A/N:
:)
Craig spends the whole drive back to Hunter Hall in a haze, navigating the snowy roads entirely on autopilot. Thankfully there aren't very many people out and about at eight o'clock on Christmas Eve, so those few red lights he drives straight through don't come with any immediate consequences. The bright flash after the second one probably means that he's going to be hit with a ticket in the mail in the next few days, but a ninety-dollar fee just doesn't seem like as big of a deal as it used to.
He pulls into his parking space at the dorm and shuts off the engine, only realizing after taking the keys out of the ignition that he'd completely forgotten to stop at Taco Bell. Goddammit. Craig hesitates for a second, his hand holding his keys hovering next to the steering wheel as he tries to decide if he wants to go back out to get them or not. He'll feel like shit if Clyde and Kenny both show up tomorrow with gifts for him and he has nothing for them in return, but then, he already feels like shit, so would it really make that much of a difference?
Not really. It's not like this will be the first Christmas that Clyde goes all out while Craig looks like a lameass douchebag next to him. At least not having a gift at all would still be better than the year he'd drawn Clyde for their class's Secret Santa in eighth grade, forgotten about the whole thing until the very last minute, and hastily hooked together a dumbass red and blue paperclip necklace ten minutes before the deadline. Craig cringes at the memory as he slides out of the Impala, keys and chullo clutched tightly in his right hand.
Never mind the fact that Clyde had worn that stupid thing proudly for two straight months, calling it a "sign of true broffection." Craig has no idea how he manages to be so fucking optimistic all the time. Even after his mom died. It's like nothing can ever keep Clyde down for longer than five minutes before the cheery smile reappears on his face and he's off on another tangent of positivity.
Craig could really use some of that positivity right now. The noirette shuffles across the parking lot towards the front doors of the dorm, snow crunching underneath his feet and still steadily falling from the sky. By the time he gets inside the building, his hair and clothing are practically drenched, his t-shirt sticking uncomfortably to his skin, and he takes it as a sign that maybe he should actually take a fucking shower for the first time in days.
It takes approximately three seconds between Craig unlocking his door with shaking hands and stepping inside the dorm room for him to be immediately overcome with regret about the last twenty-one minutes.
Maybe it's the sight of all of the cleaning supplies sitting in a pile on Clyde's desk that does it, or the corner of the package of mint Oreos sticking out from underneath Craig's bed, or the tangled mess of fabric in front of his dresser that is his Red Racer outfit. Maybe it's the memory of how Tweek had looked at him the first time he'd seen Craig wearing it, or how he'd wrinkled his nose just the tiniest bit when he'd taken an Oreo out of the package, or just how fucking sweet it was of him to offer to clean Clyde's practically radioactive as shit half of the room in the first place.
Whatever the trigger is, Craig isn't sure; all he knows is that one second he's standing in the middle of the room, and the next his legs have completely given out and he's crumpled in a heap onto the floor. The feeling of not being able to breathe from earlier comes back in full force and he can feel his heart beating faster, wildly, like it's fighting to escape the confines of his chest with everything it has. He manages to pull himself up to his hands and knees, his fingertips digging into the carpet to try to hold himself steady.
His vision goes fuzzy, but Craig can't tell if it's because of the tears already welling up in his eyes or if he's actually going blind from misery. Is that a thing? It doesn't sound like something that could actually happen, but if Craig has learned anything over the last ten days, it's that he doesn't fucking know anything, so for all he knows misery blindness is absolutely a legitimate phenomenon. And if it is, then of course it would happen to him, because why not? Everything else fucking does.
Maybe it's better if he's blind anyway. At least then he won't have to constantly be reminded of Tweek everywhere he looks. God, why had he just fucking left Sorriso like that? The tears spill out of Craig's eyes and down his face, dripping off of his chin onto the carpet beneath him. What the fuck is wrong with him? He'd been so sure he was never going to get another chance to talk to him ever again, but then Tweek had come out of nowhere, willingly sat down across from him in that tiny booth and had started actually talking to him.
Not even just talking, fucking apologizing, when he had absolutely nothing to apologize for. His chest tightens, and Craig gulps down a lungful of air, desperately hoping the oxygen gets the memo and goes to where it's supposed to go so he can stop feeling like he's suffocating to death. He was the one who had fucked up, by not telling Tweek all about his past with Stan in the first place. If he had, maybe that whole godforsaken day could have been avoided and this entire situation wouldn't be happening.
Instead, Tweek had trusted him with information all about his horrible childhood traumas that Craig could never even fucking imagine living through, and his response was to just fucking…run away and leave him sitting there alone? Whether he believes that he's not good enough for Tweek or not, Craig knows that was a shitty thing to do; especially because the first time they'd been at Sorriso together, Tweek had told him that he prefers not to talk about personal shit in public because of his anxiety. He'd gone out on a limb for Craig by putting himself out there like that, and how had Craig repaid him? By being an asshole, because that's exactly who he is.
And now he's fucked up the second chance he'd been given just as much as he'd fucked up the first time. Because after that, he can't see Tweek even wanting to be in the same room with him, much less say another word to him ever again. Goddammit. Goddammit. He should have stayed, he should have fucking stayed and actually acted like a fucking normal person for once in his life. Maybe then Tweek would have come back here with him, Craig could have showered the last week's worth of despair off of himself, they all could have gone to Clyde's and watched the fucking Muppet Christmas Carol together and Craig could have just let himself be fucking happy.
"Fuck!"
The word comes out in a strangled cry of frustration, anger, and heartache, loud enough that it echoes down the hallway outside the open door. Suddenly feeling nothing but numb, Craig pushes himself up to his knees, sits back on his heels, and swipes at both eyes with his hands. All he wants to do is crawl into his bed and pass the fuck out, maybe even slip into a coma for the next two years, who cares, anything that will get him to stop fucking thinking.
