Chapter Text
The twenty-eighth of June has possibly been the worst day of Craig Tucker's rather short life.
Let's recap.
The First Calamity: He just had one of the most stressful semesters of his life. UCLA is a top school for a reason. Astrophysics is a hard major for a reason. Being separated from your boyfriend of 12 years is hard for a reason.
But, Craig Tucker has never been one to break down when things get tough. He would rather get trapped in Peru again with five losers from the Podunk town that is South Park than sob on the phone to his parents about how tough his workload is, like he's heard his roommates do countless times. You got accepted into UCLA for a reason. If you can't handle the work here, how will you handle it in a future job?
Anyways.
As soon as he finished his last final for the last class of his junior year, he slammed his mechanical pencil on the desk more forcibly than his classmates would have liked, packing up his bag by stuffing his extra paper and pencils into any available pocket, not caring at all for organization like he normally does. He shot out of his desk, mirroring the rockets he so loves to study, before walking it down to his professor's desk, slipping it face down on top of the other tests, which were no doubt all of the smart-ass kids' papers, then running out the door before he could hear his professor say: 'Have a good Summer!'
He ran to his apartment, scanning into the lobby faster than he had known was humanly possible for him, before sprinting up the apartment stairs two at a time to get to his own door. As soon as he burst through the door, both of his roommates whipped their heads to the comical sound and sight of the typically stoic, collected man gripping onto the doorframe while panting as if he had just run a marathon.
"Dude. What the hell?" One person inside chuckled while wiping down a kitchen counter. "Your class got out, like, two minutes ago?" This was Craig's first roommate. He was always in everyone's business.
Craig was still catching his breath. He puffed out a few more times before rolling his spine back up to face his roommates.
"I ran."
"You ran?!"
"Yes."
"In my two years of knowing you, dude, I don't think I've ever even seen you so much as speed walk. Not even when they have nachos at the cafeteria!" This was Craig's second roommate. He reminded Craig of Clyde.
"I'm excited to go home."
His roommates glanced at each other, giving each other a look, before turning their heads back to Craig, shit-eating grins plastered on their faces.
"Craig Tucker, actually excited for once in his life!" Roommate one ribbed. "Never thought I'd see you worked up enough over something that wasn't your telescope."
Craig didn't let his roommates so much as breathe in the same room as his telescope. It was a gift.
"Nah man, obviously he's excited to go back to his fuckass town in Colorado to see his booooyfriend." Roommate two taunted.
Craig scrubbed a hand over his face and sighed, wishing he had spent more than five minutes looking for roommates to move into an apartment with. He was not going to let Nosy and Great-Value Clyde ruin his excitement over going back to see his boyfriend. He made his way into the apartment, locking the front door behind him and punching Great-Value Clyde on the shoulder before quickly stepping into his room.
"Owwww!" God. He even whined like Clyde.
Craig rolled his shoulders until he heard something pop and sighed, looking over his small room. Most of his things were unpacked, though they were neatly organized for when he came back to LA for his senior year. The surfaces were wiped down, his telescope was covered with a sheet, and his suitcase for going home was packed and waiting right next to the doorway. All he had left to do was his final cleaning, and then he could throw himself and his suitcase into his beat-up Honda Civic and push the speed limit all the way back to Colorado.
He stifled a yawn and pressed his cold fingertips to his closed eyelids, trying and failing to shock his exhausted brain into a false state of attentiveness. He then opted for shaking his head back and forth to try to wake himself up, his blue chullo falling off his head before catching it as it fell toward the ground. He pulled it back onto his head, rubbing at a yellow cord that hung from one of the flaps.
Part of him wants to be the shitty roommate and dip before Nosy got on his ass about wiping down their second-hand dining table and clearing out his food from the pantry and fridge. But, if he did, not only would he be subjected to his own guilt about leaving his roommates to clean the entire apartment, he would be subjected to his boyfriend's disapproving glare when Craig inevitably tells him about leaving right away.
He could never keep a secret from him.
He could never keep anything from him.
Craig picked up the bottle of cleaning fluid that was sitting on his desk from that morning's earlier wipedown. Then, he knelt to his backpack that he dropped on the floor earlier to unearth some wired earbuds that were tangled around basically everything in his bag. Shaking a pen and a pencil loose from the wires, he plugged them into his phone before shuffling and playing his cleaning playlist.
Yes. He has a playlist for cleaning. And it's rather good, if he does say so himself.
