Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Craig hasn’t felt like himself since coming back from Peru.

Maybe it’s because his body has yet to readjust to the dry cold of South Park after two weeks of Peru’s humid heat. Maybe it’s his ten million mosquito bites bleeding messy red dots into his sweatpants from how much he’s scratched at them. Maybe it’s the fact he hasn’t showered in three days because he’s been too busy bedrotting, and still can’t now despite having a shift in three hours because Tricia’s stuck in the bathroom with diarrhea from the water in their grandmother’s house.

He drops into his desk chair, running his hands through his greasy hair and sighing. All the Clairo probably isn’t helping him, but he doesn’t really want to turn it off. He wants to fill his brain with music that Tricia and Tammy would call slow and boring, music that Henrietta and Stan would call basic bitch indie-pop. He wants to lay in his bed, put “Softly” on loop, and sleep right through his shift.

But he can’t quite do that unless he wants to lose his job and face his mother’s wrath, so he pushes himself into a standing position and grabs his phone, opening up his messages.

hey, can i shower at your place? tricia got a stomach bug from peru and won’t leave the bathroom

YOURE BACK??? AND DIDNT TELL MEEEE???
COME OVER BEFORE I COME OVER WTF
OMG :DDD!!
HURRY HURRY

thank you, i’ll be over in five

…Maybe he should listen to something other than Clairo.

Craig picks a different playlist, shuffles it, and removes all the Clairo songs from the lineup, leaving him to listen to a Wallows song as he sorts through the laundry he left folded on his dresser for his South Park Slice T-shirt and a comfortable pair of jeans. If it was up to him, he’d never wear denim, but his mother and Tricia and Clyde all badger him over his fashion choices—so here he is, deciding which jeans to work. He only has three pairs, so it’s a decently easy choice to make.

He considers changing out of his blood-dotted sweatpants, but decides that he’ll be changing soon enough and that there’s no point in making extra laundry. Once he’s stuffed his work clothes, deodorant, and lotion into his NASA tote bag, he’s on his way, nearly gasping due to how cold it is outside but deciding that going back inside for a coat isn’t worth it because Clyde is literally twenty seconds away.

So Craig endures the twenty-second walk through the snowy patch between their homes and onto Clyde’s doorstep, and he gets exactly one knock in before his friend rips the door open and yanks Craig into a hug, squeezing him so hard his back pops—twice. “Dude, oh my God! Hi! I missed you so much!”

The hug is over as quickly as it begins, Craig blinking owlishly as he’s suddenly being held at arm’s length and scrutinized.

“Dude, you are so tan right now.” Clyde lets go of Craig’s shoulders in favor of grabbing one of Craig’s wrists, comparing their forearms with a grin. “I don’t think I’ll ever get over the fact that, while we all freeze to death in the bumfuck-nowhere middle of Colorado, you go to South America to get more tan.”

Craig tries to tack on a snarky remark about getting giardia alongside his tan, but voice gets stuck in his throat when he tries to speak.

Huh. He briefly wonders when he last said anything aloud.

It’s not like he had to say anything out loud to his grandmother, after all; she’s also deaf, her hearing loss even more severe than Craig’s. And because they were all in her house, the Tuckers did what she wanted, which is use sign language. Well, except for Thomas—he stayed home and visited his own side of the family for Christmas, something everyone else got out of the way before going to Peru. Needless to say, Laura wasn’t very keen on spending a lot of time with her in-laws.

Clyde makes some sort of motion with his hands that Craig assumes is his best attempt at, “Are you okay?”

After clearing his throat, Craig finally finds his voice. “I know Peruvian Sign Language, not American.”

“Yeah, but there’s a grand total of, like, ten YouTube videos I can use to teach myself LSP,” Clyde protests. “I’m pretty sure Google AI tried to pass ASL off as LSP to me at least five separate times. You should really just teach me.”

Craig rolls his eyes. “You should really just let me shower. You never survive past the alphabet, anyway.”

“You’re so mean,” Clyde huffs, but he’s grinning. “But okay, mi casa es su casa, so go take your shower. You work at four, right? So we have time to hang out before you need to leave. Do you want anything to eat? My dad’s been buying a bunch of fancy Whole Foods shit to impress his new girlfriend, so we have plenty of options right now.”

Craig contemplates the possibilities for a moment. “Do you have flavored pretzel chips?”

