This chapter might be really spotty. There was an unfortunate disaster with the original chapter 40 where it was accidentally deleted, so I basically got really pissed and stopped writing, realized that it was never coming back, and decided to just shove a few details that I could remember from the original into this one which was supposed to be 41 and this is the result. We'll see how much sense it makes because I seriously just need to skip it and move on so that I can get back to updating regularly.
Stan's point of view:
Tweek's progressively gotten worse with the whole Craig thing.
Those four short years had been a blessing and Kenny just had to go and ruin it. It was one thing—however uncalled for—for Kenny to search and then take Tweek to see the apathetic bastard, to dangle the only person he's ever wanted just outside of his reach. It was another for him to let Tweek's infatuation grow, to expand, and that was where we were now. Everyone was inside of this expansion: some of us encouraging, some of us hesitant.
My issue in the matter wasn't even with Tweek so much as it resided in Craig. No matter how little the blonde saw in himself, I knew that he had all of the potential any other person was able to harbor. But Craig—that guy just wasn't capable of compassion to the degree that my friend would undoubtably need. Tweek was the type of person who leeched off of other's emotions and Craig didn't really have anything to absorb besides indifference and a steady stream of pure nothingness.
I could remember how badly the blonde had resembled a puppy throughout high school. Always staring forlornly at Craig Tucker in class, during lunch, after school, at pep rallies or assemblies or any occasion his crush happened to show up at. Always trying to please Craig Tucker by changing the wrong answers on his tests to the right ones, making excuses for him when he was late to class, hacking into his school attendance record to change his absences to excused because Tweek worked in the office, had good relationships with the teachers, and was trustworthy.
And Craig Tucker not once noticed any of Tweek's displays of affection or endearment. Anything that he did was futile because Craig Tucker couldn't seem to care for anyone who came after Clyde Donovan or Token Black.
It was for that reason that I didn't believe he deserved someone as accommodating as Tweek. The blonde wasn't the type to change who he was—Tweek was a permanent scrambled mess—but he'd fix the things he could to benefit someone else if at all possible. He'd cheat his way to make sure Craig graduated high school and he'd learn to accept the obliviousness that made up the majority of his presence in Craig's life. If that was the best Tweek thought he could amount to, then it would suffice because he's never been one to ask for much. He never asked for credit or recognition or gratitude. Craig hadn't even been aware that he'd done anything, but he'd belittled Tweek, and belittlement wasn't healthy to leech off of.
And then the day it came—the packing and the move and the "Fuck you South Park" as he stuck his middle fingers up into the air—had been one of the most reconstructive days of my life. I thought that Tweek would find a way to cling to somebody else. A cuter guy would come along and he would put Craig Tucker somewhere inside his memories because everyone has those first crushes that never quite went away but weren't good enough to stay. It would be redemption because this time it would be Craig existing nowhere but in the background.
Instead, Tweek had become disconnected. He was emotionally compulsive to begin with, but without his compulsion to activate him, he'd turned emotionally retarded. It wasn't like I didn't understand where he was coming from presently. I knew now that when you got used to liking someone constantly that it was hard when suddenly they weren't there. For that alone—for the experience of going through Kyle's own disappearance—I had given Tweek's crush some leeway, just enough to tug on when he felt particularly trodden. Just enough to keep me from telling him how useless this feeling toward Craig was when he was upset and lonely.
That's when somehow this happened. This return visit from Craig and this rush of emotional stimulation and this loss of Tweek around South Park because every couple of weeks he was somewhere in Lakewood. I never knew what to expect when I saw Tweek next. If he'd cry, if he'd be overbearingly happy, if he'd excuse himself to go outside and talk on the phone forhours. He'd literally sit out in the grass of his backyard or the stairway of my apartment or another room entirely and converse about things I never even thought were on his mind. Craig made him laugh about everything, would get him to debate topics nobody thought he had an opinion on. He'd started wearing a smile I've never seen before and asked which of his clothes looked the best on him, wondered how unattractive his medication intake was and how that effected his chances with Craig.
"Tweek, honey." The blonde raised his weary eyes. He was sitting across from me and Kyle, fretting not so much over Craig's undetermined time of arrival but because of us. Craig would not only need his parents' permission but ours. He looked to where his mother was, rustling around behind the counter while his dad assumed a station at the register. "How soon will your boyfriend be here?"
His eyes balked at her loose use of the term "boyfriend." It was clear that he wasn't although it seemed that his mom and dad considered him otherwise. Kyle shared brief eye contact with me, silently acknowledging his mom's inaccurate inquiry and Tweek's startled reaction.
