Chapter Text
Everyday during breakfast, Tweek fails. The deep, piercing knot of anxiety in his chest whenever his breakfast is served welcomes itself every day; he isn't sure what it means until his mother asks the dreadful question of, "what was your word?"
Tweek never remembers. He doesn't even remember the fact that he has a word - only that every morning he feels, once again, he has failed at doing something. He's managed to forget the most simplest of words, words that a toddler learns at kindergarten. "Red" or "Cat" don't register in his mind after he goes to sleep.
While taking another spoonful of his cereal, his mother sits across from him, and his heart sinks.
"Good morning," she states flatly.
Tweek only nods in response, trying to focus on his food.
"What was your word?"
He doesn't understand why she asks anymore. Even if he doesn't remember the interactions, he knows by her body language that this is a routine, and that he manages to get it wrong every time.
"I don't know." He doesn't make eye contact.
She just sighs and leaves her son to eat by himself. Tweek has a suspicion that this is how every morning goes.
It hadn't started like this. He used to be able to remember the word. He'd go through his days normally, the only parts of his brain missing being little things such as certain words or events. He hadn't cared about forgetting what adjectives meant or that when he was twelve he'd gone to his grandparents' house for Thanksgiving.
Until the day that, when his mom had happily asked her morning question, he paused. Word? He'd thought. What is my word?
He'd had to look away from his sobbing mother when he couldn't muster up the correct answer.
“Hey champ!” His father announces, stepping into the kitchen. “I heard Craig is coming over today.”
“He- He comes over almost every day,” Tweek retorts. “After school, around four-thirty, for at least an hour.”
“Ah…” His dad clears his throat. “Have you studied that?”
“I have it written down,” his son responds nonchalantly.
Mr. Tweak seems to take his time in getting a cup of coffee, stuck in thought when he sits across from his son, just like his wife had. “What’s Craig’s last name?”
“Tucker.” The response is instantaneous.
A common sigh is barely heard from the table. “Your mother mentioned that you still aren’t remembering your words.”
“That’s not my fault!”
“Yet you can manage to take your time memorizing Craig’s schedule?”
“He’s more important than a stupid word. You seem to have for- forgotten lately, but he’s my boyfriend. We’ve been dating for seven years. Just- nghh- just because I’m ‘disabled’ now doesn’t mean we magically stopped da- dating.”
“You don’t even remember your own family!” The coffee mug slams down onto the table, too empty by now to spill over. “What happens when you forget about that boy too?”
Tweek stands up, glaring into his father’s eyes. “I won’t.”
“Just go.” His father also stands, going to set his mug into the sink, chipping his nail through the new crack in the bottom of it. “Go to your room and do your damn cards.”
Without a word, Tweek leaves his breakfast and starts up the stairs, trying to make his sock-covered steps as loud as he can just to annoy his parents. He’s not mad at them; rather frustrated at the entire situation. He’s tired of his memories being more of vague déjà vu sequences, sick of having to stay quiet when he’s asked if he remembers a life-changing event that happened in his past. The fact that he’s blamed for the deterioration of his mind due to meth overdoses that he couldn’t control makes him scratch at his arms with dull fingernails. Craig has always told him how bad of a habit it is - he seems to forget about the warnings.
Stepping over various unorganized books and old Lego figures that he hadn’t had the heart to throw out, Tweek wanders over to the pile of notecards by the foot of his bed. He reviews the one on the very top, the word “city” written in his own handwriting.
City. He tears the card in half. That was my word. He tears it again, over and over, until it can’t be teared evenly again. He lets the pieces flutter to the carpet in a dazed silence. The cards don’t matter.
Except for one.
Of all the crinkled papers scattered around his room, there's one that always sits above his desk on the wall, safely kept away from sun exposure, water spillages, or anything that could possibly be hazardous to it. He would stare at it, repeating the name whenever he opens his laptop, burning it into his vocal cords and into his brain, staining his eyesight with the messy curls of writing and analyzing where the pencil had been pressed down harder or lighter in certain spots. He tells himself every night how that name has changed his life for the better, how it's become the most important subject of study.
He cannot forget the name on the paper. He cannot forget the person that it's attached to.
Tweek will not let himself forget who Craig Tucker is.