“So. Fucking. Many. I’d kill for a Dorito right now.”

“I’ll eat all your pretzel chips,” Craig decides. “And red grapes.”

“Which you’re crazy for, because green grapes have never not been the best kind of grape, but okay!”

Craig flips off Clyde, who just grins and heads off to the kitchen, slippers scuffing against the dull tiled floor as the untied belt of his bathrobe drags against the floor, picking up dust alongside the too-long ends of his plaid pajama pants. Craig looks away and heads upstairs.

He’s been in this house so many times it feels like his own. He’s smelt Clyde’s shampoo so much that he could pick it off a shelf at Target without thinking twice. He’s memorized the bleach-stain patterns in all of the grey-tured-off-white bath towels.

He takes his time in the shower, standing under the steaming hot water until his fingers prune. He feels even more lethargic than before as he steps out, toweling off his hair and staring blankly at his reflection, blurred beyond recognition by the steam.

…He could definitely lie and say he has the same sickness Tricia has—Tammy always tells them to cite stomach problems if they want to call off and not be questioned—but that would only work for an hour, because his mother gets off at five, and he’d be damned if she didn’t send him right to work with a written apology for being a liar when she caught him in the act.

Craig breathes in a lungful of steam and sighs right back out. Maybe he’ll feel better after having something to eat.

Once he’s changed into his work uniform (which, by the way, is more uncomfortable than usual with damp skin, even if Stan made the shirt marginally less itchy), Craig heads back downstairs to find Clyde lounging on the couch with three whole bags of pretzel chips and an almost-full bag of red grapes. He spots Craig and turns down the volume on whatever he’s watching, scooting over and patting the spot next to him.

“You know I’m going to eat everything you don’t take away from me, right?” Craig asks as he sinks into the ancient couch cushions, gesturing vaguely to all the food set out in front of them.

“That’s the point,” Clyde grins, bumping his shoulder against Craig’s. “My dad’s been pissing me off lately, so I’m willing to let him suffer this grievance.”

Craig decides he’d rather listen to Clyde talk than recount his Peru visit, which went the exact same as it did last year and has nothing special about it to speak of. So he grabs a bag of pretzel chips, opens it, and sits back, hoping Clyde gets the memo. “What’d he do this time?”

“Thank God you asked,” Clyde sighs, handing Craig a can of Sprite before cracking one open for himself. “Yours is flat, don’t worry.”

After a cautionary sip proves Clyde right, Craig takes a much larger gulp, already feeling a little better. (Maybe part of his problem was forgetting to have lunch.)

“Okay, so,” Clyde begins, “be glad you weren’t here for most of break. It was a mess. I slept over at Token’s how many times, now? Way too many, that’s for sure. You know Becky, right?”

Craig nods, crunching down on a buffalo-flavored pretzel chip. “Fuck Becky.”

Clyde nods and launches into some elaborate story about how his dad has started inviting Becky to stay the night, and how they have sex so loudly that Clyde can’t fall asleep whenever they do.

Becky is a woman Clyde’s dad has known for ages but has only been seriously seeing for about three months now, and Craig originally didn’t give a shit about Roger’s dating life until he realized that the guy’s new girlfriend—and her thirteen-year-old son—were total pieces of shit. Which took less than a month to figure out.

As soon as Becky got Roger wrapped around her finger, she started doing whatever the hell she wanted, which consisted mostly of trying to replace Clyde and Craig with her own asshole son Jonathan. And Roger just nodded along, a spineless wimp so desperate to not die alone that he’d apparently drag anyone he could onto the chopping block to achieve his goal. Craig really had thought better of him.

Less than three weeks of acting nice passed before Becky started trying to kick Craig out of the house in the evenings because he was interrupting “quality family time,” as if he was somehow less welcome in the house than she was. Bullshit.

Less than three weeks of pretending to be decent human beings passed before Becky’s son started purposely fucking up Clyde’s most important belongings under the guise of being clumsy, as if throwing forty origami cranes in the trash or stepping on and cracking a Playstation game disc just happened sometimes. Also bullshit.

And Roger just let it happen, because Becky is so sweet, I don’t know what you’re going on about, because you guys were Jonathan’s age once, too, don’t be so mean.

