Archive of Our Own

Clyde always believed that his best friend was a pretty weird guy.

Despite being popular, Craig didn't truly fit into the archetypes typically found within those crowds of people. Sure, he was kind of tall. And if those lists made by the girls over the years were to be believed, he was objectively very cute to the female gaze. Self-assured, confident, just about everything you could find in a cool guy.

Annnnnd that was where the expected stuff ended. Because if someone actually took the time to get to know Craig (they'd been best friends since kindergarten, so Clyde considered himself an expert in all things Craig), they'd realize that this guy truly stuck out like a sore thumb among the status-hungry population in South Park High. Why, a slow minded being might ask?

Because Craig was a fucking nerd.

Seriously, he was a pathetic shut-in who never left his room unless God himself asked him to. He preferred to waste his time on his screens at home. He stayed quiet all day. Gave the driest, most nothing-burger responses imaginable, unless you talked to him about dork shit.

Between watching animes, being infatuated with big hamsters, and obsessing over anything space-related, you had the perfect pussy repellent personified right here. Talking with a hilarious nasally voice was merely a bonus. This guy was so socially awkward that you needed to be an extrovert of category four in order to handle a conversation with him.

Yet, you better believe it, none of those things truly represented the lameness that inhabited Craig. No. The oddest thing about him was something only his closest friends knew about. His own family only got to hear the smallest hints about it – despite Craig being absolutely obsessed and thinking about it all day everyday. Something so strange that even Clyde had a hard time giving his usual enabling comments sometimes.

Craig was head over heels in love with Tweek Tweak.

Now, one may think, how was this weirder than any of the things mentioned beforehand!? It was just a teenager doing what teenagers did: being silly and having crushes. And ladies and gentlemen, here was why Craig Tucker having a crush on Tweek motherfucking Tweak was the most bizarre thing ever. In no particular order.

One: Craig wasn't the type of person to have a crush. Point blank.

Craig was a cold person. He was uncaring and his feelings never got hurt. No matter what was said to him, he took it in stride. There was that one time someone insulted his mom right in front of his face and he just… didn't care – despite him being a mommy's boy too.

So to have him be all blushy and stuttery like some kind of middle school girl was so out of character it was hilarious. Seriously, he couldn't handle a conversation with Tweek whatsoever! Tweek wasn't even intimidating. He was a bit kooky, but he obviously wasn't going to bite Craig's head off for trying to talk to him. Craig's inability to have proper social interactions truly shined when talking to this guy. One of Clyde's favorite memories of those embarrassing slip-ups happened back in middle school.

Craig's POV – Sixth Grade

"Dudeeeeee, what are we even doing hereeee," Clyde's whining could probably be heard by the whole neighborhood.

The bitter cold seeped through Craig's head despite the warmth supposedly provided by his hat. It made Clyde's infuriating voice even more unbearable than usual. He hoped that Clyde would slip on the ice. That would make him feel better.

"It's six! We could be sleeping right nowwww uhg," Clyde dragged his feet slowly in the snow, in a petulant mood after being stolen from his bed by his best friend to go to the town's coffee shop for some reason. Well… he knew what reason. But that didn't mean he had to like it.

Craig let out an irritated huff and crossed his arms and flicked his head toward his chubby friend. "Shut up Clyde. You're the one who told me that you would be there to support me through my bad decisions. So you better put your money where your mouth is."

"But I didn't think you would make me go outside when it's fucking minus two just to get a glimpse of your ridiculous cr–"

"Shut up! Scream it to the whole town why don't you!? God you are so loud!" After making sure Clyde wouldn't hang out his dirty laundry for the whole world to see, Craig continued his stroll towards the town's most popular snacking place: Tweak Bros. Coffee.

For all his dramatics, Clyde was right. It was cold as fuck out here. Which served as the perfect excuse for why they were coming into the shop this early. After all, Tweek wouldn't be able to suspect anything just by seeing two boys looking for warmth inside his family's business during such harsh weather. They'd just come from a pretty big sleepover at Tolkien's house, so showing up this early wouldn't be questionable (The Blacks had shitty breakfast). The thought of it being one guy that liked him too much for it to be healthy and who was only there to see him wouldn't even cross his mind! Who would fault him for taking the chance to chat him up a bit during their wait? It was simply called being a sociable human. Because Craig was definitely known for being that. And if Tweek fell for Craig's mysterious demeanor and accepted his invitation to go to a movie together, it would have nothing to do with him — just fate doing its work. Totally.

