Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Hey, they're finally asleep. If you wanna come over, my window's open. 😘

Stan stares down at his phone, his stomach clenching as he rereads his girlfriend's text message for the third time in the last two minutes. Fighting back a sudden surge of nausea, he taps his thumb against the side of the device in his hand, careful not to accidentally touch the screen and trigger the ellipsis bubble on the other end of the conversation. He's successfully avoided Wendy for the entirety of Christmas break, and in all honesty, he'd like to keep it that way for as long as possible. He's already been having trouble coming to terms with the fact that tomorrow, he's going to have to see her again and pretend like nothing's changed.

"Who's texting you at midnight?" Kyle's voice cuts into the silence.

Stan yelps, scrambling to tuck his phone underneath his pillow before the redhead can catch sight of the screen. "Kyle," he says, holding one hand to his chest, feeling his heart pounding like crazy beneath his palm, "Jesus, dude, you scared me."

Kyle quirks an eyebrow, taking a seat on the mattress next to Stan. "I've been here for like a half hour, dude," he points out, adding with a small half-smile, "What, did you forget or something?"

"What? No. Of course not!" Stan lies, even though that's exactly what happened. "I was just, uh, distracted by a Twitter notification."

"You still use Twitter?" Kyle scrunches up his face at the mere thought of participating in that dumpster fire of a social media website.

Stan takes his hat off and starts fiddling with the red poofball. He's only on his second lie of the night, but he's not going to be winning any awards for this trainwreck of a performance. "Oh, uh, no. I just never deleted it."

His best friend's immediate acceptance of the falsehoods spewing from Stan's mouth sends a guilty tingle down the raven's spine. "Oh, okay." With a mischievous smile, Kyle slides over on the mattress and playfully walks his fingers up Stan's arm. Taking Stan's hat from him, he tosses it onto the carpet. "Where were we?" he asks, his voice low and his green eyes sparkling.

Kyle leans forward, capturing Stan's lips with his own in a soft, sweet kiss that makes his heart flutter. Shoving the guilty feeling away the best that he can, Stan lets his eyes fall closed, circling his arms around Kyle's back and pulling him closer, kissing him back hungrily. From underneath his pillow, he hears a muffled buzzing as his phone vibrates again, probably with another text message from Wendy; but he ignores it completely. Stan pushes Kyle down by the shoulders until the redhead is lying flat on his back, square in the center of Stan's mattress. Climbing on top of him, Stan straddles his waist, keeping their lips locked the whole time like his life depends on it.

The next time they come up for air, they're both breathless. Kyle's face is flushed, almost the same color as his hair, and Stan briefly wonders if his is the same. Every single coherent thought he might have after that, though, goes flying right out the window when Kyle looks up at him through half-lidded eyes, letting out a soft sigh.

But then Kyle speaks, and Stan's heart plummets.

"So, I was thinking…" Kyle reaches up with one hand, lightly combing his fingers through a lock of Stan's hair. "It's been a couple weeks," he continues, "and it doesn't seem like this is going to stop anytime soon…"

"I mean, I hope not." Stan eyes Kyle apprehensively. He's pretty sure he's able to guess where this is going, and just as sure that it's going to be nowhere good.

Kyle chuckles softly, "Yeah, me neither. …But, so, maybe we could, you know, tell a few people that we're together now?"

Stan's whole body tenses before Kyle's even finished his sentence. "Oh. Uh," he mumbles, refusing to make eye contact. "I'm not sure that would be…the best idea."

Hurt flashes in Kyle's eyes and he quickly pulls his hand back from Stan's hair. "Why not?"

"...Well. I mean." Stan gestures vaguely around the room, looking everywhere but down at his best friend. "...You know."

Kyle's eyes narrow, the hurt in his eyes quickly morphing into anger. "No, I don't know, Stan. What is it? Are you ashamed of me or something?"

Wincing, Stan sinks further into his bed as Kyle's voice slowly rises in volume with each word. He frantically waves his hands in front of him, knowing he has to stop this fire before it burns. "What? No! Kyle, you're my best friend–"

Sitting up suddenly, Kyle shoves Stan off of him and shoots him a glare that looks even more terrifying illuminated in the moonlight shining through the window. "Is that all I am to you?!"

Stan blinks twice, his mouth hinged open, looking like the living embodiment of a loading screen. "Uh…"

"Seriously?!" Kyle jumps up from the bed, preparing to unleash his fury to his dope of a boyfriend. "I don't believe this! You're really going to sit there and tell me that the last seventeen days have meant nothing to you?"

"What?! I didn't–" Stan starts to say, reaching out with one arm but grasping only air as Kyle spins on his heel and storms over to the window. "Kyle, wait!"

"No! I waited eight years for you! I'm done waiting!" Kyle's bitter retort reverberates off the walls of Stan's bedroom and the raven winces, hoping that no one is going to wake up and walk in to witness what has morphed from a romantic rendezvous into a complete and utter disaster. Having to explain why Kyle is in his room at this hour is a conversation Stan really would prefer not to be a part of.

"Can you just–" he tries again, scooting forward on the mattress but making no move to actually stand up. He doesn't know what exactly it is he's about to say, but the look Kyle gives him is enough to make him fall silent; clearly there's nothing he can say that will fix this right now.

Angrily pushing the window open, Kyle swings his leg out, climbing out onto the roof outside, his voice practically dripping with venom when he delivers his parting words of the night, "God, Stan, when are you going to realize that you can't just treat people like they're a goddamn convenience?"

Before Stan can even begin to try to formulate a response to that, Kyle is gone, leaving him sitting there, stunned and hopelessly confused as to what the hell had just happened. How had they gone from making out to this in the span of forty-five seconds?

Underneath his pillow, his phone vibrates again. Stan looks at the pillow apprehensively for a moment, like it's a bomb on the verge of exploding, before reluctantly sliding his hand underneath to grab his phone and check the messages.

Are you ignoring me for Minecraft again?

😡

With a heavy sigh, Stan tosses his phone back onto the bed. He gets up to close the window, wishing with all the energy he can muster that he could just choose to not go to school tomorrow. He rests both elbows on the window frame and leans out into the night; a glance at the ground shows him that, unsurprisingly, Kyle is long gone. Stan had expected that – after all, Kyle has always seemed to prefer being the one doing the chasing rather than the one being chased.

Looking up at the sky, dotted with millions of twinkling stars, Stan sighs again, lamenting, "Why does this always happen to me? I mean, what the hell do I have to do to make these people happy?"

After a minute, when it becomes clear that he's not actually going to get a response from the universe, Stan slides the window closed and turns to go back to his bed. He just wants to collapse onto the mattress, fall asleep in three seconds, and put this disaster of a night behind him.

Just as he turns away from the window, a shooting star blasts across the sky and for just a second, unbeknownst to him, Stan's whole body faintly glows blue.

🌠🌠🌠

"Have I ever told you how happy you make me?" Craig murmurs, scooting closer on his bed to trail a line of kisses down Tweek's neck, being extra careful not to lean too far to the right and topple onto the floor this time.

Tweek laughs, wrapping his arms around his boyfriend and pulling him even closer. "You told me that five minutes ago."

"That long ago?" Craig makes a tsk noise, redirecting his lips back up Tweek's neck to kiss the corner of his mouth. "God, babe, you make me so fuckin' happy."

Tweek makes a low humming sound in his throat, tangling his fingers in Craig's hair as he returns the kiss. For a few minutes, they're completely lost in each other, everything around them seeming to fade away into nothingness. Craig imagines this is what heaven must feel like, and it's a feeling he never wants to give up. Making out with Tweek is number one of his top ten list of favorite activities, and given the opportunity, he'd kiss him forever.

So when Tweek pulls away to catch his breath, Craig can't stop a tiny, disappointed whine from escaping his mouth. Realistically, he knows that spending the rest of eternity kissing Tweek isn't a viable life choice, but…damn.

Bringing his hand up to his mouth, Tweek does his best to suppress a chuckle at his boyfriend's adorable antics. He blinks twice, gazing into Craig's eyes like he's the most precious thing in the entire universe. "So…our anniversary is on Sunday."

"Uh," Craig replies, thinking about the gift he has for Tweek, which is currently hidden in the bottom drawer of his dresser, underneath a stack of jeans that no longer fit him. "Yeah."

"Are you excited?"

Knowing he won't be able to resist spilling the beans about Tweek's gift if they stay on this line of questioning for too much longer, Craig opts for an attempt at comedy. Looking down at himself, he comments with a slight smirk, "Fuck yeah."

Tweek rolls his eyes, playfully shoving him in the shoulder, "I meant, are you excited about our anniversary?"

"Oh," Craig nods, playing dumb, "Um, yeah, that's what I said." Leaning close again, he goes in for another kiss. "Here, I'll show you just how excited I am."

Before Craig can cause yet another late-night distraction, Tweek places one hand flat against the noirette's chest, keeping him from moving any closer. "Wait–"

Craig's forehead crinkles with concern. "What?" He pats his cheeks with both hands. "Is there something on my face?"

"No, there's nothing on your face. I just-" Tweek pauses, anxiously playing with one of the tassels of Craig's limited edition Red Racer blanket, "I wanted to ask you something."

Sitting up straighter, Craig takes his hands away from his face to clasp them both around one of Tweek's. "I do," he answers, completely sincerely, like he actually believes that he and Tweek are going to get married at midnight on a Sunday.

"Craig," Tweek laughs, momentarily distracted from his own nervousness, "I'm being serious."

"So am I." Craig pauses, noticing Tweek's very obvious discomfort, and his voice softens. "Babe, are you okay? You look like you're going to vomit. Do you need me to go brush my teeth again?"

Tweek exhales a puff of air through his nose, the closest to a laugh that his nerves will allow him right now. "No, you're good," he reassures his boyfriend, looking down to where Craig is still holding onto his hand, "I just, um, it's about…your present."

Craig cocks his forehead, a classic dopey grin on his face. "I thought we agreed that we weren't going to spend money on each other this year."

"I know," Tweek bites his lip as he contemplates how to say what he wants to say, "but this is special. Um, really special." Forcing himself to look up, into Craig's eyes, he continues, "You know we've been dating for a long time now and I just…wanted to do something to show you how much you mean to me."

Craig shimmies back on the bed a bit, sitting up a lot straighter than one would expect His Supreme Gayness to be able to pull off, "Oh my God, did you put out a hit on Stan? I'm sure you could find someone who could do it for free."

"What? No!" Tweek starts to protest, but Craig keeps talking, far too excited about this potential gift idea.

"Or if not free, at least cheap!" Craig leans forward, his eyes shining, "Like that French kid, what's his name? I bet if you got him a pack of cigarettes he'd be all over that."

"Craig–"

"Or maybe Damien could call in a favor with his dad." Craig frowns, his shoulders slumping slightly, "Or not. That would probably require a blood sacrifice of some kind–"

"Craig!" Tweek struggles to control the volume of his voice, but despite his best efforts, his next words tumble out of his mouth much too loudly, "I'm trying to tell you that I think I'm ready to have sex with you!"

Craig's mouth hangs open for a few seconds while his brain processes this information. He blinks a couple of times and then a huge grin spreads across his face, "Right now?" he asks excitedly, already grabbing the bottom of his shirt, "Okay–!"

Reaching out and gently pushing Craig's hands down, Tweek clarifies, "No, not right this second. I was hoping maybe we could, you know…" He sheepishly turns away as he completes the rest of the sentence. "...do it on our anniversary, if you'd be okay with–"

"Yes."

Tweek turns to Craig, biting back a smile at his boyfriend's blatant enthusiasm, "...yeah?"

"You didn't seriously think I would say no, did you?" Craig raises an eyebrow, a small smirk playing on his lips.

Tweek's gaze trails to Craig's brightly colored Red Racer blanket as he anxiously squeezes Craig's hand like a stress ball. "I don't know, I was worried maybe you'd get sick of me. Or, you know, realize that you're not actually gay or something."

Laughing, Craig shakes his head and remarks, "Honey, I don't think there's a single soul in this town who's gayer than I am."

It's Tweek's turn to smirk. Lifting his head, a bit of a devious sparkle in his eyes, he asks, "Is that a challenge?"

"No, it's the truth," Craig promises, with enough sincerity it could fill the goddamn ocean. Licking his lips, Craig eagerly wraps both his legs and arms around Tweek's body, clinging on like a baby sloth, and murmurs into his ear, "Now where were we?"

Tweek tilts his chin up, all too happy to let Craig kiss him again. As the two of them contentedly fall right back into their makeout session, neither of them notice the faint blue aura surrounding Craig that disappears almost as quickly as it comes.

