly in both hands.

He doesn't even know what he'd done, but what he does know is that it has to be his fault. Tweek had been acting differently ever since he'd gotten back from work this afternoon – ever since he'd been back around Craig. He'd blamed it on just being tired, and Craig had believed him, because of course he had; he had no reason to distrust Tweek, after all. They've had so many serious conversations about their lives in the last eight months, and Tweek had already told Craig so many things that it would have been much easier for him to lie about, so he just couldn't see any reason why the blonde would start hiding things now, at this point in their relationship.

So the only conclusion that Craig can draw from that is that he had to have done something or said something to trigger this kind of extreme reaction in Tweek. But what, and when–

Wait, he remembers with a jolt, his heartbeat thumping rapidly against his ribcage. Just when they'd gotten to this place tonight, right before they'd walked into the restaurant's dining room and Craig's whole world had been yanked out from underneath him, Tweek had asked if they could talk later. Shit. That means that whatever Craig had done, it had to have happened while they were here; but even more than that, it means that there had been something else going on too, something that he was never going to get to find out about and be able to help Tweek with the way he'd promised he always would. Because if the way he'd bolted out of here is any indication, Tweek is never going to talk to Craig again.

He vaguely hears Clyde, or who he thinks might be Clyde, speaking from some point above him to the left, but all outside sounds just aren't registering in Craig's brain right now; he's too busy running through the evening's events in his mind as quickly as he can, trying to figure out when he'd fucked up – and desperately hoping that there's still the tiniest sliver of a chance that he can fix it. Was it because of the way he'd reacted to Stan being here? Craig knows he should have made more an effort to hold himself together, fuck. Or was it because of his stupid fucking inability to say two fucking sentences without an accidental sexual innuendo ruining every single conversation? God, Tweek probably thinks he's some kind of fucking predator or sex addict something; and after all those talks they'd had about how Craig was fine with waiting for Tweek to be ready – which he is, he really is – how must that look?

Or– Oh, God. Craig's stomach clenches and he can feel his eyes welling up with tears. Please don't let it be that…Was it because of what he'd said the night before? Was eight months too soon to say those three little words? Tweek had said them back and he'd seemed genuinely happy to hear them, but what if he'd just been faking because he felt like Craig had put too much pressure on him in that moment? Fuck, what had he been thinking, of course he shouldn't have said that on Tweek's birthday, for Christ's sake – and to make it part of one of his gifts? What is wrong with him? How many times had he had to remind Clyde that real life is nowhere close to a stupid rom-com? He should know better.

Or maybe it's not any of those things, and it's something that Craig hasn't even been aware is any kind of issue. Does he say weird and creepy stuff in his sleep? Has Tweek finally noticed that he's ugly as shit? What could he possibly have done in the last hour that could be this bad…?

At least last time, it had been obvious.

For a split-second, time rewinds eight months back, to the last time Tweek had fled from Craig in a panic, and the noirette is nearly knocked off his feet by the force of the feelings that flood his body. He can still perfectly picture Tweek standing at the end of the hall, with that heartbroken look of betrayal on his face while tears streamed down his pale cheeks. He can still see the way the tray of cardboard coffee cups had shaken in the blonde's hands before he'd let them fall, where they burst open, drenching the shitty blue carpeting in discount community college hot chocolate. And he can still hear his own inner voice, screaming at him to fucking do something to fix this before he lost the one thing in his life that made him happy.

But he'd been too late. He'd been so stunned, so traumatized by what had just happened to him, that the only thing Craig could do was faintly, weakly call out, "Tweek…" but by then, Tweek was already gone.

Fuck that. A burst of determination courses through his veins, temporarily overriding the panicked misery that's kept him glued to the floor for the past few minutes, and Craig shoots back up to his feet, shoving the chullo into his hoodie pocket along the way. He lurches forward a few steps, nearly tripping over his own shoes before managing to catch his balance, and then he darts through the restaurant, following the path that Tweek had taken. He's not going to just stand around like a useless pile of moron while everything around him implodes this time; he's going to go after Tweek and apologize – five hundred thousand times if he has to. He's going to find a way to fix this, whatever it takes.

Craig races towards the restaurant's front doors, bypassing the bathroom entirely before skidding to a stop and backtracking, not even noticing how close he comes to colliding with a waitress carrying a tray piled high with empty dishes. He eyes the door to the mens' room, rocking back and forth on his heels while he weighs the likelihood of Tweek going in there as opposed to ditching this place completely. He can practically hear the tick-tick-ticking of an invisible clock, and he knows that he's wasting precious time, time that he could be spending begging Tweek for another chance, but he's trying to be rational about this kind of thing for once in his life and look at all the angles before he accidentally makes things any worse.

Although, honestly, how much worse could they get…?