Both boys stopped near the reflective glass of a random store as soon as the coffee shop entered their sight. Craig tugged his chullo hat and turned to his friend, the situation catching up to him.

"Ok, so what do I do? Do I start by saying hi when I see him? Or would that seem weird? Do I let you lead the conversation? That's what I usually do when we talk to people so maybe he'll expect that, or maybe it'll make me seem like a coward once I give him the movie tickets? Or should I–"

"Craig! Craigory, dude," Clyde cut him off with a chuckle. "First of all, let go of your flaps. You might stretch them and it definitely won't be a good look on you."

Craig, who hadn't even realized when he started tugging on his hat during his monologue, let it go.

"-Second of all, you just need to relax bro! Be natural. You should do that thing where you look at people like you're bored, Tweek will dig it for sure!" Clyde took hold of Craig's shoulders and turned him to face the glass. "Bait your eyelashes, be a bit sarcastic and you've got this in the bag. Easy peasy."

"…yeah… yeah, you're right. I'm overreacting. It'll be fine. A lot of people ask out their crush every day, and it's not a big deal…" he mumbled to himself, looking down.

"Exactly dude! Now come on let's go. We're freezing our balls off here."

The boys entered the shop at the same time, a tiny bell ringing once they came in. Upon getting in, they were greeted by a warm place and a pretty middle-aged lady behind the counter. She seemed to be cleaning something behind it before she turned to them.

"Hello boys, welcome to Tweak Bros. Coffee. You two must be early birds I see? What can we do for you today?" The woman asked with a plastic smile on her face. Fitting for how early it was.

"Hi ma'am! Do you guys still make hot chocolate here?" Clyde responded with a bright smile. Clyde should probably give her tips on how to look genuinely welcoming. Even Craig would have tried harder with customer service.

"Well of course young man. What kind of coffee shop doesn't? Come here I'll take your order." Her voice was very smooth. Craig wondered if it was done on purpose by the family to have some kind of "staple", there was no way both of the Tweaks just happened to have a natural silk-like quality to their voice, it had to be fabricated. He was getting off track from his goal though. The movie tickets felt heavy in his pocket.

As Clyde ordered about half the things they served here for himself (with what money?), Craig sent multiple glances toward the back door of the shop, as he knew that Tweek was in there. Unfortunately, he wasn't being as subtle as he would have liked, if the curious glances Mrs. Tweak gave him were any indication.

"Are you a friend of my son? Oh, you must want him to come and see you! I'll fetch him from the back so he can ring your order kid."

"Uh – no, this isn't necessary ma'am, don't worry I can–"

"Nonsense, it doesn't bother me at all. I'm relieved my pumpkin has so many friends despite being… the way he is… Tweeeek! Come here son!" The woman somehow yelled without raising her voice.

"UGHHHHH WHAT!? I'M BUSY MOM!" A grating voice responded. He sounded nothing like his parents.

"You can finish what you were doing later Tweek, now come out here!" And the woman left it at that. Trusting her son to come despite him clearly not wanting to.

Her son proved her right when soon after, a slightly chubby blond boy came out the back. His hair an absolute disaster and eye-circles much too defined and purple for an eleven-year-old. His apron was covered in stains already, but the most obvious thing about him was the extremely annoyed expression on his face.

"What."

"Tweek, we told you a million times to address customers better. Have some manners!"

"Grr— are you here to give me a politeness lesson or something? Because I –ngh– I haven't finished what dad asked me to do and he's going to crush my balls with a sledgehammer if he comes back, so speak up or– or–ghrk or I'm leaving!"

Tweek's mom sent a mild apologetic look Craig's way but ultimately didn't say anything. Leaving him to deal with Tweek's mood.

"Uh…well…" Craig started sending desperate looks Clyde's way.

Seriously, fuck Tweek's mom for putting him in this situation. What was he supposed to do now? Order? When his mom had been perfectly capable of doing it so it would seem like he was wasting his time for no reason? Or talk to him normally even though they'd never really had a normal conversation one-on-one so it would just seem weird, especially in front of people, and especially when Craig sucked at chitchat. Craig felt something he felt very rarely: panic. Luckily, he knew that his face showed just enough so only the people who knew him best could notice — mainly Clyde.

"Sorry to bother you dude, we asked your mom to leave it be but she insisted for you to come haha! But yeah, Craig just wanted to order something and she went to get you! Anyway we're sorry." Clyde was Craig's best friend for a reason. Not only had he given an explanation for the situation, but he'd also framed it in a way that would simultaneously calm Tweek down and give Craig an opportunity to speak without him feeling like a literal clown. Craig would buy Clyde an extra taco at lunch for his trouble.

