Craig, of course, does not miss work on Friday.

Honestly, he's not entirely sure just who he might've thought he'd been kidding. Craig knew good and well that there wasn't a snowball's chance in hell that he'd seriously consider calling out and passing up on his sacred fifteen minutes alone with Kyle. The only two reasons Craig would ever call out on a Friday are because he's either dead or dying, and even in the second case he'd probably still manage to figure out a way to make it to work.

Craig swirls his cup of Sprite as he leans against the door to Kyle's office. The party is in full swing, complete with noisy group conversations, mixed drinks, and an appropriate-for-work Spotify playlist that Kyle had put Craig in charge of curating the second he walked in through the glass double doors of their office suite. Wanting to impress him, Craig had put some honest effort into at first. But when lunch rolled around and he learned that Kyle would be holding off on the one-on-one discussions this week to make time to prepare for the party, Craig lost the small amount of patience he'd already been struggling to hold onto and tossed out the half-finished playlist for whatever one came up when he typed the words "office party" into the search bar. Beyoncé's "Love on Top" probably isn't what Kyle had in mind when he'd requested something "fun, upbeat, and maybe a little indie?" But then again Craig hadn't envisioned his Friday night being spent watching Kyle laugh along with his coworkers at whatever dumb story Stan has to tell, so whatever. It's not like anyone's complaining.

"Dude, this music sucks."

Craig looks up from his muted game of Candy Crush to find Clyde standing in front of him. Clyde's cheeks are flushed and his breath smells like stale pretzels. "Well, I don't know what to tell you," Craig says, his thumb hovering over the screen in anticipation of his next move.

"You can tell me who the hell made this shitty playlist 'cause it definitely wasn't you," Clyde says. He seems agitated. Craig figures he must've struck out with Bebe—again. "Can I see your phone?"

"No."

"C'mon, just for a second."

"No."

"I wanna see if there's any Nicki Minaj in there."

"Hell no."

Clyde huffs. Craig does not think that Clyde has any right to catch an attitude when Clyde's the reason that he's stuck here listening to said shitty playlist since he's being forced to chaperone the idiot who'd been hell bent on staying after work and chatting Bebe up at the party. Even though their apartment is only about a mile away, Clyde has been known to make terrible decisions wherever alcohol might be involved, and Craig has long since learned better than to leave him to the streets unattended.

Clyde hangs around a bit longer, nursing his vodka and Red Bull as he tries to coax Craig into changing the music. When his cup is dry and it's clear that Craig isn't going to budge, he bails and heads for the other side of the office, where the refreshments table is hidden behind Stan and a few other coworkers, Kyle included. Craig had considered sucking it up and playing nice like Kyle had asked him to, but that was before Stan and his dumb welcome party had managed to ruin the only good thing that could've possibly redeemed this week from hell.

Craig watches as Stan gives Kyle two shots. After a moment of hesitation, Kyle downs them in quick succession and hisses in disgust. Stan leans in and whispers something to him. He steals a quick glance over his shoulder at Craig, then back to Stan, and holds up a finger. Stan pours him one more. Kyle downs that one, too. From the corner of his eye, Craig notices a mane of curly, blonde hair approaching him on his left.

"Hey there, handsome."

"Not buying."

Bebe laughs and smacks Craig playfully on the arm. "Asshole," she says. Craig smirks. He wouldn't go so far as to consider them to be friends, but over the past two years they've cultivated a sort of wordless bond over their shared mutual interest in a certain redhead, so Craig's built up a sort of tolerance for Bebe's annoyingly outgoing and flirtatious nature. There's also the fact that she's screwing his best friend on the regular, though they're not actually dating. Craig wishes she'd put the poor guy out of his misery and just go out with him already.

"You look like you're having a blast," she says. The too-tight spaghetti strap tank top she's wearing has had Clyde practically drooling for the past two hours. Craig doesn't know what the big deal is, but sometimes he'll find himself distracted by the bright-red lipstick she's always wearing. Not tonight, though.

