Cheery carousel music floats through the air, the same thirty second melody playing over and over, like it's on some kind of time loop. Craig glances around at the other people standing in line with him to see if any of them are getting as irritated with the relentless tune as he is, but every time he tries to get a look at someone's face, something always seems to get in the way. The person he's trying to look at always turns away just at the right moment, or someone else obscures his view, or, sometimes, it's almost like people just disappear into thin air. That's not possible, though. People don't just disappear.

It seems like an eternity before he reaches the front of the line, but at the same time, it also feels like barely any time has passed at all. It must be the song; hearing it so many times has just about scrambled his brain, or something. Craig hands his ticket to the carnival worker and steps forward, pushing against the heavy wooden door in front of him with both hands. For a moment it doesn't budge, and Craig has to use all of his strength, gritting his teeth as he puts his whole body into shoving it open. As he's pushing, his eyes trace over a pattern of knots in the wood, and he realizes that this door looks exactly like the one attached to Tweek's house.

Immediately after that thought enters his mind, the door swings open with such sudden ease that Craig almost loses his balance, stumbling forward into the darkness. He flails his arms around in the air, spinning them at his sides like two extremely useless windmills, but it's the cold, hard surface in front of him that he crashes into that stops his momentum and keeps him from falling onto his face. The door slams shut behind him and it's only then that Craig realizes he doesn't have a clue what his ticket had been for.

"Ow, fuck," he says – or, tries to say, because although he opens his mouth, and he's fairly certain he can feel his vocal cords moving deep in his throat, he doesn't actually make a sound. The combination of utter blackness and deafening silence where there should have been some kind of noise causes a flutter of panic to rise up in Craig's chest. He decides that it doesn't matter where he is, and that all he wants right now is to get out of there and away from this stupid carnival. He doesn't even know why he'd agreed to come in the first place, or even who it had been that had invited him.

He backs up a couple of steps, snaking one arm behind his back to try to feel for the doorknob, but only coming up with empty air. Frowning, he turns, blinking against the wall of pitch-black nothingness that greets him. It's so dark, he can't even see his hand in front of his face. He reaches out, but again his hand is unable to find any sign of a door. That's impossible, he thinks, lurching forward, scrabbling with his fingers as he tries to find some sort of something to grab onto. There had been a door here only seconds ago, it can't have just disappeared into nothing, things didn't do that.

Craig takes another step. Just as his fingertips lightly brush against the surface of…something, the entire place is suddenly lit up with a blinding burst of light, so bright that he needs to instantly clap both hands over his eyes so they don't burn right out of their sockets. "Fuck!" he blurts out, and oh, thank God, he heard himself that time.

His relief is short-lived. Cautiously, Craig peeks through his fingers, blinking hard as his eyes adjust to the light. Once they do, his heart sinks and his stomach begins to gurgle dangerously.

Mirrors.

All around Craig – every wall, the ceiling, and even the floor beneath his feet – is covered in mirrors. There must be hundreds of them, all reflecting back on themselves an infinite number of times; the creepy part, the part that makes all the hairs on the back of Craig's neck stand up and his arms tingle with goosebumps, is that they're not all reflecting the same thing.

Some of them are getting it right, and show Craig just as he is: his old blue chullo pulled haphazardly over his hopelessly messy black hair that he still desperately needs to get cut, his same old indifferent expression on his face, his black hoodie and even blacker jeans, and, of course, those awful, disgusting skull shoes Clyde had made him buy. The rainbow laces almost appear to be glowing in their reflection, which makes them look so much more obnoxious – if that's even possible.

But as much as Craig hates to look at the skull shoes, he would much rather look at them than at any one of the other mirrors that isn't reflecting his current outfit. He might not be the smartest person in the universe, but he's extraordinarily science-minded, and he knows how mirrors are supposed to work. So he knows that when he sees, for example, that one of the mirrors off to his left is showing a reflection of himself with shiny, slicked back hair and horribly tacky pink plastic shutter shades, dressed in a skintight, hot-pink outfit, and sporting a fluffy light purple boa around his neck, something is very, very wrong.

