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Tweek had not wanted to go to the doctor’s, not at all. He tried to tell his Mama that, telling her he was fine, nothing was wrong with him, he didn’t need a shot today, or ever in fact. Doctor’s offices involved scary needles and waiting rooms that were cesspools of nasty germs and diseases, like Daddy had told him just a few weeks before. But his mother ignored his anxiety over the appointment and dragged him along anyway, telling him to not be silly and just cooperate for at least a half hour, that it would all be over with faster if he wasn’t panicking or hiding behind a chair or something.
Tweek didn’t really believe her, but he pretended too, just to get her to shut up with her lies and “it’s going to be fine” statements. They were never true and things never were fine about him, ever. They never had been since the day he was born and would probably stay the same until the day he died.
In the waiting room, his mother sat down in a ugly green chair and began to fill out several forms, most of which Tweek was pretty sure were all about his health, his anxiety, his unhealthy addiction to coffee at just three years old, ugh, he didn’t want to get another lecture on this. He had already gotten it last year when he was two. Maybe they THOUGHT he could have forgotten it by now, but he hadn’t, nope. He just sat there in a chair identical to his mother’s, kicking his legs and twitching now and then. His legs were so short, they didn’t even touch the floor, they just dangled in midair a good few inches off the ground. He kept on kicking then and knocking then against the chair legs, ignoring the mirror by the registration desk that reflected how he looked.
He didn’t like how he looked at all, all scrawny and small with short legs and tiny hands and feet. His hair was too blonde and too messy and his eyes were too green and too big. He was covered in a combination of splotchy freckles, discolored bruises and colorful bandages, the bandages from the times he did stupid stuff like run into a wall or accidentally scratch himself with a too long fingernail (which was how he had gotten his most recent one just an hour ago)
Because of his fears of germs and his anxiety with how he looked, he didn’t want to interact with the other children. They were all loud and snot nosed and playing with toys that had most likely been chewed and drooled on by enthusiastic toddlers. Tweek took another long look and indeed, nearly all the kids in the almost full waiting room were playing with germy toys or yelling in voices that were way too loud to be considered indoor voices.
All the kids were like that, except for one boy.
Tweek nearly missed him at first over the confusion and then he couldn’t take his eyes off him. He was sitting in a corner near the book basket and was rocking in place, his eyes fixed on the ceiling. He looks very lost and out of place, as though he didn’t quite belong in the doctor’s office, or anywhere else perhaps.
Tweek knew how that felt.
The boy turned around to grope for a toy car on the floor and Tweek could see that he looked about his age at least. His skin wasn’t pink and freckly like his own, but instead a warm shade of brown. His hair was sleek and black and his eyes were dark, a dark blue that reminded him of the shade his parents had painted their bathroom. Daddy had told him it was called cobalt blue when he had asked.
Tweek continued to watch the boy as he stretched out on the floor and began to play with the car, moving it back and forth across the rug, making noises that may have been race car noises from the corner of his mouth. His limbs were skinny and long when he stretched out. He was probably much taller than Tweek, but that wasn’t unusual. Nearly everyone he met was.
He fascinated him, this odd boy, and he slipped out of his chair to get closer, to take a better look at him. He didn’t want to really interrupt his play at all, but he couldn’t help himself, knowing that it would bother him if he left the office and didn’t even get his name or an idea of who he was.
The boy didn’t seem to notice him at first, absorbed in his little game. It was only when the car tipped over and he moved his hand to adjust it that he realized someone was nearby. He sat up and he had a nice face, Tweek decided, and his eyes were even bluer up close, but they weren’t looking at him. They were fixed on something just past him, probably the magazine rack or the potted plant, and they seemed just as lost and out of sorts as his previous behavior had been. He looked like he was trying to look past everything around him at things that just weren’t there, or was trying to make sense of what he could see ahead of him.
“Hi?” Tweek said, wanting to know what his voice sounded like.
The boy drew back slightly and cocked his head, his eyes fixed on Tweek’s shoulder now. He looked like he didn’t understand what happened next.
“Y-you supposed to say hi.” Tweek told him, wondering if he actually didn’t know how to talk. Tweek was three and still stumbled over his words and had a noticeable stutter that got worse when he was feeling especially freaked out. He and his mother were working on that at home.
“H-hi” the boy hissed, his voice low enough that Tweek almost didn’t hear him, not changing his expression.
“You okay?” Tweek asked him. “You no answer if no.” He cringed to himself when he realized he had said that completely wrong.
The boy shook his head in answer, his face turning away from him, as if ashamed.
“Can you talk?” Tweek asked, genuinely wanting to know now.
“A bit.” the boy answered in a slightly louder voice, the quality of it startling Tweek. It was low and monotone and still seemed small and weak, barely used.
“Good.” Tweek said, smiling at him, a smile that the boy did not return. His expression remained blank and lost and Tweek was confused as to why. Why was this boy like this? Why wouldn’t he look at him? Was he weird like himself maybe?