"I'm not."

"That was sarcasm, hon."

Craig feels a smug sense of satisfaction when Wendy suddenly shows up and wedges herself between Kyle and Stan, looking angry as she slaps Stan in the chest with a handful of stapled papers. Stan winces and tries to calm her down, but ultimately ends up having to usher her out of the office to talk in private, leaving Kyle alone with his empty shot glasses.

"What'cha lookin' at, hmm?" Bebe asks as she glues herself to Craig's side. Craig shrugs her off. "Keeping your eye on the prize, I see." She grins. "He looks good in jeans, doesn't he? I wish he'd let loose and wear them more often. I need some new material to work with."

"He's gay."

"Believe me—that boy might have a little sugar in his tank, but he is not gay," Bebe says. Craig isn't about to out his potentially still-closeted boss and show her the incriminating screenshots he'd saved, but God does he want to. Bebe needs to realize once and for all that this isn't a competition.

"What makes you so sure?"

"I have my sources."

"Cosmo isn't a source."

"Says you," Bebe says. "But no, Cosmo isn't my source, you dork. Wendy is."

Craig looks at her. "Wendy? From HR?" he asks. Bebe's already Cheshire-liked grin seems to grow tenfold under his skeptical brow.

"You seem surprised. She tells me everything, you know. We're best friends," she says. Craig knows that. He also knows that Bebe has a big mouth, and that literally anything that happens in the office gets relayed to Wendy if she just so happens to catch wind of it. Craig wonders if maybe she has something to do with the reason why Wendy's always looking at him strangely.

"What did she say?"

"Huh?"

"Wendy. What did she tell you about Broflovski?"

"Oh. Hmm." Bebe cradles her elbow and presses her index finger to her lips, making a show of pretending to think. She clicks her tongue. "You know what? For the life of me, I just can't seem to remember."

Craig stares at her. He's not sure what bothers him more: Bebe's teasing, or the implication that Kyle and Wendy had apparently done things; especially after he had so confidently ruled out their weirdly-close but still definitely-platonic relationship. Then again, he could just be jumping to conclusions. Bebe had been pretty vague, after all—and even if Kyle and Wendy did have a fling, so what? It's not like that suddenly renders the fact that Kyle had a Grindr profile null and void. If anything, his failed relationship with Wendy Testaburger, of all women, only adds fuel to Craig's already-proven theory that his boss sucks dick; the only thing left to wonder now is whether he's a top or a bottom. Maybe a switch. Craig can work with that.

"What are you guys doing all the way over here?" Kyle asks, having decided to give up on mingling with the rest of his employees to drop in and interrupt Craig's train of thought at the worst possible time.

"Nothing," Craig says.

"We were just talking about how we think you should wear jeans more often," Bebe says. "You look good in them. Not that you don't pull off that whole nerdy look of yours or anything, but it's nice seeing you in something a bit more casual every once in a while."

"Oh? Well, uh, thanks, Bebe. I'll keep that in mind."

"Not to mention, your ass looks great in jeans."

"Bebe, you've really got to stop commenting on my ass."

"I'll quit when that ass does."

Kyle covers his face and groans.

Craig listens to the two of them go back and forth like this for about a minute, until Kyle very obviously attempts to lure Bebe away with news of Stan and Wendy arguing out in the hall and the suggestion for her to go and "I don't know, break them up or something?" Bebe is not nearly as gullible as she might seem, but drama is like oxygen for her, so she narrows her eyes at him suspiciously for only a few seconds before rushing off before she misses anything good. Craig notices Kyle visibly relax once they're alone.

"So, what are you drinking?" he asks, holding up his own red Solo cup for emphasis.

"Sprite."

"Just Sprite? Nothing in it?"

"Not a big drinker."

