Chapter Text
Another nightmare. Blurry images and things he couldn’t quite make out played over and over again in his head before jolting awake, his forehead covered in sweat and his eyes wide.
There was fire, that much he knew. And chanting in a language he didn’t understand.
He looked over at Tweek and ran a hand through his hair before sitting up right a little more, his back against the headboard of the bed they shared.
This has been a constant for six months and an on again, off again thing for years.
He didn’t know the cause of it. He didn’t know why it started again after all this time of being dormant. But it was happening and it was all incredibly confusing.
“Craig?”
The blonde in the bed beside him stirred, sleepily opening his eyes as he yawned to look up at the other man.
“You alright?”
But Craig stayed quiet, looking down at his fidgeting hands as he picked at his cuticles.
“It was that dream again… wasn't it?”
Craig nodded slowly, watching as Tweek got up and leaned his head against his shoulder and wrapped his arms around one of his.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
There was more silence for a while, Craig trying to find the right words to speak, to even try to begin to describe whatever it was he saw.
It was far more challenging than one would think, however. He didn’t know how to explain something that he didn’t fully understand. He didn’t know how to describe something when he only remembered it in bits and pieces.
Eventually Craig sighed and leaned his head onto Tweek’s shoulder, which earned him a loving and gentle kiss to the top of his head.
“I don’t know Tweek. It’s just fire, and people chanting something that I don’t understand,” Craig was slow with his words, trying his best to describe everything in the best possible way. “There’s people bowing, like they’re worshipping something.”
Tweek cast his eyes upward, noticing how Craig’s face was twisting with different emotions.
“It just doesn’t make any sense to me.”
Tweek wanted to say he understood but in all reality he didn’t. He had his moments of panic, and he had moments where anxiety kicked in. But he wasn’t sure what Craig was experiencing.
Nightmares were a different realm for him seeing as he didn’t get them often.
But he did his best to try and understand, at least for Craig’s sake, but sometimes he just couldn’t. Because Craig couldn’t even understand what was happening himself.
“Do you think maybe you should-“
“No.”
“You didn’t let me finish.”
Craig sighed, giving Tweek’s jawline a light kiss and nuzzling his nose into his boyfriend’s neck, “sorry.”
“Do you think maybe you should go back on the medication? Maybe up the dosage a little bit?”
“No, absolutely not. All that did was make things worse and I refuse to deal with that again.”
Right.
Tweek has forgotten about those two months of increased episodes in the middle of the night. He tried to block them out of his memory. Tried to forget about the terrified look Craig had on his face. And he tried to forget about those things because they broke his heart, because they scared him.
He knew Craig was suffering with his night terrors, and he wished he could do more than just be supportive and listen to what Craig would explain to him.
“Hey,” Tweek nudged his nose into Craig hair, watching as the black haired man slowly lifted his head to meet Tweek’s gaze. “Why don’t you try and get some sleep? I’ll be right here okay?”
Craig nodded slowly, leaning forward and pressing his lips lightly to the blonde’s.
And he felt calm. There was a sense of comfort that washed over him just like always. Tweek made him feel calm. Tweek made him feel okay. And most importantly Tweek made him feel safe.
It was the little things, and it was important to them both, because it kept them both moving forward even when times were tough.
When Craig pulled away he scowled at the faint noise of his phone vibrating on the nightstand. It wasn’t very often they received phone calls in the middle of the night, well, actually it never happened. So this was an incredibly rare occurrence.
“Who’s that?” Tweek watched as Craig reached for this phone, his face softening when he saw the name displayed across the screen.
“My mom,” and Craig sounded confused. His mom never called this late. His mom was usually asleep at this hour. But he was sure that she had a great reason for calling at two in the morning.
He hit the green button on his phone screen and held the device up to his ear, “yeah?”
“Honey, it’s mom.” She sounded upset, as if she had been crying. And it was making Craig nervous, his face turning into a look of confusion and a look of sadness all at the same time.
“Mom what’s wrong, are you okay?”
There was silence for a while. Craig adjusted himself in the bed a little more so his feet were on the ground. Tweek sat up, placing his chin on Craig’s shoulder and wrapping his arms around Craig’s torso.
They heard Laura sniffle, before covering it up by clearing her throat quickly.
“Mom?”
“Honey I have bad news…”
“What happened?”
More silence. Craig heard his sister’s voice quietly in the background, almost as if she was reassuring her mother that things would be okay. And Craig would be doing the same if he knew what the hell was going on, if he knew why his mother was upset and crying on the other end of the phone.
Unless.
“Craig,” it was his sister this time. She sounded just as distressed as their mother, but she was holding herself together a little more. She was doing a better job at hiding the sadness in her voice.
“Can one of you tell me what the hell is going on?”
Craig was grumpy, he was angry. His total hours of sleep probably equaled seven for the week and he was starting to grow annoyed at whatever the hell was happening back at home because no one would tell him what the hell was going on.
“It’s dad, Craig…”
Craig’s face fell. He knew what this call was about now. The lateness of the call, the tears and sadness that he was hearing from his mother and sister. His dad had been sick for a while. In and out of the hospital for constant chemo treatments to try and cure his cancer for the past few years.
Seemed as if the fighting was enough. It seemed as if it had finally gotten him.
Craig’s hand fell, his phone hitting the bed and Tweek studied his face. Craig’s face grew dark, he was clenching his teeth together and quickly making his way to the bathroom. He couldn’t run the risk of letting Tweek see him cry.
“Craig?” Tweek called out. But he got no answer.
“Craig?” Trish's voice was quiet from the other end of the phone.
The blonde picked up the phone, swallowing a lump in his throat and holding Craig’s phone up to his ear, “Trish?”
“Oh… Tweek… it’s you.”
“Is everything okay?”
“Not exactly…”
“What’s wrong?”
There was a prolonged silence that filled the air between them before he heard Trish take a deep and shaky breath before finally speaking again. “It’s dad Tweek… he’s uh… dad’s dead.”
“O- oh…”
“Think you guys can come home tomorrow for mom’s sake? She needs family right now…”
Tweek looked towards the bathroom door where Craig had locked himself in just moments before. If this is how Craig was coping Tweek couldn’t even begin to imagine how Trish and Laura were handling everything.
So without giving it much thought, because he really didn’t need to, he nodded and gave Trish a quiet ‘yes’.
A few more exchanges of words before the call ended. Tweek set Craig’s phone aside before getting out of bed and going over towards the bathroom, tapping his knuckles gently against the wood, “Craig?”
The door opened slowly. Craig seemed fine, from what Tweek could tell. But everyone handled grief differently and this was how Craig was coping. He didn’t cry, he didn’t show emotion. Instead he usually isolated himself for a while to collect his thoughts, to come to terms with everything that happened.
But Tweek wasn’t expecting the tight hug Craig gave him. He wasn’t expecting to hear Craig silently sniffle as he buried his face into his neck.
It broke Tweek’s heart to see him this way.
But he held him. He held him close and rubbed his back as he whispered reassuring things in his ear and occasionally ran his fingers through messy black hair.
It was going to be a long night.