Songs:
Fitz and the Tantrums - Out of My League
BØRNS - Seeing Stars
The droning sound of a repetitive alarm goes off next to one, Craig Tucker's ear. It stirs him from sleep with a disgruntled groan, as he rolls over in bed and shuts off his phone alarm. He tilts the screen towards himself, staring at it blankly. The usual time of 6:50 a.m in white across his screen. With another groan he turns his head into his pillow before forcing his reluctant body to get up and get ready for the day.
"You're late, again." Craig's younger sister says, as he reaches their school bus stop.
"Sue me." Craig tells her.
"Nerd." she replies.
"Dweeb."
That's all that's exchanged between the two siblings until the school bus arrives. Craig gets on after his sister and scans the rows of seats for one of his friends. As he does, his eyes land on a black and orange hooded boy seated near the back of the bus. He watches him for a couple more seconds, until someone calls his name.
"Craig! Over here!"
He recognizes the voice even before he spots his friend, Clyde, waving him down. As he makes his way over to him, he spares one more glance at the boy in the black and orange hoodie. The boy, who had been previously conversing with his own friends, was now looking at Craig, which in turn causes Craig to glance away and quickly take a seat next to his friend.
"Feeling a little distracted were you?" Clyde asks him with a smirk.
"Shut up," Craig tells him, as he takes his backpack off and places it on his lap.
There's a short snort from Clyde, before the two fall into small conversation for the remainder of the bus ride.
When arriving at school, Craig can't help but glance at the back of the bus before exiting it with his friend. He parts from Clyde as they head to their lockers, then head off to class. The echoes of the hallways fade as he enters into his first period class, English. It passes by him in a blur, as he still adjusts to waking up. Morning classes were always a struggle for him, but usually by the time the class before lunch arrived, he was more or less awake by then. Although, that may, or may not, be because of who he shared his 11th grade Science class with.
As soon as he enters the room, his eyes are drawn to the back of it, where the same hooded boy from before now sat behind a long table. The sunlight shining in from behind him, causing an almost radiant effect off of his golden hair.
"You're staring again," a voice says next to his ear.
Craig jumps at it, as Clyde walks past him with a small smirk, which in turn causes Craig to flip him off in annoyance. The two make their way over to their seats, next to one another, and talk as they wait for class to start.
"Hey guys," they're greeted with, as another friend of theirs, Token, joins them.
"Hey," they both greet back.
They fall into small talk, like the rest of the class waiting, as the teacher prepares the lesson for the day. Craig's gaze wanders across the room, to that boy again, who sat alone and was now writing in his notebook.
"You should go talk to him," Clyde whispers to him, so that Token won't hear.
"No, he seems busy. I'd just bother him," Craig replies quietly, shaking his head.
"You always say that," Clyde drawls, "just goooo."
"I can't, class is about to start," Craig gestures, as the teacher stands up, and heads to the chalkboard.
Clyde lets out a sigh, before opening his binder as the teacher speaks up.
The class passes and Craig's gaze occasionally wanders over to that boy throughout it. When it comes to an end, and everyone gathers their things to leave, Clyde gives him a look as Token heads off to put his things away.
"What?" Craig asks.
"Dude, one of these days, you need to go over and talk to him," Clyde says, gesturing to the black and orange hooded boy as he exits the room. "This is the only class which his—as you like to say, 'annoying friends' aren't in."
"I know," Craig says, "and I will."
"When?" Clyde asks.
"I don't know, eventually," Craig replies, and Clyde rolls his eyes.
"Eventually?" he repeats.
"Yeah," Craig says.
"Dude, it's been 5—going on 6—years of, 'eventually'!" Clyde tells him. "You barely got out any words to him during that time!"
"I know," Craig says as they make their way to the class door. "I'll talk to him another time."
"He's gonna get snatched up by the time you try to make any type of move," Clyde says as they enter the halls.
Craig doesn't say anymore on the matter, as they head off to put their things away. Once they do, they meet up again with Token and head off to the cafeteria.
The rest of the school day passes by and Craig meets up with Clyde as they get on the bus. They take a seat near the back of it and fall into a short conversation, before Craig spots the boy in black and orange walking down the small bus aisle and taking a seat in front of his. The boy's friend joins him, followed by his other two friends, who sit across the aisle from him. Craig falls silent as the boy and his friends start to talk.
"Did a cat catch your tongue?" Clyde smirks and Craig frowns at it.
"Guys, let's just go," one of the boy's friends says.
"Dude, I'm too tired to go to the junkyard today, plus the pieces could end up being too big, or too many for just the four of us to carry and search through all that junk," another says.
