Darling, please show your teeth
Just one more dance to help me sleep
Whirl, cold water eyes
Fill the past with friendly nights
Human skin can be hard to live in
—Seabear, I Sing I Swim
Tweek's point of view:
I reminisced and thought to myself that maybe our goodbye had effected Craig just a bit more than it had the first time. He'd been reluctant to say anything to me up until I'd already hugged everyone else, until he could avoid it no longer, and even then he'd stretched it out. I hadn't wanted to leave and maybe he hadn't wanted me to either. That possibility made waking up in my bed by myself a bit more bearable. It was weird that my bed didn't move at every slight shift. One night alone and my body felt cold beneath the sheets, unaccustomed to just my solo temperature after sharing Craig's for such a consistent number of days. Maybe he'd be thinking something similar when he woke up or went to sleep.
Thomas had managed to drag me out of bed, helped me complete my schoolwork and kept me company while I put in an afternoon shift at the coffeehouse. He never asked me for details on my stay at Craig's, wary of my parents always lingering around about as much as I was, but it was clear that his curiosity and expectancy were wearing him thin. I was positive that Kenny had at least hinted at what had happened between Craig and I because the looks I was receiving from him were ones of pure excitement. If I didn't know any better, I'd say he'd let my parents in on the scandal as well. Or maybe I wasn't hiding my hickeys very well, their calculative gazes ones of suspicion. Either that or their parental intuition was telling them that their son had gotten it on with a man. A sexy, sexy man.
The back of my head hit the wall as a groan tumbled helplessly from my lips. I was sitting at the kitchen table in Stan and Kenny's apartment. The two of them plus Thomas and Kyle who was on speakerphone were situated around the room: Kenny digging through the fridge for a drink, Thomas sprawled out across the couch, Stan caressing the phone containing his fiancé's voice as though it were a living thing. They were conversing about bachelor parties, both tentative to mention their actual wedding. It was cute except it had nothing to do with my current distress. My plan had been to wait until Thomas and I were completely alone to spill what I still had yet to believe.
It was beginning to hit me the more I thought about it and the more I thought about it the more I tried to remember how Craig had felt against my palm because what if that had been my only chance? What if I never saw him again for whatever reason?
A buzzing erupted inside my pocket. When I took my phone out and saw that I had a text message, I read it over and felt my lungs flutter. It was from Clyde's girlfriend and she was saying, What did you do to Craig? He's pretty much dead over here and I don't think he's coming back until you do.
Her and her Craig and Tweek Theory were resonating throughout my head. It was so simple—nothing more than that Craig and I were ultimately going to "end up" together—but I wanted to be pessimistic so bad, to be a realist. I just didn't see her theory coming true, or at least I hadn't. I still didn't, but...fuck.
"Something happened," I admitted, grabbing the attention of those in the room. All conversation grew suspended in the air at my interruption.
Kenny shut the refrigerator door, a can of soda in hand and a delighted smirk on his face. "I—" I've been home for nearly three days and this is all I can think about. I ate dinner wishing it had been Craig ordering it for me, guessing what I'd like. I drank coffee that was good but it wasn't the generic kind in Craig's apartment. I showered and I wanted Craig to be there when I got out so he could say to me that he wanted me aroused.
My face crumpled pitifully. Stan set the phone down while Thomas raised his head up off the couch to sit up. Kenny leaned against the counter and sipped at his drink because this was no news to him. "Tweek?" Kyle sounded worried.
There was a smile on my lips that encompassed all of the inevitability of my feelings. This oblivious and yet knowing thing, it combined fear and happiness into a concoction that fed me and wilted me and excited me. "Do you guys have any idea what he's doing to me?" I squeaked, leeching off the churning emotion in my chest.
Stan's features softened in recognition. He grinned endearingly down at the phone, at Kyle. "I know exactly what he's doing to you," he murmured, a lilting undertone to his voice, "because I did it to Kyle and Kyle did it do me."
For a second I wondered what Kyle was doing upon hearing that or how he looked, and then he said "I love you," and I knew. I knew that he was smiling and he was happy and he was twisting his engagement ring on his finger because he'd taken to finding comfort in it quite quickly. I couldn't help but wonder if I would ever be able to say that to Craig. It wasn't a matter of him saying it back or him saying it to me at all, just that I could tell him and it could be that simple.
"He—whoa, okay." This was hitting me all of a sudden and I remembered my orgasm and that immaculate limbo I'd been suspended in. "He—oh, God. Shit—fuck. You guys, he—" I was a whimpering mess. The tips of my fingers rubbed against my temples as my fast jumble of nonsense continued. I wasn't even talking to anyone in particular, I was just...why? Why had he done that to me? I wanted Craig back. I wanted to feel that again. I wanted him to feel it too because of me. "I—I don't know how it h-happened."
