A/N:
Warning: Some sadness ahead. :(
Four questions in, Craig has learned that he and Tweek share a distaste for both winter and outdoor sports, that Tweek's favorite color is, unsurprisingly, green, and that he once won a year's supply of Goldfish crackers when he was sixteen. Craig thinks the Goldfish thing is actually pretty fucking cool, probably far more than he should, which likely has something to do with the fact that he's never won fucking anything in his life.
Three more questions later, Craig's had to admit that he secretly loves Christmas music, he doesn't actually care one way or the other about pineapple being on pizza, and that if he absolutely had to choose, he's Team Jacob all the way, because all of the Twilight vampires "look like a fuckin' disco ball confetti cannon threw up on them". Tweek had laughed so hard when Craig had said that, he'd just about tumbled right off the bed.
He hasn't opened up about anything more serious yet, but that's okay. Craig has been consciously choosing icebreaker questions that don't require much in the way of deeper answers, because the absolute last thing he wants to do is make Tweek feel like he's being pressured to talk. He'll happily sit here all night asking questions about Tweek's favorite everything and ridiculous 'would you rather…' scenarios, mentally taking extensive notes every time Tweek gives an answer. Craig isn't planning on forgetting a word he says, just in case this is their only chance. Just in case tomorrow the universe figures out that it's given him too much and takes Tweek away from him.
"Um…" Tweek leans forward, peering down at the screen of Craig's phone, which is resting on the noirette's outstretched legs. They're still loosely holding hands, and at some point they had both inched closer to each other again so that they're both now once more sitting with their backs to the headboard, their bodies scrunched even closer together than before. "What's your favorite breakfast food?"
Craig doesn't even need to think about his answer. "Bacon," he says emphatically, a bit more intensely than he'd intended. "Uh, but like, the maple kind."
Tweek turns his head to look at him with bright, happy eyes, his gaze sending a warm tingly feeling all throughout Craig's body. God, he's hot. "Me too." His hand twitches in Craig's grasp and he adds, a little nervously, "Have you, um, ever been to the Sugar Bowl?"
"The huh?" Craig grunts like an idiot, in a voice that makes him sound like a literal fucking caveman. God fucking dammit.
Not noticing that he's holding hands with a Neanderthal, or maybe just pretending not to notice, because that's the kind of incredible person he is, Tweek smiles. "There's a little diner kind of near here, it's called the Sugar Bowl. They have really good bacon." He reaches up and lightly tugs on a piece of his hair with his free hand, a hint of shyness creeping into his smile and absolutely fucking melting Craig's heart. "We could, um, go sometime, if you wanted to?"
Craig instantly feels his pulse speed up to almost superhuman levels. Was that– Does he mean– Like an actual fucking date? "Oh," he casually croaks, in a voice that sounds like he's been chomping on gravel. Wincing, he wishes he had some water; his throat feels like fucking sandpaper. "Like a fuck– like a, uh, a date?"
Tweek looks down, his eyes on Craig's phone as he continues pulling on his hair. The stutter returns to his voice when he almost whispers, "Would y–you want it to be?"
Yes. God, yes. There aren't enough words for Craig to express just how much he wants that.
In a moment that is so very unlike him, Craig reaches out and carefully untangles Tweek's hand from the blonde strands of hair that are wrapped around his fingers. He's so close, that when Tweek lifts his head, it takes almost no extra movement for Craig to kiss him. It's the first time he's ever actually initiated a kiss with someone, and he knows he's not very good at it; he's much better at going along for the ride than taking charge when it comes to this kind of thing.
But Tweek seems to like it, and that's all that matters. He squeezes both of Craig's hands tightly, and when he kisses back, he makes a little noise in his throat, somewhere between a whimper and a moan. And holy shit, does Craig ever love that noise; it instantly sends a shiver up his spine and a very specific kind of tingle somewhere more southward. He could die happy only hearing that noise for the rest of his life.
He loses track of time again; kissing Tweek is proving to do a real number on Craig's internal clock. Somehow, he finds the inner strength to pull back. Panting slightly, he licks his lips and drops his eyes to his and Tweek's enjoined hands, suddenly incredibly self-conscious. "Uh," he says, not entirely able to believe that he'd just done that. "Does that, uh, answer your question?"