"Yeah, we're going to need a few more hands to help us," another adds.
A look crosses Clyde's face at that, and Craig shakes his head, mouthing the word 'No' at him. But Clyde smiles and stands up before Craig can pull him down and keep him seated there.
"We can help," he says.
"Clyde—what are you doing?!" Craig hisses in a hushed tone.
"Clyde?" one of them asks, after a pause.
"Yup," he replies, "couldn't help but overhear that you guys may need some extra hands for helping with something, so just thought I'd offer that we wouldn't mind helping out with whatever it is."
"We?" one asks.
"Yeah, me and Craig here," Clyde replies and motions to him, "come on man."
Before Craig can react, he's being pulled up by his arm and is suddenly leaning against the back of the seat in front of him. Four pairs of eyes turn and fall onto him, but his attention is drawn to a pair of sky-blue ones meeting his own light-green ones, before he glances away from them quickly with a beat.
"Craig?" one of them in a green hat asks, sounding confused, "You want to help us?"
"Sure does," Clyde replies for him, "we both do," and he lays an arm over Craig's shoulders.
"But, why?" one in a red and blue hat asks.
"Why not?" Clyde asks back.
The two that spoke look at one another and shrug.
"Okay, sure, you guys can help I guess," the one with the green hat says.
"OI—Kyle, don't go making decisions on your own like that!" a chubby one exclaims.
"What now Cartman," Kyle sighs.
"How do we know they won't steal our awesome idea! We need to do a democratic vote on this!" Cartman states, "All against this idea, raise your hand," and he lifts his hand up, but is the only one that ends up doing it.
"And all in favor of our help?" Clyde asks, and the other three, and himself, raise their hands.
"You guys are all traitors!" Cartman mutters and crosses his arms.
"Dude, I don't even think they know what it's for," the red and blue hat one says.
"Shut up Stan, I don't want to hear your traitor talk," Cartman says and Stan shakes his head.
"We'll let you know when we're getting off," Kyle tells Craig and Clyde.
"Alright," Clyde nods and sits back down.
As Craig goes to sit back down as well, his eyes catch the blues still on him for a split second, before he quickly sits down and hides from them. When he does he looks over at Clyde, who smirks, which causes him to glare in response.
"Why would you do that?!" Craig says in a hushed, angry tone, before punching his arm.
"Ow! Relax man, if anything, I'm doing you a favor," Clyde replies just as hushed, while rubbing his arm.
"A favor?!" Craig hisses.
"Yes. A favor," Clyde states, "I guess you were too busy looking elsewhere to notice, 'you know who' staring at you practically the whole time."
Craig stops, his brows raising slightly as the words settle in.
"I—no—he wasn't—"
"Oh, he totally was," Clyde snorts.
"Don't change the topic!" Craig says and punches his arm again.
"Ow—geez you punch hard!" Clyde says annoyed.
"I can't believe you did that," Craig says and leans back in his seat, crossing his arms.
"You're acting mad, but you're actually happy, aren't you?" Clyde says, "I can tell."
"Shut up," Craig mutters, ignoring the slow burn spreading on his face.
A short while later, Kyle turns and leans over the back of his seat to face them.
"We're getting off at the next stop, are you guys still in?" he asks.
"Yup!" Clyde responds and Kyle gives a nod before turning back around.
When the stop arrives, Kyle's group gets up and Clyde and Craig follow shortly after. They all exit the bus and start walking.
"So as you may, or may not have heard, we're headed to the junkyard," Kyle says, looking back at them.
"Yeah we got that part," Clyde says, "and something about getting scraps?"
"Yeah," Stan says, "we're doing a bit of an ongoing project with scraps of metal, and we need some more, so," he shrugs.
"Oh really? What are you guys making?" Clyde asks, placing his hands behind his head.
"We're—"
"Don't answer that, Stan!" Cartman cuts him off, "They could steal our idea!"
"Relax dude, we're not going to steal it," Clyde says.
"We don't know that! You could be lying!" Cartman accuses.
"Dude, I'm sure they're not going to do that," Stan says.
"Yeah, so calm down fatass," Kyle says.
"Ey!" Cartman exclaims, "I'm not fat!"
"So what is it you guys are making?" Craig asks, ignoring Cartman.
He wasn't interested in it at first, but all the hush talk around it piqued his curiosity.
"A club shack of sorts," a soft voice replies.
"Kenny!" Cartman exclaims.
There's a small skip at it as the boy in the black and orange hoodie, Kenny, turns and looks back at him, a small smile on his face.