💙❤️️💚

The next morning, Stan wakes up to a bright beam of sunlight shining directly into his eyes. Groaning, he fumbles for the blanket with one hand, shielding his face with the other, not at all ready to be awake this early in the morning. He hadn't woken up to the sound of "Pac-Man Fever", and he's pretty sure he'd remembered to set his alarm the night before, so he figures it has to be before six at least. And that, in his opinion, is completely unacceptable; he's going to need all the extra sleep he can get if he's going to have to deal with both Kyle and Wendy today.

"Good morning," a sleepy voice mumbles from beside him, startling Stan slightly. When did Kyle come back? Oh well, at least he doesn't sound so pissed anymore. The only downside of him being here is that if he's awake, that means Stan's probably not going to get back to sleep anytime soon.

Relaxing a little, now that it seems like he's only going to have an angry Wendy to contend with at school, Stan replies, "Morning." He winces at the sound of his own voice in his ears. Jesus Christ, he must be coming down with a cold or something. Perking up slightly, he opens his eyes with a yawn, wondering if it would just be worth it to skip the day entirely.

Stan rubs his eyes, and then looks around the room, weighing the pros and cons of that plan. Huh, that's weird, isn't his dresser supposed to be on the other side of the room? Hold on. Since when are his walls painted blue?

"What the hell?" he mutters to himself, turning his head to the left to ask Kyle what's going on, if maybe his dad had drunkenly decided to redecorate the house the night before or something. But as soon as he sees who's lying in the bed next to him, Stan freezes.

He slowly tilts his chin down to see that the blankets on the bed are not the blankets they're supposed to be, and that the clothes he's currently wearing are definitely not any clothes that he would ever be caught dead having in his closet. His stomach launches into a full-scale whirlwind of a panic attack as his brain finally catches up with what his eyes have been trying to tell him.

Sitting up, Tweek – Tweek?! – leans over, and it's only at the very last second that Stan realizes he's intending to kiss him. He turns his head just in time, and Tweek stops, his lips inches away from the face that Stan is becoming horrifyingly suspicious of not belonging to him at all. "What's wrong?" he asks, and now that Stan knows it's him, he wonders how in the hell he'd ever mistaken that screechy-ass voice for Kyle's, "Are you okay, Craig?"

No. No, Stan isn't okay. What the fuck is going on?

🔃🔃🔃

"Cause I've got Pac-Man fever, Pac-Man fever, it's driving me crazy…"

Craig scrunches his eyebrows as the irritating sound of a Billboard Hot 100 hit that really should've been banned from the universe by now shimmies its way into his eardrums, no doubt embedding itself in his brain so it'll be stuck in his head until the end of time.

"What the fuck?" he sleepily groans, already irritated at only seven in the morning. Rolling over in the bed, he stretches his arm out across the mattress. "Tweek, did you–"

Instead of coming into contact with some part of Tweek's body, Craig's hand touches only air, and immediately all his senses go on high alert. Forcing his eyes open all the way, Craig stares at the spot where Tweek should be, his heart already beating faster with worry. His eyes travel along the mattress, the sight of the plain gray, boring-ass bed sheets sending a chill down his spine. This isn't his bed.

He looks down at himself. And these aren't his clothes. Craig lifts one hand, holding it up to his face, palm facing outward, as he inspects the disgusting, raggedy fingernails attached to it. "What the fuck?" he repeats. These are absolutely not his hands, but…one, how the fuck is that even possible; and two, if they're not his hands, then…

"No." He leaps up from the bed, looking around frantically for a moment before noticing the small bathroom attached to the bedroom he's in. "No, no, no." Bolting across the room, Craig skids to a stop in front of the mirror, narrowly avoiding crashing into the sink, and looks into the mirror.

He stares at his reflection for a good minute and a half, his eyes wide and his stomach churning, internally panicking like never before when he sees what – or, more accurately, who – is staring back at him.

The anguished, animalistic screech that comes out of his mouth after that is almost enough to shake the whole house.

Chapter Text

Unfortunately for Craig, breaking the sound barrier with only his vocal cords at seven o'clock in the morning isn't enough to reverse whatever horrible thing has caused him to be cursed with Stan Marsh's stupid ugly face. He stands over the bathroom sink, clinging onto the sides of the counter with both hands; it's the only way he can keep himself upright while he stares, horrified, into the mirror. Through the flecks of dried toothpaste saliva littering the surface of the glass, Stan's face stares back at him, and no matter how many times Craig tries to blink away this nightmare, it's not going away.

How the hell had this happened? Sure, South Park is known for being a hotspot for various life-altering supernatural shit, but in Craig's limited experience, there's always been some kind of warning first, some sign that things are about to go fucking nuts. Just waking up one morning to find that the universe has decided to Freaky Friday his life and swap him with the one person he hates more than anyone else in the world? That's not the usual way these things go in this town, which leads Craig to believe that someone has very deliberately chosen to fuck with him.

And he doesn't think he needs to look any further than inside the mirror to figure out who.

"Fuck," he spits out, cringing the second the word leaves his mouth in Stan's whiny-ass voice. Oh, God, there's no way he's going to be able to live like this. He needs this to end now.

Craig runs his tongue along his teeth, trying to think of any possible way he can get himself back to his regular body without letting anyone else see him in this state. Gagging when he comes across a chunk of what must be whatever Stan had eaten last night for dinner nestled between two of his front teeth, Craig leans over the sink and waits for the nausea to pass. He absolutely refuses to vomit at any point while he's inhabiting his mortal enemy's body, wanting to ensure he keeps his own personality completely separate from Stan 'The Vominator' Marsh.

Goddamn, though, he's disgusting. No wonder Wendy always looks so pissed off whenever Craig sees them together; if he never brushed his teeth to the point of finding last night's leftovers in there, Tweek would probably–

Oh, fuck. If he's in Stan's body, then that must mean…

"Oh my God." Craig stumbles backwards, hitting the wall and nearly ripping the knob right out of the bathroom door in his hurry to wrench it open and get back to the bed, to the cell phone charging on the nightstand. "I have to call Tweek!"

He trips no less than three times thanks to Stan's stupidly huge feet on his way across the room; the last time sends him flying through the air, landing with a thump on top of the mattress. For a moment he just lies there, again wondering what the fuck he had done to deserve this, and then he sits up, fumbling to unplug Stan's old as shit iPhone 11 from the charger. Craig is about to scream in frustration when he's hit with the screen prompting him to enter his passcode to unlock it, but then he sees the option to 'unlock with fingerprint' and for the first – and, he's sure, the only – time, he thanks God that he's using someone else's hands right now.

The trouble comes when Craig begins scrolling through Stan's list of contacts. There are over a hundred names in the list, which makes absolutely zero sense to Craig, because he thinks Stan is about as socially appealing as a rabid honey badger; regardless of his own personal feelings, however, the fact remains that it takes him an entire fucking eternity to scroll to the bottom, only to find that Tweek's name isn't even there.

On the one hand, Craig is incredibly glad that Stan isn't walking around with Tweek's number in his pocket, but on the other, well, shit. Thanks to his admittedly awful memory, Craig doesn't have the ability to pull Tweek's phone number out of his ass, which is just…the most inconvenient fucking thing right now.

"Oh no," he moans, dread pooling in his stomach, "I'm going to have to go to school like this?!"

🤮🤮🤮

It takes Craig forty-five minutes to walk to school that morning after purposely missing the bus. He'd figured that asking one of Stan's parents for a ride would be much less irritating than having to stand outside at the bus stop with those assholes but, in keeping with the string of bad luck he's been handed this morning, apparently Stan's dad had decided it would be a great idea to try to turn the family car into a Transformer. By the time Craig had the misfortune of figuring that out, it was too late for him to change his mind and take the bus after all, and so he'd had to spend the entire time trudging through the snow in Stan's thin as fuck Converses.

He stands outside the front doors of South Park High School, staring at the building apprehensively. There's approximately zero percent of him that wants to go inside at all, but he knows he has no other choice if he wants to get these body snatching shenanigans dealt with as soon as possible. Groaning, he reaches up to scratch at his head underneath Stan's gross hat, cringing as he does so, positive that he can feel millions of tiny insect feet crawling around on his scalp.

"Yeesh. No wonder why he got lice," he mutters to himself, hating that he'd even had to wear the grungy-ass beanie in the first place. His choices had been to either suffer through wearing it or risk losing his ears to frostbite, though, and not even Craig is that stupid.

As soon as he pulls open the door and steps inside the high school, Craig wants to turn right back around and get the hell out of there. He tugs on the sleeves of the uncomfortable plaid button-up shirt he's wearing, one of the few things in Stan's dumpster fire of a closet that hadn't made his stomach turn on sight, and hesitantly walks forward into the hallway. Jesus Christ, does he ever hate plaid, though; he's fucking Craig Tucker, not some douchebag redneck lumberjack.

The halls are already crowded with students, despite classes not starting for a good ten minutes. Craig grits his teeth as he moves through the sea of people, keeping his head down to avoid making eye contact with anyone. All he wants to do is find Stan and get this shit done, preferably without having to talk to anybody. God, he'd better have shown up today.

"Mornin', Stan!"

Craig stops in his tracks, a puddle of melting snow quickly forming around his frozen feet, when a hand suddenly waves itself in front of his face and he turns with a frown to see Butters giving him a quizzical look.

"You feelin' okay?" Butters asks, his forehead wrinkling with concern. "I said good mornin' to ya three times." He cocks his head, a few stray blonde strands of hair sticking up thanks to the wonders of static electricity. "I'm s'posta tell you Wendy's lookin' for you."

"Wendy?" Craig repeats with a grimace, as if just saying the name fills his mouth with the foulest taste on Earth. "Why the fuck would Wendy be looking for me?" he wonders, forgetting for a moment that Butters has no way of knowing who he really is. "I haven't talked to that bitch since junior year."

Butters does a scandalized gasp, theatrically clapping a hand to his mouth. "Stan! You shouldn't say that about your girlfriend. Why, that's just plain mean!"

"The fuck do you mean, my– oh." The lightbulb finally turns on and Craig actually tries to think of how Stan would react in this situation before deciding he doesn't really give a fuck. He's got way bigger things to worry about than Wendy Testaburger. "Right, yeah, whatever," he grunts, waving Butters off. "I'll deal with her later." He won't, hopefully, be the one dealing with her later, if all goes according to plan.

Without waiting for Butters to say anything else, Craig moves on down the hall, but it's not long before he's interrupted again.

"Hey, Stan, what's happenin'?" Kenny chirps from off to Craig's left, giving him a bright, toothy signature McCormick-brand grin.

He's standing with Clyde, both of them leaning against a row of lockers, sharing a bag of cheddar-flavored corn chips. Craig pauses, debating with himself for a split-second about trying to convince at least Clyde that there's something horribly wrong going on with the universe and that he needs help, because if anyone would believe him, it's his best friend. Ultimately, he decides against it, his desire to avoid making a big deal out of this whole thing outweighing everything else. Plus, it's not like he really needs Clyde's help to figure out what's happening; he already knows this is Stan's fault, and Clyde isn't exactly the best at actually solving problems.

"Fuck off, McCormick," Craig snaps, barely giving either of them a second glance on his way past.

"What did I do?" Kenny calls after him, Craig already too far down the hallway to see the hurt expression on his face. He looks to Clyde for an answer. "Was I supposed to meet him somewhere this morning?"

Clyde shrugs, his face scrunched up in confusion as he stares after the raven. "I don't know…" Shoving the bag of corn chips into Kenny's hands, he points down the hall. "Hey, I gotta go to my locker, you can finish these."

He takes off down the hallway before Kenny can say anything in response. The blonde looks down at the bag in his hand before popping a few corn chips into his mouth and commenting to the empty air, "Man, is it me, or is everyone on drugs this morning?"

Craig rounds the corner at the end of the hallway, where his and Tweek's lockers are, just in time to hear one of the cringiest things he's ever heard in his life. What makes it even worse is that it's being said in his own voice.

"Don't you need to get your stuff?" Tweek, looking every bit the picture of perfection that Craig knows he is, slams his locker door shut with a loud clang, twitching slightly at the sound.

"No." Next to Tweek stands…well, to the casual observer, it would look like Craig, but since Craig is standing over here, he knows better. Not-Craig smiles, batting his eyelashes and leaning closer to the blonde who is definitely not his boyfriend. "I can just look at yours," he coos.

Craig gags, holding a hand over his mouth just in case. He's both disgusted and insulted. How dare Stan have the audacity to act like that while he's wearing Craig's face? Who the hell does he think he is? Narrowing his eyes, Craig heads over to go settle this once and for all, thanking God for giving him one bright spot in this whole mess: at least with Stan being utterly hopeless at acting anything like him, there's no way Tweek's going to fall for any of it.