He walked back outside to where the kitchen and living area are, pulling out a paper towel from the roll on the countertop, spraying it with the cleaning liquid, before promptly scrubbing the dining table with wide arcs of his arms like a man possessed.
"Jesus, Craig! You're gonna rub the paint clean off!" Great-Value Clyde exclaimed. Craig can't say that he cared about the crappy DIY paint job that some bored mom in her 30's did before deciding it was a terrible look for her sad beige house, leading her to sell it dead cheap to three broke college students on Facebook Marketplace. Craig also can't justify Great-Value Clyde with a response, so he continued to wipe away the old coffee rings and questionable food stains that littered the table rather shoddily.
As soon as he was done, he threw the brown and somehow green paper towel into the loose trash bag on the floor. Next up: his food in the fridge and pantry.
Craig threw away any old leftovers that were sitting in his fridge, even unearthing a piece of pizza in the back from what must have been months ago. Usually, he's more on top of these things, but again, this had been a really difficult semester. He spied his energy drink, which he bought the day before, specifically for the trip, sitting on a shelf in the cleaned-out fridge. He grabbed the can, careful not to shake it even slightly, and set it on the counter. He made a mental note not to forget the drink on his way out.
"Hey, you're staying for another two days, right?" Craig called out to Nosy.
"And he speaks! Oh, great and wise Craig Tucker, to what do we owe your highly valuable consideration?" Nosy called back out to Craig.
Craig gave Nosy a hard glare. Damn lit majors. He can hear Great-Value Clyde snickering from where he's mopping the floor of his room.
"You don't want my leftover cup ramen, then? I'll just throw it out." He moved to grab the half-full box of cup noodles while nudging the open trash bag on the floor open with his foot.
"Don't you dare!" Nosy skidded over in the periphery of Craig's vision and grabbed the box like it was his firstborn child. Craig gave him a half-hearted chuckle.
"What I thought."
Craig looked over the apartment once more. This was the cleanest he's ever seen it since moving in. He felt a wave of calm wash over him. Craig had always liked it when things were clean and organized. When things were chaotic, messy, changing, and unorganized, he couldn't concentrate.
Great-Value Clyde walked out of his room, rag on his shoulder, standing next to Craig while placing his hands on his hips to admire their hard work.
"Awesome job, dudes." He moved his hand up to clasp Craig's, giving him a short side hug while Craig did the same, albeit quicker. Nosy also joined in, finishing with the babying of the cup ramen. He similarly clasped Great-Value Clyde's hand while giving him a side hug, then moved to Craig to do the same.
"See you in the fall, Craig," Nosy said to him.
"Have fun with your guy!" Great-Value Clyde added on.
"Thanks. I'll see you." Craig had already turned away towards his room. He threw on a lined denim jacket over his black graphic tee, grasping the already pulled-up handle of his suitcase, before grabbing the drink he had set aside on the counter, then quickly walking out of the front door, waving bye one last time to his roommates.
He takes the elevator down to the ground floor. The stuffy, plastic smell of the inside matched with the overwhelming heat radiating off the walls almost made him walk out and take the stairs, but he valued his life more than taking the risk of his exhaustion tripping him up, which would lead to him bouncing down the triple flight of stairs like some fucked-up game of pinball. He was desperate to get to his car to start the drive back home, but not that desperate. He stepped inside after brainstorming a few names to call his sleep-deprived, injury-inducing game he just made up. Pin-Craig. Craig-Ball. He'll put a pin in it.
He shared the elevator with an older woman he did not recognize. Attached to her wrist was a retractable leash, at the end of which was a light-colored Italian greyhound. The dog was backed into the corner, staring up at Craig with large, bulging eyes while quivering. Craig took a small step away from the dog to give it some much-wanted space. He looked at the dog again. The way its tail curled behind and upwards toward its stomach, the fraying, obviously hand-knitted green sweater it was engulfed in, it all reminded Craig of-
"Latte."
It took Craig's brain a moment to catch up.
"Huh?"
"His name. It's Latte."
"…Oh. Hello Latte." Craig would've come up with a more apathetic answer if he weren't running on fumes. Right now, he was just trying to get to his car so he could completely zone out for the five hours it would take to get to his motel in Henderson, Nevada, then waking up the next morning, bright and early, before tackling the 10-hour straight shot to South Park. His parents tried to talk him out of it, but once Craig puts his mind to something, there's little anyone can do to stop him. He wanted to get to South Park as fast as possible, so he was getting to South Park as fast as possible.
Plus, Craig had always liked driving.
The woman chuckled. "He says hello back, I'm sure." Craig gave a half-hearted chuckle back, not wanting to engage in any more conversation than he had to.