"Yeah, I'm not either, really. Unless it's like, wine coolers or something, you know? Like Mike's Hard. Those are pretty good," he says. "Even then, I'll usually only drink to get a buzz, though—not to get drunk. I hate not being in control."

"That's not what it seemed like."

"What?"

"Earlier. With Marsh," Craig says. "You were throwing those shots back pretty quick."

"Well, those were celebratory."

"I don't think Marsh surviving five days as a desk jockey is anything to celebrate."

Kyle seems conflicted, although Craig isn't sure what about. Maybe it's just because those three shots were enough to muddle his usually sharp mind and equally as sharp tongue. Kyle, who's still very coherent with only a slight tint to his cheeks, is clearly intoxicated to at least some degree; though he's nowhere near the White Girl Wasted that Clyde is fast approaching, stumbling over his own two feet and crashing into coworkers as he sings along loudly to "Pump It" by the Black Eyed Peas. Dragging him home is not going to be fun.

"Look, I didn't talk to him yet if that's what you came to ask," Craig says, sort of wishing that Kyle would go away and leave him alone.

"No, I know. That's fine. I just wanted to talk."

"About what?"

"I don't know, anything. Is that okay? I mean, you've been standing over here alone for the past two hours doing—what are you even doing?" Kyle leans over to look at Craig's phone. He frowns. "You've been playing Candy Crush this whole time? Seriously?"

"I was playing Temple Run earlier."

Kyle laughs. "You're ridiculous," he says. Craig waits for him to elaborate but he doesn't. "Okay, so, how about you put the phone down for a while and actually socialize? It's not gonna kill you, dude. Plus, it's like, on ten percent. Let it charge."

Craig considers this. His phone is plugged in, but it's been fluctuating between ten and fifteen percent all night, unable to charge properly with Candy Crush and Spotify consistently draining his battery. Giving his phone a chance to cool down is probably a good idea, and as long as Kyle isn't forcing him to schmooze with the rest of the office, then why not? There's a lot that Craig's been wanting to ask him about anyway since they didn't get a chance to talk earlier.

Craig sets his phone down on the ledge of Kyle's office window and decides to start with the question that'd been bothering him since Wednesday. "Are you sleeping with the new guy?"

Kyle chokes on his drink.

"What—!" he asks incredulously, but goes into a coughing fit. Craig calmly waits for him to finish. "That's not—what are you—what kind of question even is that!"

"A serious one."

"Why?"

"Because you've been coddling him since he got here and now Wendy's all up on his case. She never comes down here unless it's serious. She was practically beating his ass with those papers a minute ago."

"That's because she heard you say that Stan was in my office yesterday—which, like I already said, isn't that big of a deal," Kyle reminds him pointedly. Then he sighs. "Also, apparently someone reported him today and said he'd been eating lunch with me in my office. That was a written warning."

That had been Craig. "Oh."

"Yeah." Kyle shrugs. "Nothing I can do about it, though. She's warned us like, three times already. Better her than someone else from HR, at least."

"Just sucks she's such a slave driver."

Kyle scoffs. "What? Dude, no way. Wendy's awesome. She's just trying to cover our asses."

"From what?"

"Jealous employees. Lawsuits. Stan and I losing our jobs. Fraternization in the workplace is a pretty big deal, you know?" Kyle tells him, as if Craig had actually read the employee code of conduct pamphlet he'd received on his first day of work. "I know Cartman probably couldn't care less, but his investors are a different story. Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if Cartman was the one who'd sent that anonymous email to Wendy today. I mean, he's known Stan as long as I have, but he'll do anything to piss me off—he hates it when I have a life outside of work," Kyle says. "But yeah, no. Wendy? I've known her forever. She's great."

Craig doubts that. "Clyde says you two would be cute together," he says. He's pretty sure Bebe was bluffing, but still. Kyle only snorts into his cup.

"Hah! I'll have to tell Stan that. See what he thinks."