"Hey!" he snarls, grabbing himself – Stan – by the arm and yanking him forward only to shove him right back against the line of lockers. "What the fuck did you do?!"

Glaring right back at him, Stan calmly reaches up to adjust the blue chullo – Craig's fucking chullo – on his head, coolly responding, "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Bullshit!" Craig is in the middle of winding up to throw the most powerful punch of his life when he's all of a sudden shoved backwards so hard he loses his balance, landing on his ass on the hallway floor.

Tweek steps protectively in front of Stan, his eyes blazing. "Leave him alone!" he shrieks, having no idea that those three words have just about shattered Craig's entire heart in his chest. All he can do is stare up at the one person who's supposed to know him better than anyone else in the world, who somehow, at this moment, doesn't seem to know him at all.

From behind the furious blonde, Stan shoots Craig a triumphant smirk before casually wrapping an arm around Tweek's shoulders and kissing him on the cheek. "Yeah," he smugly retorts, "leave us alone, Stan." He shakes his head before saying to Tweek, "Let's go, Buttercup." Giving his shoulders a squeeze, Stan leads the two of them past Craig, still lying on the floor in shock, and around the corner.

Craig grinds his teeth together, internally muttering every curse word known to man as he watches Stan fuckin' Marsh retreat with his boyfriend down the hallway. "And take my fuckin' hat off!" he cries after him, flipping him off with both hands for good measure.

Tears spring up in the corners of Craig's eyes and he angrily wipes them away with his sleeve, shooting Clyde a death glare when he sees him hovering nearby. "What do you want?" he demands, unsteadily getting to his feet. Fuck this. It's barely started and Craig already wants to throw this whole fucking day into the incinerator. "You know what, just fuckin' forget it."

He storms off down the hall in the direction of the doors that lead to the back of the school, suddenly craving a fucking cigarette for the first time in four years, leaving Clyde standing there, hopelessly confused by whatever it is he'd just witnessed.

"Who the hell is Buttercup?"

Chapter Text

The first warning bell rings just as Craig gets to the door that will lead him outside and hopefully to something that will calm his nerves. He turns back for a second, just long enough to glare up at the speaker mounted in the ceiling, and then he lifts one foot and kicks the door open with a loud bang.

"Hey!" One of South Park High's four resident douchebag Goth kids snaps his head up, shooting Craig a glare so furious it could cause Cthulhu himself to cower in fear. "Watch it, asshole!" He flicks his chin up, flipping his dark red bangs off of his forehead, and snatches his paper cup of coffee up before it can be knocked over.

"Fuck off," Craig grumbles, in absolutely no mood for any of their dramatic bullshit this morning. He shoves his hands into his pockets, squinting a little in the sunlight. Of course it would stop snowing and turn into a beautiful fucking day just as school is starting; sometimes Craig thinks the universe really does have it out for him.

Henrietta, the lone girl amidst a group of Edgar Allen Poe wannabes and the only one whose name Craig has ever bothered to remember, raises an eyebrow from her place on the lower step. "Whoa," she comments, not sounding much like she particularly cares either way, "What crawled up your ass today?"

"It's not my ass," Craig mutters, regretting the words instantly, because there has never been a day in his life that he has ever wanted to think about Stan Marsh's ass. "Just fuckin' forget it." Opting to avoid the quartet of misery before him, he grasps the metal railing on the side of the stairs and attempts to vault himself over it to land gracefully on the ground.

There are two things wrong with his plan, however. First of all, he's once again forgotten that he's not in his own body, and that just because Craig Tucker's muscles can handle doing something like this doesn't mean that Stan's flabby-ass arm pancakes can. He manages to get both his legs over the pole, but before he has the time to twist himself around to ensure he doesn't land on his face, his arms give out and he goes crashing down to the ground.

"Excusez moi!"

Second, and probably most importantly, now that he thinks about it, Craig hadn't bothered to check if there was anybody sitting on the ground, right in his landing zone, before attempting the jump. In hindsight, it probably hadn't been the best idea, but at least for once he can push the blame onto his rival's poor judgment. He'll just have to try to not think too hard about the possibility that being in Stan's body also means he's been cursed with his brain as well.

"Sorry," Craig grunts, the apology sounding like it took about two seconds to come up with, and that's being generous. He quickly pulls himself off of Christophe and dusts his pants off, not even bothering to extend a hand to help the foreigner up. "That was my bad. You know me, I'm always too busy ruining people's lives to watch where I'm going."

"I'm glad you finally recognize it," Christophe snarks, sliding his hands against the side of the stairs and gracefully pulling himself up. "What are you doing out 'ere instead of being in class, anyway? Are you running from ze cops or something?" He pulls a pack of cigarettes and a lighter out of his pocket, Craig eyes immediately drawn to both items. "Or per'aps you and your girlfriend–" Christophe makes a face as he says the word, his voice dripping with distaste, "–'ave 'ad some sort of lovers' spat?"

Latching onto this excuse faster than Clyde running to be first in line at an all-you-can-eat taco buffet, Craig nods his head vigorously. "Yes!" he agrees. "That's it, yeah, totally. She's such a bitch." Leaning forward slightly, he plucks a cigarette right out of the box in Christophe's hand, placing it between his lips and holding his palm out for the lighter.

Cocking his head, irritation and suspicion battling for dominance in his expression, Christophe narrows his eyes and doesn't say a word.

"Oh, come on," Craig says from around the cigarette, already tasting that sweet, sweet tobacco. Sometimes he wishes he'd never given up the habit, but then he remembers why he'd done it; it was for Tweek, of course. So much of what Craig does is for Tweek. A pang of despair shoots straight through his heart as he thinks about his boyfriend, about how he'd glared straight into Craig's eyes and still not recognized him. "In case you hadn't noticed, I'm having a bad fuckin' day, Tophe. The least you can do is spare me a fuckin' smoke."

With a roll of his eyes, Christophe mutters something under his breath in French, but produces a flame with the lighter, which he uses to light the end of the cigarette hanging out of Craig's mouth. "Just try not to choke, Marsh," he grouses, shaking his own cigarette out of the box and lighting up as well. "I am not going to be 'eld responsible if you 'ave to go to ze 'ospital."

"Please." Craig inhales a deep lungful of cigarette smoke, holding it inside for a moment before blowing it out in a perfect ring. Relishing in the look of surprise that flashes in Christophe's dark eyes for a split-second, he takes another drag. "Like I don't know what I'm doing." Leaning back against the wall of the school, he slides down to sit on the cold, snow-covered ground, staring off in the direction of the parking lot. After a moment, Christophe sits back down next to him.

The two of them don't speak to each other again, despite Craig skipping not only the entirety of his first morning class, but his second as well. By the time the lunch bell rings, he's stolen three cigarettes in total, and he's just now starting to feel himself start to relax. He has to admit, he had been expecting there to be a lot more grumbling on Christophe's side of things about having to give up three whole cigarettes; from what Craig knows about him, which admittedly isn't all that much, the French teen isn't much of a sharer. But aside from an occasional eye roll, he hadn't said a word.

Craig figures it's because Christophe had been testing him, in a way, like he had been waiting to see how long 'Stan' could go before his lungs gave out on him and he had to call it quits. Honestly, not that he would ever say it, Craig had been doing the same thing. He'd never expected Stan's lungs to be able to handle one cigarette, let alone three; in spite of everything, he's marginally impressed.

Standing up, Craig tosses the remainder of his cigarette onto the ground, stomping on it with one of Stan's stupid clown-sized feet. "Good talk," he says, sarcastically, brushing away bits of dirt and snow from his pants. "Let's not do it again sometime."

Craig heads off towards the other side of the school; rather than risk running into anyone he doesn't want to talk to – so, everyone on the planet minus Tweek – walking through the hallways to get to the cafeteria, he's decided to take the long way, going around the outside of the building. It takes an extra four minutes at the very least, but that's good. It's an extra four minutes he has to think about what he can possibly say to Tweek that would make him believe him.

Somehow, he doesn't think, "Hey, babe, it's me," is going to quite be enough.

🚬🚬🚬

Setting his lunch tray down onto the pale blue Formica tabletop, Stan slides onto the uncomfortable metal bench with a yawn. He rests his elbow on the table, leaning his chin on his hand, and stares down at the unappealing meal before him. It's supposed to be some kind of meatloaf, according to the day's menu, but it looks way more like a pile of sludge than anything resembling actual food. His stomach growls, but he just can't bring himself to take a bite.

"You okay?" Tweek asks, sitting down next to him. His tray only has a small bowl of garden salad sitting in the center of it. Stan looks over to see the blonde watching him, his head tilted to the side, concern shining in his eyes. "You've been so quiet all day."

"Mm." Stan responds with a noncommittal grunt, doing his best impersonation of the epitome of douchebaggery himself. Craig is surprisingly easy to imitate, which Stan feels is just a sign that he's every bit as boring as he's always thought. He's barely had to string together a whole sentence all morning. "I'm fine."

Tweek reaches over, laying his hand on top of Stan's for a moment. "If you're worried about Stan," he starts, and Stan has to clamp his mouth shut to keep himself from laughing. If only Tweek knew. "I don't know what his problem was this morning," he continues with a frown. "He just attacked you out of nowhere."

"Who knows?" Stan shrugs, the corners of his mouth turning up into a smirk. "Maybe he choked on Kyle's dick or something." This time he does laugh, when Tweek pulls his hand back, sputtering out a bunch of nonsense, clearly taken aback by Stan's statement.

"Hey, hey, hey, who's choking on dicks and why am I not involved?" Kenny appears out of nowhere, with Clyde in tow, both of them taking seats on the opposite side of the table. Somehow they've managed to sneak some bags of McDonald's inside the school, having gotten them from God only knows where, and Stan's stomach lets out a jealous rumble. "You know you guys aren't supposed to do that stuff in school, right?"

"Oh, hey, Kenny!" Stan perks up at the arrival of his friend, remembering a few seconds too late that he's just responded with a decidedly non-Craig Tucker reaction.

Clyde stops with a handful of french fries halfway to his mouth, exchanging a confused look with Kenny before wrinkling his nose at Stan. "You just called him Kenny," he points out, just as Token, Jimmy, and Jason arrive and take their respective places at the table. "He just called him Kenny," Clyde repeats, pointing an accusing finger first at Stan, and then at the Kenny in question in case nobody could pick up on who he's talking about.

"Oh my God," Token responds drily. "You know, I think that's actually a sign of the apocalypse."

"Are you sure you're feeling okay?" Tweek asks Stan again. "You were acting kinda weird when we woke up this morning too. Maybe you should go home and get some rest."

Stan shifts uncomfortably, feeling the weight of six pairs of eyes on him. Goddammit, he'd been doing so well. Once he'd gotten over the initial shock of finding himself in Craig 'I'm An Asshole' Tucker's body this morning, with Tweek's lips headed straight for him, he'd adjusted rather quickly, if he did say so himself. He can't say he's exactly pleased to be walking around wearing this disgusting face, and having to wear the grungy, bacteria-infested chullo all day, but at least in this body, Wendy and Kyle are guaranteed to not come near him.

Turning away from everyone at the table, Stan casts his eyes around the cafeteria while he tries to think of how to respond to Clyde in a more Tucker-appropriate fashion. He catches sight of Wendy at the girls' table chattering angrily with Bebe, probably about him and what a terrible boyfriend he is. Typical Wendy, always making him out to be the bad guy just because he doesn't want to talk to her for three hours a night every single night. Jesus Christ. Already feeling his muscles tense up, Stan shifts his gaze to another area, his eyes landing on Kyle this time. The redhead is sitting at their regular lunch table, glaring down at his tray of food while Cartman goes on about God knows what; for just a second something stirs inside Stan's chest, but he pushes the feeling down. He's so tired of feeling bad when he's done nothing wrong.

He has no idea how he'd ended up here, or how long it's going to last, but right now all Stan cares about is that he's getting a break from his own life.

Plus, Craig's friends are actually surprisingly cool, based on his interactions with them this morning. Clyde's kind of stupid, and Jimmy thinks he's way funnier than he is, but Stan can get past that. And Tweek… Well, it's not like Stan's into Tweek like that, or anything, but he's definitely finding it much easier than he'd expected to pretend to be into all the coupley stuff.

"I said I'm fine, baby." He turns back to Tweek, offering him the closest thing to a reassuring smile that he can pull off right now. "Just gotta keep McCormick here on his fucking toes, right?" There, that sounds like Craig, right? Shit, does he pronounce the 'g' on 'fucking' or not? Fuck it, it's not like anyone's going to notice a detail that small.