"Oh okay, yeah my parents get weird whenever people my age come in," Tweek said, completely disregarding the fact that his mom was standing right there. He turned his body slightly towards Craig's general direction. "Anyway, w-what do you want grumpy spy?"

…Grumpy spy? Instead of wondering about what that nickname (?) was supposed to mean, as he probably should, Craig found himself overjoyed that Tweek had a nickname for him at all. No matter what it was. Since it could only mean one thing — he was noticeable enough for Tweek to go ahead and put a name to his face. After all, no one gave nicknames to the NPCs in the background. They were basically decorative plants. They could become plot devices if they were lucky enough, but they certainly didn't get names.

It means that he thinks about me sometimes at least, right?

He could feel his brain turning into soup. Jesus Christ, Tweek thought about him too!! At least sometimes! It meant he had a chance, right? He felt his face getting hot, he hoped to God it didn't show.

"Hi…" He was supposed to order now, right? Or did he take this as an opportunity to ask him out to go see a movie with him? Craig knew at the back of his head that most people would probably say something akin to that — like 'hi! I know we don't talk a lot but I was wondering if you wanted to hang out sometime!' Or whatever. That's how Clyde and Wendy would have handled this at least. Unfortunately, he wasn't as charismatic as Clyde, or quite as self-assured as Wendy. There was that one time where he'd tried to emulate that attitude back in fourth grade, with some kid who had Tourette syndrome. But he'd ended up saying something stupid as fuck. Craig was pretty sure he'd said something about laundry? So yeah, he was a bit lost here.

"Can I–" his fucking voice cracked. "…get a Frappuccino please… and… well. Never mind. Thanks." He mumbled the rest.

Oh God, he was such a buffoon. He just dropped his gaze to his own shoes and prayed that the ground would open up to swallow him whole. Somebody please kill him, this was so embarrassing. He didn't even hear what Tweek was saying in response. He quickly left a bunch of money on the counter, took his drink, and dragged Clyde away as fast as possible.

Or at least he tried to. While turning around, he crashed directly into a table located behind them. Because of course this would happen. Gravity apparently decided that today was the day to punish Craig for his lack of spatial awareness (not clumsiness. Craig was a greatly agile and nimble guy thank you very much). Clyde's gravitational field managed to send them both crashing to the floor with the speed of a rocket ship, bringing the table, their food, and themselves down with it. Clyde delivered the finishing blow to his self-esteem by landing directly on top of Craig.

Craig wished that Satan himself would come to personally guide him to Hell. He never wanted to open his eyes ever again. There was no way this had all happened right in front of Tweek!? He was just dreaming and his dad was about to wake him up soon.

Unfortunately, the immediate snickering that resonated through the store destroyed any hopes of it being a nightmare. Craig felt all the blood in his body rush straight to his face and ears. He was about to explode. He prayed that God would strike him down this instant, and hopefully, put him out of his misery.

"Get up asshole!" Hissed Craig at Clyde, who was still lying on top of him, groaning. Hiding his face from the counter the best he could, he pushed his fat, stupid best friend away from him. Looking around, he assessed the damages and concluded – very generously – that none of this was his problem to fix. The gorgeous asshole laughing behind the counter could clearly deal with this mess all on his own like a big boy. Served him right.

"Damn Tweek, need any help?" Craig stayed tactfully quiet while Clyde moronically tried to offer some help instead of bolting out of there. They should be escaping right now! Extract themselves from this troublesome situation and never come back here again.

Once he'd finished laughing (the cruelty in it was hard to miss, even for Craig, who always missed everything), Tweek gave them a response. "Yeah? You guys broke it –ngh– you're paying and cleaning it. Wait here while I get brooms," before retreating to the back door.

"Let's get out of here." Craig rarely felt this embarrassed. But to be fair, the only times his poor sense of spatial awareness (again, not clumsiness Clyde) had acted up, it was only in the presence of people he didn't care about whatsoever. Who cared if he tripped in front of a group of third graders? Who cared if he fell into a hole right in front of his family? Not Craig. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't bring himself to care in those situations. No amount of judgment would shake him. But in front of Tweek? This was catastrophic. How was he supposed to seem like boyfriend material like this? No one would ever want to go out with him if they witnessed all his dumbass slip-ups. And that especially included Tweek. So yeah, excuse him for wanting to die.

"Dude, we have to help him clean up. That's our mess!"

