A/N:
:)

Against all odds, Craig makes it through the rest of dinner without suffering any major health issues, unless Dumbfuckitis has, within the last twenty-four hours, been classified as a legitimate medical condition. Honestly, he wouldn't be surprised if whatever government organization is responsible for deciding that kind of thing is the same government organization that is probably putting him through all these humiliating trials. Tucker's Dumbfuckitis Syndrome, that's what they'll call it, the newly discovered debilitating illness that is caused by repeated exposure to insane levels of embarrassment. He'll be famous in all the medical journals. Every doctor in the world will want to read about the small-town moron who loses his shit every time he comes into contact with a certain blonde.

Craig is trying, he really is; he's never put this much effort into anything in his life. But it's like for every five minutes he can force himself to behave like a normal human being, there's some instance of him dropping his fork, fucking up a word, or accidentally laughing so loudly that other nearby diners actually stop what they're doing to stare at him. And then, of course, all the unwanted attention just makes him even more hyperaware of everything he's saying or doing and it makes things ten thousand times worse.

As he leans down for something like the ninth time to pick his fork up off the floor beside the booth, he closes his eyes, taking the deepest breath he can manage at the same time. It's fine, it's fine, it's almost over. All they have to do now is pay, and as soon as the waiter gets his ass back to the table with the check, Craig can throw the cash in his wallet on the table and they can leave.

To go back to Tweek's dorm room.

Craig jerks his hand up at the thought, smashing his elbow right into the edge of the table. "Motherfucker," he hisses, straightening up and tossing the fork into the center of the table, next to the demolished plate of tiramisu. Thank God Tweek is in the bathroom right now and that he hadn't been here to see that. Not that it would make much difference; he's already seen enough of Craig being an idiot over the last two days that missing two instances of awkward clumsiness is practically nothing.

Unconsciously tapping out the rhythm to the season four Red Racer theme song on the table with his fingers, Craig grabs his cell phone off the seat of the booth with his other hand to check the time. Nine-thirteen. It's weird that he hasn't heard from Clyde yet; he'd been expecting at least a text message jokingly telling him not to die from whatever mysterious illness had made him miss out on that, "sweet, sweet meat". Craig wonders if Clyde had taken it upon himself to finish his teriyaki steak, and then wonders why he's even wondering, because anybody who knew Clyde would know that any leftover food had probably been gone before Craig had even walked out the door of the steakhouse.

As if on autopilot, Craig taps on his messaging app, and then hovers his finger over the most recent message he'd received. The picture. The speed of his tapping increases, as does his heart rate, as he glances around the restaurant to make sure the coast is clear. Without having any real idea why he's doing it, and knowing very well that he shouldn't, he presses his thumb hard against the screen, pouring all his hatred and self-loathing into the action. Almost immediately, the photo fills the small device's screen and Craig, against all his better judgement and knowledge, bites his lower lip as he feels the familiar flutter of desire begin to rise inside him.

"Everything okay?"

"Wha- fuc- uh!" Knowing without a doubt that there's no way he's ever going to be able to recreate that noise, Craig slams his phone, face-down, onto the table and looks up at Tweek. He's standing next to the booth, watching Craig with concerned confusion, probably either because he's worried about him or because he's just come to the conclusion that Craig is actually an escaped psychiatric patient from the local hospital who could snap and go on a killing spree at any moment. It's anyone's guess which one.

"Sorry." The corners of Tweek's eyes crinkle slightly, and if Craig had been focused on his face instead of the way the blonde's hands are trembling at his sides, he would have seen the sparkle of amusement in them. "I didn't mean to scare you. Are you ready?"

"Um, but the, uh." Craig gestures vaguely towards the middle of the table. God, why are his hands so fucking big? Have they always been this big? What does he even usually do with his hands anyway? "The, um, paying?" Goddammit.

"Don't worry about it." Tweek pulls at the hem of his shirt to straighten it, and Craig notices for the first time that it's a button-up, not a t-shirt or a hoodie like he and every other college kid practically lives in. Well, shit, that's just fucking adorable. "I already took care of it."

"Why?" No, fuck, come on, Tucker. "I mean, uh, thank you? But you, um, you didn't have to do that." Craig very, very carefully slides his phone towards himself and off the table, keeping the screen pointed down the entire time until he can shove it into his pocket and breathe again.