"And there he is, the Craig Tucker we all know and love to hate," Kenny laughs with a roll of his eyes. He hops up from the table, ruffling Clyde's hair with one hand and scooping up his tray with the other. "I'll take that as my cue to leave. Try not to have too much fun without me, you guys."

"You don't have to leave," Clyde protests, his brown eyes lingering on Stan for a second longer before looking up at Kenny, his brow furrowed slightly. "I thought you were going to eat with me today."

Kenny's expression softens. "I know, but–" He cocks his head, gesturing with his chin. "–it looks like Ky's having a pretty bad time over there, so I should really go play mediator." His eyes brightening a little, he suggests, "You could come with me?"

Clyde shakes his head, but when Kenny walks away, he shoves some french fries into his mouth, looking conflicted. Stan rolls his eyes.

"Oh my God, Clyde," he snarks, way more of an edge to his voice than even he'd expected, "it's just fucking lunch, it's not like it's brain surgery or something. Just get out of here if you want to suck face with McCormick so bad." He's never spoken so harshly to anyone before, with the exception of Craig – but Craig doesn't exactly count as a person – and he's a little bit surprised at how good it feels. Maybe this is just what he needs, to get all his stresses and anxieties out with some form of asshole catharsis.

"Jesus Christ, Craig." Even Token's eyebrows are raised halfway up his forehead. "What the hell is wrong with you?"

"Uh, I'm an asshole?" Stan points out, amazed he even has to seriously answer that question. Across the table, Clyde sniffles, and Stan just shakes his head. "Holy fuck," he mutters under his breath. Figuring that maybe he should play this a little smarter, so he doesn't alienate this group of people on the first goddamn day, he forces himself to look apologetic. "Look, I'm–" He hesitates, the apology on the tip of his tongue. Craig would never apologize to anyone, not even Clyde, would he? "Maybe I actually am not feeling well."

Clyde wipes his tears away with the hem of his t-shirt, his hurt expression clearly showing that he's not sure he believes a word he's hearing. "Uh-huh," he grumbles. "Well, if you're really sick, are you gonna do what you did last time?"

"Last time?" Stan blinks, not having a single clue in hell what Clyde is talking about. He racks his brain, trying to think of something that would make any kind of logical sense for him to do. In the middle of asking himself if Craig would actually visit a medical health professional for something as simple as a cold, a flash of movement catches his eye and he looks up, his heart jumping in his chest.

Standing in the entryway to the cafeteria is…well, himself, staring out at the sea of students, eyebrows knitted together in concentration. There is zero doubt in Stan's mind who Craig is looking for right now, and immediately upon seeing him, an absolutely wicked idea forms in his mind. Seconds before Craig's eyes land on their lunch table, Stan turns to Tweek, grabs his face with both hands, and pulls him into a big, sloppy, embarrassingly long kiss.

"I'm sorry, babykins," he murmurs once they've broken apart, ignoring the gagging sounds Jimmy and Jason are making across the table. "I'm just not feeling like myself." He glances up for just a moment, fighting to keep from smiling at the horror-stricken expression he's receiving from his own face. Craig looks like he's going to throw up, and Stan is so here for it. "I think I need to go lie down," he tells Tweek, snaking one arm around the blonde's waist. "Will you walk me to the nurse's office?"

Tweek grabs Stan's hand, giving it a gentle squeeze. "Of course," he replies, his cheeks flushed. "I'll, um, see you guys in class," he says to the rest of the table as he and Stan get up.

"Hey, Craig?"

Stan looks back to see Clyde staring at him again. "Yeah?"

"Don't forget I'm coming over after school," Clyde said, surprisingly decisively, for him, "Remember we had plans?"

"Oh." Stan doesn't, obviously, but at least this is an easier thing to fake. "Uh, yeah, totally. I'll meet you at your locker, then?"

Clyde nods twice, slowly, picking up his cheeseburger with both hands and taking a giant bite. "Yeah," he says through the mouthful of meat. "I'll meet you then."

🕵️🕵️🕵️

"Fuck," Craig mumbles, weakly pulling himself up to sit back on his knees, resting his forehead against the cool metal of the bathroom stall. He's just spent the last fifteen minutes puking his guts out, despite every one of his desperate attempts to keep that from happening. Fuck Stan Marsh and fuck his stupid fucking weak-ass stomach.

The image of Stan kissing Tweek flashes through Craig's mind again, and even though he has nothing left in his stomach to throw up, it still churns a dangerous warning at him. "Fuck," Craig groans again, his own voice barely audible as the automatic flusher kicks in on the toilet. God, he's never going to be able to forget what he'd seen. How could Tweek not know?

Craig sighs, recoiling slightly when the scent of his own vomit-breath hits his nostrils. Fucking gross. With as much strength as he can muster, he unsteadily rises to his feet, using the side of the stall for balance, and lurches over to the sinks. He turns the cold tap on full blast, cups his hands underneath it, and then slurps up a big gulp of liquid. Swishing it around inside his mouth, he does his best to rinse away every trace of evidence of puke and spits it back out to be carried down the drain, never to be seen again.

He wonders if that's how it's going to be for him, too. If he's never going to be seen again. At least, the way he's supposed to be. What if he really is going to be stuck as Stan forever?

Craig is so deep in his cesspool of misery he doesn't even hear the characteristically whiny screech of the door swinging open, or the Bigfoot-sized footsteps heading dangerously close to him.

"Hey, uh, Stan," a familiar voice rings out, a voice that Craig would recognize anywhere, even with Stan's stupid ears.

"Go away, Clyde," Craig mutters to the sink, not even having the energy to be snarky. "I'm not really in the mood for company."

Clyde doesn't listen, of course, being Clyde. Joining Craig at the row of sinks, he gazes at him in the mirror and nods sympathetically. "Yeah," he comments, "I'd be in a bad mood too if somebody stole my body."

Literally a millisecond after that sentence leaves Clyde's mouth, Craig feels Stan's entire body short circuit, every single nerve ending lighting up and sending a million different signals to his brain. If Craig believed in the concept of the afterlife, he would be hearing a heavenly choir of angels singing from the clouds right now. Craig whips his head in Clyde's direction, nearly giving himself a nasty cause of whiplash. "What did you say?"

Clyde just shrugs, so nonchalantly that Craig is sure he'd heard him wrong, but that thought goes flying right out the window with the brunette's next words. "I gotta say, dude," he begins with a sympathetic cluck of his tongue, "Stan's the last person in the world I'd figure you'd switch bodies with. What happened?"

Craig can only stare, stunned, hope flooding his veins for the first time all day.

"Were you cursed?" Clyde continues, like he's completely unaware of how big of a deal it is that he's figured this all out so quickly. Craig vows to never take his best friend's brain for granted ever again. "Kenny was telling me about this one lady with a little shop downtown who claims she's a witch, I think her name was Madame Mimi or something? Did you piss off anyone in a bunch of robes lately?" Struck with an idea, Clyde turns and smacks Craig's arm in excitement. "Ooh! Or is it like a Freaky Friday thing, with the fortune cookies?" Pausing to think about that for a second, he wrinkles his nose. "I didn't even think you liked Chinese food! Or did you–"

Craig doesn't even let Clyde finish whatever other theory he's been about to come up with. Lunging at him, both his arms wide open, Craig pulls Clyde into the biggest, tightest bro hug he's even given anybody, ever. He doesn't even care what Clyde's going to think; all he knows is that he's just so fucking relieved to finally have someone on his side to help him through this.

"Wait." Clyde's voice comes out as a squeak, thanks to how tightly Craig is hugging him. "You are Craig, right?"

"Of fuckin' course I'm Craig, you idiot!" Craig cries, his response coming to him as naturally as breathing.

"Well, I don't know! You're hugging me right now!" Clyde squirms in Craig's grasp. "That's not exactly a you thing to do!"

Pulling back and taking a hearty step away from his bro, Craig cocks his brow, letting his arms flop to his sides. "And this is a Stan thing to do?"

Clyde shrugs again. "I mean, he does get emotional. Remember when he cried about not wanting to dissect a frog in Bio?"

Craig groans, hunching over as a wave of nausea sweeps through his body at the memory. "Oh, you've gotta be fuckin' kidding me," he winces, pressing a palm against his queasy stomach, praying to all that is red and full of racers that the puke stays down. "Can we not talk about that?"

Peering at Craig with curiosity, Clyde remarks, "Wow, so you really are totally physically Stan right now, huh?" He watches as Craig runs his hand underneath the stream of water from the tap and gingerly takes a sip. "Does that mean you're all into Wendy too?"

"Goddammit, Clyde." Craig claps a hand over his mouth and turns, making a beeline for the nearest stall.

Chapter Text

The rest of the school day passes by in a blur of historical facts and algebra problems, none of which Craig is going to retain for longer than approximately thirty-five seconds. But let's face it, Stan isn't going anywhere in life anyway, so he doesn't exactly feel bad for completely bombing that pop quiz on the Civil War. Stan's lucky Craig had even bothered going to his afternoon classes at all; he would have much preferred to skip those too, but Clyde had begged him not to, and seeing as how Clyde is the only person in the universe who believes him, Craig felt like he had to give in.

The only reason why he hasn't punched himself in the face yet is because his classes are devoid of any constant reminders that he's Stan fuckin' Marsh now — at least in the peer department. There's no angry exes to avoid and no current boyfriends to stare at wistfully from across the room. His classes have been dipshit-free as of twelve-thirty this afternoon, and Craig has never felt more grateful for whatever computer program had generated the student schedules at the beginning of the year.

When the final bell rings at the end of the day, however, all those angry, anxious, panicky feelings from the morning come back with a vengeance. Craig wonders if Stan is going to walk Tweek home the way that he usually does, and if he's going to accept Mrs. Tweak's offer to stay for dinner. Would he risk being around Tweek's parents, or would he be too worried he'd get found out? His stomach sinks lower and lower the longer he thinks about it. Of course Stan would be fuckin' arrogant enough to parade himself around in front of everyone in town, acting like he's a better Craig Tucker than Craig himself. And realistically, he probably won't even have to try very hard if he stays at the Tweak's for dinner; it's not like Tweek's dad has ever shut up with the metaphors long enough to let anyone else get a word in.

And after dinner… Craig stares down at the scratched-up wood of the desk in front of him, furiously blinking away the tears that have had the audacity to well up in the corners of his eyes. Will Stan stay over and spend the night in Tweek's bed with him, holding him and kissing him and getting to hear those adorable fucking sleepy sounds that Tweek makes when he's halfway to dreamland? Clenching both hands into fists, Craig drops his head down onto the desk. How can Tweek not see that it's not him in that body anymore? Is he really that easily replaceable?

"Cra– Uh, Stan, are you coming?"

Clyde's voice cuts through all of the horrendous scenarios playing out in Craig's mind, and he blinks stupidly up at his best friend. "What?"

"The bell rang five minutes ago. Are we leaving or what?" Clyde perches on the edge of the desk next to the one Craig is sitting in. "If you want to stay here until everyone else is totally gone from school, that's okay too. But if that's what you're doing, I just need to go to my locker and get my spare apple, cause I'm starving."

Only about forty percent of what Clyde is saying makes it all the way into Craig's brain as he looks around the room. It's true, every other seat is empty and the clock on the wall does, in fact, read three thirty-five – nope, thirty-six, now. With a heavy sigh, Craig heaves himself up out of his chair. "No," he replies, though in all honesty he really wouldn't mind staying here and avoiding everyone in existence for as long as humanly possible, "I'm coming."

Together, the two of them leave the classroom and begin heading down the hallway, presumably to Clyde's locker, but Craig isn't really paying all that close attention to his surroundings. He's still too busy trying to figure out how the hell he's supposed to live his life now, and Clyde's incessant questioning from next to him is definitely not helping.

"Okay, so," the brunette is saying, shooting an apologetic grin over his shoulder as he accidentally smacks Scott Malkinson in the shoulder on his way past, "you're sure you don't know how it happened?"

"No," Craig repeats for the millionth time, wishing he had a dollar for every time he's had to say that word today.

"Really really sure?" Clyde holds both his hands up when Craig scowls at him. "Sorry! I just want to make sure you're not forgetting anything! Some of these curses are super picky about their reversal requirements, so any extra details you can remember will only help you more!"

"When the fuck did you get to be such an expert on curses?" Craig grumbles as they turn the corner, just in time to see Tweek slam his locker shut and grab Stan's hand, the two of them soon lost in the sea of students. He barely resists the urge to go chasing after them; after all, confrontation hadn't exactly worked out in his favor the first time.

