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Tweek had been drinking.
“I like it when you pull my hair,” he said. It came out as a gurgle, and Craig was reminded of the days when Tricia was a toddler, spitting up applesauce all over her Barney-branded bib.
“I’m just holding it back, honey,” Craig said. “I didn’t mean to tug on it.” He instinctually loosened his grip. A few strands fell forward and grazed the splatters on the toilet rim.
“You’re so good to me.” Now Tweek sounded like Clyde—the tell-tale thickness to his voice, as if more than his guts were about to spill over. “Take care of me all the time.”
“Of course I do,” Craig said through his grimace. It was hard to contain the wayward strands while Tweek was squirming about, and he felt chunks against his fingertips as he tried to gather them back up.
Tweek tried to wriggle from Craig’s loose hold on him. His spine twisted around like a dying snake before he gave up with a grunt and lay his cheek on the rim.
“Sweetie.” Craig wrapped an arm around Tweek’s torso and propped him up. “You just dipped half your head in puke. That’s disgusting.” He pushed the wet hair back from where it was plastered to Tweek’s forehead, tucking it behind his ear. It would have been cute, were it not for the smell.
To Tweek, the toilet rim and Craig’s shoulder were evidently interchangeable. Craig’s shoulder was a little softer, but not much, because he tensed up as soon as his partner’s flushed, sick-soaked cheek pressed into one of his nicest shirts.
“You think I’m disgusting?” Tweek asked. Though he was struggling to turn around mere moments ago, he curled himself in Craig’s lap like it was second nature. He clawed at the back of Craig’s nice shirt, crinkling the fabric and dampening it with his clammy palms.
Craig had been waiting for the panic. Not that he meant to provoke it, but he knew that the only thing that could staunch Tweek’s paranoia was weed, and as the designated driver-slash-nanny, he didn’t let his boyfriend get cross-faded.
“No,” he said.
Forty-five minutes ago, he was fuming at Clyde for spilling his drink all over the front of his shirt. Now he was grateful for the reason to let Tweek rub his cheek back and forth over the hard plane of his shoulder bone, smearing the remnants of the hot-and-sour soup and garlic tofu he’d eaten for lunch into the cotton. As if he would’ve stopped him otherwise.
“I don’t think you’re disgusting, honey,” he continued. “I just think your puke should stay inside you or the toilet.”
“I tried to,” Tweek whined. He was really reminding Craig of Clyde, but he pulled it off better. “Oh, God—” his dull fingernails managed to snag flesh through the fabric— “Tolkien’s going to hate me. I ruined everything, oh, Jesus.”
Craig rubbed both of his hands along the curve of Tweek’s spine, palms flat and applying even pressure. He took a deep breath through his nose and held it as he kissed the top of Tweek’s head. “He won’t hate you. You should’ve seen this place after Clyde’s eighteenth birthday.”
Tweek huffed against his throat. His breath was hot and left Craig’s neck feeling wet. He didn’t believe him.
“I’m telling you,” Craig said, holding Tweek under his ass as if he were a cat. “We went out to the over-eighteen clubs in Denver before we came back here.”
Craig hadn’t been working out very much since they moved into student living. The rec center was always busy, and he hadn’t had the chance to gain his freshman fifteen in community college. The fact that it was nearing the end of summer and he and Tweek had been in South Park for going on three months now was incidental. It made it a little harder for him to stand with Tweek in his arms without letting him go to push himself off the floor, especially since Tweek was practically deadweight, but he managed. Tweek made a happy sound, and Craig was grateful that the movement didn’t somehow upset his stomach again. He set him down on the counter, next to the sink.
“Clyde wasted the first, like, hour and fifteen minutes in the bathroom scrubbing the backs of his hands.” Craig grabbed one of the towels next to the sink. It was Tolkien’s fault for leaving the nice white ones out, and he didn’t think twice before wetting it and pressing it against Tweek’s warm face. “I think it was a waste of time, but he didn’t want to just pregame here.”
Tweek leaned into Craig’s touch, even through the wet towel. It made it harder to wipe him off. Craig wasn’t sure if he was really listening, but he seemed to have calmed down, anyways.
“Anyway, there was a taco truck outside the club when we left.” Craig tapped Tweek’s sides, right under his armpits. Tweek lifted his arms like they were paperweights. Craig peeled his shirt off, grateful that he’d decided against a button-down for the night. “I’m going to soak this in the sink, okay?”
