Chapter Text
“GAH! Are these deeper than usual?!”
He whispers to himself. He moves his hands to either side of his arms, and starts to scratch, ruthlessly.
He makes the most uncomfortable noises as he scratches and claws his sliced arms. He feels as if his bones are itching, and wants to scratch that itch so badly. He abruptly stops, and slips on his pajama shirt, incorrectly buttoning it, then makes his way over to his bed.
Tweek lays in his poorly made bed, his favorite plushies surrounding him, for comfort. He holds tightly onto his small bumble-bee one every night, he can’t sleep without it. This little toy makes his breathing steady, and his shakes less violent. Craig gave him this soft little toy back in 4th grade when they first started “dating”. Tweek has hung onto it ever since.
He starts feeling his body get really hot and uncomfortable, so he pushes the blankets off of him, knocking a few of his plushies on the floor, the stuffed-toys make a small, but audible sound when they hit the carpet. Tweek jumps when he hears the noise. He starts shaking, and his breathing is fast. He’s all alone, in a poorly lit room, so he starts to panic. He quickly grabs his covers again, and brings them up to him, shoving his face into the cotton, then brings himself deep under the sheets, and curls into a ball, holding tightly to his little plush. “GAH! Quit a-acting like a child!” He squeezes his eyes shut, trying to block everything out of his mind. He knows he’s not going to get any sleep tonight.
Tweek then cautiously sneaks a hand out from under the covers, and reaches for his phone resting on the nightstand. Tweek feels his phone, then grips it tightly as he rushes his hand back underneath the uncomfortably hot blankets, afraid something might grab him, and take him away forever then kill and eat him. Tweek’s eyes start to swell, and he feels his face make a crumpled, pathetic expression. He feels hot tears fall across his face. He’s so embarrassed at how scared and anxious he is all of the time. He also feels so weak, and like a burden to people. He can never control his emotions. He hates how he’s not in control of his brain. He feels so powerless. Tweek curls into a tighter ball, silently sobbing into his bruised knees. His pajama sleeves stick into his fresh, uneven cuts. He pulls at his sleeves, trying to release from his wounds, causing him to wince at the overwhelming pain he felt in his arms. Still silently sobbing, he brings his phone up to his face, and starts to text his boyfriend, his breathing heavy.
2:35 Tweek: Criag r u awake
2:35 Tweek: craig im scared please answer
Tweek starts to bite his nails, and picks at the loose skin around it, (a nervous habit of his) he starts to bleed around his nail. Tweek sucks the blood out so he doesn’t get it on his sheets. Tweek feels his phone vibrate when he gets the notification from Craig. He quickly opens it, hands still violently shaking.
2:39 Craig: I’m awake now. What’s going on, honey?
Tweek lets out a quaky sigh and starts to type his reply, with trembling hands. Tweek appreciates how Craig doesn’t question why he’s awake at 2:00 in the fucking morning. Craig knows Tweek far too well. Tweek also likes how Craig will almost always pick up his phone whenever Tweek texts or calls him. Craig cares deeply about him, and Tweek knows that. They've known each other for almost their whole lives. Tweek and Craig were best friends, up until the town pressured them to be together. Both Craig and Tweek thought it was really weird that the town was so obsessed with two 8 year old boys.
The town pressuring them into doing that made Tweek uncomfortable.
It didn't help that his dad, Richard Tweak would use the boys for business. Richard used to pay the Asian girls lots of money for the “yaoi” art they created of the boys. This wasn't too surprising, considering most of the town also collected the weird art, but Richard took it some steps too far when he started commissioning very questionable art, of his own fucking son. What's weirder is that he'd hang that art, in the coffee shop, and he'd always point it out to the customers and beam about how great it is to have a “homosexual son”.
Tweek had a screaming match with his father over this when he was 12. Tweek was so incredibly uncomfortable with his dad showing indecent art of himself and his boyfriend. There was one “art piece” in particular that made Tweek's skin crawl. There's one where someone drew Tweek with cuts on his arms, implying that he cut himself, which he did indeed do. In the picture, Craig is seen fucking licking the wounds, fucking blushing, as the drawing of Tweek is crying, and looks in pain. Tweek has no clue whether his dad asked for that specifically, because his father knew of his cuts, or if the Asian girls had it pre-drawn. Either way, seeing that drawing sitting nicely perched on the counter everyday had Tweek’s stomach turn.