"Kenny," Clyde answers, like it's the most obvious thing in the world. "You know he's cursed, right? He knows so much about this stuff!" His eyes light up as he stops at his locker and begins fiddling with the combination lock. "Hey! Maybe you should talk to him about this! I bet he'd know what to do!"

Craig cringes, the thought of Kenny McCormick knowing his business almost as bad as the thought of what Stan and Tweek might be doing together right at this very moment. "No, thank you. I can handle this shit on my own, I just…need to think of a plan, that's all."

Clyde shoves his history textbook into his locker, pulling out a shiny red apple before closing the door with a loud clang. He bites into the fruit with a loud crunch and then holds out his hand. "Y'wanna bite?" he asks through a mouthful of partially chewed apple chunks. Craig recoils, shaking his head in disgust as he suffers yet another bout of nausea thanks to Stan's body's inability to handle watching his best friend eat. "Your loss." Clyde shrugs as he swallows, taking one step away from the row of lockers before pausing, his forehead scrunched in confusion.

"The exit's that way." Craig points past Clyde down the hallway, in the direction Stan and Tweek had gone. A sharp pain shoots through his heart as the image of their tightly clasped hands flashes in his mind.

"No, I know, but–" Clyde cocks his head, his expression unchanging even as he practically unhinges his jaw to take another giant bite of the apple in his hand. "I swear there was something I had to do after school today, but I don't remember what it was."

Craig looks down at himself, from the top of the horrendously ugly shirt that's been itching like crazy all day, all the way down to the shoes he's got on his feet, a pair of dirty old sneakers that look like Stan had picked them up at some hobo's yard sale. "Was it really more important than getting me back in my own fuckin' body?" he snarks, gesturing to himself with both hands.

Clyde brightens, the smile that appears on his face much too happy, in Craig's opinion, given the current situation. "You're right!" he chirps, continuing chomping away at his apple as they resume walking. "So just to make sure I have it right, tell me everything you know again?"

"I told you, I went to sleep as myself and woke up as this fuckin' thing," Craig holds up one arm in disgust, surprised that a flurry of dandruff doesn't coat the floor in the process. "I don't know how, or why, all I know is that I want out of here as soon as possible."

"Well, to do that we're going to have to figure out what happened," Clyde replies as casually as ever, and for once, Craig is thankful for Clyde's innate ability to go with the flow. "We could go ask Mephesto, but his lab is only open to the public on weekends, so we'd have to wait until Saturday–"

The word hits Craig like a sackful of bricks to the face, and he stops dead in his tracks. His momentum nearly causes him to lose his balance and tip forwards to land on his face, but he hardly even notices. All the color has already drained from his face by the time Clyde notices he's not beside him anymore and turns around.

"Fuck." How the hell had he not remembered until now that the most important moment of his fucking life is only five days away? Fuck, fuck, fuck, this can't be happening. He can't be faced with the fucking prospect of Tweek, the love of his life since forever, sleeping with fucking Stan Marsh on their anniversary. Craig gulps, hardly able to stop himself from trying to physically claw himself out of this body with Stan's nasty-ass fingernails. "Saturday."

"Yeah, Saturday!" Clyde chimes, reaching into his pocket, pulling out his phone, and cheerfully tapping away. "So should I call and get tickets?"

Craig blinks twice and pinches his forearm, hoping that by some odd miracle this is all just some terrible, horrible, goddamn awful bad dream. "No. Clyde, I need to be back in my own body before then! It's my and Tweek's anniversary on Saturday, and he told me last night he's ready to–" Craig snaps his mouth shut, his cheeks turning as red as a certain legendary cartoon racer's car after its paint job in Season 3.

Bemused, Clyde chews the piece of fruit in his mouth slowly, blinking at Craig cluelessly. "Ready to what?"

"To…" Craig glances awkwardly around the hall. Most of the other students have disappeared by this point, but a few of the girls are still within earshot, and that weird musical theater kid is pretty close by too, talking to Kevin Stoley. "...you know." He raises both his hands into the air in front of him and attempts to covertly mime what he definitely does not want to say out loud.

"What?" Clyde squints down at Craig's hands, wrinkling his nose as he follows their movement with his eyes. "Go on a trampoline? Learn a secret couples' handshake?"

Repeating the motions more insistently, Craig shakes his head. "No, we're–" When Clyde continues to just stare at him blankly, Craig throws his arms up in frustration. He reaches out and grabs Clyde by the arm, dragging him close enough that he can lean over and whisper into his ear.

Clyde's eyes widen before Craig has even finished speaking and he claps a hand over his mouth, though that does little to muffle his voice when he shouts at the top of his lungs, "OH MY GOD! YOU AND TWEEK ARE GOING TO BONE?!"

For the first time all day, Craig is too distracted to realize that he's adopting one of Stan's trademark mannerisms as he squeezes his eyes shut and pinches the bridge of his nose. "Yeah," he sighs, his cheeks lighting up with embarrassment as the group of girls, led by Heidi Turner, scoot past, their hushed whispers and giggles making his stomach churn, "and I was really hoping you were going to tell everyone."

He raises his head to shoot Clyde a half-hearted glare, but instead his eyes are drawn to someone who has just stepped into the hallway from a classroom a few doors down. Craig and Christophe only hold eye contact for about three seconds before the latter turns and walks away, but Craig can't help feeling like those three seconds are somehow going to come back and bite him like a sharp, rusty old shovel.

🦸🦸🦸

"Okay!" Clyde flops down on the old brown couch in his living room. They'd decided to go to his house because one, Craig has precisely zero desire to be inside the Marsh's house any longer than necessary and two, they needed a place to brainstorm away from literally every single other person they know. After digging around underneath one of the cushions for a moment, Clyde pulls out a granola bar and tears the wrapper open. "So, just to recap, we've got five days to get you back inside your body so you can get inside Tweek's before he thinks you're a total loser in the sack, right?"

"Do you have to fuckin' say it like that?" Craig groans, gingerly sitting down on the very edge of the couch, hoping to avoid getting sprayed by a cascade of granola bar crumbs. "It's not supposed to be so fuckin' cringy, it's supposed to be romantic."

Clyde shrugs. "Hey, it's your first time! It's bound to be at least a little bit cringy! When Kenny and I–"

Craig covers his mouth with one hand. "Stop. I don't want to know what you fuckin'– Hold on." He stares at Clyde in mild shock. "Are you telling me that you've had sex before me?"

Grinning, Clyde devours half the granola bar in one bite. "Who's the cool one now?"

"Pretty sure that's still me," Craig mutters, though he can't help the twinge of jealousy he feels. "Look, whatever, I don't care about that, okay?" He's lying and they both know it, but there's no time for that right now. "Can we just try to figure this shit out, please?" With every second that passes, Craig can practically feel his chances at happiness slipping further and further away.

"Okay, okay." Clyde tosses the empty granola bar wrapper onto the coffee table. "Well, since you don't know what triggered the switch, that makes it harder to come up with a plan, but let's see… I know! I'll go get my Mosquito costume!"

Craig pulls Stan's stupid blue hat off his head and rakes his fingers through his hair, immediately regretting it when he ends up with a handful of grease. Grimacing, he wipes his palm off on his pants and demands, "What the fuck is that going to do?"

"I don't know! Sometimes you need blood for these things!" Clyde's enthusiasm slowly fades when Craig just stares at him, one unimpressed eyebrow raised. "Okay, no blood, got it. I guess you could kidnap his dog and see which one of you he goes to?"

"Dogs use scent to find things, dumbass." Craig lets out an exasperated puff of air. "Wouldn't he just go to whoever is wearing these shitty fucking clothes?"

"Oh." Clyde's face falls for a moment as he thinks. "We could get you guys naked–"

"Oh God, I do not want to know what that means."

Clyde holds up both hands in self-defense. "Okay! Jeez, I don't see you contributing any ideas, Mr. Complainy Pants. Why are you always so negative?"

Craig rubs his aching forehead. "All you've come up with is blood and me getting naked, what the hell am I supposed to say?"

"I only suggested you get naked cause you said Sparky would go to whoever was wearing Stan's clothes!"

"And you thought naked was a more reasonable suggestion than, I don't know, me just wearing different fuckin' clothes?" Craig can't quite believe this is actually a real conversation that he's having. What the hell has happened to his life?

"Ooh!" Clyde sits up, his eyes shining like a lightbulb has just gone off in his brain. "Okay! First, we'll dress up like superheroes–"

"No."

"Oh come on, Craig. I spent so much time on that costume!" Clyde whines. Folding his arms across his chest when Craig refuses to budge, the pouty brunette throws himself against the back of the couch and grouses, "Fine, we won't dress up like superheroes–"

"Good," Craig mumbles under his breath, but Clyde isn't finished.

"–but I'll still bring the costume just in case. Can I at least wear the hat?" Clyde gestures to Stan's hat, which Craig had tossed onto the coffee table. "It's not fair if you get to wear one and I don't."

Craig just sighs, for what seems like the forty thousandth time, far too tired to argue any more. "I don't fuckin' care. As long as I can just have five minutes alone with Tweek to explain what's going on, you can do whatever you fuckin' want."

"What about fingerprints?" Clyde asks, after totally not doing a super lame triumphant fist pump in the air at his tiny victory.

Craig just looks at him. "What about them?"

Scooting forward on the cushion a bit in excitement, Clyde smiles. "Well, you know, that's how they catch criminals on TV, right? Don't they have a database of peoples' fingerprints?"

"...Yeah, if you've been arrested before. They don't just keep copies of random peoples' fingerprints in a file somewhere, Clyde."

Clyde tilts his forehead ever so slightly, like he's waiting for Craig's brain to catch up to where he is, miles ahead on the intelligence train. "Didn't you get arrested and sent to Peru that one time?"

"I thought I told you to never bring that up again. And anyway, what good would it do to check our fingerprints? In case you've forgotten, I have Stan's fuckin' hands," Craig snaps, holding up both his hands to illustrate his point.

Clyde chews on his lower lip, momentarily caught off guard by this slight flaw to his plan. "Okay, how about this," he suggests, nodding slowly to himself. "So, we chop Stan's fingers off–"

"You are not touching my fingers."

"Fine, fine. We'll just put that one in the maybe pile." Clyde follows that up with another idea, snapping his fingers before Craig can say another word. "Ooh! Stan has a weak stomach, right? So why don't you guys hold a vomit contest?"

"I really think you're not understanding that I'm in Stan's body," Craig replies, grinding his teeth together to keep from screaming. God, at this rate, he's really going to have to live like this for the rest of time, isn't he? Speaking slowly and praying that his words actually make it all the way to his best friend's brain this time, he explains, "So, anything that you think would work as a way to reveal Stan isn't going to do a fuckin' thing to convince people I'm not him, when I'm in the body that is going to react that way. Right?"

"Riiiiight," Clyde nods seriously, and then shoots up off the couch like he's just been lit on fire, startling the shit out of Craig in the process. "I got it!" he proclaims with a loud clap of his hands. "You said you just need five minutes with Tweek? Okay, listen to this…"

Craig listens as Clyde details his genius plan, his heart sinking deeper and deeper into his chest the longer the brunette keeps talking. When Clyde's finally finished, he stands there beaming at Craig like he's just solved world hunger, but he's only met with a skeptical gaze from the noirette.

"Well?" Clyde asks, cocking his head expectantly. "What do you think?"

"Honestly?" Craig sighs, leaning back on the couch and shaking his head. "That's the stupidest fuckin' thing I've ever heard. I'm sure we could come up with something better than that."

A half hour and two ransacked closets later, they're both standing in Clyde's bedroom, dressed up like a pair of garden gnomes, and Craig just knows he's probably going to end up on or in the back of a police car before this is all over.

But at this point, does he really have anything left to lose?

Chapter Text

"This is fuckin' ridiculous," Craig mutters, crouching behind one of the bushes next to the partially frozen Stark's Pond. For some reason, there's never been a winter in South Park where it's frozen all the way. Craig's always just chalked it up to the town being cursed, and as of this moment, he's never been more certain of his theory.

"No, trust me, this'll work!" Clyde kneels down next to Craig in the snow. His pointy green gnome hat snags on the end of a twig poking out of the bush, and he has to take it off to try to pull it free. "I texted Tweek from one of those anonymous apps saying someone really needs to talk to him and to meet up here!"

Craig sighs, wondering how it's possible that Clyde has been their friend for this long without retaining even the most basic information about anybody. "You know this is Tweek we're talking about, right? He's never going to trust an anonymous number. I wouldn't even trust an anonymous text message, not in this fuckin' town." As soon as he utters the words, he feels a vibration from inside the pocket of his jeans, but he ignores it, not having any desire to engage in conversation with anyone who thought texting Stan fuckin' Marsh was a good idea.