He tapped his energy drink with the grown-out nail of his pointer finger, the metallic clangs ringing against the heated walls of the space. He could see the water condensing on the can, beading up until the drops got too heavy for their own good, falling to their demise, leaving their final marks as little splats on the floor and his sneakers. He stopped the tapping when he could see little Latte cowering the more he played a rhythm on the can. The air felt congealed as he sucked it in. He could taste it in the back of his throat.
Lucky for him, the elevator dinged, and Latte and his owner stepped out. He stepped out right after, walking down the hallway and into the parking lot. He spotted his black Civic immediately. The color made him remember that his car was going to be hot as all hell inside after baking in the LA sun for half a day. He stifled a groan before making his way over, popping the trunk, then stuffing his suitcase inside. A wave of hot air blasted his face when he opened it, making him cough due to the dusty odor that came from not using his sun-baked trunk for a while. He slammed the trunk closed, swearing under his breath. As soon as he opened the front door and slipped into the driver's side, he immediately regretted not looking harder for a shady spot yesterday evening when he parked his car. A much crasser swear word came out of his mouth as hot, stale air filled his nostrils.
He started up his AC immediately after turning on his car. He set his energy drink in his cupholder with a small clunk, beads of condensation dripping down the side and inevitably forming a ring of water at the bottom of the holder, adding to the crusted white mineralizations from previous cold drinks he had placed inside. He pulled the temperature dial all the way down to the mid-sixties. It took a minute for the cool air to start blowing through the vents, but when it did, Craig relaxed slightly. He spent the time waiting for the temperature to cool by plugging in his phone to the car's Bluetooth system, then finding his driving playlist, shuffling it, and pressing play.
Now he was ready to go. He couldn't help but feel really excited, even smiling to himself slightly. He was finally going home. He wouldn't tell anyone, but this semester was hard on him. Harder than it should have been. Some days, actually, most days, all he wanted was to be back in his bed at home while his favorite person carded his fingers through Craig's hair while he went to sleep.
The mental image sent a flutter of butterflies down Craig's chest and into his stomach. He quickly got ready to move the gear shift to reverse, but before he could, a text message buzzed his phone, vibrating the silicone pad it was resting on. He stopped, sighing out and acknowledging he'd have to wait a few more seconds to respond to one of the three people in his life who ever texted him.
He hoped it was him. They haven't spoken in a while.
He proceeded to pick up the phone and see who texted him.
His blood ran cold.
The Second Calamity: Why the hell was Stan Fucking Marsh texting him!?
Craig hasn't gotten a text from Stan since middle school, when they were partnered for a chemistry lab that neither of them cared about. Craig wanted an A. Stan wanted to scrape by. Their texts that week consisted of Craig borderline threatening Stan to get his ass out of his house and march over to Craig's so they could do the report. Stan spent the entire time playing with Stripe the Third while Craig did the entire report with rage coursing through his veins. They got an A. Afterward, Craig hated Stan more than he thought possible.
The memory of their last text messages reignited the flame of hatred. Anger once dulled over time, now sharpened and roared in his ears. It's been three years since he's seen Stan at their high school graduation. He had no business texting Craig about anything.
Something in the back of his head told him that there was a possibility that Stan was inviting him to a high-school reunion. If that was true, he was going to hurl his phone out the car window and make it back to South Park entirely GPS-less.
The possibility of any reunion pissed Craig off so much that he opened his phone, made his way to the contacts app, and immediately blocked Stan. He didn't even make it to the messages app.
Was this childish? Yes.
Is it unlikely that Stan, of all people, would set up and invite people to a reunion? Yes. That was more Wendy Testaburger's or Kyle Broflovski's style.
Was Craig still going to keep Stan blocked because of his long-standing grudge toward his once-classmate? Is it even a question anymore? Yes.
Stan blocked, drink cracked open, and playlist queued, Craig tore out of the parking lot, and started his journey home.
Henderson, Nevada, was a weird place.
Not that Craig could say anything about weird places. He grew up in what was most definitely the weirdest place on earth. How many other people can say they saw A-List celebrities and aliens walking down the streets, only to turn away and sip their espressos, thinking it was just another Tuesday?
After living in a big city like LA for so long, it was weird to go to a smaller town and sleep in a shitty motel again. He felt this way every time he made it to South Park after a semester ended.