Tweek frowned at him. “I need that,” he said.
Craig lifted it out of his reach. It was an instinct from having a younger sister, but it came in handy at times like these. “I can get you one of Tolkien’s shirts.”
Tweek shook his head. When he got that scared look in his eyes Craig was half convinced he’d sobered up, but they glazed back over after a moment or so. “No way, man.” Tweek shut his eyes tight. “One of his shirts is worth like, two months of tuition or something.”
“And?” Craig plugged the sink and turned it on. He stuffed the shirt in before Tweek could remember he had it.
Tweek didn’t have an answer for that. Not that, in this state, he could verbalize his fears of indentured servitude in the galley after he inevitably spilled something on the shirt, or tugged a thread loose and unraveled the whole thing during a tic, or got it caught on a door handle and ripped it in two. Instead, he leaned further into Craig. “Finish your story,” he said. “Jerk.”
“Huh?” Craig was wiping his chest now, where the vomit had soaked through his shirt and sat against his skin long enough to make it pink. “Oh, yeah. Clyde ate a bunch of chimichangas and wrecked this place from both ends.”
He was gentle with Tweek’s chest like he wasn’t saying revolting things to distract his boyfriend from more revolting things. He was always so gentle. Even with towels more luxurious by far than the ones they’d bought from Walmart for their dorm, he acted like Tweek was going to break out into hives if he used any more than a feather touch.
“Gross.”
“Yeah,” Craig said. He kissed Tweek on the solar plexus as if a little water and light dabbing were enough to sterilize the skin. “Tolkien was the driver, too, so he had to deal with that sober.”
Tweek put his grimy little hands in Craig’s hair. “You have to deal with me sober,” he said.
It was Craig’s turn to rub his cheek into his partner’s skin. Tweek’s heart was hammering away like always. His chest was warm and damp. “No,” he said. “I get the birthday boy all to myself.”
Tweek hummed at that. His grimy hands slid down from Craig’s hair and to his face, and he pushed Craig up by the cheeks, so his chin was against Tweek’s chest and his face was all scrunched up looking at him. “I’m the birthday boy,” he said.
“That’s right,” Craig said. His voice was muffled by his mouth’s strange configuration, but it was still deep and nasal. Tweek pushed his cheeks around more to see what shapes his face could make.
“Give the birthday boy some kisses,” Tweek said, loosening his grip on Craig’s cheeks.
Craig shook his head, stretching up to his full height. He was convinced he’d shrink two feet by old age from how often he hunched over to give his partner attention. He was surprised he hadn’t developed scoliosis. He didn’t know how it worked.
“Not until we get you home and brush your teeth.”
Tweek scowled at him, and Craig could see the outline of his tongue running against his front teeth. “What if we don’t make it,” he asked.
“Make it?”
“In time.”
“It’s already three AM, babe.”
Tweek scowled harder. “You mean I missed birthday kisses.”
Craig leaned back over him. “I kissed you all day,” he said. He’d wiped off Tweek’s forehead, but dark clusters of wet hair had flopped back over onto it. He pushed them back and kissed it anyway. It was still gross, but he knew what Tweek wanted, which was grosser.
“You don’t want to kiss me.”
“I do,” Craig sighed. “But I didn’t want your tofu earlier and I don’t want to taste it now.”
Tweek furrowed his brows. “You’re mean, man.”
There was a gentle rap against the door behind Craig. Once again the fabric of his shirt was bunched up in frantic hands. As far as Craig was concerned, the knock was a welcome distraction from the imploring eyes of his stinky, horny, angry boyfriend.
“What,” he called out like it wasn’t welcome at all.
“Just checking in.” Tolkien peeked past the doorframe, which he’d opened while he spoke. “How’s mister twenty-one?”
Tweek glowered over Craig’s shoulder—a far cry from no more than an hour ago, when he’d been whooping and twirling as if Bebe taught him everything he knew about being drunk. Craig watched Tolkien over his own shoulder, his neck twisted and his face neutral as ever.
“He’s doing great.”
Tweek was visibly not doing great. His bare skin was flushed, his body was trembling more than usual, and his hair had been manipulated off of his forehead in haphazard strokes, leaving it more mussed up than was normal even for him.