Clyde just waves him off as he finally manages to tug his hat free. "Pfft, are you kidding? Who wouldn't be curious to know who their secret admirer is?"

Narrowing his eyes, Craig regards Clyde suspiciously, trying not to think about how stupid he must look in this godforsaken outfit. "You never said anything about a secret admirer before."

"The point is," Clyde replies, peering over the top of the bush in the direction of the only path leading to the pond from the woods, "it's genius! How could it fail?" Letting out a triumphant cackle, he proudly announces, "See?"

Craig holds his breath as, sure enough, his favorite spiky-haired blonde appears in the distance, feeling his heart drop like a stone when he sees Tweek is not alone. Despite this minor snag, Craig guesses he should count his blessings. At least the guy he's with isn't Stan. Craig-Stan. Fuck, this is confusing.

"You didn't have to come with me, Kenny," Tweek is saying as he and Craig's other least favorite person come within earshot of him and Clyde. "There's probably not even going to be anyone here."

"But there might be! My money's on that Douglas kid. Or it would be, if I had any." Kenny grins, his eyes darting back and forth as he scans the immediate vicinity. Craig inhales a sharp breath of air and tugs Clyde back down just before Kenny can notice him lurking in the bushes like a fuckin' weirdo. "I can't believe Tucker didn't want to come with you for this. I would've thought Mr. Possessive himself would want to kick your anonymous admirer's ass in person."

Tweek lightly shoves Kenny's shoulder. "Oh, come on, he's not that bad."

"Tweek, he once punched Kevin in the gut when he said the yellow Power Ranger was prettier than you." Kenny raises an eyebrow at his fellow blonde. "I'd say that counts as that bad."

"You make it sound like he's some kind of leather jacket-wearing bad boy from an eighties movie." Tweek shakes his head and turns to face the bushes, looking out across the field. Craig catches just the faintest glimmer of sadness in his eyes, and it takes every ounce of self-control he possesses not to rush over and hug him and try to find out what's wrong.

Kenny snorts with laughter, oblivious to the expression on Tweek's face. "Oh, yeah." He leans down to swipe a chunk of ice from the ground and throws it into the pond where it hits the water with a bloop. "Now that sounds believable."

"Fuck you," Craig can't help whispering under his breath, struggling to raise a middle finger from the stupid fucking mitten prison his hands are currently trapped within. Kenny cocks his head, curiously looking over in his direction, and Clyde helpfully clamps his own mittened hand over Craig's mouth.

"Did you hear something?" Kenny asks. When Tweek doesn't respond, he simply shrugs and goes back to the conversation at hand. "So, for real, Tweekster, why didn't Tucker come with you? I thought you guys were physically joined at the hip by now."

Tweek turns toward the pond, the same sadness reflecting in his eyes for a fraction of a moment. "Oh, uh…he wanted to go play basketball?" he responds, his own confusion turning his sentence into a question. "He saw Kyle and a few of the guys starting a game when he was walking me home, and I guess he wanted to hang out with them."

"Wow, Tweek." Kenny holds a hand to his heart in mock offense, a twinkle in his eye. "If he's not here cause you wanted him to go buy you guys some new sex toys or something, you can just tell me. You don't have to lie."

Despite the accusation not being true in the slightest, Craig feels his face heat up to about a million degrees at the mention of sex toys. Next to him, Clyde elbows him in the side and hisses, "Dude! For your first time, really?"

"Shut up!" Craig snaps back, in as quiet a voice as possible. Now that Tweek is actually here, only a few feet away from him, this whole dressing-like-a-fuckin'-gnome plan just seems ten thousand times worse than it had when he'd been standing in Clyde's bedroom. What the fuck is he supposed to do? Just leap out of the fuckin' bushes and tackle Tweek to the ground?

He's just in the process of turning to his right, to tell Clyde that he's changed his mind and that he's going to have to figure out another way to get Tweek alone, when his best friend takes it upon himself to do exactly the worst possible thing. Before Craig can stop him, Clyde clambers to his feet and dives over the top of the bush, screaming like a banshee.

"Fuck!" Without thinking, Craig springs up just as Clyde hits the ground, freezing once he realizes that he doesn't know how the hell he's supposed to handle this situation.

He locks eyes with Tweek for a split-second, but he doesn't even get a chance to open his mouth before the blonde lets out an ear-splitting shriek of his own and takes off back down the path.

"TWEEK, BABE!" Craig bolts after him, every curse word under the sun spilling out of his mouth as he trips over patches of ice, snow, and his own shoelaces in his hurry to catch the love of his life. "WAIT! NO! I DON'T WANT YOUR UNDERWEAR, I WANT YOU!"

But Tweek doesn't slow down. Craig watches him go until he's out of sight, his stomach dropping all the way to his toes, and then he turns back. Hopelessness descends upon him like a heavy storm cloud. The only silver lining is that, at least for the moment, Tweek doesn't know that it's Craig he's running from.

Ripping the stupid gnome hat off his head, Craig chucks it to the ground, ready to give Clyde a piece of his fucking mind. This never would have happened if it weren't for his awful, awful idea to dress up like the one thing in the world Tweek's most afraid of. When will Clyde ever start listening to him?

The brunette's hat has slipped down over his eyes and as he flails around on the ground, his hands grasp a fistful of Kenny's ripped khaki pants. "YES!" he cheers, giving a hearty tug, throwing Kenny off balance and pulling him down on top of him. "I GOT HIM!"

"What the hell– Clyde?" Kenny untangles his limbs from his boyfriend's and stares at him, clearly amused. "Don't take this the wrong way, but…this isn't quite what I meant when I said I wanted you to be more spontaneous…"

"Wait– Kenny?" Clyde wriggles one hand free of its mitten and reaches his hand up, pressing his palm to Kenny's nose and wiggling his fingers to try to get a feel for the blonde's face, almost poking his eyes out in the process. "Is that you?"

"Clyde, please." Kenny pulls Clyde's hand away and pushes the brunette's hat further up his forehead so that he can see again. "You're making me sound like Craig."

Craig flips him off as he walks up to them, but Kenny doesn't see it. "God," he mutters, half to himself, hating how out of breath he sounds. All that football isn't doing shit for Stan's stamina. "If he wasn't so fast, I could catch him."

"I bet you would have run faster if you had the Super Craig costume on." Clyde remarks offhandedly, patting the snow flat around him with his mitten-covered hand.

Rolling his eyes, Kenny's voice is covered in a delicious coating of sarcasm when he answers, "Oh, yeah, that piece of paper did wonders for Tucker."

"Fuckin' blow me, asshole. My costume was cool." Craig runs both hands through his hair in frustration, and then gestures behind him, where Tweek had run off. Glaring down at Clyde, he demands, "Now what the fuck am I supposed to do?"

Kenny laces his fingers together with Clyde's and pulls them both up onto their feet. He looks between the brunette, who's wide-eyed and on the verge of tears, and Craig, who looks like he's about to murder someone. "...Uh, Stan, buddy?" he asks, cautiously, wrapping an arm around Clyde's shoulders. "You okay?"

"I'M NOT FUCKING STAN!" Craig cries, his voice so strong, he can practically smell the vomit in his stomach readying itself to blast up and out of his throat.

Apparently, based on the expression on Kenny's face, he can too, but all he does is just wave the smell away like it's an annoying housefly. "Neither am I, but you don't see me yelling about it."

"Dude, just calm down," Clyde starts to say, shrinking back a little when Craig angrily kicks a chunk of ice halfway across the pond. "It's okay, we can fix this!"

"How?" Craig demands, inwardly cringing at how emotional he sounds. God, Stan's voice doesn't hide a fuckin' thing, no wonder he's so terrible at lying. "What are you gonna make me do next, hide in Tweek's closet wearing a hockey mask and carrying a fuckin' hatchet? Great idea, Clyde, good thing I have you around to think of these genius plans for me!"

Kenny tilts his head to the side, his only reaction to the raven's outburst two slow, catlike blinks of his eyes. "...Okay, I'm starting to think I'm missing something here."

"It's not your underwear, is it?" Clyde asks, sounding so genuinely concerned that Kenny actually snaps his pants up slightly to check before giving a loose shrug. "I'm so sorry, Kenny! I didn't think these costumes would give us actual powers!" Clyde turns to his best bro, who still looks like he wants to punt Clyde into the pond. "See, Craig?" the brunette whines, "I told you this was a bad idea!"

"What? No, you didn't!" Craig throws both hands up into the air. "I told you it was a bad idea. Twenty-seven times!"

"Clyde?" Kenny taps his distressed boyfriend gently on the shoulder. "You, uh, know you're talking to Stan, right?"

Already teary, Clyde shakes his head vehemently, his gnome hat falling into a pile of snow. "No, it's Craig! He and Stan switched bodies! Here, I can prove it!" He pauses, wrinkling his nose as he realizes that there is no real evidence to support his claim other than Craig's word. "Wait, no, I can't. But it's true, I swear!"

After taking a moment to process what Clyde is saying, Kenny steps closer to Craig. Scrunching up his face in concentration, he scrutinizes him for a good forty-five seconds, trailing his eyes from Craig's face down to his toes and back again. Finally, he shrugs. "Okay. So, what, that means Stan's in Craig's body?"

"Yeah!" Clyde beams, his face bubbling with excitement as he bounces on his heels, "And we need to get them switched back before Saturday or else Tweek and Stan are gonna–"

"–don't even say it," Craig interrupts, holding up one hand while preemptively covering his mouth with the other.

Clyde holds his own hand up to his face to hide his words from Craig as he stage-whispers to Kenny, "They're gonna do it!"

Unfortunately, that's not enough to keep Craig from hearing the words, and that's all it takes to open the vomit gates. Barely managing to stagger over to the edge of the pond, Craig drops to his knees and lets loose, puke spewing out of him like a fountain. Fuck Stan's weak-ass stomach.

"Dude." Kenny digs around in his pockets, coming up with a crumpled up, dirty tissue which he offers to Craig. "why don't you just tell Tweek that it's you?"

Groaning pathetically, Craig ignores the tissue in Kenny's hand, but he can't even form a response before he's almost tipping face-first into the water as another wave of nausea shoots through him. When his stomach is finally emptied – he hopes – he scoops up a handful of snow and uses it to clean up his face. "Cause it's that easy," he snarks, his voice slightly hoarse.

"That's what we were trying to do here," Clyde explains, when Kenny looks to him for an answer too, "but I caught you instead. We were just trying to get Tweek to talk to Craig for– what did you say, Craig, five minutes?"

"Okay." Kenny nods, like that all makes perfect sense, before pointing out, "But why'd you need to take it this far in the first place? Tweek's pretty reasonable, isn't he? I mean, he puts up with you all the time." He shrugs when Craig narrows his eyes and gives him a middle finger in response. "Tell me I'm wrong." When Craig just looks away, Kenny smirks. "So seriously. Why wouldn't you just try to talk to him like a normal person?"

Craig sighs, dramatically heaving himself up onto his feet, trying his best to stand up straight as Stan's weak-ass legs wobble like Jello. "Because…I fucked it up, okay? The first time I saw them together, I was so pissed I tried to punch myself — er, Stan — in the face in front of Tweek and he shoved me away, because why the fuck wouldn't he? To him, it looked like I was going after me — Stan — whoever — for no fuckin' reason, so now…" Craig sighs, his eyes trailing to the puke-sprinkled snow, "He's never going to believe a word I say."

"...But you thought dressing up like a gnome and tackling him into a frozen pond would help with that?" Kenny glances from Craig to Clyde, who just offers him a tiny shrug along with a sheepish grin.

Fighting back the urge to roll his eyes, lest he lose another ally, Craig clarifies, "I wasn't going to tackle him into the pond, okay? I'm not an idiot."

Silently looking his outfit up and down, Kenny simply raises one eyebrow. "Whatever you say, Sta-" Craig folds his arms across his chest, shooting him the strongest death glare Stan's face can muster, and Kenny shivers. "Craig, sorry. Man, even in Stan's body, you're scary."

"Hey," Clyde speaks up, his eyes regaining their trademark cheeriness, "since this didn't work out, does that mean you'll actually try my superheroes idea now?"

Before Craig can launch into yet another tirade about all the things wrong with that plan, Kenny sighs, "I really think you guys are overthinking this. Like, dude, if Tweek won't listen to you, why don't you try talking to…you know, yourself?"

Raising an eyebrow, Craig turns to the side and instinctively peers into the pond, legitimately expecting to see his own reflection staring back up at him. Instead, he's met with the face of his mortal enemy.

Kenny facepalms. "...you sure you're not an idiot?"