He settled further into the bed, the soft, white hotel room sheets and mattress warm and inviting, enveloping him in a cocoon of comfort, but after further awakening, the realization that this was a hotel room that tens of hundreds of people have probably slept in and have likely done unspeakable things in made his skin start to crawl and pushed him to get the hell up.
Going to the bathroom attached to his room, he got a good look at his reflection.
He grimaced.
His eye bags were worse than he thought, darkening the tanned, olive-toned skin of his face. He took some water in his hands and splashed it onto his face, trying to awaken his dulled eyes. He had to curl over the sink quite a bit, his tall stature making seemingly simple things difficult at times. He looked again in the mirror, forest green irises staring back at him. He packed his fingers into the divots of his eye sockets, swiping away any crust from the night and pressing just hard enough for his eyes to start seeing all sorts of colors and patterns and shapes behind his eyelids. He removed his fingers, something in the back of his mind telling him that looking at the pretty shapes that appear when you press your eyelids was bad for your vision.
He took a comb out of his toiletries bag, running the tool through his thick black hair that held a slight wave. He swept it to the left, his preferred hairstyle since he was a kid. Craig Tucker hated change.
He then changed into his clothes, jeans, an undershirt, a plain t-shirt, and a denim jacket to finish it off. He completed the look with his signature blue and yellow chullo, pulling it on and ruffling the puffball at the top.
After packing up, he left his room with his suitcase rolling behind him and approached the front desk, stepping up to get the attention of the young receptionist.
"Checking out?" She flashed a smile at him before tapping something into her computer.
"Yep." He could feel the dark circles tugging underneath his eyes like weights that had strings attached to his lower lids. If he cared more, he would try to hide them by placing a hand on his face in a cool and indifferent manner. Good thing he didn't care.
"How'd you like the room?" The receptionist twirled a lock of wavy brown hair around her finger. Craig looked at her ends. There was a hint of reddish blonde, possibly from a shoddy dye job long ago.
"It was alright." Craig wanted this interaction to end. It was seven in the morning and way too early for a productive conversation.
"Well, you chose the best motel in town!" She splayed out her arms and looked left and right across the room, the flickering yellow ochre fluorescent lights highlighting the suspicious brown and red stains in the corners of the walls, which contrasted badly against the cracks in the ceiling. Almost comically, a fake plant in the corner fell over at that exact moment, the river stones holding the plastic in place spilling out of the pot with soft clinks. Craig gave her a half chuckle.
"Seems that way." He said. The receptionist tapped away on her computer before she took the room card Craig had extended out, her fingers slowly brushing against his in a way that could have been accidental, but was most definitely purposeful. She typed a few more times into her terminal, glancing up every few seconds to meet Craig's eyes and brandish a grin. He hooked a finger on the inside of his shirt to air it out.
"So… What brought you to Henderson?"
"I stopped here for the night. I'm on my way home."
"And where's home?" She ended the sentence with a giggle.
"South Park. Colorado." Her eyes widened a fraction.
"I see that place on the news all the time!"
Craig winced. "It's known for all the wrong reasons."
"Well, maybe when I visit one day, I'll stay with you? I can only assume your room is neater than this dump." She flirted completely unabashedly in the sultriest tone Craig has heard in months, batting her lashes at him while resting her chin in the palm of her hand.
Now, either it's too early for his fried and burned-out brain, and the words are not registering properly, and he's completely misread her tone, or she actually did basically invite herself to stay in his room when she visits South Park one day.
"Ah. Um." Craig moved his hand to the back of his head, scratching at the short hairs at his nape. She faltered, leaning back half an inch while her grin fell suddenly. "I'd… be sharing my room with someone else." Again, he'd come up with a more apathetic answer if it currently didn't take his brain five business days to register what someone was saying.
"I see. Got a girlfriend at home?" She moved her hand from her chin and clasped her hands in front of her.
"Boyfriend." That stumped her. Her entire face hardened. The back of Craig's neck started to sweat. What was Nevada like politically again? It was close to California, but again, that didn't really mean anything. She typed for a few more seconds before sighing.
"You're all set." She didn't meet his eyes. He nodded.
"Thanks." He moved to the door as fast as he could, ready to escape Henderson, Nevada.
The drive back to South Park went about as well as he expected. It was mostly uneventful. He stopped in a random town with gorgeous mountains as a backdrop for lunch and got a glare from a mom when her kid whined, 'The tall man got a cookie, why can't I!?' Her mouth only fell open in shock, letting out an angry scoff when Craig flipped both of them off while exiting the store. After gassing up his car, he drove around the back of the gas station, hoping to avoid the kid and the lady he had pissed off.