"Craig!" Clyde appears out of nowhere, rushing over to stand beside him, Kenny on his heels. "What happened? Where's Tweek?" His brown eyes are wide, dangerously close to teary, and he looks almost as worried as Craig feels.

Almost. There's no way he could possibly be feeling anything close to what Craig is feeling right now. After all, Clyde isn't the one who'd just lost his entire world.

"I don't know," Craig says, wincing when he hears the harsh way he'd accidentally emphasized the last word. Calm down, Tucker, he instructs himself, but it's no use. He's already crossed over the threshold into full freakout mode, something that's only happened about three other times in his whole nineteen years of life – and never in public before. Clyde's lucky that he still has the presence of mind to keep himself from throwing frustrated punches every which way in the air, because there's no way he would be able to control where those punches would land. "I don't know," he repeats, slightly quieter, a faint trace of pleading in his tone when he tears his gaze away from the bathroom's door to look Clyde in the eye. "But I need to find him."

Without a word, Kenny strides over to the alcove where the bathrooms are and disappears inside the mens' room. After a moment, he emerges with a shake of his head and pushes open the door to the womens' bathroom as well. He pops out in less than ten seconds, the same somber expression on his face as he rejoins Craig and Clyde. "He's not in there. He must have left."

Fuck. TGI Fridays is a twenty-minute car ride away from the dorms, which translates to at least a forty-five minute walk. The thought of an upset, panicky Tweek wandering around downtown after sundown alone sends a whole new wave of fear through Craig's veins, and his stomach begins to churn. "I have to go," he mumbles, already on his way to the doors without waiting for a response – not that he would have been able to hear it anyway. His mind is already hard at work conjuring up all the dangers that he knows lurk within this godforsaken town and now he's even more desperate to find Tweek before he gets caught up in any one of them.

Craig digs around in his jeans' pocket with one hand, searching for his keys, while he roughly shoves one of the doors open with the other. When his fingers touch something solid and very definitely not keylike in any way, shape, or form, he stops in his tracks once more and pulls out his cell phone, which he had forgotten even existed until this very moment. He stares down at the black screen for approximately one point three seconds before he hits the side button and swipes his thumb across the glass to unlock it. He jabs at the buttons, pulling up his log of recent calls, and hits Tweek's contact name – which is still simply, Tweek?, just the way he'd first entered it that day in the bookstore.

He holds his phone to his ear, shivering in a way that has nothing to do with the temperature outside. It's actually really nice out right now; with the sun hidden below the horizon, the blistering heat of the late Colorado summer is gone too, leaving behind the sort of mild weather that's perfect for late night walks with the person you love. In another universe, one where he hadn't fucked everything up, maybe Craig and Tweek would be walking home from the ice cream place near the college right now, holding hands while sharing a double chocolate cone.

Tweek's phone rings an excruciating eight times before going to voicemail, each unanswered ring causing Craig's heart to sink deeper and deeper into his chest. He'd known that it was a long shot, calling him like this after Tweek had clearly wanted nothing to do with him for the rest of the night, but he'd still somehow been hoping that maybe, just maybe, he would change his mind and pick up. Craig slowly lowers his phone and presses the button to end the call, abruptly cutting off Tweek's voice telling him to leave a message after the beep. Hovering his thumb over the icon that would take him to his messaging app, he swipes his free hand through his hair and tries to slow his brain down long enough to think. Should he text him? He wants to, but he doesn't know what he would even say, apart from an entirely inadequate, "I'm sorry," and as much as he hates like hell to admit it, that's just not enough. He can't just go and text Tweek a generic fucking apology like that without even knowing what he's apologizing for. That's fucking useless.

Just like me.

Craig's vision blurs a little as a few tears begin trickling down his cheeks, dripping from his chin to the concrete ground beneath his feet. He forces himself to move forward, into the sea of vehicles that are littering the parking lot, so he can at least feel like he's doing something, but he suddenly realizes that he can't remember where the hell he'd parked the Impala in the first place. He's not sure he could even describe what his car looks like at this point, or if he's even in any condition to drive it when – if – he finds it. He's having a hard enough time breathing properly and it's taking most of his energy just to try and recall what motions he has to go through to get air into his lungs.

He's just reached the second row of vehicles when a voice he doesn't immediately recognize through his distracted haze calls out to him from back near the restaurant. "Hey…Craig!"

On autopilot, Craig turns around, and once he does, he wishes with every fiber of his being that he hadn't. Because standing just outside the doors of TGI Fridays, having the fucking audacity to be looking at him with concern written across his disgusting face, is Stan fucking Marsh.

Barely able to get up the strength to lift his arm, Craig shoots a weak middle finger in Stan's direction before turning right back around and continuing to stumble forward. Whoever had invented parking lots was a fucking psychopath; there's no reason why they should be so fucking hard to navigate. It's just a place to leave your car, for fuck's sake, not a labyrinth with a pile of infinite treasure in the center and a fucking minotaur inside it you're trying to escape from. Oh, great, now he remembers the word labyrinth, months after he'd needed to know it for the final for his mythology class last year. Where the fuck is his Impala?

