Work Text:
“What's your favorite color?”
Tweek dug his heels into the wood chips. The swing in which he sat slowed to a stop. “What?” he asked. Instead of clarifying, though, Craig just shrugged.
It was dawn on a Saturday, and they were at a park. They sat in adjacent swings, rocking slower and slower as the morning drew closer. Both knew they should be asleep, but Tweek had never been good at sleeping (nor had he been particularly fond of it). Craig was essentially the opposite; he liked sleep more than he liked most anything else. And yet, when Tweek had texted him at one in the morning affected by a bout of insomnia and loneliness, Craig immediately proposed a late-night park-venture. Since Tweek's parents were gone at (what he could only assume to be) some sort of high-end coffee convention in Denver for the week, he was unconcerned with his own parental discipline at sneaking out. Craig, on the other hand, didn't have that luxury. At Tweek's anxieties on this, Craig had assured him that it would be “totally fine” and he would “rather get grounded for a week than have a friend upset for a day”.
So there they sat, cold in the early-morning frost. They shivered in clothes that were two layers too thin, and gripped the chains of their swings through sweater sleeves. Or, more accurately, Craig did – Tweek was still rather disinterested in the concept of wearing a sweater religiously, and kept to the button-downs. He was typically rather inept to cold, anyway. It just never bothered him much. Craig always blamed that on the crazy amount of coffee he drank (“all that warmth going into your body is making you turn into a space heater,” Tweek remembered Craig telling him one evening).
Tweek kicked some wood chips up into the air with his feet. He thought and thought and thought. Ultimately, he wasn't really sure how to answer. What was his favorite color? He didn't really know. He liked blue, but he didn't really want to answer with “blue” in case Craig would take it as a sort of weird, friendship-based pandering. He could say purple, but he wasn't a huge fan of purple, because he wasn't a huge fan of red, because red was too loud. He was rather partial to pastel pink – but then he remembered all the shades of pink that he didn't like, and decided against it. Orange was okay, but not his favorite, and yellow was the color of his hair, which he hated.
“Green,” Tweek finally said, wiping at his eyes. His brain was yawning, opening up to all of the shades of green in their environment now that he had said the word. The morning sun was making him sleepy, too. He wondered if he could count cars the same way people count sheep.
“Green,” Craig repeated. He leaned back on the swing, kicking his legs out in front of him. His hat threatened to fall off of his head. Tweek just barely fought back the urge to readjust it. It's not mine, he told himself, I don't have permission to touch it. Craig licked the fronts of his teeth – Tweek could see his tongue peek out from the parting of his lips. “Why green?”
“Because – ” aw, jeez. He had to explain why, too? Tweek made a noise under his breath, hands quivering and fidgeting on the chains of his swing. “Why? Jesus, man, I don't know. I just like green. It's totally underrated. Forests are green, and, like, nature. It's important. But people give the color the same attention they give, like, plants and animals and all that. Being, y'know. Not a lot. People don't give a lot of attention to that stuff.”
Craig let out a little “huh” of acknowledgement. “So people don't give the color green enough attention,” he said, but Tweek knew it was supposed to be a question. Sometimes, Tweek couldn't tell if Craig was legitimately interested, or if he was just being sarcastic.
Tweek decided to answer, anyway. “Of course not, man. How many people have you met that say they actually like the color green?”
After a few blinks, Craig said, “zero.”
“See? Underrated. I mean, it's all around us, man. If we didn't have the color green, everything would just be all – all... all sad.”
“I think if we didn't have green, it'd just be replaced by a different color. And we'd treat it the same as green, it'd just be not-green.” Craig lifted himself up from his lean. “A lot of colorblind people can't see green. They know it exists, but they don't see it. And they don't really treat it differently from green, either. Because it is green, it's just not.”
“What?” Tweek asked. He furrowed his brows, the muscles in his jaw tensing and twisting as he thought about that. He couldn't really wrap his head around it. “If someone doesn't see green, then it's not green. How is it green?”
“Because it's objectively green. The grass is green. The sky is blue. The fact that someone sees it as grey doesn't make it any less true.” Craig stood up from the swing. He took a look at the sleeves on his sweater, which were now stained with a dark, rust-colored residue. The swings were so old, it probably was rust residue. “Aw, man. I liked this sweater.”
“It'll wash out,” said Tweek.
“Yeah, but it's still unattractive while it's there.” Craig rubbed his sleeves on his pants. “There's easily ten different types of tetanus on my sleeves.”