He hopped up on the hood of his car, crossing his legs while taking his sandwich and water out of the bag. He unwrapped the sandwich and uncapped his water, taking a sip before making a crescent in the sandwich with his bite. It was bland. The ham was over-salted, and he could taste the plastic packaging it was in before it was laid upon the bread. The lettuce was wilted, and the tomato was mealy, making the bread soggy. Craig took another bite, not caring about the taste and just wanting fuel for the next four hours home.
After taking another sip from his water, he pulled out his phone. He made it to the messages app, and opened a contact.
Future Tucker
June 28th
Craig:
hey.
im on my way home. i want to see you
i know it's been a while.
i feel bad for what i said honey. we were both mad
you cant ignore me forever. im going straight to your place when i get there, and then we can talk about everything. okay?
i miss oyu <3
*you <3
.
.
.
! Messages not delivered !
The Third Calamity: Craig's messages have gone undelivered to his boyfriend for an absurdly long time.
Craig furrowed his brow. It wasn't necessarily uncommon for his messages to go undelivered to his boyfriend. He would often go a few days with his phone completely powered off, often believing that the government was tracking his phone, or that somehow aliens were going to probe him as they did to Eric Cartman long ago, if he used the device too much to look up things about extraterrestrial life.
That never stopped Craig from looking up the same stuff, however, no matter how much his boyfriend freaked out about it.
What was odd about his recent sporadic interactions with the blonde was just that: sporadic. He hadn't texted Craig back in just over two weeks. Normally, this would cause some semblance of alarm for Craig, but they had fought a month before Craig's semester ended. They don't normally fight. If they do, it was about petty and small things, like who didn't text who good night before they went to bed.
This fight was different, and it hurt both of them. Craig didn't want to think about it.
It was why Craig let their non-speaking period go, but the circumstances around it were odd. Even after their fight, they were texting semi-regularly. While yes, it was less so than usual, there was some semblance of a conversation at least once per day. But two weeks after the fight, his boyfriend went completely MIA. He didn't even have a read receipt from him. It worried him. Plus, it wounded Craig's ego to be the first to text every time; he was never a double, or in this case, quinquadragenuple, texter (Yes, he's texted his boyfriend 45 times. He's worried).
Craig wondered if his anger simply caught up to him much later than usual. But two weeks after the argument was just plain absurd.
The length of unresponsiveness was starting to push it. He would have caved and responded to his messages by now. He always did, no matter how pissed off he was at Craig.
With that unnerving thought, he hopped off the hood of his car, popping the rest of the crappy sandwich in his mouth and washing away the unpleasant taste with the last of his water. After chucking it into the trash a few feet away and making it into the basket, -pausing for one second to give himself a quick fist pump- he shoved his tall form into his car and started the next four-hour stretch back to South Park.
Craig chuckled as he drove over the bridge that led into his hometown. He remembered a time back in middle school, when his friend group got really into fishing one month, where they raided Tolkien's dad's fishing rod supply and all procured rods longer than twice their height, then excitedly marched over to the bridge to try and catch some fish.
"It's not gonna work."
"I will work, Craig! Where's your sense of fun?"
"It died when you pushed me down the snowy mountain in an inflatable snow tube, which landed me in the hospital with a broken wrist." Craig deadpanned while rolling his wrist slowly, so as not to aggravate his injury, showcasing the light blue brace that had all of his friends' signatures, including a detailed drawing of morning glories, courtesy of his boyfriend, and a manifesto of Clyde's sincerest apologies, pleas of forgiveness scrawled over half of the brace. It took Clyde half an hour to write, during which Craig was forced to sit and look at something else. The brunette looked away and grimaced.
"I said I was sorry, dude! You were taking way too long, and I wanted a turn." Clyde grasped his fishing pole a bit tighter, moving to turn away from Craig. He sighed, not wanting his attempt to tease Clyde to ruin their trip.
"It's all good. I'm messing with you." He said while patting Clyde's shoulder. "Let's catch some fish." Clyde beamed, catching Craig by his shoulders with the crook of his elbow.
"Hell yeah!" He punched a fist containing his fishing rod in the air, the end of his fishing pole smacking against the blue brace that held Craig's fragile wrist.
"God DAMNNIT CLYDE!"
That was a good memory. They never caught any fish that day, and even when Craig's mother ushered the five of them inside his house after seeing their red noses and blue fingers and fishless cooler, but they still all laughed and reminisced about the day, sipping the hot cocoa that Craig's mother had shoved into their frigid hands after a scolding and a lecture about the dangers of being out in the snow for too long.