Craig stopped giving a damn about playing nice after Jonathan made some racist comment about Mexicans—clearly directed at Craig, too—while Clyde was out getting the mail, and his mother didn’t bother to reprimand him. Craig had poured what was left of his water onto the little shit, let him know he wasn’t even Mexican, and left. He’d stepped out right as Clyde stepped in, letting Jonathan’s tantrum tell the story.

Yeah, Craig technically isn’t allowed in the house anymore.

He still comes over when it’s just Clyde, though.

“So basically, I need a girlfriend so that I can out-sex Becky and my dad,” Clyde concludes, topping off his declaration with a final swig of Sprite. Craig is on his second bag of pretzel chips now—garlic parmesan.

“Becky would just kick her out,” Craig huffs out an almost-laugh. “If I can get kicked out, anyone can.”

“Shit. You’re right.” Clyde reaches over to grab a chip from Craig, grimacing as soon as he takes a bite. “Oh my God, dude, take the whole thing with you when you leave. These sucks ass.”

“I like them.”

“Yeah, and you like flat soda and red grapes, so I don’t wanna hear it!”

Craig kicks Clyde under the coffee table. “Whatever. If Becky likes pizza, we could just make her something and spit in it.”

“Dude, she has my dad buying snacks from Whole Foods. She’s not going to eat a damn thing from the fucking South Park Slice.”

“Spit in her low-sodium mashed potatoes,” Craig snarks, thinking back to the nightmarish Thanksgiving dinner she roped Craig and Roger into this past fall.

“Shut up. Don’t even remind me of all the Laura Tucker foods I had to miss out on,” Clyde mutters, burying his face in his hands. “I’ll skip Becky Thanksgiving next year, I promise!”

“You better.”

They fall into comfortable silence after that, watching the random movie that came on the television without really paying attention to it. Craig lets his shoulder press against Clyde’s as the movie drags on, soaking his best friend’s warmth, feeling leagues better than he did only a couple of hours ago.

When the end credits roll, Craig finally stands. He’s done exactly as he promised he would and eaten everything placed before him—and dude, it was good. Laura would kill him if she knew his lunch was a pound of grapes and a pound and a half of pretzel chips, but Craig doesn’t regret a thing.

“Aww, you have to go to work already?” Clyde whines, standing up to wrap his arms around Craig. “You should quit your job so you can hang out with me.”

Craig smacks Clyde’s hands where they clasp around his middle. That sounds nice, but… “No. Also, don’t you have a job?”

“Yeah, but what does that matter?”

Craig rolls his eyes and smacks Clyde’s hands harder and harder until he lets go. He steps back, readjusting the collar of his shirt. “Well, you… also have a job?”

“And what does that have to do with anything?”

Oh. Clyde’s being difficult for fun. That explains it.

Craig huffs. “I’m going to work. Just go to my place if anyone gets on your nerves. My mom will be delighted to see you again.”

“Honestly, I’ll just head over with you. I want to watch Tricia kill you in The Sims anyway.”

Craig flips Clyde off, but he can’t help his smile.

Craig is no longer smiling by the time he gets to work. It’s a Thursday, meaning his first shift back after two weeks of freedom will suck ass. Yes, Fridays and Saturdays are technically worse, but Thursdays still suck because they're always spent preparing for Friday and Saturday.

He’s a little early, so the lunch manager is still there, some guy Craig is almost certain he had history class with last semester—his Diabetes alert bracelet is Craig’s favorite shade of blue, which is why Craig remembers him.

“Hey, Craig,” the guy says, shooting him a smile as he shuffles into the back, “how was your trip?”

Craig’s about to ask how the hell this guy knows he was on a trip before remembering that he wrote everything about his impending absence on a piece of paper for Tammy at the start of winter break, and that Tammy isn't the best about putting things away.

Craig swallows and shrugs. “Who are you?”

The guy blinks, then laughs a little. “Do you seriously not remember? I’m Scott. We had history together last semester.”

“I…” Fuck. So Craig does in fact know this guy. Now he sounds like an idiot.

He bites the inside of his cheek before deciding he doesn't have the energy to explain himself. “The trip was fine.”

“That’s good! Also, just so you know, a note was left about the condition the shop was in last night. It doesn't apply to you, since you weren't working, but I’d appreciate it if you let everyone working with you tonight know about it, okay? It’s on the counter.”

“Okay.”

“Anyway, I’m going to head out, but everyone else should be here in just a few minutes. Have a nice day, Craig!”