"Yeah, fine, you guys just go on and tell the whole world our goddamn secrets," Cartman mutters.
"Calm down, it's not that big of a deal, geez," Stan says.
"Whatever, I don't care anymore, so whatever," Cartman grumbles.
"Told you we shouldn't have told him about it," Stan says.
"We didn't, remember?" Kyle replies.
"Guys, I'm right here!" Cartman states.
As they fall into more bickering, Craig watches as Kenny looks away and keeps his gaze on the back of his head as they walk to their destination.
"Alright, we're here," Kyle says.
"Oh god it stinks," Cartman says.
"Yeah, like usual. So let's hurry up and get what we can find and leave," Stan says.
"Right," Kyle nods, "let's split up into teams of two and head out."
"How should—"
"I don't care who I'm with, as long as it's not Kyle," Cartman says, cutting off Stan.
"Fine with me," Kyle says flatly, "Stan?"
"Yeah'" he replies and walks over to him.
"Okay, then I guess," Kyle says and looks over at the others, "Cartman and Kenny, and Craig and Clyde?"
"Sure," Cartman says and Kenny shrugs.
"Sounds good," Craig says, quickly cutting Clyde off before he can reply.
"Good," Kyle nods, "then let's meet back here in two hours."
And with that, he heads in with Stan, then Cartman and Kenny behind them.
"Why did you cut me off?" Clyde asks, "I was about to suggest I swap with Kenny."
"I know," Craig says, "and I wasn't going to let you do that."
"Why?"
"Because you're not about to just leave me alone with him for two whole hours, and have me make a fool out of myself in front of him," Craig replies and Clyde snorts.
"You just got to talk to him man, it's not that hard," Clyde says as they enter the junkyard.
They come to a spot and start to look for scraps of metal in various lengths and sizes, carrying them in their hands at first, until they come across an old laundry basket and start throwing the scraps into it.
About an hour of this passes, before Clyde takes a break and sits down.
"Man, I'm sore," he says.
"You've mostly just been standing there," Craig monotones.
"That's still a lot of work," Clyde says and Craig gives an unamused expression. "How much longer do we have to do this for?"
"About an hour," Craig replies.
"Ugh, I don't think I can go on like this," Clyde groans.
"Hey, I wasn't the one who volunteered us for this," Craig states.
"I know, I know, but—"
Craig looks over at him when he doesn't finish his sentence.
"Clyde?" he asks, then follows his gaze when noticing that he seems distracted, "What is..."
Craig freezes when he spots Kenny now walking towards them.
"Oh, looks like we got a visitor," Clyde smirks, and gets up, "He's alone too, well in that case, I better just—"
"Don't you dare." Craig interrupts him with a glare.
"What?" Clyde grins.
"Don't you dare leave me alone with him Clyde. I swear to god." Craig points at him, accusingly.
"Whaaat, me do that? Pfff, you're my friend Craig, I'd never do such a thing," Clyde says and starts walking towards Kenny. "I'm just going over to say hi."
Craig's eyes narrow as he watches Clyde walk towards Kenny, wave, talk with him, then continue on past him. When Craig sees Clyde leaving him alone, like he knew he would, he internally swears to himself and starts to panic as Kenny approaches him. His heart rate slowly increases with each step Kenny was taking, and he quickly looks around and pretends that he's searching for scraps to busy himself with.
"Hey," Kenny greets, when reaching him, and Craig just about has a mini heart attack.
"Hey," Craig greets back, not looking at him. A part of him swears his voice wavered on that word, but he tries to ignore it.
"Just came over to see how you're doing with your searching," Kenny says.
"Oh," Craig replies. He wants to say more, but it's the only word he can think of.
"It seems to be going well though," Kenny says, walking over to the basket and peeking inside it.
"Yeah," Craig says, again the only word he can think of to say.
His heart beats faster when he hears Kenny walking towards him, then just about stops when he suddenly takes a seat next to him. He wants to look at him, but doesn't, instead thinking it's safer to keep his eyes on what he's doing. There's a bit of a pause as he can feel Kenny's gaze on him.
"I'm surprised you're helping us," Kenny says and looks away, "I kind of thought that you hated us."
"I don't really hate you guys," Craig says, "I just... find you annoying."
"Really?"
Craig stops when he processes what he just said and looks at him.
"Well n-not you, just your friends—mainly," he quickly says, and curses at his dumb nervous stutter that slipped out. He looks away as Kenny glances back at him.
"Fair enough," he laughs, "they can be pretty annoying at times," and he leans into his palm, "so since you find them annoying, and not me, does that then mean that you like me?"