That hadn't been quite the reaction he'd been expecting—or much of one at all, really. And what the hell does Stan have to do with anything? It's been nothing but Stan, Stan, Stan, this whole week.

Craig had figured after Wednesday's weird elevator ride that he and Kyle definitely had some sort of history—whether as high school friends or old college roommates or something dumb like that, Craig doesn't know, nor does he care. That still doesn't explain the questionable level of secrecy the two of them seem to share just from looking at one another; especially not when Kyle had nearly choked to death when Craig even brought up the idea of the two of them sleeping together.

Then again, Kyle never did say it wasn't true. Kyle probably would've reacted the same as he did either way. Craig wonders if maybe their history is more present than past.

They stand there in silence, tension growing thick as neither of them apparently have much else to say. Kyle tries to make small talk, but Craig shoots him down each time with curt, disinterested answers; sometimes Craig prefers for Kyle to be seen and not heard, and it only takes so many failed attempts at striking up a conversation before Kyle gets the hint and shuts up.

When Craig's had his fill of side-eyeing his boss, who seems anxious as he sips at his drink with his free hand crossed over his chest and tucked under his other arm as his eyes dart around the room, Craig figures he'd rather get back to finishing the level in Candy Crush he'd been working on before everyone decided to come over and bother him; but just as he swipes to unlock his phone, the office door swings open and Stan waltzes back inside. Craig had almost forgotten about him. When Stan gives him—or Kyle?—an acknowledging nod before being redirected towards Jimmy and David by Clyde, who catches him off guard with a hearty slap on the back, Craig decides that, yes, actually, there is something he'd like to talk to Kyle about—getting a goddamn simple yes or no answer to his question.

The door creaks open behind him and a startled noise that he would never admit to making escapes him when he's suddenly being dragged backwards into Kyle's dark office, his cell phone and (thankfully) empty Solo cup being left to gravity's mercy on the other side of the door; Spotify momentarily disconnects, but Hanson's "MMMBop" is unfortunately too powerful to be destroyed. Craig would complain, but it's not until he's shoved up against the wall behind the door with Kyle's mouth pressed to his that he even fully processes exactly what the hell is happening—and when he does, he decides that Kyle could throw his phone into Marston Lake and he wouldn't give a single fuck.

Kyle pulls away just before Craig can finish gathering his bearings enough to lean in and actually reciprocate.

"Craig?"

"What?"

"Why aren't you—" Kyle frowns. Craig licks his lips. "How come you're not—?"

"What?"

Kyle hesitates. "Fuck."

"What?"

"I'm sorry." Kyle steps back and lets his fists fall from where they'd been bunched up in Craig's shirt. Craig silently laments this loss as he watches Kyle with knitted brows, growing annoyed. "I thought you—I mean, that's what she told me? But I guess—"

"What the hell are you talking about? Told you what? Who?"

"Nothing. Nevermind." Kyle sighs, carefully raking his fingers through his hair. He reaches for the door. Craig has had it up to here with him tonight. "C'mon. We should, um. We should probably go back outside before people start—!"

Craig yanks Kyle back to his chest and shuts him up with a kiss. For all his fussing just seconds ago, Kyle does not seem to have much else to say as he pulls Craig down by his shoulders to deepen it after his own shock wears off. Craig allows this, but makes it a point to keep hold of the reigns this time around as he keeps Kyle in place with his fingers tangled in messy red hair; Kyle may be his superior, but this isn't something he's willing to relinquish control over, not right now. Then Kyle grinds their hips together, and Craig's knees nearly buckle as he ducks and groans into Kyle's neck.

If someone were to ask Craig what the worst possible scenario would be in terms of royally screwing up his strictly observed work-life balance, being dragged into his boss's office for a drunken, impromptu makeout session during a tacky holiday party with a cheesy playlist would probably be it. Yet here they are, dry humping each other like horny teenagers in a cramped bathroom stall while the muffled sound of some still-outdated but infinitely-more makeout worthy Top 40s chart topper thumps outside, and Craig is having a hard enough time remembering to breathe let alone remembering his three-foot rule as he rips the collar of Kyle's sweater to the side to lick at his clavicle. Because Kyle is starting to get hard, and Craig is too, and, well—if that's the road they're about to take, then Kyle's desk better be as sturdy as it looks.