Craig watches Scott wipe down the line and take off his plastic gloves, feet rooted to the floor. “...Okay.”

Scott grabs his backpack and coat and heads out, leaving Craig alone in the shop. After another moment of simply standing there, he shuffles to the front and looks at the so-called note Scott wanted everyone to see.

Dyslexia and messy cursive don't play nice, so Craig decides to leave the note alone after about three seconds of staring at it in bewilderment. He heads back to the back and opens one of the industrial fridges, grabbing a few giant containers of nacho cheese, ranch, and garlic sauce. Everyone else can have fun with the note; he’s going to focus on his work and put Clairo back on if they start playing shitty music again.

He gets about ten minutes to himself before he hears the bell on the door and—

“Cartman, I don't know how many times I have to tell you that I don't give a shit about the plot of Yuri!!! on Ice? Like, seriously. I don’t care. Stop fucking talking about it.”

Craig’s lips purse in mild alarm. Cartman?

“Shut up, Jew kisser. If you just fucking listen to me, you might be able to understand how to be a better homosexual and finally bag Kahl. Y’know why everyone likes Yuuri and Victor together? They’re good homosexuals. Y’know why no one gives a shit whether you and Kahl get together or not? You’re bad homosexuals. And you can get better if you just listen to me—”

“I’m not fucking gay for Kyle!” Stan—it’s got to be Stan—shouts, and there’s a loud banging sound followed by a lot of cursing.

It only stops when the bell rings again and a disgusted-sounding feminine voice drowns out their bickering. “Ugh. Fucking conformist bickering, I swear to God.”

No one seems to have noticed Craig is here yet, but he honestly prefers it that way. He goes back to pouring ranch cups, fighting the urge to up and leave now that he knows he’ll probably have to work with fucking Eric Cartman if he’s showing up with Stan at four on a Thursday.

“Wait, what the fuck is this?” Cartman nearly yells, and Craig hears the snap of paper before Stan, Henrietta, and Cartman round the corner, all in South Park Slice T-shirts. “Oh my god, what the hell is this even supposed to say? It’s like if John Hancock had a fucking seizure!”

“Let me see,” Stan snaps, but pauses as he finally spots Craig. “Oh, hey, dude. How was Peru?”

“Yeah,” Cartman joins in, grinning, “how was eating guinea pigs?”

Henrietta smacks the back of Cartman’s head so hard his hat falls right off.

“Hey, what the fuck?!”

“That was deserved,” Stan snickers, then looks back at Craig expectantly. “Ignore him.”

Having three peoples’ attention on him at once is a uniquely suffocating experience. Words fall out of Craig’s mouth before he can think them through, desperate to shoulder through the small talk and return to normal. “It was fine. Everything was fine. We came home early because Tricia got sick.”

“Third world water sucks ass, huh?” Cartman sighs in mock sympathy and, while he’s technically right about the water not being the greatest, watching Henrietta smack him again still makes Craig very happy.

Cartman yelps and clutches his skull. “Hey, what the fuck am I doing wrong? I’m just making small talk!”

“Peru isn't a third-world country, fatass,” Stan snorts.

“You sound just like Kahl, dude. Fuckin’ ‘um, actually,’ headass. You. Are. So. Gay.”

“I am literally—”

“What does the note say?” Henrietta asks, once again loud enough to drown out Stan and Cartman’s bickering. It’s actually kind of funny to watch.

Stan finally looks at the note in his hands, makes a face, and shrugs. “I can’t read cursive.”

“Give it to me,” Henrietta snaps, plucking it right from Stan’s hands. She looks as unimpressed as ever as she reads it over. “What a conformist bitch.”

“What does it say?” Stan asks, standing on his tiptoes to try and read over her shoulder but failing on account of being short. Craig has to force himself not to snicker.

Henrietta brings a black-gloved fist to her mouth and clears her throat, pitching her voice up in imitation of what’s probably meant to be a teacher’s pet or prep or whatever fucking insults she likes to use. She starts with an eye roll:

There’s a moment of silence before Cartman loses his shit laughing.

“Oh. my God, there’s no way someone wrote that with a straight face. Oh my God!”

“We know how to close,” Stan mutters. “Jesus. It was just a bad day.”

“Capitalist slave,” Henrietta drawls, holding the note out in front of her and ripping it in half before handing it to Cartman, who crumples it up and shoots for the trash can.

