And now my heart stumbles on things I don't know
My weakness I feel I must finally show
—Mumford and Sons, Awake My Soul
Tweek's point of view:
Craig's apartment was strangely cute. Everything matched from their half circle of a couch, plush cushions of which looked like giant cotton balls, to their spherical kitchen table with its crescent chairs. I liked how everything was organized—multiple game consoles with arranged cords, movies in alphabetical order on a rack, homework and books stacked neatly in four specific piles—and it smelt cleanly lived in.
The floors and walls were neutral tones, spotless save for a drawn portrait Craig must've done of Clyde. The familiar brunette had a realistic handlebar mustache and a quirky look on his face that went well with his fake facial hair—or what I hoped was fake. There were no dirty dishes loitering around their petite kitchen and when Kenny was offered to grab himself a drink, I saw that even their stock in the refrigerator was orderly. I hadn't expected three college boys to be so precise, let alone tidy.
They were lucky Token came from a rich family. He was making bank for them without even having the try, mostly because the bank was already there. I was damn sure that each of them had their own room and quite possibly a bathroom as well. This was a nice apartment complex, very safe and well established.
Seeing how successful the childhood friends were—it hurt, because where they were productively fulfilling their lives, I was stuck at home in the same bedroom I've always had with the same stuff I've always owned. I never grew up with toys or objects that would leave with age; I'd grown up with appliances, needful things that would stick around in every household like a computer and a vacuum. My parents and psychologist didn't believe I was ready to be my own guardian. They'd keep me in that house for as long as they could, and I can't really blame them.
Kenny threw his arm around me, probably tuning into my sour mood. He was intuitive like that, and his talent would get him somewhere. Mine would keep me in South Park forever. When he shook me gently, I tried to smile and shook my head when he offered me his soda. Leaning in close, he whispered against my ear with a voice that fit his illusive personality, "I brought you here for a reason. You're going to get better."
Finally standing from the ground, Craig glanced over, eyes roving over Kenny and I before focusing solely on me. It wasn't like I was trying to be egotistic because conceited wasn't even on my roster of characteristics, but he'd been staring at me a lot and I knew the reason why. I looked weird. My features were strange. And for some ungodly reason that made him want to draw me.
Under his gaze I was translucent. How far could he read into me just by looking at me with that artistic eye of his? I didn't think of him as an oblivious person. He knew things when all the signs were there. I just wasn't aware of how many of them I was giving off. Could he tell that feelings for him resided inside of me? Did he know that I missed him terribly? That after four years I couldn't erase the imprint he didn't even know he'd put on me?
"Are you guys a couple or something?" He asked, flicking his finger between Kenny and I. Clyde's girlfriend, a cute little thing with cute little boobs and a cute little waist with cute little things and a cute little voice, had a better chance with Kenny than I did, and I was a virgin. Kenny loved virgins. The blonde laughed, hugging me closer, and I blanched. "Alright. I get it." Changing the subject, he declared, "We're wasting time." I've wasted four years, Craig. I think a few minutes more won't be a problem. "I'll show you to my room—"
"That's where all of his artsy fartsy stuff is," the brunette girl teased before offering a short, "Here." She grabbed the hem of Craig's sodden shirt. "I'm doing laundry right now so I'll just throw this in with everything else." The jealousy I felt when I watched their next display was righteous. Craig lifted his arms above his head in physical acceptance and Clyde's girlfriend made a cute little giggle as she jumped to get his shirt over his head and arms.
"Might as well take my pants too," Craig muttered as though it were a bad thing. Oh my, not for Tweek Tweak it wasn't. Dear mother of God. Sweet Jesus. "Fucking Julibee," he swore as he undid his jeans, stepping halfway out of them before lifting up one leg still inside to give to the brunette girl. She gave him a humorless stare and swiped them off his extended limb, marching down the hallway without a care that a gorgeous man was standing right in front of her—in boxer-briefs.
My heart rate increased, a sensation that was instantaneous, one that I was aware of so quickly that my head was suddenly scatterbrained upon its arrival. Eyes stuck to him, literally as though I'd touched burning metal and I was infusing—melting—to the surface, I ogled. Craig had a beautiful body and I was whimpering in my mind the more I took him in.
The Tuckers had always been a tall family and that gene had certainly been passed down to him. The noirette was gangly, elegantly so for he'd never been awkward with his structure; all slender limbs and lean muscle that was definitive, not over-bearing. It just looked good on him, like a healthy mixture of strength and bones. His skin was pallid, accentuated by his raven locks and dark brows, even by the icy blue color of his eyes.
There was something in him that I hadn't been able to locate in anyone else. I could feel it in the subtle lines and shapes of his body, small things like the firm lift and curve of his shoulders or the planes of the sinewy cords making up his back. It was just that I could imagine touching him, feeling the vibrations of his pulse beneath his skin, where I couldn't manifest the thought with others. I'd tried so hard to just forge the thought so, so many times, but I couldn't even fake it. Craig was unique to me like that.