"No. It's his job and he can do it on his own. Now come here!"

"Ow!"

He admittedly felt a bit bad for leaving all this mess in Tweek's hands, but maybe he would have helped if Tweek hadn't reacted like a dick. So it was all Tweek's fault really.

Once they were outside, Clyde didn't miss a beat to harass him.

"Krahaha, dudeeee, what the hell was that!? I made the perfect opening for you and everything. How did you fuck it up?" Clyde was such a bad friend, taking pleasure in Craig's suffering. Craig would steal some food out of Clyde's lunchbox later today. It would be well deserved.

"Shut up I know! Let's just pretend none of this ever happened. I'll try again another time."

And they left it at that.

Clyde’s POV- present 

Amusing, right? It was like watching a cat trying to bark, how adorable. Clyde would never get tired of this freak show. Unfortunately, this little quirk of Craig wouldn't be enough to qualify his crush as weird. Cringe? Yes. Weird? No. Which was why Clyde had another proof up his sleeve.

Two: Tweek was a weird guy on his own.

That’s right. Let’s pretend that Craig having and being an embarrassment around a crush was actually perfectly normal for a second. Well, even then his infatuation with Tweek would be bizarre. Not because he was a guy, Clyde was cool with that. But rather because Tweek himself was an odd dude.

Case in point, Tweek was paranoid. He seemed to believe that anything was out to get him, at all times. Bad news are getting consumed like air by this guy. And he was also pessimistic. Not that Clyde was trying to badmouth Tweek of course! He was a fun guy to hang out with (when he wanted to be), and he was really funny sometimes. He just…wasn’t exactly boyfriend material. Especially not for a “popular” person. He would get overwhelmed by parties, and bored by Craig himself. Being so self-centered cannot do much good in a couple.

Wait, this sounded like Clyde was badmouthing Tweek? No he was not! He was simply telling the truth! And it’s not like he was being a traitor when Tweek himself was self-aware of his shortcomings.

For one, he never came to hangouts. He obviously hated them. And he sent anyone who asked him to come to get fucked. Secondly, his hobbies were not popular kid material. Clyde doesn’t know all of them (due to not being especially close to Tweek despite all of his friend’s connections with this guy), but most kids worth knowing tended to be very simple in their extracurricular activities. Between socializing and partying, no one has the time for things like piano or model building. Tweek would be considered either a nerd or an incel. Just like that one time back in eighth grade where Kenny had successfully managed to drag Tweek to a party.

Craig’s POV- Eight Grade

“!!!Clyde look! There’s Tweek!!!”

Craig tried his best to keep his excitement under control. Seeing his crush at the party that Clyde had forced him in was truly a God send. He had to show up, Clyde had too much blackmail on him to refuse.

“Wait really? Where?”

“He’s with Kenny near the door, he’s holding a plate of brownies.”

Tweek was indeed holding a plat of brownies next to Kenny. Those were most likely tempered with, Craig recalled Kenny mentioning something about forcing Tweek to make some special brownies for the party. But that wasn’t what mattered. No, what mattered was the fact that Craig received the perfect excuse to interact with Tweek. In a party, talking to people you normally wouldn’t even grace with a look was perfectly normal. So Tweek logically wouldn’t get weirded out by this.

Tired of pining after Tweek with no results, Craig decided to break his number one rule while partying: never talk to anyone who was not popular. The reason why Craig enforced this rule onto himself was because anytime a popular kid dared talk to someone “below” them, something bad always happened. People unfortunately didn’t have lives, they were filled with jealousy and would tear apart anyone who got the chance to speak to the ‘school stars’. Yeah, that was pretty pathetic stuff, but what can you do about it? To spare himself the drama, he tried his best to only interact with his gang. But for Tweek? He was willing to put his boring, tranquil life at risk.

It seemed that his blond crush went to put down his tray in the kitchen. Seeing that Clyde left him behind to go see his own blond crush, Craig didn’t feel any guilt for ditching that spot and going to the kitchen. Soft drinks were getting knocked on the floor. Kids were sharing vapes between them, forming a claustrophobic human barrier to any spots that didn’t already reside furnitures there. There were so many people, and everything was so loud, including the lights. But it didn’t matter, Craig was on a mission, and nothing was going to stop him.

Until Butters showed up to stop him.

“Hiya Craig!”

Fuck me.

“What do you want Butters? I’m busy.”

“Well, I’m just here to tell you that Kelly wanna talk to you. She said it was really urgent!”

“Huh? Who’s Kelly? Also no way, I have stuff to do.”