He drove along the street, seeing all of the landmarks from his hometown. The basketball court where Kyle Broflovski dominated every game, and the field right next to it, where Stan Marsh dominated every other sport. The thought of Stan still left a sour taste in Craig's mouth. He looked away from the field and towards his elementary school. He chuckled at seeing the white acrylic sign with those peel-off plastic blocky letters, where people can make their own messages; the school was too cheap to afford one of the fancy LED signs. The letters that once spelled:
'HAVE A FANTASTIC SUMMER, SOUTH PARK COWS!'
Now spelled:
'EAT ME FUKIN COCS!'
With a jumble of letters at the bottom spelling:
'HAV A ATAS UMR, STH PR OWS'
Craig gave another chuckle at the vandalized sign. It was entirely their own fault for spelling something with that many valuable letters. This was exactly the type of stunt he would pull in elementary school, before he acquired the company of his better half. If he tried to do something similar in the presence of his boyfriend, however, the blonde would go fully neurotic, not wanting him or Craig to get in trouble for what would amount to a few laughs from their classmates and a mandatory assembly about the dangers of swearing and vandalism.
As much as he loved being a troublemaker back in the day, he had to say that not getting detention and having teachers look at him with respect rather than disdain did feel worlds better. He had one person to thank for that.
It's not like Craig got much respect at home.
Craig kept driving, but the Whole Foods sign on the street caught his eye. Whole Foods was a special place for him. It was right where he and his boyfriend had first held hands, and saved the entire town from a yaoi-induced mass hysteria. While in the moment it was mortifyingly embarrassing, he looks back on it with nothing but fondness. How could he have known that the person he was paired with at one school assembly, where they had been mistaken for lovers, would turn out to be the best thing in his life? Certainly not him.
Before he fully registered where the gas pedal and steering wheel of his car were taking him, he pulled into the parking lot of Whole Foods. Swirling his keys on his finger, he made it through the sliding glass doors, beeline-ing for the pastries aisle.
He picked up a package of cookies, reading the label and seeing that Whole Foods had come out with a banana-bread cookie. Craig poked his cheek with his tongue. His boyfriend always liked trying new flavors of pastries, even if they were a Frankenstein of two separate desserts that, in his humble opinion, should not be anywhere near each other.
Mulling it over in his mind once again, he placed them in the basket he was holding. If the blonde didn't like them, he would definitely find another use for them, making them into ice-cream sandwiches or something that would make the flavor more palatable.
"Craig! Craig Tucker! Is that you?" A lilting voice sounded from the aisle. He looked up to see none other than Liane Cartman, her red skirt flowing around her like mesmerizing fins as she strolled up to Craig. He felt a small pit form at the bottom of his stomach.
"Hello, Ms. Cartman." He decided to be polite, standing still and upright, even though he had just driven for four hours straight and his legs were itching to move.
"My, you've gotten so big! How tall are you now? It's been so long since I've seen you since high school graduation!"
"Six Four." He felt a cramp in his lower leg. He ignored it in favor of appearing nonchalant.
"And where do you go to college now?"
"UCLA, ma'am." He's liked Liane much more than he's ever liked her son. She always gave him and his friends homemade cookies whenever they were over, and her eyes were always warm and kind. He liked her, even if he had a few qualms about the way she raised her child.
"My! That's a very good school! I'm shocked your parents could afford to put you through there." He winced. This was the reason for the uneasy feeling in his gut. Something about Liane was that she had practically no filter. She would be kind and compassionate one minute, and the next, she would make the air of the room as tense as a runner's tendon in a race. She was a wild card, and that's what made him so apprehensive around her.
"Good thing scholarships exist."
"Yes! Quite a good thing! Lord knows your father probably fought tooth and nail to make you go somewhere cheaper. Definitely wanted to save up that money for his full blood!"
Craig felt a muscle in his jaw twitch. He knew that his family issues were more than apparent; people talk a lot in a small town. However, he didn't think it was appropriate to air out a couple's dirty laundry in front of their own son. In an interaction like this one, there was no question of whether Eric Cartman was her flesh and blood or not.
"Yeah, well, I've had to fight him about something he didn't approve of once before." He not so subtly insinuated to his sexuality with a hardness to his features. Liane's face dropped.
"Oh, Craig. I was going to mention how sorry I was to hear-"
Luckily, or rather, unluckily, a shrill, horrifyingly familiar voice cut through the tense atmosphere that both of them had created.
"MEEEEEEEAM!"