"I know," Tweek says with a little shrug. "I wanted to. Plus, um, we're only here because I asked you to come, so it seemed fair."

"Oh. Uh, okay." Craig slides out of the booth, nearly losing it altogether when he accidentally brushes his hand against Tweek's as he does so. "So, uh, your place?" It's an innocent question in his brain, but why doesn't it sound innocent at all once it leaves his mouth? It's not like he's hoping anything will happen over at Tweek's dorm or anything. The chances of that are so tiny even the world's most powerful fucking electron microscope couldn't find them.

But, fuck, he'd give anything...

"Yeah." Tweek hesitates for just a second. "As long as you still want to."

"I want to," Craig says before he can think through his word choice. "Uh, I mean," he hurriedly adds. "I said that I would, and you, uh, said you wanted to um, talk to me still?"

Tweek nods. "I do, yeah. But if you have other plans, you don't have to come. I'm not going to tie you up and hold you hostage or anything."

"I wouldn't mind," Craig mumbles under his breath, his eyes instantly widening when he realizes what he's just said.

"Sorry, what?" Tweek tilts his head, looking at Craig curiously.

Craig clears his throat. "I said, uh, I don't mind. Coming, I mean. To your place. I, uh." He glances down at his pocket, where the edge of his phone is just poking out. "I don't have any plans tonight."

Tweek's dorm isn't far from Craig and Clyde's; in fact, when Tweek pulls into his assigned parking space, Craig can just see through the darkness that Hunter Hall is actually only a few buildings down. So not only had Tweek been in one of Clyde's classes all semester, they've actually been living this close together for months and never met before now? Craig just can't wrap his brain around that, it's too fucking weird.

About as weird as running into his arch nemesis in the last place he would have expected to see him. Craig shivers a little bit involuntarily as he pops open the Focus's door and is immediately hit with a blast of icy air right to the face. "Jesus Christ," he can't help but say as he gets out of the car, his teeth chattering.

Tweek slams his own door shut and carefully makes his way around the outside of the vehicle to come and lock Craig's door. Once again, Craig has to force himself to avert his eyes when Tweek bends over, as much as he wants to stare at those fucking hips and what's just below them.

"Yeah, I think it's supposed to snow tonight," Tweek says, straightening up and tucking his keys into his pocket. He turns and offers his arm to Craig with a little smile. "Need a hand inside? There's a lot of ice in this parking lot."

Craig blushes, staring down at Tweek's arm like he's never seen an arm before in his life. "Oh, uh…" He's joking, right? He has to be joking, he's just making fun of how Craig can't fucking stay on his own two feet to save his life. Not that Craig can really blame him, he'd be making fun of himself if he wasn't so fucking mortified. "No," he says, taking a cautious step forward. "I–" He lets out a sudden yelp of, "Fuck!" as his foot slips out from underneath him the second it makes contact with the ground.

Tweek throws both his arms out, once more acting as Craig's guardian angel and saving him from certain death, or at the very least brain damage. He grabs Craig around the waist and pulls him up, his momentum causing them both to turn and fall against the side of the Focus with an, "Oof!"

Craig's back hits the car first, hard enough to hurt like a bitch, but he doesn't even feel the pain; all that registers in his mind right now is the fact that Tweek's body is pushed right up against his, from shoulders to thighs, effectively pinning him to the side of the vehicle. Oh, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, shit. Craig's breath hitches in his throat as the scent of cinnamon and coffee, delicious and intoxicating as fuck, invades his nostrils, making his mouth water just a little bit. He's frozen, too terrified to move a muscle. This isn't happening. It has to be a dream, he tells himself, even though he knows it's not.

"Oh my God, I'm so sorry!" Tweek jumps backwards as carefully as he can, his eyes just as wide as Craig is sure his own are. "Are you all right? I didn't mean to–"

"Uh, yeah!" Craig says, way too loudly, his voice echoing through the air in the quiet darkness. "Yeah, I'm, uh, I'm fine, it's hot– it's not a big deal." That weird, awkward nervous laugh that sounds way more like a seal barking than anything else pours out of his mouth again and all he wants to do is curl up in the nearest snowbank and die. He did not just say that. Talk about a fucking Freudian fucking slip or whatever the hell it's called.