"What?"
Craig snaps his head up when Tweek slips one of his hands free, immediately feeling the crushing weight of a panic attack descending upon him. Shit. He shouldn't have done that. What is wrong with him? He could have just answered Tweek like a normal person but instead he'd had to be a fucking creep and just kiss him with no warning and now he's fucked everything up and Tweek probably wants nothing more to do with him and oh God, please no, not when he's come this far, please…
The apology he's scrambling to come up with disappears entirely from his mind when he actually takes a second to look closely at Tweek and sees that the blonde is just staring off into space; his eyes are slightly unfocused, and he's just barely brushing his fingers over his lips. In the same moment, Craig realizes that Tweek's other hand is still holding onto his. He takes as deep a breath as he can, raking his own fingers through his hair in an attempt to chill the fuck out. Tweek wouldn't still be holding his hand if he hated him. Right?
"I, uh," he says, awkwardly. "That was supposed to be, uh, like a yes?" His voice goes much too high at the end of his sentence, turning it into a question instead.
Tweek blinks, shifting his gaze to Craig, looking at him like he doesn't quite recognize him. "Oh," he murmurs, mostly to himself, before shaking his head, a blush rising to his cheeks. "Oh," he repeats, covering his face with his hand in a move right out of the Tucker Handbook on Recovering From Utter Humiliation. "Um, sorry, I just…" He clears his throat and looks down again. "That was, um, you're a really good kisser."
If his shoulder didn't still hurt from his own mega punch earlier, Craig would swear he was, in fact, dreaming. "I, uh, you're a really good–" He regrets the sentence as soon as it's halfway out of his mouth but he can't stop himself from finishing, "–person to kiss."
"Oh." The tips of Tweek's ears are just a red as his face, which is just the cutest fucking thing Craig has ever seen in the last five minutes. "Thank you."
"Thank you, for, uh–" Craig clamps his mouth shut before he can say anything else super fucking weird and grabs his phone instead, scrolling through the list of icebreakers, determined to get them past whatever the fuck this awkward as shit moment is with minimal damage. He clears his throat and reads out, "What's the, uh, thing you most like about your job?"
"The quiet." His hand still covering most of his face, Tweek peeks up at Craig through his fingers. "I, um, I do way better in places where it's not super loud, because of, um, my anxiety."
"Where do you work?" Craig sets his phone back down, nudging it a little closer to Tweek for when he takes his turn.
"At Whole Foods." Tweek picks up the phone, mirroring Craig's earlier scrolling, frowning down at the screen as he goes through the questions. "I work nights, unloading the trucks and stocking the shelves and coolers."
"Oh, uh, should I be worried that you're a, um, stalker?" Craig says, his body tensing as he makes the attempt at a joke, desperately hoping that Tweek will understand what he's trying to do. When Tweek laughs, Craig breathes an audible sigh of relief. Oh, thank fucking God. It was a stupid joke, something far more likely to come out of Clyde's mouth than Craig's on a normal day, but he could take the hit to his IQ just this once; at least it had done what it was supposed to do and had broken the weird moment of tension.
"I don't know." Tweek glances up from the phone and cocks his head at Craig thoughtfully, a playful smile tugging at his lips. "I mean, I do know where you live."
Craig blushes. "Oh, uh, you don't want to stalk me," he says, shaking his head. "I'm fuckin' boring as shit."
Tweek's brow furrows. "I don't think you're boring," he says, not giving Craig a chance to respond, quickly following up the statement with an icebreaker question. "What's the furthest place you've ever traveled to?"
Ugh. "Uh, I guess, Peru, technically, when I was nine." Craig cringes at the memory, having absolutely no desire to relive the experience.
"You've been to Peru?" Tweek's eyes widen with interest. "That's so cool! Was it nice there?"
