Chapter Text
Although neither of them would remember it, their very first Christmas exchange had taken place in the second grade.
If they did remember, they'd probably debate on the semantics of whether or not it even counted. It hadn't been on Christmas day, and they hadn't really chosen to spend that time together out of their own free will. In fact, they hadn't even chosen to give the other a gift, not really; they were forced into that, too.
It had started as an assignment.
Their teacher had readied the room for the holidays, with snowflake decorations and felt snowman taped up against the wall. She'd set up a table against the far wall, close to the windows, with stacks of construction paper of varying colors and size. Decorative supplies of all types ran down the length of it; Glitter, cotton balls, markers, bands, strings, and a bunch of other safe creative additives that any kid could ever hope to ask for ready for use.
The assignment itself was simple. Learn about your assigned partner and create a drawing just for them. It was a way to inspire the children to learn empathy and patience, thoughtfulness for another person's preferences. These concepts were far too complicated for a child not even ten to fully grasp in its entirety, but the lesson would help with growing those foundations.
But because the lesson itself required patience, the children were not given the choice of their own partner. Instead, they chose out of a bowl, picking names at random until every slip was gone.
Which was how Tweek Tweak and Craig Tucker had ended up at the same table, staring silently at each other, waiting for the other to go first.
The rest of the class had already sped ahead of them, speaking to each other in excitable tones about this pet or that toy or whatever weird, out of place thing they found themselves interested in that week. Tweek could hear one of his neighbors —he thought maybe his name was Kevin?—talk about an interesting piece of gum that had been stuck to the concrete sidewalk near his front lawn for the past few days. Apparently it looked like Spock.
Whoever that was.
Tweek had been uncertain what to tell his unlikely partner. He’d never spoken to Craig Tucker before, they were on opposite sides of the classroom and he’d always seemed annoyed when people outside of his table square interrupted their conversations, so Tweek had avoided him as best as he could. It meant he didn't really get to talk to Tolkien, Clyde, or Jimmy, but that was okay. He didn't really know them, either.
It seemed like he was the only one who'd been in a different class last year, everyone in this room had already known each other on the first day, leaving him feeling just a bit left out.
Luckily, most of the other kids had easily accepted him. He'd gotten pretty close with his own table square, so he never had to worry about being alone at lunch time or being the last one picked during gym practice.
But he'd known that it was best to avoid Craig Tucker, if he could. He'd seen him beat up Jason White after he wouldn't leave Craig alone one afternoon, shoving him down into the wood chips that made up most of their playground. Tweek didn't like violence, and he was so nervous and twitchy that it bothered people sometimes. He'd been shunned by his old friends once the year before, when he'd been so surprised by someone screaming that he'd squeezed his juice pouch too tightly, spraying it all over their desks and messing up Red's hair.
It had been nearly a week before they'd forgiven him.
So he didn't say anything, and Craig didn't say anything, and his poor little young mind was losing it, just a bit, because even the idea of speaking first was becoming too much pressure for him to deal with.
But Craig didn't seem to share the same problem, staring at him with eyes Tweek didn’t really have a name for yet but would later fondly refer to as his ‘bored look’.
One day, he'd come to love that expression and everything hiding beneath it. But right now, the only thing he felt when he looked into those eyes was fear.
Because he was a bit scary; with his fists and his attitude and that made Tweek nervous. So nervous that instead of sharing anything he liked, he blurted out the first thing he could gather enough strength to say.
“I don’t know!” Tweek gasped out, eye twitching erratically. He absently wished his parents had given him a larger thermos, the coffee always helped when he shook like this. “You go first!”
Craig tapped his pencil on his plain white copy paper, the one they'd been given to jot down what the other said before making their gifts. Tweek watched him as he did it, the graphite leaving chunky little marks with each movement, ruining the page.
His hands shook as he waited for Craig to just say something.
Finally, after what seemed like hours but had probably been less than a minute, Craig opened his mouth to speak.
This alone caused Tweek to flinch, closing his eyes, worried he'd somehow already pushed his luck too far just by talking. Only to open them when he heard the boy's nasally voice boast about his favorite living thing on the whole planet:
His guinea pig, Stripe.
Tweek had never seen him look so happy. His eyes shined as he explained how soft Stripe's fur was, and he nearly smiled as he attempted to mimic the funny sounds the animal made when he was happy. Then, with his hands, his tried to show how the guinea pig would follow him around his room when he was playing with his toy rocket, seeming very pleased that the pet would sit with him while he watched his daily cartoons.
Craig's obvious happiness, so at odds with what Tweek had been expecting, helped him relax into the conversation, allowing him to see beyond the boy's usual attitude.
It probably helped even more that Craig was so much calmer than the other kids, not inclined to speaking too loudly or moving around too much when it was his turn to talk. It helped with Tweek's own anxieties, allowed him time to think, and breathe, without becoming overstimulated which was so easy to do at this age.
Not that Tweek really understood all of that, but he felt the difference nonetheless.
After Craig had finished speaking about Stripe, ending on a story about how he'd dressed him up as a pirate one time, Tweek was in a much better place to speak on himself.