"Craig, wait!"

Craig doesn't wait; he just grinds his teeth together and keeps on moving, as quickly as he can – which, unfortunately, is not all that quickly, because every three feet he keeps having to change direction lest he get hit by one of the many vehicles that has decided right now is the perfect time to circle the parking lot like fucking vultures, looking for a free space. Why the fuck is Stan following him? No, actually – how dare he fucking follow Craig like this and try to talk to him like they're two old friends who'd just happened to meet up tonight? He has no fucking right to any of Craig's time or energy, not after– No, no, no, don't go there, don't think about it, don't remember, Craig tells himself, shoving all of those thoughts right back down into the depths of his mind before they can fully materialize. If he goes down that spiral right now, he doesn't think he'll ever make it out again.

"Craig, come on–!" The inflection in Stan's voice makes it clear that he'd been about to say more, but when Craig finally can't take it anymore and whirls around, he snaps his mouth shut. He's about six feet away, both of them standing in the middle of one of the parking lot's narrow aisles.

"What the fuck," Craig is nearly shrieking at the top of his lungs, but he couldn't control his own volume right now if he tried, "do you want?"

Stan takes one step forward, and in response, Craig scrambles backwards away from him, losing his balance for a moment. He catches himself on the back of a nearby car, but that had clearly been the wrong thing to do, because as soon as he touches the vehicle, the loudest, most obnoxious car alarm in history begins blaring right in his ears.

"I need to talk to you!" Stan shouts over the sound of the alarm. He glances over his shoulder, back towards TGI Fridays, and when he turns back, he begins fidgeting with the edges of the fishnet armbands that are adorning his wrists. "It's… Can we meet up tomorrow?"

The incredulous laugh that bursts out of Craig's mouth surprises even himself. "What?" he demands, sure that he must have heard wrong, that the deafening car alarm had messed with his eardrums and scrambled the message. Stan had not just asked what he thinks he'd just asked.

Stan continues pulling at his armbands, poking a few of his fingers through the holes in mesh and twisting the fabric around them. "Look," he says, "I… I get it, okay, you have no reason to trust me and I can't even begin to apologize–"

"Save it," Craig interrupts, holding up one hand. He feels like he's going to throw up again. He doesn't want to hear an apology from Stan, not now, not ever. There is no apology for the shit that he'd done; there's no way he could ever make amends for the way that he'd treated Craig for years. All that trauma is going to stay with Craig for the rest of his life – did Stan genuinely think that if he throws some half-assed apology at him that everything's just going to be okay? "I don't want to fucking hear it!"

"Okay!" Stan untangles his fingers from the armband and holds up both hands in front of him in surrender. "Like I said, I get it! But Craig, I'm serious, I need you to meet me tomorrow so I can talk to you." He looks behind him a second time. "Bring Clyde or Kenny or whoever if that makes you feel better, but please, it's really important! Tweek–"

"Shut up!" It takes every ounce of strength that Craig has inside him to keep himself from lunging forward and knocking all of Stan's teeth right down his fucking throat. Who the fuck does he think he is? "Just shut the fuck up, asshole! You don't get to talk about him to me! You don't get to just show up back here like nothing ever happened!" He can't remember the last time he'd yelled like this in public, and people are probably staring by now, but as soon as Stan had mentioned Tweek's name, something inside Craig had snapped. The car alarm has stopped, but he barely even registers the absence of the sound. "You ruined my life!" he screeches, gesturing wildly in the air, and Stan actually backs up a couple of steps. "I don't have to listen to a word you have to say to me!"

"Craig," Stan starts, casting yet another glance over his shoulder, but he never finishes his sentence, nor does he turn back around. He's frozen, staring in the direction of the restaurant's doors.

Despite himself, Craig follows his gaze – and when he sees Kyle standing, equally as frozen as Stan, just outside the restaurant, he can't stop the malicious smirk that spreads across his face. "You never should have come back," he says, finally managing to lower his voice, his words laced with every single bit of the rage he's ever felt towards Stan. "We've all been better off without you."

He doesn't wait to see if Stan will respond and try to make another futile plea for Craig to listen to him, he just turns and continues making his way through the parking lot, both his fists clenched at his sides. By some miracle, he finds his Impala a few cars down and thanks whatever god of motor vehicles had granted him this tiny act of kindness, even though it's far more than he deserves.

Craig unlocks the door and slides into the driver's seat, ready to fire up the engine and speed off in search of Tweek; but as soon as he slams the door closed behind him, the full emotional impact of the whole evening hits him like a ton of bricks, and he just can't handle it anymore. He slumps forward, resting his forehead against the steering wheel, and bursts into exhausted, miserable sobs.