I find out a lot about myself by sleeping. Dreams, they are who I am when I'm too tired to be me.

—Jarod Kintz, This Book is Not for Sale

Kenny's advice didn't matter until the second night, a night of which he was missing once again though this time it was because of some guy named Colton. They met at the gas station when Kenny had made a cigarette run earlier that day.

I hadn't been sleeping. I'd been drawing. Images of Tweek often kept me awake until I was so irrationally tired that I could think no more. The moment where he had been terrified by the thought of touching the couch—and yet he'd fought me until he could sleep there, but only with unused bedsheets—was just coming together. I was going heavy on the eyes, bolding his lashes and practically digging the led of my pencil into the paper to emphasize his pupils. That's when I heard him.

A chair might've fallen over or maybe he'd crashed into the kitchen table. Whatever it was, a raucous noise had accompanied his unexpected screams and the dogs came running to my door. That's what scared me the most, that the dogs had come to get my help. I was gone from my chair and the first thing I thought was: Tweek's got this thing called a nightmare disorder. His reaction when he wakes up can be a little hazardous when he's somewhere unfamiliar. He doesn't know where he is, so you have to talk to him first. Let him hear your voice before he sees your body. Give him this to calm him down.

Kenny's words from yesterday. The medication.

They were instructions on how to care for Tweek should anything bad happen. And now this.

At the mouth of the hall just before I exited, I told him wherever he was in the dark all shaking and breathing heavy, "It's okay, Tweek. I'm right here." Light from Token's room obliterated some of the darkness. Clyde's bedroom door was open too, but he wasn't awake. He was the type that passed out and didn't wake up unless the sun was out. His girlfriend quietly ushered the dogs into their room.

From the sound of it, the shuffling and the stunted breaths, Tweek wasn't on the couch anymore. As I left the hallway, I headed for the kitchen. It was a mere few steps away and the withdrawn pitch black figure on the ground gave him away completely. I got on my knees and crawled the rest of the way. "It's Craig. You're at my place so everything's okay." When I reached him, I held out my hands to feel for him just as Kenny'd said.

He does really well with physical contact. Maybe you'll be all warm and cuddly, eh?

Well, I hadn't been sleeping—just dressed for the occasion in boxer-briefs—so my skin was at the same temperature it always was. For Tweek's sake I tried to call upon my core and release some kind of heat, but I couldn't tell if it was working. My fingers wrapped around his arms; I pulled him closer to get some movement into him.

Clammy, that's what he was. Shivering, still breathing uneven. I wrapped my arms around him, cradled his head against my chest, and rubbed his back where I felt his ribcage and spine all hunched over like he was.

His hands sought me out, finding purchase at my bicep where he coiled his fingers around my arm and clutched it tightly. It was like once he could touch me and figure out that I was real, that this was real, his entire condition changed. He slumped against me and exhaled deeply. My fingers began to pick up traces of warmth from his skin. "I'm sorry," he whispered. If I hadn't been so close, I wouldn't have heard him.

"It's okay. I wasn't sleeping." I slipped my hand from his neck to his hair. He turned until his forehead was pressed against my chest.

Voice soft, he murmured, "I thought I could hear music."

I was the one who apologized this time.

It surprised me when he started to sniffle. "Are you okay? You didn't hurt yourself did you?"

"I'm fine." He spoke quickly. "It's just—in my dream, I was—this isn't me, I'm just— It's what's l-left over from what I dreamt." I got it. Like when you were in the middle of a wet dream and woke up orgasming. Or maybe just when you woke up with morning wood. I mean, you had to have been dreaming of something.

"Alright." I just found it kind of funny that he'd called a nightmare a dream, like maybe what normal people categorized as nightmares were just regular dreams to him.

He was still mildly trembling when I nestled him into my arms and helped him stand. "We're going to my room, alright? You'll sleep easier in there. Clyde'll be jealous that you got to cuddle with me, but that's his fault for not waking up. You can gloat about it in the morning. How about that?" I didn't get an answer for a while, all the way up until we reached my room where I think the light comforted him.

"O-Okay." Slowly, I sat him down at the edge of my bed where he started as though he'd forgotten it was a waterbed. His fingers practically fisted my arm and I had to wait for him to calm down before gently shaking it loose. He didn't want to let go.

"It's okay, Tweek. I'm going to be right back. I need to get you some water and then I'm going to give you something to help you fall back asleep. You won't have any nightmares this time." Our eyes met. That fear was inside of them, the one I'd been drawing, just more contained. "Get under the covers and make yourself cozy," I told him, ruffling his hair.

Out in the kitchen, I watched Pretty Lady make the couch back into a bed. She asked me what happened, how was Tweek, would he be okay? As I grabbed a water from the fridge, I said, "He's fine. Kenny said it's a nightmare disorder. Don't worry about the bed. He's sleeping in my room."

