A/N:
:) Last chapter.

When morning comes, Craig is still in mostly the same position: flat on his stomach on his mattress, though now his head is turned to the left instead of his face being buried in his pillow. Apparently his body has some secret killer self-preservation skills that only activate when he's sleeping, and it's decided that suffocation is not an option. That makes sense; after all, he can't provide the government with hours of entertainment if he's too busy being dead to continue humiliating himself every day.

It takes more time for Craig to fully wake up than usual; all of the emotional turmoil from the day before had, unsurprisingly, left him absolutely exhausted. Bits and pieces of the dream he had been having flit through his mind, though none of them remain long enough for his groggy brain to put together what exactly it had been about. There's a flash of yellow, a vague image of something like red rope, or string, or maybe even licorice, it's impossible to tell. His eyes still closed, not ready to join the waking world just yet, Craig inhales through his nose; he's immediately convinced that there must have also been a gingerbread house involved somehow, because why else would his brain conjure up that particular smell for him right now?

He feels a dampness against his cheek and he shifts around on the mattress as much as his weak limbs will allow. There's no good way to tell if the dampness had been caused by tears or drool; both are equally plausible at this point in Craig's miserable life. Either way, it's gross and uncomfortable and he really doesn't want to keep lying there in his own bodily fluids any longer than he has to. Bracing one of his palms flat against the mattress, he pushes off with as much strength as he can muster, a low grunt escaping his mouth with the effort.

It turns out that, sometime during the night, he'd cocooned himself inside his fluffy white comforter, the huge blanket now wrapped tightly around his entire body. In the haze of sleepiness, Craig doesn't realize that he's effectively trapped himself inside his own bedding until he attempts to roll over to get away from the mystery puddle. He can tell what's going to happen a split-second before it does, and he flails his arms, nearly smacking himself in the face, but it's no use. With his legs basically stuck together in a pantslike version of a straitjacket, he has no way to stop his own momentum, and he ends up rolling all the way off of his bed and onto the floor, landing with a loud thump on his back on the carpet.

"For fuck's sake," he mumbles, reluctantly forcing his eyes open so he can actually see what he's doing as he tries to untangle himself from his blanket prison.

It's bright in the room, thanks to the sunlight streaming through the window, and it takes a moment for Craig's eyes to adjust to the difference in lighting. Squinting up at a weird spot on the wall that seems to actually be glittering, he props himself up on his elbows and yawns. A weird squeaking sound emerges from his throat that makes him sound remarkably like a baby bird, and all Craig can think is, Thank God Clyde's not here yet. He'd never let Craig hear the end of it if he'd heard him make a sound like that.

He blinks a few times, but the wall is still sparkling like crazy and he sighs internally, resigning himself to the fact that he's obviously finally gone completely crazy. Carefully balancing himself on his left elbow, he reaches up with his right hand to rub the sleep crystals out of his eyes. He winces a bit when his hand makes contact; the area around his eyes is tender to the touch, and he realizes that his eyes must be swollen from all the crying he'd done the day before. It figures. Clyde's been crying his face off for eighteen years and nothing ever happens to him, but Craig cries for one fucking day and his face puffs up like a fucking fugu fish. Goddammit.

As gently as possible, he clears all the junk from his eyes and does another round of blinking to make sure it's all gone. Pushing his blanket to the side, he crosses his legs underneath himself and leans his head against his bed, seriously considering texting Clyde and being that dick that cancels a Christmas celebration with barely any notice. He knows Clyde would probably understand, but he would definitely be disappointed, and Craig can't help but feel like he's disappointed enough people lately.

Plus, texting Clyde would mean he has to actually find and charge his phone. Craig knows he'd dropped it on the floor when his legs had stopped working last night, but he hadn't bothered to look for it. Why would he, so he can stare at the few text messages Tweek had sent him last week and just be reminded again of how badly he'd fucked up the best thing to ever happen to him? Or so he can see all the messages he'd ignored from Stan and relive that whole fucking experience?

