Beep
Beep
Beep
Tweek reached out and shut off the alarm clock. He pulled back the covers, sat up in bed and stretched, trying to wake up.
He had slept through the whole night, not waking up even once. His sleep schedule had greatly improved over the past three months, going from way too little, to way too much during the early days of his withdrawal, to now sleeping around the recommended amount for a boy his age, nine to eleven hours a night.
He didn't want to sleep in too late though, he and Token and the rest of the guys had agreed to hang out that day.
So he hopped out of bed and went downstairs for breakfast. At his old house, he was always hit with the smell of coffee first thing in the morning as he entered the kitchen. On this morning, upon entering the kitchen in his new house, Tweek didn't smell coffee. No, it was another scent that greeted him, lemon perhaps?
"Morning Tweek." Mr. and Mrs. Black said from where they were sitting at the kitchen table, Mrs. Black checking her phone and Mr. Black reading the morning paper, each with a streaming mug in front of them.
"Morning." Tweek said, still curious about the smell. "Hey, uh, do you two smell lemon in here?"
"Oh, that would be the lemon tea I made, dear." Mrs. Black said, raising her mug.
"Tea?" Tweek said before noticing the bright red teapot on the stove. "Oh."
"Did you sleep well last night?" Mr. Black asked.
"Yeah, I slept great. All through the night." Tweek responded a bit distracted, taking a double take on his surroundings.
He finally realized what he had found odd in the Black's kitchen yesterday, what was missing. It was a coffeepot. There wasn't a single coffeepot or even one of those fancy coffee makers anywhere. Nothing. But why though? And then he realized why.
During rehab, someone had brought in a streaming cup of black coffee. Upon smelling said beverage, Tweek suddenly felt a sense of dread and panic. He was soon violently shaking, his heart beating a million miles an hour, his arms and legs numb to the point where he could barely stand, and he started hyperventilating.
After the doctors and nurses got him to calm down, they explained to Tweek that what he had just experienced was a panic attack. Tweek told them that he already knew that, this wasn't the first one he had ever had. It was, however, the first one that had been brought on by just the smell of coffee. He was then asked if he knew what a trigger was, to which he answered no, he didn't. The way it was explained to him was, a trigger was something that made one recall a traumatic experience. Basically, coffee had made Tweek remember how it had been used it to abuse him and that had brought on the panic attack.
It didn't matter what kind it was, they all brought back memories of his parent's abuse. The worse of all was pure black coffee because that was the kind his parent's laced with crystal meth and gave Tweek to drink the most.
Naturally, Mr. and Mrs. Black were immediately contacted and told what happened. After that they got rid of their espresso machine and coffeepot and vowed not to drink coffee in front of Tweek, drinking it at work and other caffeinated drinks at home.
Tweek's memories were interrupted by Mrs. Black's voice.
"Tweek? Tweek, dear, are you alright?"
"Huh?"
Tweek was brought out of his thoughts and back to the present, where his foster parents were looking at him with mild concern.
"I asked if you're alright. You were staring off into space." Mrs. Black reiterated.
"Oh…. yeah, I was just…. thinking. Um…trying to remember where you said the bowls were." Tweek said, not wanting to trouble them so early.
"Oh, well, they're over here." Mr. Black said, getting up and walking over to an overhead cabinet that had the bowls and grabbed one.
"You could have just told me where they were." Tweek said.
"It's no trouble. You want a spoon, right?" Mr. Black asked, not waiting for Tweek to answer before going for a drawer, pulling out a spoon, and setting it down next to the bowl.
"Uh, thank you. I'm good now, at least I know where the milk and cereal are." Tweek said before getting said milk and cereal out of the refrigerator and pantry, pouring them into the bowl and sitting down at the table with his foster parents.
Soon after, Token joined them; the boys had their breakfast, than got ready for the day.
They were soon ready and out the door…..
Then Tweek had to come right back in because even though it was late May, it was still freeze your tits off cold up in that small mountain town and without meth constantly keeping his body temperate raised, Tweek got colder a lot easier now. In other words, he needed to bundle up.
Tweek put on his brand new green jacket and gloves and once again, was out the door.
Much better.
Token and Tweek met up with Clyde, Craig, and Jimmy in front of Clyde's house. After their initial hello's, Clyde asked,
"So, uh, what do you guys wanna do?"
That was a good question. In their excitement to have the whole gang back together, the boys had set a time and place to meet but no planned activities.
"Come on you fellas. We ha-have to think of sometaaahhhhh!" Jimmy shouted as he was hit on the right side of his face by a snowball and was almost knocked to the ground. "W-what the…"
"Snowball fight!" Tweek shouted from Jimmy's right side, then kneeling down to make another snowball.