Clyde popped his head in the door next to Tolkien. He’d been drinking even more than Tweek, but he could handle it—or, at least, his typical demeanor was goofy enough that it was hard to tell when he’d had too much.
“You guys know we’re the only other people here, right?” he asked. When he was drunk, his voice took on a pinched affect, like he’d just had a few nose hairs plucked. “You can’t just run off to bang one out in the bathroom. We like, noticed you left.”
Tweek twitched against Craig’s chest. Once Clyde came into view, Craig stopped straining his neck to look and faced the mirror again. He watched the muscles in Tweek’s back tense and relax involuntarily, a switchboard lighting on and off without a pattern.
“Craig doesn’t even want to bang me,” Tweek said. He didn’t pull away from Craig’s chest but burrowed into it instead, a rabbit taking refuge in a fox den.
Craig flushed in the mirror.
Clyde let out a guffaw that was most certainly played up because he knew he would get away with it. “Yeah, right. You’re drunk.”
“He threw up,” Craig said. “Hence the shirt in the sink. And the brown water.” He rubbed Tweek’s shoulder blades until they relaxed. “Idiot.”
Tolkien pushed further into the bathroom. He was a smart guy, and it irritated Craig that he’d been waiting for the all-clear like he was afraid of getting flashed.
“You can use one of the showers upstairs if you need to,” he said. His nose scrunched up when he stepped all the way in. “Damn, it’s like Clyde’s eighteenth in here.”
“Hey,” Clyde said. He peeked further in and sniffed around. “You’re exaggerating. Mine was worse.”
Tweek had been quiet for a minute. His hands were still wrapped up in as much loose fabric as he could grab, which wasn’t much, because unlike him, Craig wore form-fitting clothing. He had been biting at his lips until he heard the sniffing, at which point he took to gnawing on one of Craig’s buttons. He’d always had an oral fixation, and when they were in high school he’d unabashedly chew on the ends of Craig’s hoodie strings during study hall until their plastic casing cracked and went opaque. He hadn’t been anxious or uninhibited enough to do something similar in a while.
“Guys.” Craig made hard eye contact with Clyde and Tolkien in turn before tilting his chin toward the head of matted hair encased in his arms. “Come on.”
Tweek was nibbling up a storm against his chest. Sometimes this made Craig think with fondness of Stripe #5, who chewed through every wooden hutch he got her. Now, though, it just made him wonder if Tweek was feeling frisky or if he had a panic attack on his hands. He pressed his nose against the swirl of hair at the top of Tweek’s head, mostly because he wanted to but also to stop the growing wet spot at his second button. Once he got past the lingering vomit smell, he got to what he wanted—Tweek smelled like baby powder when he was between showers. Craig liked it more than the smell of his shampoo, which was saying a lot because he loved the association he’d developed between eucalyptus and a tickle in his nostrils. He breathed deeply and Tweek followed, going as limp as he could and letting their chests expand against one another.
“You good?” he asked. He spoke lowly but didn’t whisper.
“I smell so bad,” Tweek whimpered.
“You wanna shower?” Craig asked. He let his voice go deep, let his throat rumble against Tweek’s face.
“Not here, dude,” Tweek whined against his Adam’s apple, and Craig wished he weren’t drunk. He’d rubbed everything off on Craig’s shirt, so his lips were dry and textured against his skin. “I don’t want to be naked in another person’s house.”
“Okay,” Craig said. He didn’t bother arguing about how often they’d all seen each other naked in childhood; or how Tolkien was so close to them at this point that his house hardly counted as unfamiliar; or how they’d been naked in this very house many times before, in coat closets and guest rooms and on the couch, once, while Tolkien was heating up some pizza rolls and Clyde was on the front porch, trying to convince Bebe to give him one more chance. “Time to take the birthday boy home.”
Tweek was walking on the legs of a newborn calf, but he was steady enough to make it to the car so long as Craig walked slowly and held all of his weight. Before they left, Craig promised to be back in the morning to clean up, but he didn’t mean it. He knew he’d be nursing Tweek’s hangover for the better part of the day, and he suspected that Tolkien did, too. He left Tweek’s shirt because he’d be shocked if Tolkien had a single plastic bag in the house, and he didn’t want some sopping wet pile of puke and polyester soaking into his back seat.
