A/N: Thank you so much for reading!
Oh, God.
Craig clenches his blanket tightly in both fists, his mind already racing with flashbacks of times where Clyde had said those exact words to him: the day he'd broken Craig's fan-club exclusive Red Racer alarm clock, the day he'd been guinea-sitting and lost Stripe in the backyard for six hours, the time he'd cheated off Craig in math class and gotten caught, earning them both a failing grade and a week's detention, and the list went on. Every single instance of, "Promise you won't get mad," has involved Clyde doing something that would inevitably piss Craig off to no end.
So hearing him say those words now, when Craig is in the middle of literally the worst situation he has ever been in in his life, when he's lost the only person who's ever made him feel worth something, and found out that not even his own enemy-with-benefits had ever really liked him, just causes a whole new volcano of anxiety to erupt inside of his chest. Combine that with the fact that, before Kenny had come in the room, it had been evident that Clyde had information about Tweek he wasn't sharing, and it's all Craig can do to keep himself from screaming.
"What did you do?" Despite his best efforts, his voice is shaking, full of far too much of every different kind of emotion. He shivers when another blast of cold air swirls around him but it's not until Kenny crosses his line of sight and slides the room's window shut that Craig realizes it had even been open.
"Nothing bad!" Clyde cries. "I promise, Craig, I was just trying to help!" He sniffles, his eyes already filling with tears. "You're my best friend, dude, I would never hurt you on purpose!"
"What did you do?" Craig repeats, as a chill runs up his spine, Clyde's words not reassuring him in the slightest. Trying to help with what?
"Relax, Tucker," Kenny says, pushing the Taco Bell bags out of the way to sit down next to Clyde and throw a comforting arm around his shoulders. "You want me to do it?" he asks, his voice softer and completely without the usual sarcastic McCormick drawl as he speaks only to the brunette.
Clyde shakes his head, wiping his eyes with his sleeve. "No," he says, with another sniffle, "I got this." He reaches behind him and pulls a taco out of one of the bags, but makes no move to unwrap it, just holding onto it with both hands as he nervously meets Craig's eyes. "I lied to you," he says. "I didn't space on my final."
What? Craig is so caught off guard by that statement that for just a second he forgets that he's supposed to be on the edge of an anxious panic attack right now. Of all the things that Clyde could have said to him, that's definitely not something Craig had been expecting. "What does your final have to do with anything?" he asks, instinctively holding up a middle finger when he sees Kenny shift slightly out of the corner of his eye.
"Well…" Clyde glances down at the taco in his hands, turning it over a few times. "...because Tweek."
Craig's heart drops into his stomach, which is already churning. It's a good thing his heart's already broken, or else he'd be worried. "What about Tweek?" he demands, his teeth clamped together so hard the words come out in a growl.
"Wow," Kenny observes, eyeing Craig with interest. "You weren't kidding, Clydester, he's got it bad."
"What the fuck are you talking about?" Craig narrows his eyes at the two of them, but there's no fire behind it. He just can't come up with the energy. "Would you just tell me what the fuck is going on?"
Clyde sighs, his eyes still on the taco. "I gave Tweek your number."
What.
"You what."
"I gave Tweek your number, instead of mine." Clyde tears off a strip of the taco's wrapper and crumples it between his fingers. "I told him I'd meet him at the library to give him my half of our project, and I gave him your number and told him it was mine."
What.
The fuck.
It's like time stops the second the words are out of Clyde's mouth, and all Craig can do is stare at him. He knows he probably looks like a fucking moron with his mouth hanging open like this but at this point, he couldn't fucking care less. There are far more important things to deal with right now, like the fact that Clyde had fucking given Tweek his number.
"Why–" Craig hardly recognizes his own voice when he finally finds the ability to speak. "–the fuck would you–"
"Because you're perfect for each other!" Clyde interrupts, throwing his hands up into the air, sending the taco flying. Kenny makes a dive for it, skidding across the carpet on his stomach and catching it just before it hits the floor. "I'm serious, Craig! He and I had all the same classes this semester, and I've talked to him a lot. And I knew that if I could just get you two to meet each other, you'd totally hit it off!"