Craig groans, already feeling sick just from the thought. He's starting to wonder if maybe he should just stop having a phone completely. It's not like he's popular enough to really need one; he hates actually calling anyone, there are a fuckton of wifi-based texting apps, plus it would save him an extra hundred bucks a month. That's almost thirty full loads of laundry. His gaze drifts back up to the sparkly spot on the wall as he tries to do the math to figure out what else he could do with an extra hundred dollars every month.

And that's when he sees it.

It's not a sparkly spot on the wall, it's a strip of shiny silver tinsel taped to the wall, just above Craig's desk, and it only looks like it's glittering because of the sun's rays reflecting off of it. For a second, Craig feels a sense of relief at the knowledge that he's not, in fact, insane; but then he remembers two very important things: he hadn't hung fucking tinsel on the walls, and it definitely had not been there when he'd gotten back to the room last night. Sure, he'd been absolutely drowning in his own pit of dark despair, but he's pretty confident he would have noticed mysterious silver shit adorning the walls of the room, and he hadn't, so… Where the hell had it come from?

Even as he's silently asking himself the question, he's already sure he knows the answer. Clyde. It has to be. Because who else would take it upon themselves to last-minute decorate a room with dollar store tinsel and– Wait. Are those cookies? Craig furrows his brow in confusion when he catches sight of a plate sitting on his desk that also definitely had not been there before, filled with three impossibly tall cookie towers. That's when Craig realizes that the scent of gingerbread that he'd attributed to his dream had never actually gone away.

He sits up straighter, his mouth already watering now that he knows that the cookies aren't just a dream construct created by his brain to taunt him. Very few people know that gingerbread cookies are Craig's absolute fucking favorite cookie in the whole entire world, and he's overwhelmed with a sudden rush of gratitude for his best friend. Leave it to Clyde to attempt to cheer him up with food.

Craig covers his mouth with his hand as he yawns again, and turns his head to the right, scooting himself forward a bit on the carpet at the same time. He's expecting to see Clyde sitting on his own bed, giving him those hopeful puppy-dog eyes that he's been known for ever since elementary school. He's not expecting to come face-to-branch with a fucking Christmas tree that's made it its mission to stab his cheek with what seems like millions of tiny pine needles.

"Ow, what the fuck!" he yelps, rubbing his face and glaring at the beautifully-decorated tree like he's going to be able to intimidate it into becoming sentient and apologizing. Where the fuck did Clyde get a tree?

"Oh! Um, are you okay?"

No.

No way.

No fucking way.

Not possible.

Five words. Five words, in that voice, are all that it takes to send Craig scrambling backwards with the speed of fifteen fucking racecars, his heart pounding faster than it ever has before. He hits his bed and keeps going, backward-crawling up the mattress like some kind of freak crab or insect or some other thing that makes a habit of crawling backwards, he doesn't know, he can hardly fucking think straight. Even when he's got nowhere else to go and his back is pressed right up against the wall, his legs keep moving, as if he's trying to build up enough kinetic energy to just blast himself out of the dorm and away from that voice.

How is this happening? How the fuck can this be happening right now? Tweek can't be here. Why the fuck would he be here? There's no fucking way this is real. Craig gulps, his throat dry, realizing that he's clenching both his hands into fists so tightly his nails are digging into the skin of his palms, and that it really fucking hurts. And if it hurts, that means that… Oh, fuck.

"Uh," he squeaks, and then clears his throat, willing himself to not sound like a fucking chipmunk when he tries again. "Uh. T'what are you doing here?" No. Shit. He'd meant to say Tweek's name, but once a-fucking-gain his brain can't give him a fucking break and he'd sounded like some dumbass from a third-rate Shakespeare play.

There's silence from the other side of the room that seems to stretch on forever. Craig is just starting to wonder if maybe he's actually fucking nuts after all when the sound of jingling fills the air. Tweek steps out from behind the Christmas tree, and Craig has to physically hold his chin with one hand to keep his jaw from falling open.