The pink-clad Craig in the mirror turns to him, something the real Craig is more than aware that reflections are not supposed to be able to do, and lifts one hand to blow him a kiss. Craig tears his eyes away and shakes his head. This can't be happening. He flicks his eyes over to another mirror, this one showing an image of Craig dressed like some kind of old ancient royalty, holding a spear.

What the hell kind of place has he wandered into?

He needs to get out of here. Craig turns around again, thinking to himself that at least the lights are on now, so he'll be able to actually see the door–

Or not.

The door, which Craig would swear on his life had been right there not five seconds earlier, is gone. In fact, it no longer looks like it had ever been there in the first place; instead, where the door should be is just another mirror, this one reflecting Craig dressed in yet another outfit that he isn't currently wearing. Just to be sure, he casts a quick glance down at himself to verify, reaching up to pat the yellow poofball adorning the hat on top of his head. Yup, he is definitely not wearing a big, bulky spacesuit, complete with a gigantic, fish bowl-looking bubble of a helmet.

This has to be some kind of trick. There's no way this can be real. Someone has to be fucking with him. Probably Clyde. Craig kicks at the bottom of the mirror in front of him before spinning on his heel and scanning his immediate area for an exit, purposefully not letting his gaze linger too long on any one mirror. As soon as he finds his way out of here, he's going to go find his best friend and give him a piece of his mind.

The problem is, he just needs to find his way out. Craig takes a hesitant, shuffling step forward, holding his arms out in front of him. Thanks to all the mirrors, his depth perception is fucked right now and the last thing he wants to is to crash into one of his own impossible reflections. Knowing his luck, he would probably end up being impaled to death from all the tiny shards of glass.

What a way to go that would be. Death by fucking mirror maze. God, he wishes Tweek was here. Things are always better when Tweek is around. Even when his mere presence turns Craig into the biggest idiot in the entire world, and even though being near Tweek makes Craig's heart ache with the knowledge that ever truly being with him is impossible, he would much rather have him here than be without him. His life just isn't the same without Tweek.

A flash of yellow pops up in the corner of his eye, and Craig looks up just in time to see the reflection of a head full of messy blonde hair disappearing around a corner. He'd know that specific shade of golden yellow anywhere. His heart begins to race but he doesn't hesitate for a second, not even to question how it's possible that Tweek could have possibly just appeared in here when the door is missing. None of that matters, all that matters is that he can catch up to Tweek and finally talk to him, about everything, like he should have months, if not years, ago.

Craig starts to walk faster, almost tripping over himself in his hurry to get to Tweek. He rounds the corner, expecting to see him standing there waiting, with that incredible, impossibly bright smile on face – the smile – but instead, all he sees is another long line of mirrors, no Tweek in sight. He blinks, shaking his head slightly, trying to clear his vision; the light overhead is gleaming off of the glass in just the right way where the mirrors actually look like they're moving, swaying back and forth down the endless hallway. But Craig knows that's not possible – mirrors don't move like that.

He needs to find the exit. Craig continues down the hall, still refusing to look too closely at any of the reflections that are staring back at him – or, in the case of the one that is a dead ringer for his awkward, gangly, middle school self – silently cheering him on with a wide, metal-encrusted grin. Craig shudders as he moves past that mirror, running his tongue over his teeth and thanking God that he'd only ever had to endure one round of braces.

Up ahead, he can swear he hears footsteps, and he pauses, cocking his head to listen, positive that there's also the sound of... Yes, there are definitely voices, and a lot of them. He can't make out what they're saying, or even a general, overall tone…but what he does hear, along with the voices, is that god awful carnival music again. As terrible as it is, Craig finds himself feeling incredibly grateful for it now, because the fact that he can hear it again must mean he's close enough to the exit for the sound to bleed into whatever building he's in. Tweek is probably waiting for him just outside this hellish place.

On and on Craig moves down the hall, the voices getting louder and louder as he goes. He's almost certain he can hear Tweek's voice among the rest, laughing that incredible laugh of his. He can't wait to get out of here so he can tell Tweek how he feels – how he's been feeling. He suddenly doesn't know why he's waited so long. Craig breaks into a slow jog, and then a full-out run, sprinting down the hallway that definitely seems three times longer than it had only moments ago. Where the fuck is the exit?

