Chapter Text
He has the hands of someone who fidgets, with long spindly fingers usually intertwined with Craig’s. They’re empty now, a first, and without anything to fill the spaces between them it’s apparent that Tweek was a born craftsman to begin with—those pianist fingers of his left no wonder as to why he picked up playing.
It’s in the way Richard Tweak pulls Tweek closer behind the counter, chest filled with pride, every time someone visits their quaint little coffee house. You know, my son isn’t just a spaz, the senior Tweak says, like he’s been digging for years for a goldmine of something, anything, that made his son’s existence worthwhile to him. Any opportunity presented that reflects nicely on the Tweaks is an opportunity gained. Learning the piano had been Tweek’s ticket to redemption, as had painting before, and baking before that.
Craig had helped with that, the whole confidence thing, and it was gay but not gay the way things happened on TV, you know, and no one had any qualms about it because that’s just how it was. They still did guy things, like rag on others and complain about how ‘Stan and those guys are dicks’. They snorted loud when they laughed, and kicked each other out of their sleeping bag at sleepovers when one or the other hogged it.
But sometimes Tweek pulled Craig down by his hat to kiss him hard in the hallways, and sometimes Craig would let himself smile after, absolutely lovestruck and one shade shy. Sometimes Richard Tweak would tell his son that he’d be sold into slavery if he didn’t do right by their family, and Craig would join their hands and pull Tweek away and tell him, you’re worth so much to me. Sometimes, Craig would sit alone and sigh, and Tweek would go up to him, pull him into his arms, and say, it’s okay to feel, man.
He misses the weight of Craig’s hands in his. It hurts to think he’s gone days without it. It hurts more that Craig doesn't get what he's done wrong.
Not for the first time, nor for the last, they’re fighting. But what’s new?
They’ve been fighting for a while, actually, over something that Craig thinks is insignificant and not that big of a deal, jesus, but that very same something is what Tweek’s poured the last two week’s of heart and effort into, so. It kind of is a big deal, but only to Tweek, and coming to that conclusion stung with more familiarity than it ever should have.
So maybe they’re taking a break right now. Maybe Craig’s being passive aggressive replying to Tweek’s texts, and Tweek’s made vague posts on Twitter about someone that may or may not be Craig. Relationships were like that sometimes. They’d bounce back from it eventually. The winding road that their relationship walks down always leads them back to this—Craig not understanding, Tweek understanding too much.
At least, that’s what everyone else thinks. Craig feels like an animal dragged out to lick its wounds in the open when they yell at each other like this in the auditorium, too many eyes on them both. Tweek’s doing most of the yelling, teeth and fists clenched, and it’d be cute if it wasn’t directed at him. Stripe would look cute though, snarling like that, but his guinea pig is too docile for anger so base. It’s strangely relatable. Except Craig isn’t docile so much as he is averse to drama and messiness and everything in between, and why, oh, why did he let himself get into this, again?
“An understudy?! Oh, no, don’t give me those ‘It isn’t such a big deal, Tweek’ eyes. It is totally a big deal, man! We’re three weeks in and now we have to deal with picking out an understudy? That is way too much—”
“—too much pressure, we get it, Tweek. Jesus.”
“Jesus yourself! We wouldn’t be in this mess if it wasn’t for you, Craig, you goddamn hypocrite!”
Craig really does not want to be doing this surrounded by all of Tweek’s beloved drama kids. He can feel their eyes on him, judging, and it’s attention but not the good kind so he couldn’t give less of a fuck. Why did they always have to argue in front of other people? It’s like no one in South Park is capable of keeping their arguments private. Every juicy inch of drama is wrung out and left to dry, regards rarely given for the people walking around under. Miraculously, or perhaps left with no other choice, said people just take it in stride. It’s just how it is in a place where you know someone who knows someone who once knew someone else, and a cycle-and-a-half later the whole town’s been accounted for. The best thing to do, to anyone with half an inch of wit about them, is let the trouble fizzle out.
Not wanting to light the fuse, Craig relents under the fire in Tweek’s eyes, even if he’s a little pissed.
Okay, a lot pissed. Doesn’t matter. He can’t lose his cool in front of the entire auditorium, and he doesn’t want to blow up at Tweek.
“Babe. I’m sorry.” He says it with as much emotion he can muster, pitching his voice higher so Tweek knows he cares. The lines in Tweek’s face soften, and it looks like he might apologise, too. Then Craig goes and digs his own grave, the epitome of tact that he is, with a, “You’re blowing this way out of proportion, though.”
“I’m blowing this out of proportion? I’m blowing this out of proportion?! What the fuck! My lead is walking out on me and I’m the one being too emotional?!”
“Look, honey, I didn’t want to be here in the first place,” Craig goes. Slowly, like he’s reciting the alphabet to a toddler with a grand total of three words under its grubby little belt. The amount of patience he punctuates each word with would be endearing, if it wasn’t such a…
“Agh! Are you shitting me right now?!”
...bad move.
Tweek’s face scrunches up, and the fight-or-flight stance he’d been in eases with the set of his jaw into something purely fight. If Craig looked annoyed before, he’s outright indignant now.
“No, I am not shitting you, Tweek. I’m terrible at acting. Why would I possibly want to be here?”
“Not that, asshole! Quit talking to me like that! Like— Like I’m some kind of emotional time bomb! I’m freaking you out again, and you don’t want to deal with it, so you’re forcing it.”
“It is literally not like that, and you are making it personal—”
“Oooh, I’m Craig Tucker, and I have a spaz for a boyfriend so I talk to him like he’s still ten! He’s freakingouttoohard to even— ngh, notice! Just announce it to the world, why don’t you?”