“Huh? No there isn't. There are only four different types of tetanus.” But then, Tweek fell unsure. Are there four? Or were there more? Or was there only one? Was tetanus just tetanus and that's it? What if there were ten different types of tetanus? Does that mean he has ten different types of tetanus on his hands? Or – oh, Jesus, what if there are more? What if there were as many types as numbers and Craig only had ten types because he used his sleeves? He was using his hands, was the tetanus soaking into his skin? How many types did he have? Forty? Sixty? A hundred? Three hundred?
“What are you thinking about, babe,” Craig asked.
“Tetanus!” Tweek yelped.
***
Tweek next saw Craig on Monday, in fourth period. Craig looked tired and pissed off (which was kind of a natural Tucker look). There were dark circles under his eyes as he stared grudgingly at his textbook, his temple resting on the heel of his palm.
At first, Tweek wasn't sure what to say. He didn't know how to bring up the fact that he was confused. Not about the way Craig was sitting, but by the fact that Craig hadn't walked with him to school, as they usually did. He didn't want to come off as angry – because he wasn't! He was concerned, honestly, if Craig's expression was anything to go by. The irritation he exuded was almost distressingly noticeable.
It was an unusual day, Tweek decided. He tugged out his own textbook, and as the teacher droned on about jotting down the “Monday Morning Journal”, he shot another look to Craig.
As the day moved on, and as morning rolled into afternoon, Tweek managed to build up the courage needed to talk to Craig. Five minutes from end of class, with the teacher distracted and talking to a student about extra credit, Tweek turned his body to face his close friend and table-mate.
“Dude, you didn't walk to school with me,” he said quietly. Craig looked over. His slouch was almost as bad as Tweek's. It probably was, actually – it was just hidden underneath that sweater.
“Sorry. I forgot,” Craig replied. At first, Tweek was confused. Craig's lisp was a bit more pronounced than usual, and now he was certain there was a reason for him sitting the way he was. It looked strange, as it was something he'd never seen Craig do before. He usually rested his jaw in his palm, not his temple – but Tweek couldn't figure out why today would be different.
“It's fine, I'm just confused. Are you okay?” Tweek asked.
“My mouth hurts,” Craig said.
Tweek furrowed his brows. “What? Why?”
Craig turned his attention back to his textbook, though he didn't need it. It was still open to the page he had been reading at the beginning of class, so Tweek was fairly sure he wasn't really reading it at all. After a moment of silence, Craig mumbled, “I got braces.”
“Jesus, dude. What's that like?”
“It sucks. I can't eat peanut butter.”
Tweek tilted his head, a weird look spreading on his face. “You don't like peanut butter,” he said. Craig groaned, dropping his head from his hand. He tapped his pencil noisily against his textbook.
“I know, but I hate people telling me what to do even more.”
Tweek pressed his lips together into a tight line. He averted his gaze, looking at the stick-figure doodles covering the surface of the table. Someone had written “hi dude” on the bottom, close to where Tweek usually rested his left wrist.
Conversation was interrupted by the bell. Tweek gathered up the few things he had removed from his bag, and shoved them haphazardly into the open pocket of his rucksack. Craig followed in the ministration, though not nearly as quickly. He took his time, putting each and every pen and pad into their rightful place in his backpack. He wasn't done sorting everything until every other student had left the class. Tweek was slightly concerned at Craig's subdued body language. When they left the classroom and made their way to the cafeteria, Tweek began to search his brain for something that might help get Craig's mind off of the pain. He came up dry.
Craig didn't go through the lunch line. Instead, he immediately began on his way towards their usual table. Tweek followed close behind. “Hey. Craig. Where are you going?” he asked.
“My mouth hurts,” was all Craig said in response.
“Agh – what? You need to eat.”
Once again, all Craig said was, “my mouth hurts.” As Craig sat down at the table, Tweek slid in across from him.
“No, what – no. You need to eat.” Tweek withdrew his lunch box from his backpack. He rustled and sifted through the contents of it. He removed a yogurt and a plastic spoon. Without further questioning, he slid the yogurt and the spoon across the lunch table to Craig. “There. It's soft.”
Craig, although apparently mulling it over for a second, slid the yogurt and spoon right back to Tweek. “No. You need to eat.”
“I have a sandwich, I don't need this,” Tweek said. He slid the yogurt back.
“I don't need hand-outs. If I wanted to eat, I would have brought something.” And thus, he slid it right back to Tweek. Before he could finish the gesture, though, Tweek shot his hand out to hold the yogurt in place, halfway across the table. Craig gave him a look.