The question catches Craig off guard and he quickly looks at him with wide eyes, before flinching from a sharp pain in his finger.
"You okay?" Kenny asks.
"Yeah, I think..."
Craig examines his finger, a small bead of blood was beginning to bubble from the fresh wound on it. He goes to put it to his mouth, but is stopped by Kenny wrapping a hand around his.
"I don't think that's a good idea," Kenny tells him, "not after you've been touching junk all day." Craig's face burns slightly as Kenny brings his hand towards him. "Here, one sec," he says and takes out a small white strip. He removes it to reveal a plain beige Band-Aid a few seconds later. "Been doing this for a while now, and gotten a few good cuts here and there along the way, so started carrying these around with me now," he explains while wrapping it around Craig's finger.
Something about the action makes Craig's heart flutter, causing the burn on his face to grow, but he looks away to try and hide it.
"Thanks," he mumbles, and moves his hand away.
"No problem," Kenny smiles, "how about I help you with collecting for a bit?"
"Sure," Craig replies. And as Kenny moves the basket between them, he adds, "And uh, I don't find you annoying, if that's what you were trying to ask me about before."
Kenny looks up at him and smiles.
"Oh, I'm glad then," he says.
Craig gives a curious look at that, but Kenny looks away and continues the search for metal scraps.
The two continue on for the following hour, and exchange some small talk here and there. At some point, Craig finds himself standing on a big pile of junk, as he goes further in to search.
"Time's almost up, did you want to head back now?" Kenny shouts to him.
"Sure!" Craig replies.
Kenny gives a thumbs up and goes to pick up the now very full basket of scraps, as Craig starts to look for a way back down. Just as he takes a step, his footing loosens and he finds himself falling backwards over the other side of the pile.
"Craig!" Kenny shouts, as he goes over.
Craig lands at the bottom of it, aching and something poking into his side. He sits up slowly and looks around, trying to gather in his surroundings for how to get back up. There was no sunlight on the side he was on, most of it was shadowed out by the large pile, but he manages to spot a path up, so gets up and starts climbing his way to the top again. On the way up, his eye catches a glimpse of something, something that causes him to miss where he's grabbing and slide back down the pile.
"Craig!" Kenny yells, looking down from the top, "Are you alright?!"
"Yeah, I think so," Craig replies.
"Here," Kenny says and extends a hand to him, "can you reach?"
"I think," Craig says and starts to climb back up again.
He manages to make it up further this time, by paying attention, and grabs Kenny's hand. Kenny helps pull him up to the top, and places a hand on his shoulder.
"You okay?" he asks.
"Yeah," Craig nods.
"Good," Kenny grins, "let's get down from here then," Craig nods again and watches Kenny start down briefly, before glancing back down the pile for something. "Craig?" Kenny asks, causing Craig to look forward at a hand reaching up to him.
He takes it and Kenny helps guide him back down to the safety of the ground again. But it's not until they're walking back over to the basket, does Craig register that they are still holding hands, and that his hand was slowly starting to sweat because of it. When they reach the basket, Kenny pauses, looks at their hands and lets go.
"Oh, uh, sorry," he says and reaches down to the basket, "I uh, guess I just wanted to make sure you were well and firm on solid ground again," he chuckles.
"It's fine," Craig says, "want me to help carry that?" he points at the basket.
"No it's fine, I got it," Kenny says and picks it up, "let's go," he gestures with his head.
Craig spares one more glance back at the junk pile he'd fallen down, in thought, as they leave the area.
They walk back to the entrance of the junkyard and meet up with everyone else, who are carrying various bundles of metals they found.
As Kenny greets his friends, Craig walks over to Clyde, who's sitting on a big rock, and glares at him, which Clyde shrugs at.
"What?"
"Don't ' what ' me," Craig tells him, "you know what you did."
"I do?"
"Yes. You do," Craig replies and a sly smirk spreads across Clyde's lips.
"I don't know man," Clyde says.
Craig goes to say something, but when he sees Kenny turn to him and start to walk over, he stops.
"We're going to bring these to the club," he informs, "did you guys want to come along, or head back?"
"Sure!" Clyde replies.
"Wait," Craig says, "is it okay for us to go? I mean, isn't it just like for you guys?"
"It's fine," Kenny replies, "only one who really cares is Cartman, but the rest of us don't mind."
"Oh, okay then," Craig says.
"So you coming?" Kenny asks.
"Sure," Craig replies.
Kenny gives a small smile and heads back over to his friends.
"You're welcome," Clyde says to Craig as he passes by him.
"We good?" Kyle asks as Craig and Clyde join them.