Something flashes on Craig’s face.
When Tweek starts pulling out accusations like that, it means business. Nothing irreversible, it doesn’t signify the end of the world or Satan’s rebirth or whatever, but it’s definitely something Craig can’t smooth over with just a fistful of dandelions and an apology. When Tweek looks back at Craig’s expression, eyes darting, searching for some indication that any of his words had struck true, he finds none.
Of course not. Craig could never think that of him. He glances back down, still fuming but newly ashamed.
“You’re putting words into my mouth, and I’m not going to deal with that,” Craig slides his hands into the pockets of his hoodie. Whatever he’d felt before, he’s smoothed out. If not for the annoyance in his voice, his calm would be buyable. “So I’m going to remove myself from the situation.”
“Fine,” Tweek grits out. He tilts his chin up; a challenge. “See if I care!”
Craig shifts. Inhales, shoulders rising. Exhales, loud enough that Jimmy and Wendy both hear it from where they sit fifty feet above the ground.
“Go find a new lead,” Craig pulls his hat low and flips Tweek off, “dick.”
Tweek wrings his hands together, fingers clasping and unclasping this way and that, and screams.
It’s been a day since rehearsals were temporarily suspended, an announcement made over the intercom that no one was pleased to hear—least of all Tweek, who promptly busied himself carrying all their props back to class. Upset or not, he had a reputation for being reliable and he’d die upholding it. It came with the whole ‘not wanting to disappoint everyone around him’ package, so it wasn’t like it was hard.
Finding a replacement for one of two male leads, though? That was hard. Even without the time constraints and closed open calls, Tweek had been set on getting to act with his boyfriend, and the way Craig just dropped him had stung.
It’s not like he wanted them joined at the hip, doomed to spend eternity together! Performing is manageable work, and Craig’s just being stupid.
“What hurts the most is how proud of it I was, man!” Tweek takes an angry sip from his juice box, then slams it down, shaking. “I’d spent hours on that crap, hunched over my desk, writing and writing and writing until Shakespeare had become less about romantic tragedy and more about how Romeo and Julien duke it out after school because their shitty friends goaded them into it.”
The fight had been fun to script, the ensuing badass betrayal even more so, but neither had been Tweek’s absolute favourite part. He thinks back to the bit between the male leads, right smack in the middle of page 12, which he’d been embarrassed about putting into the script at first. Last he checked, there was an entire page’s worth of dialogue centered around it alone. It was so vital to the overarching storyline that he couldn’t just do away with the scene.
Keeping it in isn’t an option, though. Not without Craig playing Julien.
In his mind he’d seen a set bathed in a dim glow; Romeo, stage left, and Julien, stage right. Classes and detention have kept them too far apart, and they’re exchanging wistful glances. The bell rings. They run to each other, tripping over their own feet in the desperation, and it’s over the top and dramatised but romantic all the same. Romeo would catch Julien, and Julien would press his hands into Romeo’s chest, flustered, and they would watch the other’s lips part, pressing their foreheads together, and...
It was supposed to be their first public kiss. If Craig hadn’t pussied out, it would have been.
Token sets a comforting hand on Tweek’s shoulder. “Your disappointment is palpable, dude. It's not like you to be airing your dirty laundry out like this.”
“Yeah,” says Clyde between mouthfuls of sandwich. “Talk about holding a grudge. I mean, what do you expect? It’s Craig. Craig, the guy who would get on his knees and suck the dick of normalcy if it meant not getting into big time bullshit. Maybe being the main lead in a play is, quote, ‘too much pressure’, unquote.”
“Butitisn’t!” is the testy reply that comes tumbling out of Tweek’s mouth, and he squeezes his drink so hard that juice shoots out the straw, right into his gravy. “It isn’t, because Craig’s great at taking the stage and if I’m capable of more than I think, then— then so is he!”
He remembers how Craig had watched him write, perched on his bed. Every time he finally looked up, Craig would smile.
Looking back, that was probably the moment that solidified his resolve to see the play through, even if the project was the biggest one Tweek’s ever taken on in his life. Craig always looked at him like he was made of something incandescent. Tweek just wanted Craig to be part of that light.
Clyde takes one look at Tweek’s ruined lunch, and exchanges a glance with Token. “You know the drama club is kind of intimidating, right?”
Tweek doesn't. He raises his eyebrows, twitching unsurely, and Token sighs.
"It kind of is, yeah. Take it from us. You're a natural under the spotlight, but not everyone takes to the stage like that. Just because you can do it," Token holds Tweek's gaze, "doesn't mean everyone else can."
"Yeah," Clyde punches Tweek in the shoulder fondly, and Tweek would return the favour if he was in a better mood. "What is it that Craig keeps saying? You're skilled at doing more than you believe? You're more competent than you ponder?"
Like clockwork, the words pop into his mind in Craig's familiar monotone: You're capable of more than you think.
Token rolls his eyes but laughs, anyway. "Oh my god, shut up, Clyde."
And just like that, everything falls into place as Token and Clyde go off into another one of their tangents, something about Token's dad being the ringmaster behind every black market in the world because, duh, it's a Black market. Tweek squawks when he's put on the spot to settle their debate, but throws in an answer that's neither here nor there, something equally as contrived as Clyde's interjectory: "But it's your family name!"
He's not all there either, to be honest. Across the cafeteria, Craig's sitting with Stan and his posse, and the way he's deeply invested in whatever discussion they're having would be cute if he wasn't shifting constantly to avoid Tweek's gaze.
Tweek doesn't apologise much, because he's never needed to. With all the guilt clouding his mind, he’s starting to think maybe he should.