Craig hesitates, not quite sure how to respond. He really doesn't feel like getting into the whole explanation of the giant guinea pigs and the ancient prophecy right now, if ever. Fuck, he can only imagine how Tweek would react if he found out about any of that, but especially the part about Craig having fucking lasers for eyes. Granted, the whole laser thing hasn't happened again since then, and probably never will, at least not while the pan flute bands are around to keep the guinea pigs away. But still.
Wait. Those guinea pigs had been fucking everywhere back in the day, and the story had been all over every worldwide news broadcast for months after the attack; multiple sources had also confirmed that the creatures had originated from the country of Peru, and that isn't the kind of thing you forget. But Tweek hadn't even flinched when Craig had brought it up.
"It was okay," Craig says, distracted by the question that's suddenly shoved its way to the front of his brain. How could he possibly not know? "Uh, so, what about you? Have you, uh, been anywhere?"
The brightness vanishes from Tweek's eyes so quickly it's like someone has blown out a candle, and he slumps back against the headboard. His grip on Craig's hand loosens, but he doesn't let go entirely, so even though Craig is immediately worried he's fucked up and said something wrong again, he doesn't think he's done something terrible enough that Tweek is going to kick him out of the room, which is a silver lining, at least.
It's a long moment before Tweek speaks, and when he does, his voice is much smaller than what Craig is used to. "Can I trust you?"
"Of course," Craig says immediately. He rests his other hand lightly on Tweek's wrist, stroking it gently in the most clumsily reassuring way he knows how, trying to silently convey that Tweek can say whatever he wants and it'll be okay, because Craig will be here for him.
Tweek inhales deeply, and Craig can feel him trembling again. His eyes are focused straight ahead on the wall opposite the two of them, his jaw clenched. Craig's heart sinks inside his chest and he feels a prickly sense of dread. Shit, whatever Tweek is about to say must be really bad.
"I, um." Tweek pauses. He squeezes his eyes shut, but not before Craig catches the shine of tears in them. "I haven't been anywhere but here."
"You grew up here?" Fuck. Craig knows he shouldn't interrupt, but South Park, despite how much it tries to pretend it's a big city now, had been a tiny town when he was a kid. If he and Tweek are the same age, and Tweek had lived in South Park his whole life like he's implying, shouldn't they have met before?
Nodding once, Tweek brings his hand up to once again grab a fistful of his own hair. "I g-grew up in a basement." The words burst out of him at the same time that the tears begin to stream down his face, refusing to be hidden anymore. "I spent al-almost my whole life in one r-room."
Craig's stomach clenches, both because of what Tweek has just said and because he has no idea how to help him. He's the literal worst at dealing with feelings, he can't even handle his own fucking feelings, but he would give fucking anything to be able to make Tweek feel better right now. "What?"
"M-my parents–" Tweek's voice breaks and it's a second before he can try again. He's stuttering like crazy, but instead of finding it cute this time, it just breaks Craig's heart every time he hears it. "My parents had a c-coffee shop in D-Denver. They were g-gone a lot, and so they would j-just keep me locked in the basement so they d-didn't have to deal with me." He takes another deep, shuddering breath. "There was always f-food, and everything, and w-when they were home they would, um, sort of homesc-school me, but when I got older I had to t-teach myself."
What the fuck? Craig wants to demand that Tweek tell him his parents' full names and address right now so that can he can go over there and lock them in a fucking basement for– "For how long?"
"Until I was f-fifteen," Tweek whispers, sniffling. "That's w-when they got arrested."
Craig does the math in about point zero two seconds and wants to throw up. "That's three years ago." He doesn't even recognize his own voice, there's so much anger in it. How fucking dare those people? How could you do that to a fucking kid for that long? What kind of fucking monsters do you have to be– Hold on. Fucking back up. What was that? "Arrested? For what?" For fucking child abandonment?
"They were, um." Tweek shrinks back against the headboard, looking like it physically pains him to be saying what he's saying. "They were p-putting drugs in their c-coffee. Like, um, m-meth?" He looks up, all the pain and terror and sadness in his eyes shooting straight through to Craig's heart. "And, um…t-testing it on…me." His last sentence is barely audible, but Craig hears it loud and clear.