Tweek is wearing the same clothes he'd been wearing the night before: black jeans and a dark green, long-sleeved button-up shirt, almost the same color as the needles on the tree. A couple of the buttons right near the bottom aren't buttoned properly, like Tweek had gotten dressed too quickly and not double-checked before leaving, and, God, that's so fucking cute. The blonde is fidgeting with his fingers like crazy, his eyes on the carpet and a faint tinge of pink dusting his cheeks, but what Craig can't get over is the fucking off the charts adorable little Santa hat sitting askew on top of his head. There's two little bells and a pompom at the top, and a tiny purple bow made of ribbon stuck to the front of it, and if Craig stares at it any longer he might actually die of fucking cuteness overload, but he's not sure he can force himself to look away.

"Please don't be mad," Tweek starts, letting go of his fingers and beginning to tug on the sleeves of his shirt instead. "But– Last night, at Clyde's, I sort of…told him that I'd seen you, and he had this idea…" He bites his lip nervously, his next sentence coming out in a rush. "He said you haven't had very good luck with Christmases, and that it would cheer you up if you woke up to your room all decorated, and I still had your key that I forgot to give back to you and… I'm s-sorry." He drops his arms to his sides only to almost immediately lift them up again and continue pulling at his sleeves. "I d-didn't mean to upset you." The stutter adds a couple points onto the cuteness total for sure, but it breaks Craig's heart a little at the same time, because he's never wanted Tweek to be this kind of nervous in front of him.

"What?!" Unable to focus on everything else Tweek had just said, Craig is entirely unable to compute that last sentence in his mind. Upset him? Doesn't Tweek know that he could never do that? "I mean, uh, no, I'm not, um, upset. I just, uh, wasn't expecting to see you here. Or, you know, ever again." He doesn't mean to say the last part, the words just tumble out into the open air; and suddenly, in a twist worthy of one of those stupid fucking M. Night Shyamalan movies, instead of freezing and being unable to say anything else, Craig is word-vomiting like there's no tomorrow. "Cause I don't know what Clyde told you about me, but the truth is that I'm a dick, and, like, not like the good kind, but like an actual dick, Tweek–" He feels his face heat up the second he says Tweek's name. "–and I'm, fuck, I'm so fuckin' sorry, I know I shouldn't have just fuckin' left last night but I'm just– I'm a fuckin' mess, like fuck, you have no idea, and you, you're fuckin' perfect as shit, and you deserve so much better than a fuckin' dumbfuck asshole like me." He pauses to take a breath, but before he can continue, Tweek lifts his head up and makes eye contact, and Craig once more loses the ability to speak for a moment.

"You're not an asshole," Tweek says quietly, his tone more serious than ever before. "And you're not a dick. I don't blame you for leaving last night. I know that my p-past is hard to take. It's okay if you d-don't want to deal with it. I just–"

"I do want to deal with it!" Craig blurts out, unable to help himself. Somehow, he doesn't have a fucking clue how, it seems like he's been granted a third chance with Tweek, and there is no fucking way he's going to let it pass him by a third time. If he wrecks this opportunity again, the universe might as well just open up a sinkhole underneath his feet and suck him down to Hell because nothing that Satan would throw at him could be any worse than knowing he'd had three shots at happiness and screwed it up. "I really fuckin' do, I…" His brain stalls for a second and he pulls out a sentence from one of Clyde's stupid chick flicks, a sentence he'd never thought he would hear himself say. "I want to give you the fuckin' world, Tweek."

Something flickers in Tweek's eyes, and he takes a tentative step closer to the bed. He tugs one of his sleeves all the way over his hand and clutches the fabric in his fist. "You do?"

Craig nods, instinctively scooting forward on the mattress as Tweek takes another small step towards him. "I do," he says, hardly able to hear himself over the sound of his heart thumping in his ears. He doesn't know how he's managing to keep himself together, maybe it's a fucking Christmas miracle or something. Maybe Clyde had been right about Christmas magic after all.