"Then I'll make it for you." She was anxious and needed to put something together to calm her nerves.

It's not often that anyone's there to take care of him when this happens. Usually he'll stay up with all of the lights on for the rest of the night. So just lay down with him, okay? Try to get him to fall asleep again.

"Tweek's getting special treatment tonight. We're cuddling it up in my room. Don't worry about the bed," I repeated. She finished it anyways.

"So he's going to be okay?"

"Yes."

We walked down the hall together and disappeared into our separate rooms. In mine, for being such a prude toward germs, used bedsheets, dirt, body fluids and whatever else he had it out for, Tweek was finding all of that to be just the snuggliest. He'd been staring ahead at the wall, blinking monotonously, and perked up when I came in. Perked up as in blushing, but I took that as a good sign. It was a very Tweekesque thing to do. From my dresser I grabbed the bottle of pills Kenny had given me and tapped one out.

The blonde took it and the water, looking as far away from me as he could when he swallowed. He was ashamed again, quite obviously. "A-Are you going to lay down with me?" He must've been worried that I was going to leave when all I was actually doing was closing my door, turning off the light, and shutting off my music.

"Oh yeah. We're about to get real close, little miss." I think he stifled something that sounded like a giggle, or maybe he'd just yawned all cutesy-like.

At my bed, I sidled in next to him and he literally turned frozen until I situated us to my liking. Because he was on his side, I laid on my back and got him close to my side, an arm around his shoulders for his head to rest on. It was the repressed waves of my bed that de-thawed him, slowly eating away at his tension so that he could melt against my chest, cheek flush against my pectoral. Every breath was a warm puff against my skin.

Quietly, because the dark always called for whispers, Tweek said, "I'm sorry you have to do this." He sounded tired, worn out, annoyed.

"Stop apologizing for things you have no control over." I could feel his legs brush against mine and wiggled it over so that they'd touch. Physical contact would help him. It'd let him know I'd be here.

"But they're my dreams," he insisted, flinching before settling against me.

"It's your subconscious. And your subconscious is strong. You can't do anything about that."

My thumb began to stroke the curve of his shoulder. I wondered if it angered him that I always defied whatever he said.

"Strong enough to fuck with me every night." He brought his hands up and started rubbing at his eyes, and when he yawned, his nails bit into my skin. Goosebumps prickled along my arms.

His body was wholly relaxed against mine. "No more thinking about that. Just go back to sleep, okay?"

While he did so, I stared into the darkness and all of the white noise that it was made of, thinking—just thinking. It looked like static, or maybe it was. Darkness itself was just kind of unbelievable. Where did everything go? Did anything have any meaning anymore if it no longer held an image? Did I mean anything anymore?

Once, I painted a dark landscape. Painted it as black as it would go and tried to figure out what was inside it. I have no idea how long I stared at that thing trying to distinguish whatever could be cloaked, and eventually I got so angry because I couldn't figure it out that I threw it away. It scared me not knowing even a possibility. I'd been the one to create it but it was like whatever was inside that black room or pit or maybe it was just the darkest part of the sky, wasn't mine and I couldn't name it if it didn't belong to me. Those were somebody else's things.

Though it had been a couple of years ago, the painting had come back to me in a nightmare. I guessed it was supposed to be symbolic, this monstrous black canvas that ate my bed and then Clyde, and Token, and Julibee, and my favorite restaurant, and this pair of shoes that I really liked. I liked them so much I think I loved them. And when the painting swallowed them up, it was like they had been erased from my life. They became meaningless and disappeared and I became nothing because I didn't have anything that mattered to me anymore. That next day after I'd woken up, I took the dog out on a walk with Clyde and Token, had dinner at the diner down the street, and wore my favorite shoes the entire time. I also repainted a new canvas because I knew then what was inside of it that time.

Lifting a knee, I threw my other arm above my head and curled the one around Tweek a bit tighter. He molded easily to my figure as though he'd melted and shaped himself to fit snug against me. One of his legs bent and his calf crossed mine. His breath had evened out, chest moving rhythmically. I wanted the lights to be on so I could see him. In my head, I imagine he'd blinked himself to sleep, his eyelids growing heavier and heavier until they'd closed entirely. They were resting against his cheeks now, and they'd flutter when he eventually woke up. His lips were parted, something I could tell by the way his breath exited his mouth. I wouldn't mind if he drooled on me.

Pondering Tweek's sleep encouraged my own. It was something that snuck up from around the bend and coiled me inside of its nocturnal cocoon. Kenny hadn't told me what to do once the nightmare-hexed blonde was safely fast asleep. Passing out seemed like a damn good next step, though. The ripples in my bed—this smooth, seamless lull—tugged at my consciousness. A heavy exhale crawled slowly out of me, loosening my muscles and taking with it any tension. My leg fell and I didn't even realize it.

I rolled over on top of Tweek and slammed straight into a liquid wall of dreams that pulled me right under.