"Yeah," Stan replies.
"Yup," Kenny says.
"I'm not," Cartman says.
"Okay, let's get going then," Kyle says, ignoring him.
"Hey!" Cartman exclaims, as everyone starts heading off. "You guys are assholes!"
But he follows after them as they leave the area.
The club shack is about what Craig expects, with the word 'shack' in it. But the size of it is bigger than he anticipates.
"So this is our humble abode," Kenny says to Craig as they step in through the makeshift doorway.
Craig glances around to a chair, a small round table, some board games, a dart board, cans and other various knickknacks scattered about in many places. But his attention is drawn to the very large tree trunk in the center, that the shack is built around.
"Nice," Craig says.
"I'll say," Clyde adds.
"We're trying to get it to go around the whole tree eventually," Stan explains.
"Neat," Clyde says.
"Yeah, it is," Cartman says, "so don't even think of stealing our cool idea."
"Let it go man," Stan sighs.
"So what do you guys do with the metal scraps? Add on to it?" Craig asks.
"Yup," Stan replies.
"Sometimes we make other stuff out of them too," Kyle adds and sets his pile down off to the side with the others.
"Yeah, like that shelf over there that me and Kenny made," Stan points.
Craig looks at it. It seemed sturdy enough, if the books and various other items on it were anything to go by.
"Cool," Craig says.
"Thanks," Kenny says.
"Did you guys just start building this year?" Clyde asks.
"Nah, been working on this project on and off since 9th grade," Kyle replies, "just gives us something to do when we're bored."
"Or want to escape from the world for a while," Kenny adds, his voice distant.
"Yeah," Stan says.
"Anyways," Kyle pipes up, "we're just mainly dropping off the scraps today, and going to just hangout for a bit."
"Yeah, no building today after going through all that junk for two hours," Stan laughs and sits on a small wooden box.
Once everyone sets their things down, the group falls into some small talk about their day and classes, before playing a quick game of snakes and ladders, which Craig chooses to sit out of, and watches as Kyle wins and Cartman starts to put up a fuss with him about it. Craig tries to keep his focus on the game through most of it, but finds that his gaze keeps wandering back to Kenny each time he would smile or laugh.
Eventually, it starts to get dark out as the sun sets and everyone decides to head home. When everyone starts to go their separate ways, Craig somehow found himself and Clyde, now walking in the same direction as Kenny.
"Well, this is where we part," Kenny says after a while, gesturing with his thumb down a street, "gotta head this way to get home."
"Oh, okay," Craig says.
"I'll see you guys around then," Kenny says as he starts heading off.
"Later!" Clyde says.
"Bye," Craig waves and Kenny returns it.
"You're smiling," Clyde tells him, once Kenny is out of earshot.
"I am not," Craig scowls.
"Well you were," Clyde laughs, "you were staring at him the whole time you know?"
"I was not!" Craig states.
"Yes you were."
"Shut up."
"He was staring at you too, you know."
There's a brief pause before Clyde smirks again and Craig looks away and continues on walking.
"I thought I told you to shut up," Craig murmurs.
"Aww, are you blushing?" Clyde asks, amused.
"No, you're imagining things."
"I think you are," Clyde singsongs.
"I'm not!"
"Yes you are."
"I hate you," Craig deadpans.
"No you don't."
"Yes I do."
"No, you just hate that I know and am teasing you about it," Clyde retorts.
Craig's eyes narrow. He was right about that, and Craig hated that he had told Clyde about it all those years ago, because 'best friends don't keep secrets' or whatever dumb rule that was as a kid. If he had known it would turn into years of relentless teasing torture, he would have never told him about his dumb crush on Kenny at all. Truthfully, Craig thought he'd grow out of it, but he didn't. If anything, it only grew stronger as they got older and Kenny grew more attractive to him. And after today's events, Craig sure as hell knew it wouldn't be going anywhere any time soon.
"Look," Craig sighs, "can we just have a quiet walk back? I think I've suffered enough with this topic for one day."
"Hmmm, alright," Clyde says, "guess I did get a bit carried away today."
"A bit?" Craig monotones and Clyde laughs.
But Clyde does as Craig asks, and doesn't bring it up again as they both head back home.
When getting ready for bed, the image of something Craig had seen earlier pops up in his mind. It had been something he was trying to ignore, but every so often it would bubble its way back up to the surface when his mind would wander. Still, if what he saw was what he thought it was, then he couldn't help feeling a bit disturbed by it. Then again, he did only see a quick glimpse of it…
Craig pushes the thought away once again and tries to sleep. Turning off his nightstand lamp with a small click.