"So you lied to both of us?" Craig is trying very hard to not hyperfocus on the fact that Clyde thinks he and Tweek are perfect for each other. After all, he'd said the same exact thing about Craig and Stan back in ninth grade, and look how well that had turned out. And anyway, even if this time Clyde actually knew what the fuck he was talking about, it was too late. Craig had already completely fucked up his chances.
"Um, well, sort of?" Clyde bites his lip. "The only thing I lied to Tweek about was the phone number thing. But I had a good reason!" He rakes both hands through his hair. "I've been telling him about you all semester, about how awesome you are and how he had to meet you, but he was always so nervous because of–" He hesitates, shooting a quick glance at Kenny, who gives him a reassuring thumbs up as he chews on a bite of taco. "–some stuff in his past," Clyde continues. "So I just thought–"
"You thought lying to him was going to, what, all be worth it when he met me?" Craig shakes his head, as usual, entirely unable to follow Clyde's logic. "Jesus Christ, Clyde, in case you haven't noticed, I'm not you." He feels his eyes beginning to water again and he drops his head into his hands.
"What?!" Clyde scrunches up his face in confusion. "I know you're not me, you're you, that's why I knew Tweek would like you! And he did! He emailed me that night and when he was done yelling at me for lying to him he said he hadn't expected you to, and I quote, 'be so insanely attractive'!"
Craig immediately opens his mouth to tell Clyde to shut the fuck up, but then he remembers the moment in the bookstore when he'd told Tweek that Clyde was his best friend, and his roommate. The way that Tweek's fucking incredible green eyes had gotten even wider, the way he'd looked at Craig when he'd said, "You're–?" like he couldn't actually believe that it was true. Craig had just figured at the time that Tweek thought it was weird that Clyde would bother being best friends with someone like him, because honestly, he doesn't get it either, but if what Clyde is saying right now is true…
"He really said that?" Craig mumbles into his hands. Of course, he knows there has to be at least some truth to it, or else Tweek never would have kissed him last night. But it's just the concept of someone thinking he's 'insanely attractive' he can't wrap his mind around.
"Yeah," Clyde says. "He did. Even when you were being a giant weirdo and walking around with no clothes on."
Kenny laughs from the floor and Craig takes his hands away from his face to flip him off with both middle fingers this time. "Okay, see," he argues, his heart hurting even just from the thought, "He thought I was a creepy fuckin' weirdo." And with good reason, he finishes in his head.
"Not a creepy weirdo," Clyde corrects. "Just a weirdo. And by the way, you're welcome."
"For what?"
"Damage control," Kenny chimes in through a mouthful of taco. "Your buddy here spent a good two hours on the phone with Tweek convincing him that you weren't part of some weird nudist cult that you would try to make him join if he decided to date you."
Craig looks to Clyde, who nods. "Like I said," the brunette says. "Tweek has some stuff in his past, and he gets nervous easily. I gave him my real number and told him to text me if he was ever nervous around you." He pulls out his phone and taps on a message string, holding it up. "This is all about you," he says, swiping up on the screen. It takes at least seven swipes of his thumb before he hits the top message.
"All about how I'm a fuckin' idiot, probably," Craig mutters, but some part of him deep inside feels a tiny spark of hope in light of all this new information. Maybe it's actually going to be possible to fix things with Tweek. Maybe he hasn't actually lost him forever.
"Not even close. There's one where he calls himself an idiot because he called you by your name when you hadn't told him what it was yet, but…" Clyde frowns down at his phone, his eyes brightening when he locates the message he's looking for. "Look, you remember how I told you Tweek told me you passed out on stage yesterday?"
"Uh-huh." As soon as Clyde says the word stage, Craig can only see visions of Tweek dressed as Speed Demon in his mind and he has to fight hard to focus on the conversation. He's all of a sudden very aware of the way that he's currently sitting and he pulls his legs up to his chest, grabbing his extra pillow and holding it in front of him, just in case.
"Okay, listen to this." Clyde clears his throat and then begins reading, "'Clyde! Craig fainted and hit his head and I think he might have a concussion! Can you check on him?'" He scrolls a little further. "And then he sent me a text like every half hour after that until I actually got a hold of you asking if I knew if you were okay yet, and then he asked if I thought you would be mad if he washed your hat for you…aww, I forgot about this one!" Clyde smiles and reads out, "'I took him to Sorriso, he's not lying when he says he likes Italian food, right? I want to make him happy.'"