"Are you sure?"

Is it Craig's imagination, or does Tweek look just as freaked out as he feels? Fighting desperately to keep his own expression neutral, Craig risks a slightly longer glance than usual at Tweek's face. It's probably not his imagination, but he's willing to bet everything he owns that their reasons for being freaked out are wildly different.

"Yeah," he says, waving a hand in the air dismissively like he's not going to be thinking about how it felt to have Tweek so close to him like that for the next four hundred years. God, if it was possible to frame a memory, he'd have this one up on his fucking wall in a gold-plated frame as soon as he got back to his room tonight. He stands up a little bit straighter, then lets out a tiny gasp and immediately slumps back against the car, angling his lower body away from Tweek as naturally as he can possibly manage.

"What's wrong?" Tweek's voice is shaky, probably because of the cold. Neither one of them is wearing an actual coat, after all. He takes a cautious step closer to Craig.

"Uh, nothing!" Craig squeaks, his face bright red as he frantically tries to fix the issue that has sprouted up before Tweek can get close enough to figure it out. Fuck, come on, brain. Tweek, no, don't think about Tweek, don't think about good he smelled or how warm he felt or the way his hips lined up with yours perfectly, like it's fucking destiny for you to– No, no, no, don't fucking go there, think about, fuck, think about fucking anything else. Cars, no, not cars, fuck, fuck, fuck. Do something!

Just as Tweek gets near enough to reach out and touch Craig's shoulder, the noirette drops to his knees on the ice, the only thing he can think of to do under the circumstances. The pain that radiates through his body as he hits the ground does what his brain couldn't, and with something else to focus on, he manages to calm down enough to get himself under some semblance of control. Oh, thank fucking Christ.

"Hey!" Tweek crouches down next to him, resting a hand on Craig's wrist. "Are you sure you're okay? What happened?"

Swallowing hard, Craig tries to come up with a good enough answer that doesn't sound incredibly fucking stupid. "Uh, I don't know," he lies, trying to ignore the fact that if he moved his arm, just a little, he could very easily hold Tweek's hand right now. "I guess I just, um, got dizzy for a second, there." Another gust of wind chooses that moment to swirl around them and Craig's entire body shakes with the force of the shiver that follows it.

"Come on, if you're not feeling well we shouldn't be out here in the cold." Before Craig can say anything, Tweek grabs his hand, intertwining their fingers to get a better grip and doing the very thing Craig had been wishing he had the nerve to do not seconds earlier. Tweek wraps his other arm around Craig's lower back and helps him back to his feet, which Craig goes along with because one, fucking duh, and two, he has to keep pretending that he's unwell.

Craig expects Tweek to either let go of his hand, or take his arm off of Craig's back, or both, when they reach the dorm building, but he doesn't. Instead, Tweek maneuvers them over to the one automatic door on the left and lifts his foot to press the button with his heel. As soon as they're inside, a blanket of warm air covers them, making his skin tingle, and Craig realizes just how cold he had been outside.

"I just have to grab my elevator key," Tweek says as he leads them towards a set of elevators. "Can you stand on your own for a sec while I get it out?"

"Ye- uh, yeah," Craig says, the words almost coming out as a whisper.

Tweek takes both of his arms back, reaches into his pocket and fishes out a plain, white plastic card, hitting the call button for the elevator at the same time with his other hand. When the doors open with a cheery ding, he links his arm through Craig's again and they both step inside. Tweek waves the plastic card in front of an electronic reader beneath the rows of floor buttons, and then presses the number 6 when the light turns green. Craig sways in place a little bit when the elevator begins to move, and Tweek gives him a reassuring smile, replacing the elevator key in his back pocket.

"Don't worry," he says, a twinkle in his eyes. "The maintenance guys were just here yesterday, and they swear they fixed it so it won't get stuck again."

Craig gulps, watching the numbers light up above the door as the elevator carries them up to the top floor of the dorm, closer to Tweek's room with every passing second. He's not sure if Tweek is kidding, or if the elevators in this building really do have a tendency to get stuck, but he suddenly finds himself hoping with every fiber of his being that maybe he'll get to find out.