What feels like an eternity later, Craig finally spies one mirror that looks different than the others; this one is slightly more rounded at the top, with a small metal handle protruding from one of the sides. "Fuckin' finally," Craig mumbles to himself, reaching out to grasp the handle. He pulls hard, but the mirror doesn't budge. He pulls even harder, but still, nothing happens. He lets go of the handle and glares down at his hand, like he's the problem and not the mirrored door.

Isn't that the truth, though? Isn't he always the problem? As far back as he can remember, hasn't he, Craig Tucker, always been the source of all things terrible?

The sound of laughing breaks through the silence and Craig lifts his head, looking directly into the mirror to see, not a reflection, but a memory. He doesn't know why he's all of a sudden able to watch his own memories this way, but quite honestly, he doesn't have the capacity to think too much about it right now. He's too captivated by what the mirror has chosen to show him to care that it shouldn't be able to show him anything at all.

Playing out before him is a scene he remembers all too well, from eight years earlier. Nine-year-old versions of himself, Tweek, Clyde, and Token are gathered in Token's living room, sprawled out on various pieces of inflatable furniture. Craig actually cracks a bit of a smile at the sight; he remembers how he had practically begged his parents for his very own Red Racer inflatable armchair, insisting that if he didn't get one for Christmas that year, he wouldn't be able to call himself a superfan anymore, and that would be just the worst thing.

He hadn't gotten one for Christmas, of course; by then, the fad had died out entirely – unsurprisingly, considering how absolutely useless and prone to damage those things were.

Watching this memory is like watching a video without sound; although the younger versions of himself and his friends are speaking, Craig isn't able to hear anything they're saying, although that incessant carousel music from beyond the door is only getting louder. Fortunately, he doesn't need to hear this memory; he knows exactly what they're talking about – the list. This moment, this night at Token's, had taken place the night after the original list debacle had begun. Clyde had spent most of the night reassuring everyone else that just because he was first on the list, and famous now, they shouldn't worry because he wasn't planning on abandoning them. Token, in turn, had spent most of the night throwing popcorn at Clyde and rolling his eyes, still just as uninterested in the whole situation back then as he is now. It's comforting to see that some things don't change.

But it's Tweek that Craig is watching the most right now. At the time, he hadn't really been paying attention to Tweek all that closely, for no other reason than he had been busy trying to fend off Clyde's annoyingly incessant chatter and completely unwanted advice. Most of Craig's clearest memories of this night are of flipping off his best friend, mumbling irritated answers to all of his questions – which, honestly, were just the same three questions, just asked in slightly differently worded ways each time – flipping him off again, and then having to console him when Clyde burst into tears and sobbed that he was, "just trying to help Craig be happy."

Tweek, though. When Craig watches now, he wonders how he had managed to miss it before – the way Tweek had smiled when Clyde had admitted, in a shocking moment of humility, that he had expected Craig to be much higher than him on the list because Craig has 'infinite coolness'; and then the way his face had fallen when Clyde had started to go and on and about how many girls Craig should be able to get with that coolness. The longer Clyde talked, the more miserable Tweek looked, and the more Craig wishes now that he could go back in time and kick his past self's ass for being so oblivious. Some friend he is. He really doesn't deserve someone like Tweek.

But, God, he just wants so much to be the kind of person who does…

The scene playing on the mirror suddenly fades away, replaced by a new one, but this one isn't a memory – though it definitely originates from Craig's own brain. Well, at least part of it does.

He and Tweek, both of them at their current ages, are sitting in a small booth at a restaurant, with a plate of spaghetti between them. Craig feels his cheeks heat up, knowing what's coming and inwardly cringing because of it. He has never claimed to be original, but something about watching his weird Lady & the Tramp fantasy play out in front of him like a movie, instead of in his head where it belongs, just hits differently. Still, he can't look away. The mirror version of himself slurps at a spaghetti noodle just as the mirror Tweek does the same, and slowly, painfully slowly, they move closer together until first their noses touch, and then, ever so tentatively, their lips.