I wanted to make him happy, too. Craig takes a deep breath. Maybe he still can. His head is spinning a little bit and it's making him dizzy, but for once not in a way where he feels like he's going to turn into a puke fountain again. "So…you're saying I still have a shot?"
Tossing his phone to the side, where it collides with the bags of food with a crunch, Clyde sighs, his smile fading. "I don't know," he says. "Kenny and I ran into him outside when we got here and…Craig, dude, he's a mess."
"But you can talk to him," Craig says, almost pleadingly. His eyes fill with tears again and this time he can't even be bothered to hide it, he's so desperate for another chance with Tweek, a chance to explain himself and tell him everything that he just doesn't give two fucks about what anyone else thinks about him anymore. All that matters is what Tweek thinks. "You can do something."
Clyde and Kenny exchange a look, and it's Kenny who answers. "It's complicated, Tucker," he says, crunching up his empty taco wrapper and throwing it into the trash can before rolling over onto his stomach and resting his chin in his hands. "Clyde's not kidding when he tells you Tweek's past is… It's given him some issues."
"Is this about the basement thing?" Craig's stomach clenches just thinking about it. "He told me about that last night, about how his fucking parents–" He can't even finish the sentence, the whole thing fills him with so much anger.
"Whoa, he told you that?!" Clyde's eyes are wide. "It took him like two months to open up to me and we talked every day!"
"Guess he was just as head-over-heels for you as you clearly are for him." Kenny raises his eyebrows at Craig. "Not that I'm surprised, with how much Clyde's been insisting you guys are soulmates since September. But," he adds, "that's not all of it."
"What do you mean that's not all of it?" Craig is aware that he's having some volume control issues but he just can't imagine there being anything worse than being locked in a fucking basement your whole life. "What the fuck else happened to him?"
It's a moment before Clyde answers, uncertainty written across his face. "I don't know if I should tell you," he says, slowly, holding up both hands like a shield when it looks like Craig just might launch himself across the room. "Not because I don't want to! I just…it's not my story to tell, it's Tweek's, and I don't think I should betray his trust like that." He looks to Kenny. "What do you think?"
The blonde nods. "Yeah, I mean, the last thing you want to do is make him feel like he can't trust anyone, right?"
It's infuriating, but Craig knows that what the two of them are saying is right. Whatever it is about Tweek's past that has them worried, it's not their business to be sharing that information. "Okay, well," he says, picking up the package of mint Oreos and taking out a cookie, flipping it over in his hands a few times. "Do you think you could at least try getting him to talk to me?" He's directing the question at Clyde, but he wouldn't even care if it was Kenny who answered. He just wants Tweek to talk to him.
"I can try." Clyde leans over to grab his phone again and begins tapping out a text message. "I really think you guys belong together."
I think so too. Craig can't get himself to say the words out loud, but the more he thinks about the last couple of days, the more he agrees with Clyde. He's never felt feelings for anyone the way that he's felt feelings for Tweek, and even though this is only the third day since he'd first met him in the bookstore, it already feels like he's known him for so much longer. That can only mean they're meant to be, right?
God, please…
After Clyde sends the message, the three of them sit, or in Kenny's case, sprawl out on the floor, quietly; the only sounds are the occasional crunching of a Taco Bell bag, taco wrapper, or the crinkling of the package of Oreos. Craig's heart is racing so fast he can't even tell one beat from another, all of them just blending into one low, constant humming noise. When Clyde's phone finally goes off, his quacking ducks ringtone filling the air, Craig is so nervous, so terrified of what the answer might be that he suddenly feels like he's just gotten onto a rollercoaster and found out it's headed straight off a cliff.
Clyde picks up his phone, and reads the message, and as soon as he looks up at Craig with huge, sad, tear-filled brown eyes, Craig knows it's hopeless. Without a word, Clyde gets up from his bed, crosses over to Craig's, and holds out his phone. Craig takes it, his own vision blurring as tears start streaming down his own face, and reads the message, his heart shattering into a million pieces.
I can't. I'm sorry.