Tweek shakes his head, ridding the thought from his mind. This was five years ago, no use thinking about it right now
2:43 Tweek: im just really scard right now and i feel like smy head is going to explode and its realy dark in my room and i think something is going to get em and my arms really hurt and the blood is sticky and i am so hot right now my face is sticky from my tears
Anxiously gnawing on his finger tips, as he waits for Craig’s response. The little text bubble keeps appearing, disappearing, then re-appearing once again. Craig is taking his sweet time to respond to Tweek’s anxious spiral. Tweek hugs his legs tighter, wanting to be as small as possible.
2:47 Craig: Don’t be scared, babe. I’m here. Do you want me to come over for the night?
2:47 Tweek: bUT ITS ALMOST 3:00 AM!!!!
2:48 Craig: I don’t care. Do you want me to come cuddle with you or not?
Tweek’s breath starts to calm, just a little. The grip on his legs loosen. He doesn’t want to get Craig in trouble, again. Last time he snuck over to Tweek’s house, Craig didn’t make it back to his house in time, and Laura found Craig’s room empty, leaving angry voice messages in Craig’s phone. Laura wasn’t really angry though, she was more worried. This resulted in Craig getting grounded for 2 weeks, which Richard Tweak thought was ridiculous because he’s 17, practically an “adult”. Anyways, Tweek’s selfishness takes over, and he desperately wants Craig’s body around his, shielding him from how scary the real world is.
2:50 Tweek: ok. Dont get caught though
2:50 Craig: I won’t. I’ll be there in 10. Unlock your window. Love you honey.
2:50 Tweek: <3
Tweek carefully removes the covers away from his quivering body, and cautiously makes his way towards the window, and struggles a little before unlocking the latch. There’s a tree house in his backyard that his dad built for him when he was a child. It’s a few feet away from his house, and one of its thicker branches makes its way over to Tweek’s window. Craig has made the climb before multiple times, without fail. But Tweek is still scared that someday, Craig will fall, break his legs and arms, bleed out all over the grass, painting it red, and then die. Tweek shakes his head at the thought, trying to shake the gruesome image out of his mind. He sits on the edge of his bed, and waits. Bouncing his leg up and down, subconsciously. His head does little twitches, and he makes little noises as he waits for his boyfriend.
He hears the snow crunch, making him jump. He looks out the window. He can barely make out the shape of his abnormally tall boyfriend, cautiously making his way up the tree, trying his best not to make any noise. Tweek’s parents are very light sleepers, and can get woken up pretty easily. Tweek watches as Craig stumbles into his bedroom, falling onto the floor, making an obnoxiously loud noise.
“GAH! Dammit, Craig!”
Tweek whispers harshly, rushing to his boyfriend’s side.
“Craig, I said to be quiet!”
Craig flips Tweek off, before pushing himself up against the wall under the window. Tweek sits beside him.
“Ngh- S-sorry, Craig. Are you okay?”
Tweek turns to Craig. Craig stares at his twitchy partner, face emotionless, per usual.
Craig scoots closer to Tweek, shoulders touching. Craig sneaks his hand over to Tweeks, and interlaces his icy cold hands with Tweek's clammy, over-heated ones. Tweek lets out a shaky breath at the sudden change in temperature. Tweek is picking at the carpet with his other hand, shifting his feet with nervousness. Craig continues to stare at his blonde, twitchy boyfriend.
“I'm fine, honey. I should be asking you that. What's the matter?”
Craig squeezes Tweek's hand slightly, causing the blonde to turn to face Craig. He stares deeply into Craig's green eyes. He's always admired how beautiful his eyes are. Tweek was always just a hint jealous, because green is his favorite color, but at the same time, Craig never stares at anyone the way he stares at Tweek, and Tweek is very possessive about that. Those eyes are his.
“I-I'm just scared -ngh- that's all. And I keep overthinking everything. And my room is so scary when I can barely see anything!”
Tweek has an extremely tight grip on Craig's hand, knuckles turning white. Craig doesn’t mind this though, he's used to Tweek's gorilla grip on him, he likes it.
Craig looks around for a minute and notices that there's no light next to the bedroom door.
“Oh Tweek, did you get rid of your night light?”
Craig can barely make out Tweek's face, considering the only light in the room in the moon shining in from outside.
Tweek twitches his head to the side a couple times, stifling his weird noises.
“Nghh- Y-yes…” is all Tweek can spit out before obnoxiously twitching again.
Tweek hates his tics, Craig finds them comforting and familiar. Craig removes his hand from Tweek's and wraps his arm around his boyfriend’s shoulders, and holds him close.
Tweek has had said night light for 10 years, up until now. Tweek was deathly afraid of these little critters called “underpants gnomes”, and they would apparently sneak into his bedroom and take all of his underwear. Tweek swore that they were real, and he would even convince his friends to stay over to prove it. But they never saw any, and must've thought that Tweek was a crazy lunatic tweaker who wanted to secretly kill them all.