Craig flips him off with both hands. "Fuck you," he snaps, refusing to admit to himself that Kenny actually has a decent point. If he can't get Tweek to talk to him, he might only have one other choice. He's going to have to confront Stan. Voluntarily seeking him out is the last thing in the world he's ever wanted to do, but Saturday is going to be here in the blink of an eye and clearly relying on Clyde for solutions is getting him nowhere.

On the plus side, there's always the possibility that he could vomit on him. And Stan being covered in his own vomit sounds like poetic justice to Craig. It's what he deserves after fuckin' stealing Craig's life like a little bitch.

"Fine," he sighs, shoving both hands into his pockets. "Let's just get this fuckin' over with."

Chapter Text

Before he's willing to go have any kind of conversation with the disgusting creature that is currently inhabiting his rightful body, Craig insists that he needs to change the fuck out of Stan's clothes and into something that doesn't feel like it's giving him fleas. Clyde had offered to let Craig raid his closet for something to wear, but the thought of walking around in a salsa-stained t-shirt and jeans two sizes too big for him was almost worse than wearing Stan's clothes. Almost. All Craig really wants is his own fucking clothes – and that means a trip to the Tucker's house.

"Hey, so, I have a question," Clyde says as he, Kenny, and Craig round the corner at the end of Craig's street. "How are you going to get all the way up to your room looking like Stan? Won't your parents wonder what you're doing there?"

"They're not gonna be home," Craig replies, confident for the first time all day. Just the thought of getting to put on one of his own usual outfits is already making him feel ten times better. "And Trish has band practice or some shit after school on Mondays, so it'll be fine."

Kenny lazily raises one arm, like they're in class. "Sure," he agrees, "if you can get inside. But I can't think of a good reason why Stan would be carrying around Craig Tucker's house keys."

Craig stops in his tracks, so abruptly he elbows Kenny in the chest, hard enough to send him staggering backwards a few feet. "Shit," he mutters, while the blonde regains his balance, "I hadn't thought of that."

"Do you really need to change that bad?" Clyde hides behind Kenny when Craig turns and glares at him. "Dude, come on, I'm just saying. Don't you think it would be easier to just go and talk to Stan and get it out of the way?"

Craig clenches his jaw, shoving his hands in his pockets and quickly stomping off along the sidewalk. "No," he snarks over his shoulder, "I think it would be easier if I could just wave my fuckin' hands and get my own body back, but apparently that's not how curses work, according to you two."

"I'm not even sure you're cursed," Kenny remarks offhandedly, linking arms with Clyde as they hurry to catch up. "I mean, usually if you've done something bad enough to get yourself hexed, it's more obvious, like you'll have a serious run of bad luck or something. So far, all I've seen is you wearing Stan's face and dressing up like a lawn gnome, so I'd say you're getting off pretty easy."

"Pretty easy?" Just as they reach the Tucker's, Craig spins around, gesturing down at himself with both hands. "You call this easy?"

Kenny looks him up and down, shrugging after a moment. "Look, I'm not going to name names, but let's just say I didn't lose my virginity just because someone brought me a package of peanut butter cups on our first date."

Clyde holds one hand over his mouth to muffle his sudden burst of laughter, but Craig just shivers, already feeling his stomach turn dangerously. "Well, I could've gone my whole life without knowing that. Thanks for the nightmares, McCormick."

Kenny gives a smug smile, a devious glimmer in his eyes. "You're welcome."

Willing this stupid body to give him a break from actually puking his guts out just this one time, Craig turns to his house, frowning up at it thoughtfully. "I'm gonna have to go in the window," he says finally, his tone sounding much more sure of himself than he actually feels. All the houses in this neighborhood were clearly built using the same schematic, which is frustrating as hell right now, because that means that neither of his neighbors have any sort of convenient extra-long roof or anything he can use to give himself an easier time. He hasn't had to sneak in or out of a window in forever. This is probably going to be rough.

"Are you sure?" Clyde scrunches his face up doubtfully. "Don't you want to try the back door or something?"

"You know," Kenny drawls with a wink, "I remember the first time I asked you that question." When Clyde's face turns the color of Taco Bell salsa and he swats Kenny's arm, the shameless blonde raises his eyebrow at Craig. "Seriously, though, Tucker, maybe you really should check all the doors before you go trying to break your neck."

"I don't have time for that!" Craig strides forward, mentally doing the necessary calculations to figure out which upstairs window leads to his room. He stops beneath the large oak tree in his front yard and gestures impatiently to the brunette behind him. "Clyde, c'mon, you need to give me a boost."

Clyde takes a few hesitant steps forward and then shoots an anxious glance to Kenny over his shoulder. "I don't know," he says nervously, "Maybe Kenny's right, maybe we should try the door. Or maybe a window closer to the ground?"

"Just get the fuck over here," Craig grumbles, already running his hands along the tree trunk, looking for a handhold to hoist himself up. He takes hold of a particularly promising looking area only for a chunk of bark to break off in his hand, nearly sending him falling flat on his ass on the ground. "I want to get out of here before Trish or my parents see me like this."

"Yeah, Clyde, he's got a point." Kenny reaches out to nudge the brunette with his hand. "We wouldn't want to be responsible for anyone dying of laughter now, would we?"

Holding up a middle finger behind his back, Craig mutters, "Fuck you."

Reluctantly, Clyde makes his way over until he's standing next to Craig. "So…" he begins, casting an apprehensive look up to where the lowest branch is, about three feet above their heads. "What, um, exactly are you trying to do?"

With a huff of exasperation, Craig rolls his eyes. "I need to get up there," he explains, throwing one arm up to vaguely point up to the oak tree's higher branches, "cause there's a branch that goes right in front of my fuckin' window. So I need you to boost me up to that." He gestures with his chin up towards the branch just above the two of them, his expression darkening as he glares down at Stan's body. "Cause this fuckin' asshole is too short to get up there on his own."

Clyde looks back at Kenny, who merely shrugs, his eyes glimmering with amusement, and then the brunette sighs, resigned to his fate. "Okay," he relents, cupping his hands together so Craig can use them as a step. "But I still don't know if this is a very good idea."

Pressing the sole of his foot into Clyde's palm, Craig heaves himself up towards the tree with a grunt. He overshoots his target by about a foot, leading to a chain reaction that only Kenny finds to be absolutely hilarious. Instead of grabbing the branch right above them, Craig ends up smacking the top of his head against the next highest one, the force of which causes him to lose his balance and slam his back against the tree trunk. In the process, he accidentally ends up kicking Clyde in the side of the head, and then the two of them both come crashing down into a groaning heap in a snowbank below.

"You kicked me!" Clyde whines, holding his head and shooting Craig a wounded glare. "After all I've done for you!"

"Stop being so fuckin' dramatic," Craig grumbles, gingerly getting back to his feet. He cautiously takes a step forward, giving a satisfied nod when all of his limbs appear to be unbroken. "Come on, let's try it again, I think I can get it now. I just miscalculated the first time."

"Wait!" Kenny's voice cuts through the air. "Just in case you can't…" The pair watch in mild curiosity as Kenny reaches into his pants' pocket and pulls out his phone. He positions it upright, capturing Tweedle Dumb and Tweedle Dumber in the center of the screen before hitting record. "This is exactly the kind of material I need to go viral!"

Craig rolls his eyes, holding up both middle fingers in response. "You're a fuckin' walking virus, McCormick," he snaps, but Kenny just laughs him off. Turning back to the tree, Craig narrows his eyes in concentration. "Alright. Let's fuckin' do this. I seriously think I can feel Stan's germs on me." He shudders.

It takes another two tries, but eventually Clyde manages to boost Craig high enough that he can scramble onto the branch, hesitantly following him up. Kenny watches through the screen of his phone as they carefully inch their ways closer to the window, so deep in thought about all the followers this disastrous endeavor is going to earn him that he doesn't hear the sound of footsteps approaching him until it's too late.

"Oh my God! How many people is Stan cheating on me with?!"

Wendy's angry voice is so close to Kenny's ear that he jumps in surprise, nearly dropping his phone into the snow. "Oh, uh, hey, Wendy," he says, switching off his camera and shoving his phone back into his pocket. "What's up?"

"What's up?! What's up is that our boyfriends are apparently cheating on us with each other, and you're just standing here watching it happen!" Wendy gestures wildly towards the front of Craig's house, her eyes blazing with such fury that Kenny wouldn't be surprised if all the snow in a ten mile radius were to suddenly melt into nothing. "Don't you care?"

"Oh, uh…" Kenny frowns, trying to figure out how to handle this situation. He's pretty sure Craig wouldn't want this secret blabbed all over town, so he can't exactly go explaining that he and Stan have somehow swapped bodies to one of the biggest gossips in school. "What…do you mean?" he eventually asks, deciding to play clueless instead. "Why would you think Clyde's cheating on me with Stan?"

Just as soon as those words are out of his mouth, Clyde's voice echoes through the air. "Come on, you're so close!"

Kenny and Wendy both turn to the two idiots in the tree to see what is going on. Craig is inches away from his bedroom window, as far along the tree branch that he can safely go. Clyde is just behind him, both his hands firmly gripping Craig's hips to hold him steady and keep him from falling again.

Wendy huffs, pointing an accusing finger at the display in front of them. "See?" she hisses to Kenny.

"I can't reach it!" Craig's frustrated voice is just as loud as Clyde's, and Kenny suddenly wishes they'd worked out a signal or something that he could use right now to get them both to shut up. "You're going to have to push harder!"

"I'm trying!" Clyde does his best to shove Craig forward with all of his might, his hands now splayed across Stan's body's non-existent ass. "It's not my fault you have nothing to grab onto back here!"

With a flip of her long black hair, Wendy takes her phone out of her sparkly purse and furiously begins typing away. "That's it," she announces, "We're done! I am officially changing my relationship status on Facebook!" She throws her phone back into her purse and turns to Kenny again. "I knew he was avoiding me, but I never thought it would be because of Clyde! You really need to rethink your relationship, Kenny, because he clearly doesn't respect you! Just like how Stan never respected me!"

Craig whips his head and shoots a glare in their direction. "Oh my God, will you two shut up? I'm trying to concentrate!"

"Fuck you!" Wendy screeches as she storms off down the sidewalk, disappearing around the corner in seconds.

"What's her problem?" Craig demands, shaking his head as he stretches his arm out towards his window again. "Jesus Christ, what a bitch."

For a moment, Kenny considers explaining that Craig has just single-handedly blown up Stan's whole relationship with Wendy, but before he gets the chance, Craig manages to unlatch the window and then he tumbles inside the house.

It's the most graceless move of Craig's entire life thus far, and if someone wasn't there to witness it firsthand, he probably would've denied that it ever happened. Craig rolls forward in a half-assed somersault, knocking over a few objects along the way, which he thinks is weird, cause he doesn't remember anything being near his window, but he just chalks it up to being disoriented as fuck. He manages to get halfway across the room before his legs fail him and he flops down in the center of the carpet like a starfish. He'll just rest here for a second, and then he can get changed, and then–

"Who the fuck are you?"

Goddammit. Craig really should have double-checked the windows. Apparently Tricia didn't have band practice today after all. And now he's just broken into her bedroom.

It's okay, it's fine, this is totally fine. He can talk his way out of this.

Barely able to lift his head up, Craig chooses this moment to say the most useless response of his life. "Uhhh…"

"MOM!"

Chapter Text

Stan races down the length of the basketball court, his lungs already burning for more oxygen before he's even halfway to the other end. Bridon suddenly steps in front of him and Stan fights to keep control of the ball, twisting the useless body he's stuck inside away from the brunette's outstretched arms. He regrets the move instantly as a bolt of pain shoots through his back and he barely manages to stifle a groan. God, how is it possible that Craig is this out of shape? Sure, Stan has never had any delusions about him having any real athletic ability, but still, he'd assumed that Craig has put down the bag of Doritos, actually gotten off the couch, and walked around once or twice in his life. Apparently he was wrong.

"And here he comes," Jimmy announces from the sidelines, Timmy in his wheelchair next to him, holding up a scoreboard, "the one, the only, the ma-mag-magni– extraordinary Craig Tucker, in his debut after-school basketball game!" He pauses, as if waiting for a crowd reaction, but the only person in attendance watching the game is Tweek, and try as he might, the blonde just doesn't have the enthusiasm of an arena full of people. "Wow, what a terrific audience," Jimmy sarcastically mutters to himself with a sigh.

"Timmah!" Timmy agrees, nodding sympathetically. "Tim… Timmah!"

Jimmy perks up a bit. "That's right, Tim-Tim," he says, returning his attention to the game, "there's only thirty seconds left, and Craig's team is losing by o–o–o– a single point. He needs to make this basket for the win – can he do it?!"