Thomas and Stan were exchanging eye contact while Kenny gave me a thumbs up and a very distinct hip thrust, but all I could do was stare at him and shake my head. He sighed dramatically and left absolutely no time for me to stop him as he told everyone exactly what was wrong with me—exactly what had happened to make me act this way.
"Craig gave Tweek a hand job."
Kyle was silent on the other line, Stan's brows knit together, and Thomas lunged across the room to maul me. We toppled out of my chair and the first thing to hit the floor was my tailbone. I went rigid with pain and whimpered when Thomas practically screamed out his excitement right into my ear. He'd been waiting for this moment—not Craig and I, but for me to finally orgasm—so that we could talk about it because that's what my best friend loved to do. I wouldn't have to sit there listening to him anymore like I used to because now we could converse. Oh, I couldn't wait.
From above the table I heard Stan ask Kenny if he was being serious. He didn't sound a fraction as happy as Thomas did and a small spark of anger flickered in the pit of my stomach. I scrambled up as quickly as I could with a sore butt, but I had no idea what I meant to do once I was standing there witnessing the unsure expression skimming Stan's face. Once he caught my movement, he turned that expression to me and I flinched at how ironic it was that he was certain of his uncertainty.
"You guys, what's going on? Why is it so quiet?" Kyle asked.
He wasn't going to get an answer for his question. I was going to get one for mine. "Why aren't you guys happy?" Thomas got up from the floor and put his chin on my shoulder, something of which I barely felt.
When Stan glanced away, I honestly felt slightly betrayed. If Kyle were here, I'm sure they would have given each other the same look that they would've understood and I wouldn't have liked. As a replacement, he gave it to the table instead, and that's when I realized that they've talked about this before. They've talked about me and Craig and about whether or not they agreed with the possibility of us.
"I don't like him," Stan said, tapping his fingers against the tabletop. "You know that I don't. And I'm not going to trust him with you until he proves that he's selfless enough to give you what you need, alright?" It was because of the selfless comment, how similar it was to what Clyde's girlfriend had said, that I tried not to shut him out. "Because you're always going to need someone to take care of you, Tweek. That's just—you. You need a specific type of companionship, and I just don't believe that Craig's capable of that."
"But he does take care of me," I told him, all of them, in desperation. "I had a nightmare a-and he made sure that I was okay. He got my medication for me and he made sure that I ate and he went inside with me when I t-thought there was a murderer outside and he doesn't care about my t-tics or how medicated I am or that I have a f-fucking psychiatrist." I didn't get why I was defending Craig like it mattered when I only ever thought about how this was some useless hope of mine. It was like in my head I tried to tell myself that it was never going to happen, but when I voiced it I tried to make it sound real. It was okay for me not to believe in optimism, but not anybody else, because I needed their encouragement. Or maybe I just didn't want to hear the truth, still stuck in my decade long infatuation.
"And I want to believe you," Stan said. "I want to think about Craig the same way I do my friends for you. I want to hear you say these things about him and think 'oh yeah, of course, Craig's the perfect gentleman and he definitely deserves you,' but I can't." Except he had it wrong. It was the other way around. I didn't deserve Craig. "I won't do it, Tweek. Not until something drastic happens and I am hoping so badly that it does because I will kill him if this hurts you."
"He—" My voice cracked and my vision blurred. It stung my eyes and it was embarrassing and I had to cover my mouth to keep from sobbing but I wasn't finished yet and I wanted Stan and Kyle to know how much it meant to me that Craig didn't care, to get their opinions past these other things that they thought. "H-He likes my stutter and he said it's okay. He said that I have nothing to be ashamed of because it's just the way I handle things!" Thomas had to push down on my head to get me to sit down. My breath was catching and I was sniffling. "Nobody has ever said that to me and it came from him. It came from Craig and I was s-so happy."
Someone gave me a tissue but I couldn't even see who it was. I just took it and thought it was giving me the go-ahead to unravel. My arms curled around each other on the table and I buried my head in them with the stupid tissue, crying and hiccuping over how taxing this confusion was and how I could possibly be so goddamn happy all over again just by remembering Craig. Thomas rubbed my trembling shoulders and that was enough to get me to let loose of a torrent of: "I like him so much, I like him so much, Thomas." And when I started laughing I had no clue. All I could do was multitask the fuck out of both with no comprehension of what was happening to me.
Once I began shutting down, sniffles and nothing more, a despondent feeling overtook me. Inside my body I felt deserted. I wanted Craig to be here and I imagined what he'd do if he was. He'd call Stan by his last name, hug Thomas because he's always liked my best friend's Tourette's, and make fun of Kyle for being a pubehead. He'd ignore Kenny because he's seen enough of him in Lakewood despite the blonde's constant absence.
That left me, and I think I knew Craig well enough to know that he'd draw me like this because he's never seen me cry before. And I'd let him.
Why couldn't people teleport?