And Craig suddenly wants to cry. Why is he being shown this, the only thing that he wants more than anything else, which is also the one thing he can't have? What the fuck kind of funhouse nightmare is this place? He grabs the door handle again, twisting it back and forth, pulling and pushing, desperately trying to find a way to get it to open so he can get out and away from everything. "Come on!" he screams at the mirror, hammering on it with one fist as he continues to pull at the handle. The voices from outside rise in volume and Craig suddenly feels like he's drowning in them. His chest aching, he pulls harder and harder at the door, pleading with it to open, to let him escape.

He gives one final tug, loses his balance, and tips over backwards, tumbling down onto his back on the mirrored floor. The door, somehow, comes with him, crashing down around him with a deafening clatter, tiny bits of broken glass raining down over his face–

Craig wakes with a start to the sound of loud voices coming from the next room, sitting straight up on his living room couch before he's even fully conscious. His heart is hammering away in his chest and he swipes both his hands along first his own body, and then along the cushions beneath him, trying to brush away a nonexistent sea of shattered mirror shards before his head clears enough that he realizes it had just been a dream. A wave of relief washes over Craig when he pieces together that he's not actually trapped inside a horrible funhouse, and he hasn't just had a magic mirror of memories fall on top of him

He yawns, swinging one leg off the couch, his foot colliding with the top of his backpack that is laying on the floor in front of the coffee table. He must have fallen asleep as soon as he'd gotten back home this afternoon. If he'd known that was going to happen, he would have at least tried to make it up the stairs to his room. Not only is his living room couch about the most uncomfortable piece of furniture he's ever had the displeasure of sleeping on, judging by the sounds of the voices in the kitchen, both his parents and Tricia are home now, and he's going to have to pass the kitchen, and therefore them, to get upstairs.

Bringing both his hands up to dig sleep crystals out of the corners of his eyes with his thumbs, Craig sighs, a deep, heavy sigh. He really hadn't meant to fall asleep. He hadn't intended on coming straight home after school at all, really; as soon as he'd left the building, he'd started heading downtown, all set to march right on over to the coffee shop to wait for Tweek, so he could tell him everything. Or, not everything, exactly, but everything about the list, and so he could reassure Tweek that being number one meant nothing to him, and that Tweek's friendship was way more important to Craig than some dumb, meaningless list.

The trouble with that, though, was that the closer Craig got to Tweek Bros, the more he realized he had no idea how the actual fuck he was going to be able to get that message across without accidentally saying too much. Things with Tweek are weird enough right now as it is without throwing an awkward as hell confession into the mix, but how was Craig supposed to tell him how much he mattered without going too far and spilling the real reason why? And, even more than that, Craig had realized that he isn't even sure that Tweek would want to talk to him right now. If he's skipping class to hang out with fucking Kenny McCormick, and not telling any of his closest friends about it…maybe there's a reason for that.

Maybe Tweek has decided he's done with Craig, and Clyde and Token for good.

So, halfway to the coffee shop, Craig had turned right back around and gone back to his house instead. He would rather face his parents' wrath about him getting himself suspended again than face a Tweek who wants nothing to do with him. He doesn't think his heart could take it, especially not after the day he's had already.

Craig runs a hand through his hair, grimacing when he feels how disgustingly sweaty his hair is. For about the millionth time, he berates himself for not yet having gotten his hair cut. Although, maybe it doesn't even matter anymore whether he cuts it or not. After all, who would he be trying to impress? He grabs his chullo from where it's gotten stuck between two of the couch's cushions and jams it back onto his head, regretting it immediately when all that accomplishes is flattening his soaking wet hair against his scalp. Gross. He really should just go take a fucking shower.

"Ew." Tricia suddenly pops up next to the couch, eyeing her brother's bruised face and generally disheveled appearance with revulsion. "What the hell happened to you?"

"Fuck off," Craig mutters, leaning back against the arm of the couch and flipping her off. Too much has happened to him today. If he could just put himself into a coma for the next two weeks and sleep it all away, that would be fucking perfect.

Tricia crosses her arms over her chest, rolling her eyes and tossing her strawberry-blonde hair over one shoulder. "Whatever. Move, asshole, Big Brother is on and you're in my way."

