December 30th, 2016
The next three weeks pass about as smooth as sandpaper and as quick as a turtle with two broken legs—one front and one back, so it's mostly just twisting itself in some weird little half-circles rather than making any real progress on actually getting somewhere. Not the best metaphor he's ever come up with, Craig thinks, but it gets the point across; that basically, everything sucks.
And by everything, Craig means everything. Things with Kyle were at an all-time high in terms of awkwardness, even more so than the Monday after Stan's welcome party. Kyle has since seemed to have made it a point to avoid having any sort of close contact with him, going so far as to even call off the past three Friday evaluations. So not only did Craig waste the last three Fridays at work when he could have stayed home and slept in, but Kyle had also closed off the only mechanism that Craig could have used to try and smooth things over with him. Not that he wanted to, but still.
Kenny's been another thorn in Craig's side—or at least he would have been if Craig knew where the hell he was. For weeks that blonde fuck had been nowhere to be found, like he'd just suddenly up and disappeared into thin air. Craig was unaware just how much he'd come to rely on Kenny's stupid acquaintanceship when he found himself alone in that café with nobody to bother him. Granted he eventually turned up one afternoon when Craig decided to stop in for a quick breakfast bagel before work. Apparently he'd started working the first shift, which explained his sudden disappearance, but not exactly why Tweek had absolutely no recollection of him ever working there when Craig had asked him where the hell Kenny was. "I died," was Kenny's answer. Craig knew he was just high off his ass in a dumpster somewhere, but an elaboration would have been nice.
Then, of course, there's Stan.
"Congratulations, dude! That's so awesome!" Stan gushes as he squeezes Kyle's shoulders. The rest of the office hesitantly builds up into an applause, unsure if they should follow Stan's hyped up lead or rather their boss's more dialed back and somewhat even sheepish demeanor instead.
Kyle had been nominated for and had won a local media journalism award for that 2016 presidential op-ed piece he'd published back in late October. Well, not just for that one, but it was definitely a defining article. It's just too bad that Kyle had wrongly predicted the outcome of the election that he'd been so evangelically sure about. How embarrassing.
"It's not that big of a deal," he insists, side-stepping out of Stan's hold. "I didn't even—" He sighs. "It's just a local award, anyway. Anyone could have gotten it."
"Okay, yeah, but nobody else did."
Kyle opens his mouth, ready to argue, but sighs and shrugs instead. He knows better, probably. He also knows that time is money, specifically Cartman's money, and that there's a whole lot of nothing happening with everyone simply standing around to gawk at some over-glorified paperweight and kiss his ass. So he takes back the reigns and disperses the crowd back to their workspaces before hiding himself and his award away in his office, blinds closed as usual. Craig thinks that maybe he should congratulate Kyle himself since if anyone knows how much blood, sweat, and tears—among other bodily fluids—Kyle shed for that award, even unintendedly, it's him. Craig logs into Netflix instead.
"—orrow night."
"Dude, hell yeah! Can Craig come too?"
"Come to what?" Craig had taken his headphones off to ask Clyde if he knew why his queue was full of shitty reality TV shows when he catches the tail end of Stan and Clyde's conversation.
"Uh." Clyde looks at Stan, then back to Craig. "Stan and I were just… talking?"
"About last night's game," Stan interjects.
"Man, it was crazy. Right?"
Craig is not an idiot, but these two seem to think otherwise.
There's still about twenty minutes before lunch, which is a potential twenty minutes spent watching Clyde sweat bullets and making the occasional awkward eye contact with Stan, so Craig decides to take off early. It's not like Kyle would care, let alone even notice, probably. When Craig took a few days off last week without letting Kyle or HR know in advance, neither of them mentioned a thing. Kyle used to at least shoot him a quick "Is everything alright?" text, but not anymore.
Craig settles on grabbing lunch at the café since it's not too far from the office, plus it's only 12:11, so Kenny should be there. Which doesn't really matter in the long run since two steps down the sidewalk Craig realizes that he'd forgotten his wallet at home. All he has is about two dollars' worth of emergency bus fare change in his pocket, so he sighs and backpedals into the building where, if he's remembering correctly, there should be a couple vending in the community rec room. For lunch, Craig has an untoasted strawberry Pop-Tart and fountain water.
"What do you mean it's gonna take another two weeks? It's already been like four goddamn months! No, shut up, I don't care! I want my fucking building, Kyle!"
Craig doesn't need any more of a reason to get the hell out of there, but unfortunately the only way out is also the way in, and Cartman's belligerent shouting is getting louder. So he does what any reasonable individual would do in his situation and wedges himself between the vending machines.
"Just—do your job and hire more workers or some shit! But no more Mexicans! This is last time I hire those taco fuckers for anything. They're supposed to be MexiCANS, not MexiCAN'TS!"
Keys jingling. Vending machine shaking. Plastic crinkling.
SLAM.
Craig just about jumps out of his skin.
"Yeah well my office better have two fucking bathrooms at this rate. And one of the toilets better be gold plated. No, fuck that. Solid gold."