"Oh, it's o-o-on!" Jimmy proclaimed and thus, the battle begun and the air was soon filled with flying snowballs and the shouts and laughter of those five little boys.
Meanwhile, inside the Marsh house, Cartman, Stan, and Kyle were sitting on Stan's living room couch, while Kenny and Butters were sitting on the floor. The five of them had been playing video games when they had heard the noise from outside.
"What the hell is all that noise outside?" Cartman asked.
"I don't know." Stan said, before getting off the couch to have a look see out his front window.
After a good hard look, he said, "….Uh, guys….."
"What is it, Stan?" Kyle asked.
"…It's Tweek." Stan said.
"What?!" his four friends said at the same time before all running to the window.
"Holy shit, it is Tweek!" Cartman said, everyone crowding around the window to get a glimpse of their friend.
"And he's wearing a jacket!" Kyle pointed out.
This got some ohs and awes, considering that Tweek was known among his peers for being the kid who could walk around with no shirt on, in freeze-your-tits-off dead of winter South Park, Colorado.
Just as soon as he spotted Tweek, Kenny quickly backed away from the window and hid behind a curtain. Everyone else turned to face him. "Think he saw me?"
The others looked back out the window.
Their peers were still having a grand old time pelting each other with snowballs. There were no teams, no rules, just carefree playtime that could be heard throughout the neighborhood.
"No, no I don't think so." Butters answered.
"Good. Now get away from the window before they see you." Kenny commanded.
Everyone got away from the windows and Stan closed the curtains.
"Kenny, not that you should do it now, obviously, but…when are you planning on talking to Tweek?" Kyle asked.
"I….I…" Kenny struggled to give an answer.
"You have to do it sometime, dude." Stan added.
"I know I do, it's just…..how am I going to face him?" Kenny said, looking at his friends with pleading eyes. "I mean, what if….what if, secretly, he's actually furious with me?" Kenny said.
"But why would he lie about that though?" Butters asked.
"Yeah and if he hated you so much, then why did he convince Craig to talk to you instead of letting him kick your ass?" Stan added.
"Because he's a good person." Kenny answered.
After a moment's silence, Kyle spoke. "…I just…don't know what else to say, except, that when you two finally do talk, I hope that Tweek will have better luck convincing you then us."
And with that, the boys went back to their game, while occasionally peeking outside on their peers.
"Your turn to spy on Tweek, Butters." Cartman said to Butters.
"Alright." Butters responded, walking over to the window, pulled open a small crack in the curtains and had a look outside.
"Hey fellas, Tweek's gone." Butters said.
"Really?" Kenny said, as he and the rest of his friends went once again to the window. Butters pulled open the curtains and low and behold, no Tweek. No Tweek, no Clyde, no Jimmy, Craig, or Token in sight, just a lot of tramped snow and a freshly made snowman smack in the middle of it all.
"See ya later guys." Kenny said before walking out the door and heading back to his foster home.
As everyone watched him leave, Cartman said, "That kid needs to face his God damn problems."
"Come on, Eric. You know this whole Tweek business has been really hard on Kenny." Butters said.
"Just give him some time, dude. Even he and Craig waited for a day before they talked, remember?" Kyle added.
"Yes, I do remember, Kahl. I remember how fucking awkward it was watching them staring at each other all day during schewl." Cartman said.
This of course brought flashbacks of said day and Cartman was right, it was awkward, not just for Kenny and Craig, but for everyone else too.
"Kyle's right, Tweek and Kenny just need some time. They'll talk soon enough, I know they will." Stan said.
"They better." Cartman responded.
It was a glorious snowball fight that ended with all it's participants collapsing unto the snow, looking up at the cloudy sky. Since they were already laying on the ground, the boys made snow angels.
After some snow angels and rest, next came a snowman. It was made of three large balls stacked on top of each other, two twig arms, rocks forming the eyes and mouth, and finished off with Tweek putting on the carrot nose.
When they were done with that, they went inside Clyde's house to for lunch.
The boys were sitting around the Donovan kitchen table with a plate of fish sticks in the center, eating as Token and Tweek told them what had happened the other day after they had left.
"Wait, so, to celebrate Tweek living you, you all served mac and cheese and hot dogs for dinner?" Clyde asked Token.
"Yes, my parents were worried about serving Tweek wouldn't like, so they picked something that they knew that he did." Token explained.
"Something more familiar was how Token's dad put it. Personally I thought it was really nice." Tweek added, then turned to Token. "That it was real considerate."
"It was nothing, really." Token said.