He made Tweek rest his head on the glovebox, in case he decided to throw up again during the five-minute drive, and in turn, Tweek made him promise not to brake too hard. He’d always been convinced that the meth stunted his development in more ways than one. Craig promised so he didn’t have to rehash the argument about whether Tweek still had a soft spot (he didn’t, and Craig knew he didn’t because first of all, that was ludicrous, and secondly, he’d spent a lot of time over the course of their years together pressing his face into Tweek’s scalp on account of the aforementioned baby powder smell, and he would have noticed something that medically confounding by now).
When they made it back to Craig’s house, scalp and passenger-side floormat intact, all the lights were off. Ever since Craig moved out, Tricia spent most of her time elsewhere—especially during the summer—but his parents were light sleepers.
“Let’s be quiet for a second, okay,” he said as he opened the door.
Tweek had relaxed a lot as soon as they left Tolkien’s bathroom. If he hadn’t been shirtless and his hair hadn’t been chunky, he probably would have been good to keep partying, even though the few people they’d invited had long since left. He was giggling now like he’d be happy to dance around in an empty room as long as Craig was there to watch him.
“Don’t tell me what to do,” he said. “It’s my birthday.”
Craig let him be. He’d long since learned not to cover Tweek’s mouth, at least unless he wanted to be bit, licked, or suckled on, depending on Tweek’s mood.
At this point in the timeline of their young adulthood, Craig and Tweek were by far Thomas and Laura’s favorite children—if only for the fact that absence makes the heart grow fonder—which is why Craig wasn’t too worried about waking them up. He led Tweek up the stairs, and, brat that he was, Tweek made him lift him up each step despite the fact that he’d regained his balance. The bathroom was right across from Craig’s childhood bedroom, which they’d both been staying in for the summer, and Craig gathered that Tweek was no longer worried about his own stench, because he had to corral him toward the correct side of the hallway.
The pipes were old and the water took a while to heat up. Craig sat on the closed toilet lid and helped Tweek out of his pants. They were damp with sweat and stuck to his hairy little legs. He took his shirt off and did the same thing with it as he’d done with Tweek’s. His chest hair was tousled from all the saliva Tweek got on it through the fabric. Tweek stuck his fingers in it as soon as his shirt came off.
“Can I have my present now?” he asked.
“I gave you your present this morning,” Craig said. He wasn’t dumb, but he wasn’t going to give Tweek what he wanted no matter how tempting it was—and because Craig was hopelessly in love or maybe just as gross as his boyfriend, the dried vomit in Tweek’s hair was not detracting from the temptation.
“I want another one,” Tweek said. He scrambled into Craig’s lap and pulled some of Craig’s chest hair out in the process, as he refused to let go. “Please?”
“You’re still drunk.”
“Am not.”
Craig gently pushed against Tweek’s shoulder. He nearly lost his balance.
“Are you trying to fucking kill me?”
“No,” Craig said. He had an arm slung low across Tweek’s back. “I’ve got you.”
“You suck.”
Craig lifted Tweek up for the second time that night. It was easier this time because they weren’t on the floor and Tweek wasn’t playing dead. He tugged on the button of his jeans and struggled with the zipper with one hand, and Tweek made no move to help him or get out of his grip to make it easier. He pressed noses with Craig instead and squinted at him.
“You have a nice nose,” he said. His breath was hot and rank. He was so lovely.
“I thought I sucked,” Craig said. He was in the process of shaking his legs one by one, easing the denim off bit by bit.
“Both can be true.”
Tweek was patient while Craig got the rest of his clothes off, even when he was jostled around. He kept their noses pressed together. Years ago, Craig would have withered under the scrutiny of such intense eye contact, but at this point, he just liked seeing how Tweek’s eyes, so close up, morphed from one to three and back.
Tweek only got down when they were under the water. It plastered his hair to his head and Craig lathered eucalyptus between his hands before rubbing them against Tweek’s scalp, careful to tug out any clumps from the toilet. While Tweek was passively rinsing it out, he tilted his head and opened his mouth. Craig watched the curve of his throat and the rivulets of water that ran down it. Tweek let the water collect and gargled it before spitting it at their feet.
“Can I have a kiss now?” he asked. He wiped his mouth as if he might be able to dry it.
Craig cupped his hand and rinsed out a spot of soap above Tweek’s ear. He felt around for a soft spot at the back of Tweek’s head and hunched over for him, kissing that dirty little mouth like he’d been wanting to for hours.