“Just take the yogurt!” Tweek exclaimed.
“Whoa! Did we walk in on something? Because it looks kinda gay.” Tweek and Craig glanced up from each other, turning to look at the source of the voice. Clyde and Token stood, holding their lunch trays, watching the two of them fight over the consumption of Tweek's yogurt. In a final effort to get Craig to eat, Tweek jabbed the yogurt across the table with his fingertips. Craig caught it when it threatened to fall to the floor, and Tweek went right back to his lunch box. Clyde sighed when no one responded to his statement, and plopped down next to Craig. “That's fine, you don't need to talk to me. I understand relationship issues. Bebe and I are going through a bit of a – ”
“Clyde, I swear to God, if you say 'dry spell', I'll never talk to you again,” Token said. He slid into the seat next to Tweek.
Clyde sputtered. “I was gonna say 'rough patch', I promise!”
Token narrowed his eyes, but otherwise didn't argue. He tugged his milk open. Not even a second later, he reached across the table to open Clyde's milk, as well.
“Hey! I can open it perfectly fine on my own, thank you,” Clyde protested.
“Sure,” Token snorted.
As the two bickered, Tweek tried to bury himself into his turkey and mayo sandwich. Underneath the table, both of his legs were bouncing of their own accord. He wouldn't say he was particularly anxious – nothing out of the usual, at least. He was just mildly uncomfortable. He could feel the prickling of over-stimulation begin to scrape against the skin where his sleeves ended.
“Hey,” Token muttered to Tweek. At being addressed, Tweek glanced over. Token gestured with a nod in Craig's direction. “What's up with him?”
Tweek turned his attention to Craig, who was “struggling” with the plastic top on the yogurt container. Tweek knew he wasn't really struggling with it. It was just an excuse to push off eating. He was lamely picking at the corner of it with his thumbnail. Tweek swallowed the bit of sandwich that he'd been chewing, and said, “he's mad because he doesn't want to eat.”
“Why?” Token asked.
“I'm not mad. My mouth hurts,” Craig grumbled. He finally tore open the yogurt, his gaze flicking over the contents of the container.
“Why does your mouth hurt?” piped Clyde through his pizza. Craig only grunted and began to absently stir at the yogurt. At the lack of response, Clyde turned to Tweek. “Why does his mouth hurt?”
As soon as the phrase “he got braces” left Tweek's mouth, Clyde gasped in a manner that was all-too overly-dramatic. He turned to Craig as if he'd just heard he was pregnant.
“You got braces? Dude! Show me!”
“No,” Craig mumbled. He lifted the spoon, stared at it for a moment, and as soon as he seemed about ready to eat, Clyde lurched forward and parted Craig's lips with his fingers. He tilted his head and looked at the bands, seemingly ignorant of Craig's glare.
“Clyde – ” Token tried, but was interrupted almost immediately.
“Dude!” Clyde said again, a teasing grin spreading on his face. “They're green! They're green!”
Immediately, Craig dropped the spoon back into the yogurt container and slapped Clyde's hands away. He ducked his head down, pressing his lips together as much as he could.
As all of this went down, Tweek watched on with wonderment. He was shocked that Clyde had practically shoved his fingers into Craig's mouth, and he was shocked at Craig's almost ashamed expression. His face was burning a gentle red, Tweek noticed, and he was back to stirring the yogurt like it was the only thing keeping him sane.
“They're green?” Tweek asked hesitantly. He was brought back to the conversation they'd had at the park early on Saturday morning, about green and nature and tetanus. He remembered walking back home with Craig, holding hands although there was no one around them to see.
“I promise you, they're green,” Clyde answered. He took a large bite of pizza and continued with, “I wouldn't lie about that. Green's a stupid color for braces, not gonna lie.”
Blinking through the realization, Tweek glanced from Clyde to Craig, and then back to Clyde – and then, finally, back to Craig. Although he tried to hold it back, the muscles in his face began to react. He felt almost stupid, smiling at Craig like that, but it was worth it when Craig glanced up. It was worth the feeling of stupidity, when Craig slowly smiled back. Craig smiled a smile that displayed just enough of his teeth that the braces were visible – and sure enough, there it was. Jade green bands stared back at Tweek, held by thin metal wiring that was so different, it was almost shocking.
Tweek wouldn't lie, it was a little strange at first to see Craig with braces. But even from the first second, he couldn't help but notice just how cute they were. He'd always been quite partial to boys with braces, anyway.