"I don't know," he grunted. For an honest second I didn't think he was going to fix her mistake, and if he wasn't, then I would. But then he added, "And he's not my boyfriend." He was too quiet for the statement to make an impact, and I really wished he would've kept his mouth shut so that I could have said more factually that the two had no such connection. That was only what he longed to call Craig. Desperately, so. It was a very obvious desire.
Tweek's mood had been detrimental all morning as though he'd woken up deteriorated and was just skeletal now. He'd been cleaning the coffeehouse sporadically and in increasing increments the longer it took Craig to show. It'd started with the windows which were practically nonexistent at the moment. Tweek got excited over crumbs and askew chairs, stray napkins or just washing his hands. The jitters he had were noticeable and his eyes became estrange in their size every time the bell above the door chimed.
Intuitively picking up on the meaning of my and Kyle's eye contact, he frowned and narrowed a glare at the two of us. "Why are you guys even here? Both of my parents are and they neverwork the same shift, dude! Craig d-doesn't want to see you and I don't want to put him in a bad mood. I don't even know where Thomas is." Scouring the Welcome to South Park sign for a crowning glimpse of huge doucher—that of which was absolutely true. He'd been missing for a while, definitely stalking the only road that led into our town.
"Well, you've just about made him out to be the biggest sweetheart so I have to see what's changed."
My reply came just as Kyle said, "Think of us as your same-sex parents."
The blonde's scowl was at maximum output. He wrung a washcloth between his hands, and for an eery moment, I envisioned us in an alternate universe where that same jerky motion was being enacted on my neck. "It's not like he's going to be a sweetheart to you," Tweek muttered.
"You're right. I want him to grovel."
"No," Kyle interjected. "You both just need to calm down."
But I was his fiancé and that meant that I could take loopholes to skirt around wherever his directive lay.
Apparently, so could Tweek. "Just don't say anything embarrassing!" He snapped frustratedly. "Don't make any s-smartass comments because you do it to me all the time and it's one thing when it is me but Craig's going to be freaked out enough just by being here s-so don't try to piss him off. Okay? Promise me you won't do anything like that."
His little pinky jut out, short nail sculpted and contrasting gravely to the slight tremble of his hand. It was the protection that he bundled Craig inside of that kept its own against his prominent anxiety that I returned his gesture by interlocking our smallest fingers and promising that I would do no such thing although I didn't exactly understand what he meant. I wasn't the smartass type.
As though my thoughts had been deciphered, Kyle turned to give me a look of warning. My finger tightened around Tweek's as my evasiveness shriveled. Maybe I could be a smartass sometimes.
From my peripheral vision, movement caught my eye. I'd strategically placed myself at a booth facing the front windows so that when Craig eventually entered, I would know and be able to reconfigure my features into something like a threatening stare. Today had been rather slow for business, each person that moseyed along effectively capturing my attention, although despite the shortage, there had been enough people to discourage me after a couple hours of waiting.
So when his recognizable figure came wandering down the sidewalk with one exuberant Thomas draped across his shoulders like a cape, I accidentally threw on something like surprise instead. He might've finally revealed himself and I might've prepared for this moment for days, but this appearance was not what I was expecting. The look on Craig's face was too guarded, uncharacteristically distracted by his surroundings, not disinterested like he should've been because Tweek was right: returning home had sketched him out.
My line of sight and expression was interpreted by Tweek. His jaw dropped and he swiveled around just as the bell that had been teasing him all day signaled the correct arrival of the man we'd all been waiting for. He choked at what he saw—at what I thought was Thomas slung across Craig's back—and darted his eyes around the shop to search for his parents. When they weren't spotted, he stumbled out of his seat and lunged.
I didn't blame the poor blonde. Craig Tucker was a one good looking dude. Kyle even leaned over to whisper in my ear, "Stan? Why do I suddenly wish I was Thomas?" I pinched the bridge of my nose because this was not the asshole that I remembered, just physically speaking of course. His hair might've had a mussed fashion that framed and highlighted his facial features, almost quiff-like in its appearance where it'd once been so lengthy. He might've grown in height, a few inches that had done quite beautiful things to his body. That grin he wore might've made my jealousy combust and his eyes—those goddamn eyes.
But there was nothing to disguise his smug attitude or the conceited stature of his lanky figure. His egotism couldn't be downplayed by the curl of his shapely lips. The nonchalant aura encasing him wasn't appealing to me and the spark of amusement flickering wildly in the backs of his eyes upon seeing Tweek made me nothing but wary. It was a look that he was proud of, something that said a certain blonde was going to be a lot of fun from now on. A protective instinct of mine jolted and I knew that Tweek hadn't kept his secret as close to him as he should've. Craig had figured out the dead-honest truth.