He can't even say anything, he's so stunned and pissed off and fucking heartbroken for Tweek. No fucking wonder he has anxiety. Jesus fucking Christ. How had he never heard about this before?
"Sometimes their, um, dealers would, um, come over and g-get into fights with them. I w-ould hear it all from d-downstairs. I w-went to therapy, after, and I, um, still do. I had to g-go to rehab, too." Tweek sniffles again. "And, um, I'm n-not supposed to drink a lot of coffee now, b-because it's sort of, um, triggering? But–" His grip on Craig's hand tightens. "–sometimes when I'm really, um, nervous I c-can't help it."
Craig thinks back to earlier that night, at Sorriso, where Tweek had drunk about a million cups of coffee. "Oh," he says, that one word filled with so much guilt it weighs heavily on his tongue. "I'm sorry."
"No!" Tweek sits up suddenly, letting go of his handful of hair to wipe the tears from his face. "God, no, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have–" He frantically grabs some tissues from the box on the nightstand, blowing his nose a couple times before tossing them into the nearby trash can. "That was way too much for only knowing you for–"
"It's fine," Craig interrupts, keeping the anger out of his voice the best that he can. It's not at all Tweek's fault that he was treated so terribly. He deserves the fucking world, and now that he seems to really have been given the chance, Craig is going to do everything in his power to give it to him. "I mean, uh, it's not fine, because you shouldn't have had to go through that, and I can't even imagine– But, uh, I just mean, I'm not going anywhere. If you, uh, want me. To stick around, I mean."
Sniffling again, Tweek bites his lower lip. "Yeah," he says quietly. "I'd…I'd really like that."
"Do you, uh…" Craig swallows nervously. "Do you want a, um, a hug?"
After a second, Tweek nods, and Craig immediately shifts his body around, letting go of Tweek's hand to wrap both of his arms around the blonde tightly. He rests his chin on top of Tweek's head, rubbing his back with one hand, hoping that the gesture is as comforting as he thinks it is. His mind is spinning with a million and one questions, and all the ways he could go find Tweek's parents and light them on fucking fire.
When they break apart, Craig keeps one arm around Tweek's shoulders as they settle back against the headboard. Tweek stretches his arm out to grab his laptop from the middle of the bed. He flips it open, and just as he's typing something into the Google search box, Craig's phone goes off, loudly, startling them both.
"Fuck!" Craig lunges forward to grab the device from where it's sitting in front of them. There's only two people who might be texting him at this time of night, and he's got a terrible feeling he knows exactly which one it is.
Where the fuck are you, Tucker?
"Everything okay?"
"Wh– oh, yeah," Craig lies as another message pops up on the screen. "Yeah, it's just Clyde, uh, wanting to make sure I got home okay."
You know I hate waiting.
Craig switches his phone to silent, and then just goes right ahead and powers the device all the way off, before setting it down on the desk next to him. Fuck that asshole. He's got Tweek now.
"That's nice of him." Tweek sits back so Craig can see the laptop screen and despite everything, he smiles a little bit when he sees that Tweek has found his favorite website to stream old Red Racer episodes. "Does he usually do that?"
"Oh, uh, yeah, he's, uh, weird like that." Craig coughs. "So, uh, Red Racer?"
"Yeah." Tweek leans his head on Craig's shoulder and cuddles closer to him. He lifts the laptop with one hand, pulling the comforter overtop of their legs with the other, and then grabs Craig's hand again, lacing their fingers together. "I just figured, you know, since it's something we both like, we could watch it for a little while before you, um, have to go back?"
"Yeah, uh, totally." Craig wonders if Tweek can feel how fast his fucking heart is going right now. "What episode did you want to…?"
"I thought we could start at the beginning." Tweek clicks on the first episode of the first season. "I, um, I like beginnings."
"Me too," Craig says, not sure if they're talking about Red Racer or not, but deciding it doesn't really matter, because the words are true either way.
The episode begins to play, the familiar theme song filling the small room, and both of them fall silent. Craig doesn't know how Tweek feels in this moment, but as he watches the events play out on the screen, he knows that he has never felt more content in his entire fucking eighteen years of existence than he does right now.