Timmy frowns, cocking his head as he contemplates the question, finally offering his opinion with a somber, "Timmah."

"Yeah," Jimmy nods, "I don't think so either."

Back on the court, Stan has just reached the three point line. His – or, rather, Craig's – calf muscles are screaming in pain and it's all he can do not to collapse in a heap as soon as he stops moving. Stan pauses and scans the area, wondering why most of the other team is still standing at the opposite end of the court, except for Bridon and Kyle, who are standing just shy of the baseline, not even bothering to guard him. Bridon whispers something to Kyle, then shrugs, and the two of them turn to watch Stan, identical dubious expressions on their faces. Wanting to take advantage of this rare opportunity, Stan jumps up and shoots the ball, in near-perfect form. It flies into the air and drops gracefully into the basket, in classic "nothing but net" fashion.

Stan comes down hard onto the asphalt with a thud and winces – thank God these aren't his knees. He looks back at the rest of the guys, a triumphant smirk spreading across his face when he sees how shocked they all are. Not even Jimmy or Timmy can manage to come up with anything to say. "That's fucking right," he declares, crossing his arms over his chest, only a tiny bit worried about the potential heart attack that might be brewing for putting this hopelessly out of shape body through this much physical activity. "This gay-ass motherfucker just won the game!" Stan gloats, before transitioning into a very cringy victory "dance" – which is basically just a series of increasingly awkward pelvic thrusts.

"I don't believe it," Token shakes his head, "I thought we were done after Cartman threw a tantrum and just sat on the sideline." He nods towards the other side of the court, where the resident fatass has parked himself on one of the side benches and is arm-deep into a bag of Cheetos of questionable origin.

"Yeah, well," Stan shrugs, "sometimes I can pull a little bit of sparkle out of my ass."

Token lifts the hem of his t-shirt to wipe his sweaty forehead, mumbling to himself, "God, I hope you don't mean that literally."

Before Stan can add another sassy comment, Bridon, Kyle, Butters, Kevin, Scott, Douglas, and Francis all join them at the center of the court, the former having retrieved the basketball on his trek over. "Man, Craig," Bridon incredulously states, resting the ball firmly against his side, "I'm surprised you made that shot. I didn't think you gave a shit about basketball. The last time I saw you play, you called the game an abomination, cursed at your shoes, and stomped off after Coach yelled at you for aiming the ball at Stan's face instead of the basket."

Biting back a scowl, Stan nods. "Yeah, I know, I'm such a dick," he agrees, wholeheartedly believing every word.

Standing slightly off to the side, Kyle's gaze drifts to the ground as he kicks a stray pebble across the asphalt. "Stan probably deserved it though," he mutters, the icy bitterness of his tone shooting straight through to Stan's very soul.

"Hey!" he blurts out, offended, freezing when everyone turns their eyes on him. "Uh…" Stan clears his throat, thinking as quickly as he can, "I…uh, that's…what I was going to say. Jesus Christ, Broflovski," he grumbles dramatically, "let someone else talk once in a while, would you?"

"BEAM ME UP, SCOTTY!" Kevin suddenly shouts at the top of his lungs, startling everyone half to death. Bridon lets out a yelp, loses his grip on the basketball, and runs off to go retrieve it before it bounces off into the street.

"What did I do?" Scott asks, looking down at himself in confusion. A shrill beeping noise sounds from the watch on his wrist and he unzips the little black pouch attached to his side, taking out a small syringe.

Kevin holds his phone up, a sheepish smile on his face when he clarifies, "Oh, sorry. It's just, uh, Wendy Testaburger just deactivated her shields!" When the rest of the group remains silent, only exchanging bewildered glances, the proud, self-proclaimed geek of the century sighs, clearly disappointed in his friends. "She changed her Facebook relationship status to single!" he informs them. "See?"

"Really?" Francis says, leaning closer to peer down at the screen of Kevin's Android. "They seemed so happy together. I wonder what happened."

"I don't know," Butters pipes up, lowering his voice conspiratorially as he reveals, "Why, just this morning, I heard Stan call her a bitch."

He's obviously expecting some sort of reaction, but with the exception of Stan himself, everyone else just sort of shrugs, like that makes perfect sense. Stan runs a hand through Craig's gross-ass hair, more to keep himself from snatching Kevin's phone out of the Trekkie's hand and throwing it across the basketball court than anything else. Who the hell does Craig think he is, messing with his relationship like that? Yeah, he and Wendy had been having problems, and yeah, Stan did think she could be kind of a bitch sometimes, but that's not the point! It still doesn't give Craig any right to involve himself in Stan's goddamn business! And it's not like he was really done with Wendy anyway! He was just taking a break, thinking things through, and weighing all his options – but now, thanks to Craig and whatever bullshit he'd pulled, his options are dwindling away before his very eyes.

"The how is not important, gentlemen!" Kevin is saying. "What matters is that now, I finally have the chance to explore her territory." His eyes light up and he wiggles his eyebrows much more suggestively than anyone would have thought him capable of. "Maybe I could even give her a ride on my warp core – if you know what I mean?"

Before Kevin can go into the excruciatingly detailed explanation of what, exactly, he means, Stan launches himself at him, determined to wipe that stupid fucking grin off his face. Letting out an almost inhuman howl of rage, Stan knocks the two of them to the asphalt with a dramatic thump, his fists flying as an array of punches arrive at their final destination. He vaguely hears a few shouts erupting from behind him, but he doesn't stop until he is physically pulled off of Kevin and heaved back up to his feet. Panting, he whirls around, fire blazing in his eyes, to see who had had the nerve to get in his way.

"What the hell, Craig?!" Token demands, gesturing past Stan to where Butters and Scott are tending to the bloodied Vulcan wannabe on the ground. "Why did you attack Kevin again?! He didn't even insult Tweek this time!"

Much too late, Stan realizes that beating the hell out of the nerdiest kid in school just for making a mildly suggestive comment about Wendy probably isn't something Craig would do. He's a gigantic asshole, yes, but now that he thinks about it, aren't he and Kevin sort of friendly? Shit. Way to blow your cover, Marsh. Goddammit. "Sorry," he wheezes, sucking down a giant gulp of air to hopefully soothe his oxygen-starved lungs, "I'm uh…a women's rights activist."

"Since when–" Token starts to ask, but just then, Stan catches sight of a flash of blonde hair as Tweek approaches the group, holding Craig's chullo loosely in one hand. Just outside of his peripheral vision, Douglas also notices the blonde's arrival and hurriedly adjusts his hat, making a point of flexing his muscles as he raises both his arms in the air.

"Craig," Tweek says, the disapproval clear in his tone, "why did you beat him up again?" He hands Stan the chullo with a frown. "I haven't seen you this mad since he said that thing about the yellow Power Ranger."

Having approximately zero desire to let the inside of Craig's gross hat touch the top of his head again today, Stan shoves it into his pocket and shrugs. "I got excited," he says, "I mean, you know how I get. Sometimes I need to just, uh, punch things. It's a Craig thing."

"Hey, Tweek!" Douglas chimes in, cheerfully waving when Tweek looks over at him.

"Oh, hey Douglas!" Tweek waves back and then focuses once again on Stan, much to Douglas's disappointment. "We've talked about this," he admonishes. "You can't go hitting people just because you suddenly get the urge to."

Stopping his eyes mid-roll, as a devious plan begins to hatch in his brain, Stan agrees, "You know what, you're right, uh, baby. Man," he shakes his head, "I really am just an asshole, aren't I? Honestly, I'm shocked you stay with me."

Douglas mutters something under his breath, his expression morphing from grumpy to crestfallen when Tweek reaches out and places his hand on Stan's shoulder reassuringly.

"Aww, Craig, don't say that," the blonde says softly, "you know I love you. I'm so glad I decided to come back and watch you win this game." Sliding his hand down Stan's arm, he laces their fingers together and gently tugs Stan forward a bit. "Come on, let's go, I wanted to talk to you about our date tomorrow–"

"Oh, hey!"

Stan yanks his arm back as soon as Kyle speaks, dropping Tweek's hand to focus his gaze on the redhead. Tweek wrinkles his nose, a tiny trace of hurt reflected in his eyes that's gone as soon as he blinks, and he also turns to see what's going on. Nearby, Butters and Scott have a slightly disoriented Kevin propped up between them.

"I almost forgot!" Kyle digs into his pocket and pulls out a stack of paper, brandishing it in the air like it's some sort of magical weapon. "My dad got a bunch of coupons from work for free appetizers at Raisins!" He grins at the group. "If we go tomorrow, then between these and Taco Tuesday, we can get a ton of food for less than five dollars per person. You guys in?"

"Aw, heck yeah!" Butters cheers, clapping his hands excitedly and almost sending Kevin tumbling back down to the ground. "Whoops, sorry, buddy!" he apologizes.

An extremely out of breath Cartman pops up beside Token, nudging him obnoxiously in the side and scoffing, "Typical cheap Jew, am I right?" Token just rolls his eyes.

With a huff, Kyle eyes Cartman with a combination of distaste and disbelief. "Did you seriously run all the way over here just to insult me?" he asks, the question clearly rhetorical since everyone present already knows the answer.

"I'm in!" Stan blurts out, a little bit late to the conversation, though that's not the only reason everyone turns to stare at him in shock, Tweek included. Shifting uncomfortably under all the attention, Stan darts his eyes around nervously. "...What? I like…tacos."

"No, Clyde likes tacos," Token points out. "You like– Hey, wait, where is Clyde anyway? Wasn't he supposed to come play today?"

"I don't know," Stan grumbles, not particularly in the mood to hear about Clyde right now, not after what had happened during lunch today. "Probably crying into some fries or something."

Cartman bursts into laughter, like that's the most hilarious thing he's ever heard, but once more, everyone else can only look at Stan – or, from their perspective, Craig – like he's all of a sudden sprouted a pair of giant, polka-dot wings out of his back. Tweek takes a step back, his eyebrows drawing together in concern, but before he can say anything, Token's already speaking again.

"Dude, what is up with you today?" he presses. "You're not usually this grumpy. Did something–"

"I'll tell you what's up with me," Stan interrupts with a huff, narrowing his eyes at the person who has had the audacity to call him out in front of everyone, "Clyde acts all pissy at lunch, demands to come over to my house after school, and then he fucking stands me up! And you're acting like he's the victim?!"

Unflinching, Token stands his ground. "That doesn't sound like Clyde. Are you sure you just didn't miss him?"

Scott raises his hand like they're in class. "No, it's true," he says when Token looks his way. "I saw him leave school with Stan earlier today. It seemed like they were having a pretty serious discussion, too."

Stan whips his head up, his heart sinking as realization dawns on him. Oh, shit. There's only one reason he can think of why Clyde would all of a sudden be such close pals with…well, him. He must have found out about the switch somehow. Craig must have– Goddammit. He may have seriously underestimated Craig's intelligence here; and if he's managed to convince Clyde of all people that Stan's currently in possession of his body, then… He's about to be in a metric fuckton of trouble unless he can do some serious damage control and turn things around – starting with taking something Craig cares about away from him, just like he'd done to Stan.

Speaking of a metric fuckton of trouble… Bridon and Kevin share a look at Scott's announcement, both of them remembering with perfect clarity what they'd overheard in the hallway – but neither one of them wanting to be the one to bring it up. Starting a rumor that Stan and Tweek are planning on sleeping together isn't something to be done out in public on the basketball court, after all. They have principles.

"With Stan?" Token makes a face. "That's weird he didn't tell me. Maybe they got paired up on a project or something."

Pursing his lips, Stan tries his best to stifle the screaming that is rattling through his very core. He blinks twice, somehow miraculously keeping his expression as disinterested as possible, and sighs. "Whatever. Clyde can do what he wants. I'm out of here." Spinning on his heel, Stan begins striding away, grateful – though he would never admit it – that Craig has abnormally long giraffe legs.

"Craig, wait!" Tweek rushes after him, shooting an apologetic look to the rest of the guys on his way. "Um, can you walk me home today?" he asks once he's caught up. Glancing around, like something terrible is going to pop out of the bushes, he adds, a slight tremor in his voice, "I think the gnomes are getting bigger."

Without slowing down even slightly, Stan just rolls his eyes, letting out a snort. "Tweek, come on," he says as they approach the street corner, where the 'walk' light is blinking orange, "are you still on that? Jesus Christ, I thought you were going to therapy."

"What…?"

Tweek stops at the corner, but Stan keeps going, stepping out into the street without bothering to check in either direction for oncoming traffic. A small smile pulls at his lips as he crosses the road. Tweek had sounded really hurt, and he'd barely even done anything. At this rate, he'll have them broken up within twenty-four hours.

Take that, Tucker.