"Are you fucking serious?" Tweek hissed, chastising the man on his shirt and not Thomas. "Kenny said you were good with parents!" His fingers fumbled with the two sides of Craig's undone flannel, but he'd never been good with buttons and began to put it together all wrong.
"Tweek." But the blonde wasn't listening. He was grumbling beneath his breath and straightening out Craig's shirt and bypassing the things on the man's face that made me very uncomfortable. "Stop that." Craig snatched his hands away.
The blonde glowered up at him, clasped hands drawn against his sides. "What were you thinking? You can't come in with your shirt like that!"
Craig ignored him and commanded, "Welcome me home otherwise I'm going to leave and come back in naked."
"What—" Tweek got a good look in and noticed the slightly dazed expression in the eyes of his crush, inferred that his own assumptions were right. "Craig," he murmured and smiled softly to pity the man. It made my stomach roil, the way I knew that Craig was going to kiss him because I was experienced in the suggestive look he wore well. It was the one I used on Kyle, the one that lured him in. "Welcome home."
It was a curious thing watching their exchange. They hadn't even been acquaintances for the longest time and now suddenly Tweek was chastising him, was letting Craig kiss him as though he already knew his secret was out of the box and there was nothing left to hide. Tweek barely reached Craig's shoulders and I couldn't keep from noticing that they looked rather nice together. They were opposites: tall and short, black and blonde, certain and unsure.
"Don't freak out," Craig said. He straightened out and grinned shamelessly down at my unfortunate friend. "But your parents just saw me kiss you."
Tweek must've gone literally numb because all he said was, "Oh." And then a torrent: "Okay. Okay, that's fine. I-It's cool. I can work with that." But his voice was a hurried whisper and I could no longer hear him but he was continuing to speak directly to Craig, probably giving him a list of fast instructions.
"Dude." The blonde blinked owlishly up at his crush who bonked their foreheads together. "Keep your bones together." He pinpointed a careless gaze at Kyle and I, the same one I hadn't felt on me in four years yet it was still so familiar, and sent Tweek wobbling toward his parents.
He moseyed over just as Thomas climbed into a neighboring booth so he could lean his upper half into ours. "Craig," I greeted, fighting my tongue to keep from spewing his name.
"Marsh." Distaste was evident in his tone.
Good, that meant we were on the same page.
He sat down and leaned back, cracking his neck one direction and then the next, a cocky smirk on his lips. His vivid eyes shifted between me and Kyle before settling firmly on my own. "I heard you're getting married. Congratulations."
Kyle scoffed. "That took a lot out of you, didn't it?" Unabashedly, he nodded in affirmation. The redhead's mouth twitched. "How much begging did Tweek have to do to get that out of you?"
"I could make this sexual" —my eyes flared and my fists clenched— "but I don't think you want me to get sexual about Tweek," he finished, grinning maliciously. "I'm actually a very reasonable person."
"You're still a fucking asshole," I growled.
"Really?" He laughed this gravely sounding laughter that I was positive affected Tweek much differently than it was doing to me. "I'm taking Tweek off your hands. You should be calling me considerate."
When I leaned forward and put my elbows on the table, Craig's jaw tightened at my threatening posture. "Tweek isn't an issue that I need you to take care of."
A seriousness made his eyes look colder as he met me halfway, menacing when he stopped a short distance from my face. "You'd love for me to mess this up, wouldn't you?"
Ignoring his ploy, I informed him of the only choice he had in this situation. "You do not hurt him."
"I know he's still just a baby," Craig said. And of course he was right because Tweek would always be young, naive, and impressionable. "I know how to take care of him." Looking me dead in the eye, he also very slowly said—though I wasn't sure if it was meant to be a threat or a promise—"And I know you don't want to, but you're going to trust me with him."
The tightness within the walls of my throat relaxed as I investigated the assertion of his steady stare. This wasn't a short notice decision off the top of his head just to spite me. He'd debated and considered and chosen this for himself. Tweek had an importance to him that I would probably never know. And Craig Tucker wasn't the type to lie. He didn't waver and he didn't misuse what was close to him. I don't even think he realized how badly he wanted to be responsible for Tweek and I wondered if this had anything to do with his guinea pig. If he needed to take care one thing at all times just to be content.
And it occurred to me then that that was exactly what was going to happen. Tweek was his.
There was something innocently endearing about that.