Oh God no. This was not the person he wanted to see first thing after coming back to South Park. Craig looked around for any possible way he could get out of this conversation. Tragically for him, the root cause of a majority of Craig's misery during his youth ungracefully tumbled from behind an aisle, eyeing his tall ex-classmate with a two-toned glare and a dropped jaw that quickly fixed into a sneer.
"Well… If it isn't Craigory Tucker." Cartman grinned and showed a mouth full of off-white teeth. The boy, now a man, had barely changed. He grew a couple of feet when he hit puberty, but with an increase in length came an increase in width. He clearly showed no signs of trimming down; he held three packages of Oreos, each a distinct flavor, and four bags of potato chips, also in various flavors. He lost his signature hat, like most of his classmates did when they reached middle school.
"Don't call me that," Craig said with a snippy tone. He kept on looking for an escape from this situation. How his boyfriend dealt with living in the same town as Eric Cartman, he will never know.
"How's California? Are you getting that surfer bod, girls drooling over your chisled six-pack and toned thighs?" It's quotes like these that really leave Craig questioning Cartman's sexuality. His little stunt with Kyle and a Jumbotron at a basketball game had never left the back of Craig's mind.
"I don't know, I've been busy with something called 'getting my degree.' Are you familiar with the concept?" Several of his ex-classmates had stayed behind in South Park; most had been hard at work at the local community college, still learning and achieving, his boyfriend being one of them. Eric Carman was the only exception. He lived at home in his mother's basement, eating and drinking and smoking his way into an early grave.
"Jeez, no wonder Twitchy is so geeked all the time, with so much time in your dorm, you must be getting it on every night with a new girl. Player."
The bastardized name of his boyfriend was the only thing that Craig properly registered in Cartman's insult. Craig knew that the blonde wasn't doing spectacularly every day, but to hear that he had been freaking out? It must've been bad if Eric Cartman, someone he avoids like the plague, could know about it.
"Now, Eric, you leave Craig alone. I'm sure he's going through enough right now." He sighed, thankful for Liane's interception of Cartman's taunts.
"Also, you know he's a faggot, so if he were to be sleeping with someone, it would be with other boys. Not girls."
And there was his exit. Not that one fell in front of him like a miracle, no, more like he was being pushed by a piston towards two very hungry hyenas, and all he had was his brute strength to break the mechanism that was pushing him towards being mauled. He decided to use this brute force idea to make an exit strategy.
"… I'd better get going. Don't want to be late for dinner so my dad can't beat my faggot ass." Both of Cartman's features quickly morphed into ones of shock. The idea that Craig would refer to himself as a slur, and would outright say what everyone in town knew his father did to him behind closed doors, was beyond unthinkable. One could show up to school with purpling bruises every day only for so long before people started asking questions. With that, he flipped both of them off, pushed past the pair, and left without a word.
Not his best work, but again, he's exhausted.
He quickly walked over to the floral section, scrutinizing the colors of the flowers before realizing that he truly didn't see a difference in the quality of the bouquets. He picked out a lovely yellow and green arrangement before heading back over to the checkout aisles. The cashier started scanning his two items while Craig started thinking.
Something about the interaction with the Cartmans didn't sit right with him. Liane had mentioned Craig going through something twice. Now, unless they were psychic, the only thing Craig has been going through has been his boyfriend ignoring him and a stressful semester, neither of which would warrant the amount of concern Liane had shown for Craig.
…$18.78…
Did something happen?
…$18.78…
No. It's his overtired brain making mountains out of molehills. That's his blonde's territory, not Craig's. Even if something did happen, he's sure his mother or sister would tell him right away.
"$18.78!!" A loud voice crashed through Craig's swirling thoughts.
"…Huh?"
"Your total. $18.78."
"Oh. Right." Craig fumbled for his credit card from his wallet, handing it to the cashier. After a moment, the cashier handed him his card with his receipt on top. Craig grabbed both, as well as his shopping, tucking the bouquet and cookies under one arm.
"Have a good day." Craig only huffed a 'you too' back.
Walking outside the Whole Foods again, he slowed his pace down and breathed in the crisp, Colorado air. It was good to be home, even though Craig always talked about leaving one day.
He stared at the spot where he and his beloved once held hands, marking a day in history both for their small town, and for themselves. He smiled as he reminisced about the fateful day. They truly changed each other's lives for the better.
He looked at the receipt once more after climbing into his car, setting the gifts in the passenger seat.
"$18.78?" He mumbled out loud. Damn. Bouquets were expensive.