Another step. "Are you sure? I, um, I'm not easy to be around, sometimes. I get panic attacks and–"

"I'm sure." Craig slides another few inches towards the edge of the bed. He almost feels like a magnet, drawn to Tweek for reasons he can't fully put into words.

Tweek moves closer, only a couple feet of space separating them now. "Sometimes I forget to, um, take my anxiety medication, and I–"

"I'll help you remember." Craig takes first a deep breath, and then a huge risk, as he pushes himself up off the bed with both hands. He wobbles on shaky legs for a moment, and then takes a step closer to Tweek.

Tweek mirrors the movement, and suddenly they're so close Craig can feel his body heat radiating off of him. "It's so weird," the blonde says softly, raising one hand and lightly brushing a few strands of Craig's hair off of his face. "It's only been a week, but I missed you so much it felt like–"

"Forever," Craig finishes, his voice barely above a whisper.

Almost in unison, they both reach out, wrapping their arms around the other and holding on tight. Craig doesn't know if he's the one who initiates it or if it's Tweek, but suddenly they're kissing, the scent of cinnamon and coffee all that Craig can smell, and it's even better than it had been the first time. It's like the whole room around them disappears and all that exists is the two of them. Craig slides his hands down the blonde's back, resting them on Tweek's hips and Jesus fucking Christ, it's like those hips where fucking made for him. His fingers slip underneath the fabric of Tweek's shirt, just barely grazing the skin of his back, and the sound Tweek makes is something Craig's going to be hearing in his dreams until the end of time.

There's no time or space, light or dark, cold or hot; there's only Craig Tucker and Tweek Tweak, two fractured souls that, now that they've found each other, have finally found what they need to be whole again. And neither one of them is ever going to let go.

"Red Red Racer, he races 'round the world–!"

Until the deafening sound of a familiar ringtone blasts through the air, causing them to break apart, each of them letting out a breathless, startled gasp.

"Jesus Christ!" Craig looks around for his phone before remembering that it's dead. He watches Tweek pull his own cell phone out from his pocket, realizing at the same time that he's standing there only wearing a pair of Red Racer boxers. But somehow, that's not as utterly humiliating as it had been before. "That's your ringtone too?"

"Yeah." Tweek frowns down at the screen for a moment, and then a tiny smile tugs at his lips and he holds his phone out to Craig, face up in his palm. "Clyde wants to say something to you."

Craig looks down at the tiny screen, unconsciously reaching out to take hold of Tweek's free hand. Intertwining their fingers together, he lets a genuine smile, his first in God knows how long, blossom across his face when he reads the message, the words accompanied by a Christmas tree and a heart emoji on either side.

Merry Christmas, bro. Don't forget to unwrap your present!

And then, as he's reading, a second message pops up underneath the first.

(It's Tweek. He's your present.)

Craig holds Tweek's phone up, screen facing the blonde, and raises an eyebrow, what feels like three separate swarms of nervous butterflies zooming around inside him. "Looks like he gave me some pretty explicit instructions too."

Tweek reads the second message, and then gives Craig the sweetest, most mischievous smile he's ever seen and the noirette feels his knees go weak.

"I don't know," Tweek says teasingly, tossing his phone onto Craig's bed and pulling him in close again. He leans in, the bells on his hat jingling again and his hair tickling Craig's nose as he carefully presses a kiss to the corner of Craig's mouth. "Maybe it was a wrong number."

A/N:
Thank you so much for reading this story! I appreciate you all so much and I've had a lot of fun writing it.
I have ideas for a sequel and a few oneshots in this universe, but I'm not sure if I'll be crossposting them here when I get around to writing them, or if I'm just going to stick with AO3 in the future. I just figured I'd mention that in case any of you lovely humans were interested.
I hope you have a fantastic day/evening/night/morning wherever you are!