He runs a hand through his hair and grimaces when it comes away almost dripping wet. As much as he wants to just burrow into his blankets and pray for a random bout of amnesia to help him forget Tweek's entire existence, he really should probably shower first. He's fucking disgusting. A shower won't completely cure that, of course, because he's disgusting on the inside too, but it will at least get the bucketloads of grease out of his hair.
Craig scoots on his knees across the floor to his dresser and pulls open the bottom drawer to retrieve his shampoo and body wash. Shit, he doesn't have any clean towels. He looks at the pile of dirty clothes next to the dresser, the thought of doing laundry sending a wave of exhaustion throughout his body, making his limbs feel impossibly heavy. There's no way he can lift a basket of clothing right now. He'll just have to reuse a dirty towel. Who fucking cares anyway, he thinks as he pulls a blue one out from the pile, rises to his feet, and drags himself to the bathroom.
Somehow, he manages to stay on his feet for an entire ten minutes in the shower, though part of that may be because he's leaning against the tiled wall. If he didn't have that for balance, God only knows if he'd have the strength to stay upright. The steam from the scalding hot water is doing wonders for his fucked-up lungs though, and he finally feels like he can breathe properly again, so that's something.
After two cycles of lather, rinse, repeat, and one quick run at himself with a palmful of vanilla-scented body wash, Craig reaches out to twist the handle to turn the shower off and slowly pushes the curtain aside to grab his towel and dry himself off. Wrapping it tightly around his waist, he picks up the clothes he had been wearing before, then nearly drops them right back onto the bathroom floor. Jesus fucking Christ, talk about toxic shit. How had he not realized before that he was walking around smelling like that?
Making a face, and holding them the furthest away from his nose that he can, Craig pushes open the bathroom door and begins walking back down the hall. He should probably just dump these things in the trash, honestly, because he's not sure there's enough laundry detergent in the world to bring them back from the pit of filth they seem to have wandered into. Craig frowns, eyeing the clothes in his hand as he pauses outside his room. The jeans he could probably live without if he had to, but the Red Racer shirt is one of his favorites, and he feels like he has to at least make an effort to save it. After all, what kind of fan would he be if he didn't?
He sighs, moving on, deciding that the smartest thing to do right now would be to, if nothing else, just go and put these things into a washing machine for now and bring the rest of his shit tomorrow to wash it all together. It's not like there's anyone around in the dorms right now anyway, so the chances of his stuff being stolen are extremely slim; and even if a burglar did decide to raid the fucking dorm laundry room for whatever reason, if they had a working nose, Craig doubts they'd get very far.
He drops his clothes into the machine nearest the door and begins trudging back to his room. He hesitates, with his hand on the doorknob, a familiar fluttery nervous feeling beginning to swirl around inside him, and he glances down at himself. He's only wearing a towel right now. If the universe wanted to get one last punch in, to really kick him while he's down, then Tweek would be on the other side of this door, sitting on Clyde's bed, just waiting for Craig to walk in and make a fucking fool of himself yet again.
Craig pulls his hand back and stares at the door. No, he thinks to himself. There's no way Tweek will be in there. Not after the way Craig had treated him earlier. He's the nicest person Craig's ever known, but even Tweek has to have his limits. But what if you're soulmates? Craig's rarely-heard inner optimist pipes up. What if you're meant to be together?
But why would he give me another chance? Craig knows he probably looks crazy, just standing in the hallway in nothing but a towel, his eyes glued to a closed door like it holds all the secrets of the fucking universe. Not to mention the fact that he's fucking arguing with himself like a psycho. Thank God he's not talking to himself out loud; that would be crossing a line.
Because. His inner optimist sounds a lot like Clyde, so much so that Craig actually glances around to check if his best friend is, in fact, standing behind him. Nothing can keep soulmates apart.
He deserves a better soulmate than me, Craig's brain protests. I'll never be good enough for him.
But even as he's fighting with himself, Craig is still eyeing the door, wondering if his inner Clyde could possibly be right. Could Tweek actually be waiting for him inside? Craig tears his eyes away from the door and looks up to the ceiling, silently pleading with every fiber of his being that he is. Even if it's not because the universe thinks they're soulmates, and it's just trying to humiliate Craig even more, please, God, please let Tweek be in that room right now.
Because this time, Craig swears to himself, he's not going to fuck it up. This time he's going to do what he should have done in the first place, what Tweek has already been able to do: he's going to be honest, about everything, even if it ends up killing him from shame or embarrassment, and even if it turns out that Tweek can't handle the fact that he has such a fucked up history with Stan fucking Marsh. At least he would know that he'd tried. He owes Tweek that much; if he can open up about his past, then so can Craig.
Taking a deep breath, Craig reaches out for the doorknob again, already starting an attempt at rehearsing a conversation in his mind. He pulls open the door and steps inside, a faint, "Hey," dying on his lips as his stomach sinks down to the soles of his bare feet.
The room is dark and empty, just the way he'd left it. And even though he knew that there was a ninety-nine point nine percent chance that it would be, that doesn't stop the crushing sense of disappointment that hits Craig like a fucking cement truck. He'd let himself hope despite knowing it was hopeless, and now he just feels even worse than he had before. This is what he gets for listening to his inner Clyde.
He kicks the door closed behind him with his heel, trades the towel around his waist for an old pair of black Red Racer boxers, and collapses face first onto his bed, letting out a muffled whimper into his pillow.
It really is over. And he's got no one to blame but himself.