He misses, and Craig can’t help the singular laugh he huffs out. When Cartman whirls around to glare at him, he’s already back to filling ranch cups.

“I still can’t believe someone fucking wrote that!” Cartman giggles as he picks up the crumpled note and puts it in the trash properly this time. “They’re giving Kahl a run for his money in the annoying stuck-up nerd competition—hey, wait! You know what we should do? Y’know what’d be really funny?”

When no one responds, he clears his throat. Loudly. “Hello?”

Stan sighs before biting. “What?”

“We should write a note back telling them to kiss our asses. I can’t fucking stand dweebs like that.”

Henrietta hums her agreement from her corner, where she’s typing something on her phone. “I’m down.”

“I mean,” Stan hesitates for a moment before finally nodding. “We know how to close, so… yeah.”

And then they’re all paying attention to Craig. Again.

Craig doesn't really see the point in writing a note back, but he knows how the Stan-Henrietta-and-now-Cartman dance is going to go. You either agree with them and get left blissfully alone, or dissent and get badgered for the rest of the night. He learned that the hard way after coming out as a Clairo fan. Now he just pretends to have found the appeal in The Cure.

“Yeah, write it,” he says flatly, and briefly wonders why they still try to include him in conversation when they’re clearly better at entertaining one another than Craig is.

He tunes out their snide comments and snickers with “Softly” (he’s wanted to listen to it for hours now) and moves on from making cups of dipping sauce to reordering all the items in the fridge by expiration date, feeling nearly serene as the song loops and loops and loops.

Is it alright
To feel this way so early?
And in my blood
All the sweet nothings fallin' in love overnight

Didn't mean to get so close
And I know that I should probably go
But I got this feeling
Tell me, girl, I gotta know

Touch you softly
I call you up late at night
Know that it isn't—

“DUDE!”

Craig almost drops the head of lettuce he’s holding when someone’s hand claps down on his shoulder. He scowls and jerks away, pulling his phone out to pause his music and change his hearing aid settings to pick up speech again. “What?”

“Stan wanted to know if you wanted to add anything to the note,” Cartman explains, waving a new sheet of paper in Craig’s face.

“No,” Craig snaps. “Let me do my job.”

“Jesus, Craig, did your mommy hand her periods off to you after she went into menopause?”

“Dude, leave him alone,” Stan sighs, shooting Craig an apologetic smile when he catches his eye. Craig feels a sense of camaraderie with Stan for the first time since they started working together.

“Just don’t end up in cahoots with whatever dweeb wrote that stupid fucking note,” Cartman huffs.

Craig rolls his eyes so hard they hurt. “I won’t.”

“Good boy.” Cartman turns on his heel and walks back to the counter, and Craig stops scowling to just stare.

What the fuck?

…Actually, whatever.

He just needs to hang out with normal people later. He’ll text Clyde and ask him to arrange a group hangout; him, Token, and Jimmy are so much easier to be around than these fucking people.

He tunes out Bauhaus or whatever in favor of putting “Softly” back on loop, focusing on getting everything ready for Friday instead of proofreading a note with a penis drawn on it.

Words can’t describe how relieved he is when he checks his messages at nine to find the group chat has blown up.

Clyde
Guys let’s hangout tonight BECKY is here again
💀💀💀💀
Please save me who can host a sleepover
I won’t sleep otherwise
Craig is back so it should be the whole gang this time
Please
Please
Please
PLEASE
🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺
SOMEONE REPLY UGHHHH

Token
Dude, pack a bag and come on over. I can host everyone, my mom said it’s fine

Jimmy
Banger
My mom can make us food
What do y’all want

Clyde
Something unhealthy BECKY has had us eat chicken caesae salad so many times omg

Token
Should we order pizza? Craig?

Me
no. cartman will spit in it
i work with him now he’s getting on my fucking nerves

Clyde
CRAIG 🥺🥺🥺🥺 ARE YOU COMING TO THE SLEEPOVER

Me
if ma says yes, which she probably will
i’ll ask
if we want unhealthy food i want chips

Clyde
Have you eaten literally any protein today dude

Me
doesn’t matter

Jimmy
Chicken and noodles it is lmfao

Clyde
I LOVE YOUR MOM

Jimmy
And I love you 😘

There is light at the end of the tunnel. Craig can survive another hour with Eric Cartman.

“—Hey, earth to Craig Fucker!”

…Probably.