His ribcage was wide, abdomen flat, and he had protruding hipbones that highlighted his V lines. They were light indents that shadowed his pale skin and made my mouth water. And dropping from his navel was a slight trail of hair, an appealing vertical course that disappeared beneath the waistline of his boxer-briefs. I wanted to look lower, to gawk unabashedly at his crotch as though I were Kenny and could look anywhere suggestively without a care for the consequences, only I wasn't Kenny at all and I did care. I cared a lot. So I stopped and tried to tell myself that a glimpse had been good enough.
It was a lie.
As Craig returned his attention to us, I quickly schooled my expression but my blush would be a permanent facet. Kenny must've been giving the noirette that aforementioned suggestive stare because Craig joked, "I think your eyes have boners, dude. You've seen me naked before; learn to control yourself."
"It's been four years," Kenny sniggered. "At least just give me a few seconds to wallow in your sex appeal." The perverted blonde had no shame. "You weren't nearly this delicious when you were seventeen."
"Alright," Craig said. "He's getting into the creepy adjectives. It's time to find some clothes." He started down the hall, motioning for me to follow, and oh fucking hell he had the most adorable butt I've ever seen. "Kenny, you can go hang out with the woman. Just don't fuck her, alright? Clyde really likes this one." His thighs were so slim and I didn't even care that Kenny had slapped my ass as I followed Craig like I was sure Julibee had done when she was a puppy.
I was still consumed with drooling over him that I barely noticed when we entered his room, when in fact he'd already started sifting through his dresser drawers, asking, "You're gay, right?" His question was enough to knock me out of my heated stupor, and suddenly it was like coming out all over again. I'd been so terrified to tell my parents that I'd thrown up in the bathroom. I didn't want to throw up in Craig's. That would be so mortifying.
"Uhm—y-yeah. I—uh. I'm gay." To distract my eyes and thoughts, I took a look around the noirette's room. It was significantly empty and impeccably clean. He had a bed, a dresser, a comfy looking chair, and a ceiling light with cool orbs blocking out the light bulbs. That was it, furniture wise. It was everything else that caught my attention and irked a sense of fondness out of me.
Littering the top of his dresser in an artistic mess were pencils of different led weights, pastels, charcoals, markers and scattered brushes and other odd tools that must've been for etching or cross-hatching or something of that nature. There were paints in tubes ranging in size and others in twist-lid containers that looked expensive.
Laid out on the floor were captivating works of art, drawings and paintings that went beyond Craig's sketchbook. I had to wander over and kneel down to look at them more closely. I had to touch the edges of the paper just so I could prove to myself that they were real, that Craig had really left South Park to pursue this overwhelming talent of his. He captured emotion dreadfully well. I knew what these people were thinking. I understood them. Craig understood them, and he kept them forever with nothing but his hands and a utensil.
"Craig," I breathed, glancing back at him to see that he was wearing jeans again. He glanced over from plucking specific pencils off his dresser, raising his brows in question. "Why are you in school for this? You can g-go out and sell these as they are, dude." I was genuinely astonished by how slow he was taking things. What he had was raw talent—he could do so much and he was only twenty-one.
All he did was shrug. "I can do better. All of those are alright. I like them just fine, I guess." And it was as simple as that for him. He was perfectly fine with calling his artwork alright like people wouldn't pay for a portrait or commission their pet or whatever people in the art business did to sell or purchase pieces. Perhaps he was just pushing himself, and if that was the case, then I wanted to see what he thought of as magnificent. I really would.
Pushing myself up from the floor, defeated and somewhat weary, I turned around to find Craig dragging a large pad of paper out from underneath his bed. The way he had his back bent to retrieve it made my chest tighten. Did he always draw people shirtless? Sweet Jesus, I was going to have this blush stuck to my cheeks all day.
"You can sit on my bed," he suggested, pulling out an easel as well. As I did what he told, I asked myself if this was really happening. How had things ended up so peculiar? Tension was knotted in my stomach and my nerves were going berserk, making me anxious and jittery. I didn't want to sit in one spot, but if I had to force myself, I would. I'd done it in front of an entire class of watchful students—I could do it one more time with Craig.
Alone in his room. And he was shirtless.
My stomach balled up tighter, constricting and removing any comfort I felt as I removed my boots and sat cross-legged on Craig's bed. The same bed he slept in, and probably touched himself in. In my veins, my pulse beat vigorously. Why did I do these things to myself?
And then I realized that I was floating. Or rather, I felt and probably looked like I was floating, because even though I had sat down, I hadn't stopped moving. This would be my first experience with a water bed. It pulled a giggle from the anxious debris in my stomach as I bounced a little and continued to drift up and down. "You have a water bed," I stated.