With that lingering thought, Craig made the final stretch to his home.
He could see three silhouettes in his home's front window as he pulled into the driveway.
Craig got out of his car to the sound of the front door opening, his mother running up to him and sweeping him up in a tight hug. He could see Tricia and his father lingering in the doorway.
"Welcome home, baby!" She exclaimed, muffled into his chest. Craig hugged her back tightly. He was a mama's boy; what could he say?
"Hi, Mom. I'm glad to be home." He spied his father coming over towards the embracing pair, the man who once towered over him when he was a child, now an inch or two shorter than Craig himself.
"Good to have you back." He said with a firm pat to Craig's back.
"…Hello, Dad." Thomas didn't meet his eyes, only rounding the corner of the car to extract Craig's suitcase from the trunk. After Laura unwrapped herself from her son, she went to the side of the car to pick up any loose items Craig might have brought. He spotted Tricia still in the doorway, head down and picking at her sweater, while leaning on one of the sides of the frame.
He didn't miss the way his mother's embrace left two wet spots on his shirt, possibly from the excitement of her son being home, but Laura was never one to cry about things like that. He also didn't miss how his family was avoiding making eye contact with him. Tricia especially. When he was gone for a while, she was always the first to punch his arm, then give him a quick hug, and then promptly act like she did no such thing.
The uneasy feeling he had back at the Whole Foods that he had shoved down and packed away into a little overthinking box now unfurled and roared in his gut with a vengeance, marking its presence by little beads of sweat on the back of Craig's neck and temples. Something was wrong. His family did not act like this.
Whatever was going on with them could wait, however. He needed to see his beloved more than anything.
The quad made their way into the house, Tricia still not having spoken a word to him.
"How was your drive?" Laura asked. She took him by the shoulders and sat him down on the couch. Yep. Very abnormal behavior. The feeling in his stomach wanted to claw its way out and rear its ugly head. He wanted to scream and yell, 'What the fuck is wrong with you guys!?' but he bit his tongue before his brain could spill anything he would regret.
"Tiring. Can I get-"
"How was Henderson? I heard it's a nice place." Laura sat next to him, setting the cookies and bouquet on the table in front of them, and pulled one of his hands into her lap, her delicate, cold fingers stroking over the tendons on the backs of his hands. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see his father nodding his head up by the stairs, looking at Tricia. Subtly telling her to 'Get the hell upstairs.' The pair moved up, dragging Craig's suitcase along with them.
The sandwich that had already been wreaking havoc in his stomach curdled even more.
"It was fine. I need to-"
"And the drive from Nevada to here? Nothing interesting happened?"
He was starting to get ticked off. He practically hasn't gotten a word in since 'Hi, Mom.'
"Mom-"
"Did you hear about Randy Marsh? I heard he's finally in jail for good this time."
"Mom!"
The exclamation rang through the house like a single out-of-tune piano key, forboding and ominous. Laura went silent and clasped Craig's hand properly, the well-manicured nails on both of her hands digging into his palm. He noticed how different their hands were in that moment; his skin tone was a deep, olive tan with bulging veins and darkened knuckles and ink smears on his fingertips from too many late nights studying, while his mother's skin was so pale, it was translucent - her veins like a track of her blood keeping her alive for so many years. A single tear fell onto one of her ghost-like hands. Craig stiffened his back, the bone inside taut like a drum.
After she didn't speak for a while, he sighed and made to grab for his offerings.
"Mom, I don't know what happened, but I can't deal with it right now. I need to go and apologize-" She pulled him back sharply. Head dipped down, her blonde hair made a veil of secrecy around her face. He wanted to pull back the veil and see what secrets were so bad that they made his entire family act like he was a rabid wolf; one wrong word, and they would all be mincemeat.
"Craig…" She sniffled.
He could feel his heartbeat thrumming in his eardrums. He could feel ice crystals growing in his stomach. He could feel lightning running down his veins.
Something was wrong. He knows it has to do with him.
"Tweek hasn't been seen in two weeks, Craig."
So. To recap, his June 27th and 28th consisted of:
The First Calamity: He just had one of the most stressful semesters of his life.
The Second Calamity: Stan Marsh had the gall to text him.
The Third Calamity: The messages Craig sent to his boyfriend have been going undelivered.
The Fourth Calamity: Craig just learned that the love of his life, Tweek Tweak, has been missing for two weeks.
And no one told him.
Tweek has been missing.
And no one told him.
…
The twenty-eighth of June has possibly been the worst day of Craig Tucker's rather short life.