Kyle reaches down and starts to fumble blindly with the button of Craig's pants. Craig kisses along his jaw in silent encouragement. Kyle's skin is smooth, and he smells just as good as he always does; a mix of light cologne, his own natural scent, and something new that Craig can't quite place—fresh and cucumber-y and just barely there. Familiar.

Craig shoves Kyle away when he realizes it's Stan's aftershave.

"Wha—?" Kyle blinks. "Craig?" The light filtering in from his office window hits him in a way that would probably make Craig want to try his hand at poetry or some other dumb shit if the rationale he thought he'd left outside with his phone hadn't just slapped him across the face like a jilted lover. He's got about three seconds to think of something to say before Kyle starts freaking out.

Two seconds in and there's a loud crash outside, followed by worried gasps surrounding Clyde's name. As if on instinct, Craig pushes past a dazed and confused Kyle and throws the door open. Clyde is face down on the ground, groaning and twisting aimlessly in a puddle of spilled alcohol, pretzels, and half-empty liquor bottles, some of the shattered. Behind him, the plastic refreshments table is on its side, and one of Jimmy's crutches are on the floor next to a flipped-over office chair. Stan is standing awkwardly off to the side with Jimmy's other crutch in hand.

"I told him it wasn't a good idea," he says when Craig looks between them. Craig sighs and kneels down next to his best friend, pulling him to sit upright. He should've known better than to leave Clyde alone for even a minute.

"Clyde, you idiot," Craig grumbles. He pats Clyde's cheek. Clyde grimaces and cracks an eye open.

"Don' do that," he slurs.

"Can you stand?"

"I tried to get him to stop but he wouldn't listen," Stan says.

"Dumbass." Craig tugs Clyde to stand. "C'mon. Get up."

"Uh-uh."

"For fuck's sake, Clyde. You're sitting in glass. Get up."

"I—" Clyde hiccups. He winces. "I don' wanna."

"Um. Hey, do you need some help?" Stan offers.

Craig yanks Clyde to his feet and catches him against his chest when he loses his balance. Clyde complains in the form of unintelligible moans, but he soon gets over it. Craig would rather dislocate his own shoulder before asking Stan for anything.

"What's going on over here?" Wendy, who apparently didn't leave earlier, asks. Craig feels as if someone had poured a gallon of ice water down his spine when he turns to find her watching him, standing next to a giggling Bebe. Great. How is he supposed to get Clyde out of this one.

Craig's answer comes in a flurry of red and navy blue making a dash for the back door.

"Kyle? Dude, wait! Where are you going!" Stan shouts. Kyle doesn't stop, just throws himself into the heavy door before disappearing around the corner and down the stairs. Stan shoots Craig an uneasy glance before chasing after him.

"Kyle!"

With everyone's attention momentarily averted, Craig pulls Clyde's arm around his neck and books it for the hall as quickly as possible; he doesn't slow down until they're outside on the sidewalk, far away from Wendy and the prospect of unemployment. Whatever unavoidable conversation the future holds will have to wait until Monday.

Clyde gags.

"I think I'm—"

"Oh, no. No. Don't."

Clyde hurls all over his and Craig's shoes.

It takes longer than it should to hobble back to their apartment, the freezing cold and Clyde's puke breath killing whatever arousal Craig might've still had even after everything that had happened; and by the time they reach the front door, his flagging erection is completely gone, though the warm memories of how Kyle's lips felt against his own definitely aren't. So after dropping Clyde off on the couch and taking a quick shower, he falls back into his own bed with a relieved sigh. He falls asleep palming himself through his boxers, thinking about the kiss.