When Craig's certain he's alone again, he slips back out from between the vending machines and peeks around the corner out into the hall. Cartman is still barking into his cellphone as he jams his fat thumb into the elevator button, arms full of his vending machine spoils. He must have had a key, because all the KitKats, Milky Ways, and a bunch of other snacks are gone from the vending machine. Craig checks the dispensary bay just in case before heading back up to the office empty handed, until he finds a forgotten half-crushed bag of unsalted pretzels on the ground in front of the elevator. Cartman won't miss it. He pops it open and eats a few while waiting for the elevator to come back down.
The elevator is slow and outdated, looking like something that's just barely survived the test of time since the 1960s. It probably hasn't even been serviced since then, Craig thinks, as he stares at the broken wood paneling and mismatched buttons. That's probably illegal. Or not. He's not a lawyer.
"Heya, Craig!" Butters exclaims. Craig, too absorbed in his probably higher than average mortality rate at the current moment, hadn't noticed him board. "Out for lunch, huh? Aw, I wish I were you. Where ya goin'?"
He probably wouldn't die if the cable suddenly snapped. The building's only got four floors, five including the basement, and he's heard stories about people falling from the rooftops of buildings taller than that and surviving long enough to at least die of internal bleeding later at a hospital. Would Kyle come see in him in the hospital if that happened? Or would he just get an "Is everything alright?" text and a fruit basket? Maybe two fruit baskets if he had internal bleeding.
Butters scurries off when the elevator dings and the doors finally slide open. Craig follows him without a second thought and turns down the opposite end of the hall, hoping to find a mostly-empty office so he can eat his pretzels and watch Netflix in peace, but the only thing he finds is an empty suite and a maintenance closet with a missing doorknob. Craig sighs and heads back for the elevator, already having come to terms with his potential death.
"What did I tell you about hanging out up here!"
"Pfft. Relax, Wendy. I mean, did you even see him? He practically went grocery shopping. He's not coming out of there for a while. And even if he does, it's not like he's gonna care. Unless he still—"
"Ugh, don't even go there. Trust me, Cartman is the least of my worries. But Lola is going to be back here any minute, and I don't want to give her anything to gossip about! You know how she is!"
"But we're in different departments, so…"
"That's not the point, Stan!"
Craig glues himself to the wall adjacent to the elevator, careful to stay out of sight but close enough to listen in on the conversation. He can't really see anything, only a floor lamp and someone's shoe since everything's sort of obstructed by the half-open door to HR, but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what's going on.
Stan's cheating on Kyle.
With Wendy.
Wait. What?
"How are things going with Kyle, by the way? Any progress?"
"What happened to 'don't make me have to write you up again!' and 'the employee handbook says blah blah blah!'?"
"You know I'm just looking out for you guys! It doesn't mean I'm not rooting for him. I just—why can't it be someone else? Like David? He's weird."
"Dude, you have no idea."
"Bebe actually told me that he—wait. Did you hear that?"
"Hear what?"
"I don't know. Like a bag or something? I think someone's out in the hall."
Craig slams the elevator button like his life depends on it. His chances of surviving a fiery elevator accident, however dismal they may be, seem much more appealing now. He should have never picked up those goddamn pretzels.
"Craig? What are you doing up here?"
Craig's heart is pounding a lot harder than he'd ever hope it would for a guy who wears sports merch to work when he turns around to see Stan standing there behind him. Craig's brain is a jumbled mess, a jigsaw trying to make sense of too many things at once, such as a viable answer to Stan's question. So he thrusts the opened bag of pretzels towards Stan and says, "Cartman dropped these."
"You seriously came up here for that? Dude, just keep them. He's already the size of a small meteor, he doesn't need to eat those too," Stan says.
"What's Craig doing here?" Wendy asks, joining them at the elevator.
"Came to return Cartman's pretzels," Stan answers.
"What?"
"So hey, it's actually cool that you're here. I've been meaning to talk to you about something," Stan says, suddenly switching gears. Wendy is left perplexed about the pretzels. "What are you doing tomorrow?"
"I don't know," Craig says, because he doesn't. "Why?"
"Are you free?"
"Stan, no," Wendy interrupts.
"Wendy—"
"Don't you think you should talk to Kyle first?"
"Talk to Kyle about what?" Craig asks.
"Nothing, don't worry about it," Stan says.
Wendy huffs and shakes her head, mumbling something about how she can't believe Stan or whatever before going back to HR. "What's her problem?" Craig asks when it's just the two of them again.
"Girl stuff, probably. So are you free tomorrow, or…?"
"Should I be?"
"Well I'm throwing a party for New Years Eve, and—"
"No thanks."
"I figured you'd say that." Stan smirks. "You didn't let me finish though. It's also sort of a surprise 'congratulations' party for Kyle. You know, since he won that award and everything. I know he likes to act like it's not a big deal, but it kind of is. And honestly, it'd be really cool if you came. I think it'd really mean a lot to him."
"So that's what you and Clyde were talking about," Craig says.
"Ah, yeah… sorry about that. I just didn't want to get Clyde mixed in with everything. Figured it'd be better if I talked to you alone, you know?"
"There wasn't even a game last night."
"Look, are you coming or not?"
Craig stops pointing out Stan's blatant stupidity for a moment to mull over the invitation. "Is there going to be alcohol?" he asks.
"Of course? It's New Years, dude."
Craig should know better by now. He really should.
"Then sure."