He had half a mind to talk about coffee, but the other adults always got weird when he did, and they'd have to present their gifts to the class in pairs after they were done. He didn’t want Craig to think that the frown Mrs.Carrino always gave him when he brought it up was because Craig’s gift was bad.
So instead he talked about his Lego collection; how he’d spend hours building cool buildings he saw on TV, explaining that he'd seen a really cool castle recently so he'd been making one of those in his bedroom.
Craig nodded when he was finished, a thoughtful look on his face. Then he stood, ready to head over to the craft table, quietly waiting for Tweek to gather himself enough to stand and follow.
It was kind of him to do so, and it made Tweek really happy that he'd wait for him considering Craig didn't have to do it. He took his time gathering his materials, reaching for a few different markers, some gold glitter, and a handful of cotton balls. There was Elmer's glue at the table already, so he didn't need to worry about anything else.
When he turned around, supplies precariously balanced in his arms, he was surprised to find Craig just behind him, patiently waiting once again.
He gave Craig a wide smile, so incredibly pleased that the boy was so much nicer than he'd originally thought. They walked together, carefully avoiding the other children while they made their way back to their spots. Craig didn't say anything once they sat down, he just went to work on a piece of black construction paper, using a white colored pencil to outline something Tweek wasn't really supposed to see—not 'til he was done, anyways.
So Tweek went hard to work, focusing on his own project. He didn't know much about guinea pigs, but Craig had said they were soft of like hamsters—only bigger, and he'd definitely seen those at the store before. Tweek drew out the circles to make up the body and the head, trying to sort out how to draw the feet. He thought he did a pretty good job, it looked like feet to him.
He could hear the sounds of Craig cutting up paper across the table. He'd grabbed nearly every color of paper available, which made Tweek wonder what he was planning to do with it. He debated on sneaking a peek, but he wasn't supposed to, and it wouldn't do to hurt Craig's feelings to look before he was done, so Tweek returned his focus to stretching out the cotton balls he'd grabbed, trying to turn them into fur.
He glued the cotton balls onto the paper, shaking his hands in hopes to removing the goop and cottony string that stuck to his skin. The hard part done, he tried to recall where the spots were that Craig had told him about. He took his orange and brown markers and started coloring the fluff.
It looked pretty good!
He put his finishing touches onto the gift, adding in Stripe's name in blocky letters and covering it with glue and glitter. He colored in the eyes, and carefully added in a background of grass and sky, doing his best to avoid the cotton fur.
He waited patiently for the teacher to call for them to exchange their gifts. They'd be able to see the finished products before presenting them to the class, after all. The moment she did Tweek shot his gaze to Craig, waiting to see what he'd made.
Only to gasp in surprise at the gift.
Craig had made him his castle, the one he'd been building everyday after school. He'd cut up the construction paper into squares and rectangles, pasting them onto the black background as straight as he could. It covered the whole page, a tiny little tower with a triangle roof at the top. Even more amazingly, Craig had drawn him into the picture — though it was more of a stick figure than anything — green crayon in the shape of his shirt, with an eyeless pale face and bright yellow hair standing in between the cool squared borders Tweek had liked so much.
“That’s really good!” Tweek exclaimed, in awe over how perfect it looked. It was just like the one he'd made at home.
He hoped Craig liked his, too.
He handed it over, he’d worked really hard on figuring out the shapes and colors, and he knew that the glitter might be too much, but he really thought it was nice and—
Craig stared at the picture, silently running his fingers over the faux fur, lingering on the glitter, tracing out the name while Tweek tried to remain quiet.
He picked it up carefully, and then looked at Tweek.
Tweek's heart beat fast in his chest, so worried he hadn't done a good enough job.
“Thank you.” he said simply.
“Is it okay?” Tweek asked, fighting down a twitch as he explained. “I’ve never seen a guinea pig before and–”
“It’s perfect.” Craig interrupted, his grip tightening on the paper, holding it closer to himself as if to protect it from further criticism. “Stripe is going to love it.”
“You think so?”
"I know so."
Neither one of them would really remember where they had gotten the idea that the other kid was pretty cool.
It didn’t take much time to forget such things when the world was so large and everything so new when one was so young. But the impression would linger at the edges of their minds, sticking around for far longer than it would take for the drawings to be removed from their bedroom walls and tossed away by parents who didn’t recognize the importance of such treasures.
Tweek and Craig didn't suddenly become friends after that, it would take more than one art project to make them become close. By the time Christmas break was over and they'd returned to class, their exchange had already been placed aside for newer, more interesting things.
But Tweek no longer worried about Craig hurting him if he said the wrong thing, and something always reminded Craig to be patient when it came to the other boy.
Then, on a random day in third grade, they’d be told that the other didn’t respect them—that they hated them, actually, and wouldn't it be best to fight it out and prove that they were the better fighter?
It was weird, and it didn’t really make any sense, but they’d do so anyways, egged on by the boys in their class who only wanted to prove the other side wrong.
But it was alright, they’d have their chance to figure it out all over again. Only this time, they wouldn’t forget.