Realizing that last bit made Tweek’s heart hurt. If he was also ridden with problems like chronic anxiety issues and too much coffee, he didn’t want to be accidentally mean, and maybe he would leave him alone if he wanted that. Maybe that was for the better.
But Tweek didn’t want to leave him be. He looked like he needed a friend perhaps. Maybe he wasn’t the best candidate, but it was worth a shot.
“You like cars?” Tweek asked, peering at the little car that was clutched in his hands. He realized it was a bright red.
The boy nodded, the ends of his mouth quirking, like he was trying to smile.
“You heard of Red Racer?” Tweek asked him, since they were on the subject of cars. “I-I don’t watch much but it looks cool.”
The boy nodded, more enthusiastically, a grin flashing across his face for a second, showing pearly white baby teeth. It was very clear he had and was expressing that he loved it. That was progress and Tweek would take it.
“I-I like watching things on tape, like Disney and Hello Kitty.” Tweek continued. “Do you?”
The boy shook his head, looking like he felt bad that he didn’t.
“Why not?” Tweek asked. “You not own them?”
“I like Red Racer.” The boy simply stated, rolling the little red car around between its palms, its wheels making little squeaks as they turned.
“Enough to watch it always?” Tweek said, kinda alarmed at the fact that he could do that. He had to switch up the movies and TV shows he watched every few days or else he got bored of them fast.
The boy nodded, a finger rubbing on the car’s red paint, which was chipped and smudged with dirty fingerprints from previous children already. He looked around the room as though his attention towards Tweek was waning and Tweek knew he had to say something more interesting to keep up his attention or else he might write him off as boring or nosy and just leave him all alone on the scratchy and nubby waiting room carpet. Well maybe he wouldn’t be alone. The filthy toys could keep him company.
“You ever seen Gnomes?” Tweek burst out, clapping a hand over his mouth when he realized what he had said. Great, now this weird boy would also think he was weird when he was trying his hardest not to be, and they’d be thrown out of the doctor’s office because there was no way a doctor could cure weirdness, not like Tweek’s hadn’t tried.
But it did the trick when the boy turned back to fix his blue eyes near Tweek and said “Gnomes? Who they?”
“Uhhh...n-no one…” Tweek stammered, wishing he had just kept his stupid mouth shut.
The boy looked somewhat surprised, and then he stuck out his bottom lip in a perfect pout. He looked so pathetic that Tweek felt awful and changed his mind on dropping the conversation about gnomes
“They...uh...liwve in walls…” Tweek said, his words stumbling as he tried to think about how to phrase it. “I saw em once, but then, uh, wran away from me…And I twied to tell Mama but she no believe me!”
“Why?” The boy asked, fixing his blue eyes on Tweek’s shoulder again.
“No idea! And then me said No no no it scawy…” Tweek flailed his arms and made a face for emphasis. He didn’t even care that he was stumbling over his words, he was just glad that someone would listen to his rambles about the gnomes that lived in the walls of his room. “But Mama told me no no the gnomes are fake, Daddy was messing wif me…”
“Why?” The boy asked again, a note of curiosity in his voice that Tweek could tell hadn’t been there until this point.
“I know they real!” Tweek insisted, his arms still waving high in the air. “I saw em!”
“No way!” the boy said.
“Yesh way!” Tweek almost shouted, hoping that he could convince this boy that Gnomes really were real by the time he had to go in for his doctor’s appointment…
“Tweek honey, I don’t want to interrupt, but it’s time to go in.”
Tweek’s mother had appeared behind him. She helped him up off the carpet, rubbing his messy blonde hair between her fingers the way he liked it. His heart sunk into his stomach as she did this, knowing he would be pried away and probably come back out of the doctor's office to find the boy gone. Tweek really had wanted to continue talking, but now he couldn’t, and who knew when he would see that boy again?
“Now say goodbye to that nice little boy please.” Tweek’s mother instructed, giving him a slight nudge.
“Bye Bye!” Tweek smiled as widely as he could, waving at the blue eyed boy. He hoped that maybe if he acted nice enough his memory would be engraved in this other boy’s mind, and they could recognize each other somewhere else despite not knowing each other’s names.
As Tweek’s mother ushered him into the doctor’s examination room, he looked over his shoulder and caught sight of the boy again. To Tweek’s utter surprise, he stood up and waved at him.
“Bye bye too!” the boy giggled as he vanished from Tweek’s sight. One last pearly white grin and he was gone.
Tweek was quiet through the entire appointment, his mind still on that odd boy with the blue eyes. What was his name? Why was he like that? Would they ever see each other again? Tweek desperately hoped so.
He hoped that next time they met, they could face each other and talk with no stumbling words or lack of being able to say much of anything. If they could, one day, who knew what might happen between the two of them if they could just share everything with one another?
But it would be over a year before they would meet again.