"To think of my comfort like that, even asking me if I'm okay with trying something more fancy, that's not nothing. Just how much you all have been thinking about my comfort, that's something that you know who rarely did." Tweek said and every person present knew exactly of whom he was talking about.
"Well, a lot of it has been my parents and Craig too. You should be thanking him." Token said. "As soon my family agreed to fostering you, Craig has been talking to us nonstop to make sure we knew how to make you comfortable. Telling us what you like, what you dislike, how to calm you down, stuff like that."
"Thank you Craig." Tweek said to Craig sincerly.
"Well, I…I just want to look out for you, that's all." Craig responded, bashful.
"Well, I can safety say, your advice worked last night."
"What?"
"I wanted to break the ice and maybe get to know Token's parents better last night with a game, so I picked out a board game called Clue. But then I started to get nervous about remembering all the rules because I had never played before. But Token and his parents reassured me that it wasn't a big deal, that it was just a game, and that got me to calm down. I ended up having a lot of fun." Tweek explained.
"I'm glad they were able to help you." Craig said to Tweek with sincerity, then turned to Token and said with the same emotion. "Thank you for helping him. And I'm not just talking about last night, I mean…..everything."
"Craig…." Token started to say.
"And don't say it's nothing, because it's not nothing to him or to me either." Craig interrupted.
It was silent for a few moments after that. A bird perched outside the kitchen window and chirped. Finally, it was Clyde who broke the silence.
'So did you learn anything?"
"Huh?" Tweek asked.
"You said you wanted to get to know Token's parents better with the game, so did you?" Clyde reiterated.
"…I learned that Token's dad really likes board games and his favorite one is Clue." Tweek answered.
"Now is that the m-murder my-mystery game?" Jimmy asked.
"Yes and he's adored it since he was a kid. Heh, he was sure acting like a kid while playing it last night." Tweek said with amusement.
"You should see his collection." Token piped in.
"Collection?" Tweek asked.
Yes, turns out Robert Black had quite the Clue collection, including various versions of the game (tabletop and video game) and even the feature length film.
After lunch, it was unto video games and causal conversation, which included filling in events since the last letters. There wasn't that much of anything new to report that hadn't already been discussed via said letters.
Well, there was one thing.
Turns out Token had gone and asked everyone he knew who had a sibling, well, what was it like? Here's some of the advice he got.
"You will find that the two of you will start to steal each other's stuff. Clothes, headphones, snacks, you name it, and they'll take it." Stan had said, continuing with, "While we're on the subject, you may want to start finding hiding places for your favorite snacks or else, you're not seeing them again." while looking over his shoulder at his big sister, Shelley.
Then Shelley spoke back. "Oh, and you may want to get an extra set of headphones, least someone borrows them and doesn't give them back."
"You're going to have to learn to share, your space, your stuff, your parents attention. And you will get jealous, don't bullshit me and say that you won't, cause you will. It comes with the territory." Craig shared.
"But, you do have an advantage that I didn't when Tricia was born. Tweek isn't a baby, so you two can talk through your problems." Craig finished.
"I guess I would say…look, your parents, while good people, aren't perfect. They won't always have the right choices with Tweek. That's why you'll have to step up and be there for him, be his ally." Kenny had said. "But most of all, be his friend."
"Just don't take the fact that you and Tweek are already friends for granted." Kyle had added from beside Kenny. "It's a lot different to live with someone verses not and comes with a whole new set of challenges. Trust me."
Then Ike appeared and gave his own advice.
"There will be times when you'll drive each other up the wall crazy. You both will make mistakes. But, if you both learn to admit to those mistakes and put in the effort needed to make things right, you'll find yourself with a real special bond." At this, Ike looked up at his brother. "One that, at the end of the day, you'll know that you always have each other's backs."
"Ike…" Kyle had said from beside his little brother, clearly touched.
"Anything else to add?" Ike asked Kyle, smiling up at him.
"No, no I think you finished it off pretty well." Kyle responded, smiling back.
After Token finished recounting the events, he added, "Look, I just wanted to know what to expect living with you. I'm not really ready to call you 'Brother' yet and I know you must feel the same way..."
"I do. Believe me, I do." Tweek responded. "And I appreciate you doing that. Asking around, I mean."
"...You're welcome."
Tweek then grabbed his soda can and raised it up in a toast. "To Token!"
Then Jimmy, Clyde, and Craig did the same thing. "To Token!"
"Isn't this day supposed to be about Tweek?" Token asked.
"No, it's about all of us." Tweek said. "To all of us!"
"Oh, what the hell?" Token thought to himself before saying out loud. "To all of us!" And raising his soda can too.
"To all of us!"