Craig considers staying put just to piss her off, but in the end decides that he just doesn't have the energy to fight with her the way he usually does. He drags himself off the couch without another word, hooking one arm through both his backpack's straps and shuffling off down the hallway towards the stairs. He doesn't see the look of shock on Tricia's face as she watches him go, clearly having expected a much bigger confrontation.

He makes it past the kitchen without either of his parents seeing him – thank God for small miracles – and somehow manages to get all the way up the stairs in a relatively decent amount of time, despite being so exhausted the staircase seems like Mount Everest. Craig pushes his bedroom door open and stumbles across the floor, where he faceplants onto his bed. The cold fabric of his pillow feels fucking great against his black eye and for a moment he's almost content, optimistic, even.

Out of nowhere, he remembers that his phone has been dead for a good chunk of the day, and he slides one hand underneath his body to fish it out from his pocket. That must be why he hasn't heard from Tweek, of course it must; he hasn't been ignoring Craig, Craig just hasn't gotten his messages because his phone has been a useless brick in his pocket. It's so obvious now. He yawns again, sliding the device up on the mattress until he can plug it into his charger.

It takes a few minutes for the phone to get enough of a charge on it that messages start coming through, and when they do, all of Craig's earlier despondency comes rushing back in a flood of hopelessness. Three messages. That's it. All he's gotten, all day, from all of his friends combined, are three text messages – and all three of them are from Clyde.

Not Tweek.

Craig doesn't even bother to read whatever it is Clyde has to say. He shoves his phone away from him and buries his face in his pillow. His eyes are burning but he refuses to cry. He won't cry. He's already cried enough over this stuff. But, God, it just hurts, all of it, so much. He'd never thought that his friendship with Tweek would end like this. He'd never really thought it would end at all; at least, not without him telling Tweek that he likes him as more than a friend and Tweek hating him forever over it. That at least Craig would be able to understand, but this? Just ghosting an almost decade-long friendship without a word?

He rolls over onto his back, staring blankly up at his ceiling as a few tears that hadn't gotten the memo about him not crying drip down his face. It just doesn't seem like Tweek…but maybe Craig hadn't really known him at all. Maybe everything he'd thought he knew about him just wasn't true. All of those things he'd written in that green notebook–

Wait.

For the second time in fifteen minutes, Craig sits straight up, his eyes wide as they dart around his immaculately clean bedroom. This is wrong; it shouldn't look like this. There should be shit everywhere, it should look like the entire contents of his closet had thrown up all over the place. It had only been yesterday that he and Clyde had been in here, digging through mountains and mountains of junk, trying to find that stupid notebook so that Clyde and Token could settle their stupid bet. All that junk had still been strewn around when they left to go to the coffee shop, and then out to Raisins, and Craig had gone right to Token's house from there, and then school this morning, so why…

Oh, no.

His mom. She must have gotten sick of the mess and cleaned it herself. Which means…

Suddenly filled with a metric fuckton of energy, Craig leaps up from his bed and starts tearing apart the sheets before dropping down to his knees on the floor and practically crawling all the way underneath the bed, his heart in his throat. His mind is in a panic, spinning around and around in circles as he comes to the horrifying realization that his green notebook, his secret green notebook full of everything he feels about Tweek, is gone.

"Craig?"

His dad's voice drifts down to him from the doorway and Craig slowly slides back out from under his bed, keeping his eyes on the floor. Here it comes – he knows that tone. The school must have called him at work to tell him all about how Craig had gotten suspended for fighting again. Great. What a perfect end to a shitty fucking day. He'd been hoping they'd forget to do that and he'd be able to fly under the radar for the next two weeks.

Craig sighs, wearily sitting up on his knees, resting one arm on the edge of his mattress as he looks up at his dad.

And then instantly freezes when he sees what he's got in his hand.

"Son…" Thomas Tucker holds up Craig's notebook full of Tweek secrets, his next six words hitting Craig like six consecutive punches to his stomach. "We need to have a talk."


Ways I Could Tell Tweek (Even Though I Can't)

1. Leave a note in his locker
2. In a text message
3. Make him a playlist?
4. Take him out for dinner
5. Just tell him face to face. Jesus Christ, Tucker.
6. I can't do this
7. I'll never be able to tell him
8. He deserves so much better than me

9. Ask Clyde for help (heavily crossed out)