The night light that was right next to his bedroom door for 10 years was now gone. Richard said that it was extremely embarrassing that his 17-year-old son was still afraid of the dark. Tweek told him that it wasn't the dark he was scared of, it was the gnomes, which Richard thought was even more ridiculous. This is Tweek's first night without the comforting light in his room. Tweek always slept perfectly fine at Craig's house, even if there was no night light. There were faded glowing stars on his ceiling that he and Craig put up there when they were 8 years old, so that probably helped, along with the fact he was with Craig.
Craig has always made it so easy for Tweek to get some rest. It could be the fact that Craig always holds him tight the whole night, without moving an inch, keeping Tweek, a restless sleeper, in place. Maybe it's Craig's somehow always steady heartbeat that feels so amazing against Tweek's fast pace heart. Tweek isn't exactly sure, all he knows is that in order to get some decent sleep, he'll most likely need Craig there.
“That's probably why you're freaked out, honey. You're not used to the dark.”
Tweek shifts himself closer to Craig, and gnaws at his finger tips. He nods into Craig's shoulder. Craig slowly stands up, taking the blonde with him. He places him gently on the bed, lays next to him, and they face each other. Craig notices Tweek's been holding his bumble-bee plushie this whole time.
“Aw honey, you kept that?”
Craig places his now warm hand over Tweek's, that's been clutching the toy, tightly. Tweek’s face starts turning red, which is barely visible with the lighting.
“Agh- Y-yes. It's the only thing that kind of -ngh- keeps me from going insane at night. I've slept with it every n-night ever since you gave it to me.” Tweek says shyly, closing his eyes tightly, expecting Craig to make fun of him in some way.
Craig giggles a little, and wraps his arms around Tweek’s waist and pulls him closer. His forehead touches Tweek's.
“Aw, babe that's so sweet. Does it remind you of me, or do you just think it's cute?”
Craig smiles, holding Tweek gently in his arms.
Tweek is slightly embarrassed that he, a 17 year old boy, still sleeps with plushies. Even more embarrassed that he needs one to help him sleep at night. Not that it helps much. Tweek's lucky to get 4 hours of sleep on a good day. His anxiety, and the pain in his arms are usually what keep him awake every night.
Tweek doesn't say anything out of embarrassment, and just nods. Craig holds him closer, and Tweek winces at the sudden contact to his arms. Craig notices.
“Oh Tweek, sorry honey, are you okay? What's wrong?” Craig asks dumbly, as if he doesn't know.
Tweek just stares at him, not wanting to admit that he “did it again”. Tweek doesn't want attention on what he does to himself. That's between him, and his arms. Tweek starts to shake a little, as tears form in his eyes. He's pissed off that he's starting to cry. Tweek does this to himself, it's not like anyone's forcing him to do it. Tweek feels relief and calm in the act of doing this, but it's afterwards when he feels the guilt. He feels ashamed, and disgusting. He feels like an attention seeker, when in reality that's the last thing he wants. He buries himself into Craig's neck, and Craig carefully puts his arms around Tweek, holding him close as the blonde sobs.
“It’s okay, honey. I'm not mad.” Craig says softly into Tweek's ear. Tweek's breathing slows slightly.
He appreciates how Craig is never mad at him for doing this. But he is somewhat concerned about why Craig thinks it's “okay”. It's not okay. Tweek shouldn't be harming himself to find relief. Tweek shouldn't be harming himself at all. He pushes himself away from Craig a little so he can meet his eyes. Craig still holds Tweek, not letting go, making sure Tweek knows that he's there for him. Always.
“I'm-I'm sorry..Craig. I couldn't-ngh-stop myself..from…” Tweek trails off, not finding the right words to explain why exactly he has done it again. Craig doesn't mind. He doesn't need to know why. He just needs Tweek to feel safe.
“You're okay, honey. I'm here for you, okay? I won't ever judge.”
Tweek just stares for a moment, looking into his green eyes. He moves his face closer to Craig's, and gives him a little peck on the lips. They rest their foreheads together.
“T-thanks Craig.” Tweek says, before scooting lower down Craig's body, so he can cuddle into Craig's chest. Craig holds him gently, and plays with the knots in the blonde's hair. Tweek twitches a little, but he does enjoy whenever Craig plays with his hair, he finds it very soothing.
“Goodnight, babe.” Craig says softly, as he kisses the top of Tweek's hair. Tweek snuggles closer, and gives Craig a small kiss on his chest. “Goodnight Craig.”