"I do," he agreed. When I raised my eyes, my frantic thoughts returned. Craig had position his easel and chair and this was honestly going to take place right now. How the fuck was I supposed to believe this? I wasn't a model. The way the noirette was acting so nonchalant set me on edge even though it was characteristic of him to be so stoic and unresponsive.
"I'm going to do something," he began, peeking out from behind his easel to which I figured he was checking proportions and positioning, "and it might be a little weird." Standing, he stepped up to the edge of his bed until he was right in front of me. My head was nearly level with his crotch. I could give him a blow job in our current position.
Instead, I looked up at him to which he explained, "I like to feel what I'm drawing. It just helps with texture and volume and whatnot. So I'm going to get a little touchy." He was so straightforward about it, dear God. I could do nothing but sit in petrified stillness as his hands reached out, fingertips skimming along my face. It felt like I was paralyzed but still coherent with the way my heart was hammering against my ribcage, yet I couldn't scream or jerk or anything.
Craig's digits were surprisingly smooth as they passed my temples, gently fingering the strands of my hair. He ruffled my blonde locks and situated them in a way that was either messier or tidier, I wasn't sure, too focused now on the way his thumbs spread across my brow. I couldn't look at his face or the diligent stare he was giving me and shyly glanced down, withering at how gentle his touch was.
He traced the curve of my jaw, lifting my face when I didn't even realized I'd tried to drop it. His thumb flitted up the center of my chin before I felt its soft pad graze my bottom lip. Unconsciously I wet it, breath hitching when I realized what I'd done. Craig wasn't fazed by the action, his thumb persistent as it slipped across my mouth, the indent just beneath my nose. I wanted to lean into his touch so bad and had to bite my tongue when his fingers brushed against the apples of my cheeks.
This was the first time anyone had touched me in such a way. It ached the same way it soothed knowing that it was Craig doing this to me. I liked him more than anybody else possibly could. Since I was twelve, eight years of my life had been secretly handed over to him and I had done nothing that entire time. Liking him was a secret torture, one that I didn't believe would ever end.
A chuckle cracked my brittle shell of foggy-minded isolation. My eyes quickly averted to Craig's in a mixture of confusion and embarrassment. Had I been that obvious? All he did was slip his index finger down the bridge of my nose to poke the tip of it. He turned around then, sitting himself back down at his easel.
"W-What should I do?" I asked, shifting anxiously on his bed, skin still tingling at the memory of his touch. "You're not going to like, make me smize like Tyra Banks are you?"
"No," Craig scoffed. "Just go ahead and sit there. You're always smizing."
I did not always smile with my eyes, but I refrained from humiliating myself by arguing and making this awkward, so I did as he said and sat there with my hands in my lap. His bed was dark and snug, his comforter like a plush nest to hold me in place. What I wanted to do was lay down.
"Look at me." I turned my face toward the direct line of his sight. "I don't want to draw you from any angles. Your features are actually very symmetrical, so this will be fun." His lips perked up as I thought to myself: Fun for him. He didn't have blue eyes like frozen water burning holes across his face. I could literally feel every stroke of his pencil as he mirrored my image onto paper.
More than that, I felt like I was being interrogated. Like he was picking me apart one feature at a time. It could've been that I was just being paranoid, but I had to wonder if everyone he drew felt like this. It was enticing the same way it was awful. Every time he glanced past the wall of his easel my heart jumped out of turn. I was stuck in limbo, caught between looking away and staring back at him just as intensely. Craig wouldn't be interested in a pushover, but the thought of challenging him intimidated me.
I'm not sure how long we stayed like that without any interruptions. Long enough for my legs to grow tired and for that pin-prickling sensation to harness my lower limbs. Craig allowed me to stretch them out, warning me not to move from the waist up. He said that the lighting was perfect where I was, but even so I managed to screw that up, and he grumbled in irritation. Flipping to a new sheet of paper, he started all over.
Time obviously didn't exist in limbo, because it felt like no time had passed at all from the moment he began his new drawing to when he finished. My stomach never growled; my throat was never parched. I liked just being able to sit in a room with Craig and watch him watch me, especially after four years. I missed not seeing him daily, not that we ever communicated, but he was still there. He had still existed.
For a while I had actually believed that the three were never real. I could remember having to ask people if they remembered just so I could say to myself that I wasn't going any crazier. Seeing their families at the grocery store or in town was like opening the present I never expected to receive. They were the real proof.
"What is it you want?" Craig randomly asked, shattering the silence that had built up comfortably between us. I was shocked by his question and felt my cheeks coming to life. You. Your body. Your dick. I'm serious—just come back over here and I'll give you a blow job.
Maybe I looked horrified or suspicious because the next thing he said was, "You just look sad." He was speaking to my portrait. "Like you need something."
I smiled forlornly because he had no idea. "So you're like Kenny."