“Nooo, she said that she wanna talk to you right now. Come with me!”

“God damn it Butters, no. I have better things worth my time right now.”

“Just come here Craig,” Butters said sweetly, taking Craig’s arm to drag him away from that precious kitchen.

“Butters let me go!”

“It will only take a second Craig.”

I hate Butters so much 

So now here he was. In the mercy of the coldness of the backyard, waiting for a supposed Kailly? Kyly? Whatever-y to talk. He should kick her ass for making him waste his time. He should kick Butter’s ass too while he’s at it. He has been much too confident recently.

After waiting forever, Craig was about to go back inside. Fuck whoever that girl was, she will have to text him tomorrow if it really was that important. He wanted to talk to Tweek, and he will. 

Craig was about to slide open the glass door leading back to the living room, when he heard a soft voice calling him.

“Hey Craig! Sorry for making you wait, my friend Marine wanted to talk with me about something. Are you okay?”

Of course K-female showed up at the worst moment, “Yeah. What did you want to talk about.” His monotone voice made his question sound like an affirmation.

“Oh well, I wanted to ask you if you wanted to, you know, hang out sometime?” She said, putting her brown hair behind her ear. “You seem really cool and I know we never really spoke before, but, I like you a lot!” She chuckled awkwardly, “It’s okay if you don’t want to though!”

Oh God. What kind of bullcrap was happening to him now, hadn't Butters said it was important? And all she wanted was to plan a hangout with him?? No. Craig didn’t want to spend his time with smelly, ugly people. Like the girls, for example. He would rather do that with handsome, funny, and amusing people. Like Tweek.

Speaking of Tweek, Craig was supposed to talk to him. Ignoring whatever-her-name-is, he tried to get back inside. But soft hands took him by the arm.

“Craig? Please, I am sure we could have a lot of fun together!”

Ugh why was she so insistent? Some people needed to get themselves some self respect!

“Listen, I don’t know you. And I don’t want to get to know you. We most likely have nothing in common.” Craig sighed. He wasn’t trying to be mean to her, but he preferred being direct so she wouldn’t delude herself.

“No no I am sure we have! Uhhh I like Basketball just like you!”

Craig doesn’t like basketball that much (well, he kinda did. But also not really). He only played it so his dad would get off his ass about having a ‘lazy son’ (because his dad saw judo as useless and as the pussy answer for people that wanted to brag about doing a combat sport without actually putting in the work. It was stupid of course, but his dad has never been the sharpest tool in the shed), and it was the most enjoyable team sport. So yeah, not a great start for her.

“Are you done?”

“No, come on I wanted to invite you to play a game with us! There’s ton of people.”

Shit. Since Craig was considered cool (yes he was cool, fuck Clyde for thinking otherwise), he knew that his presence will be expected in the game. If he didn’t participate, people will harasse him for hours tomorrow and blow his phone up with a trillion messages. Middle school really sucked, had he mentioned that?

He really wanted to talk to Tweek though…

“Who’s playing?” He asked in a disinterested manner.

“Well, there’s me obviously,” She blushed a little before continuing. “Also Kenny, and Clyde, uhhh…Tolkien? Maybe Stan, Kyle, Red, Wendy, I think a guy named Tweek? And…”

Craig completely blanked the rest out as soon as he heard the holy name. Tweek was playing!?!?!? Him too then!

“Stacy, Beb-“

“I am in.” 

“Oh! Is it because of…Bebe?” She sounded wary for some reason.

“Hell no, I hate Bebe.”

She looked…relieved(?) at his response. The shorter girl took his hand and dragged him to the living room. Probably where they will be playing then. They entered the mass of teens while holding hands. Craig was scanning the crowd everywhere for Tweek, and found him sitting between Kenny and Butters on the couch. Lucky assholes.

Craig noticed that a lot of people were staring at his left hand, making him realize that Kyllie was still holding it. He quickly dropped it before going as close to Tweek as possible. It happened to be on the seat in front of his. Getting the hint, Clyde came to sit next to him so his choice of seat would seem more natural, followed by Tolkien and that chick from earlier. God, what did she want? She needed to get some friends.

“Okay you guys! As we all agree, a party without party games isn’t a real party. So I asked everyone who’s fun to be around to play a game here!” Bebe, the host of the party spoke. “I propose that we play ‘Never I have ever’ first…You guys agree right?”

“Sunshine!” Said all the girls (and Stan?) giggling a little. Whatever, Craig didn’t know and he didn’t want to know. He assumed it meant yes.

What a shitty game. They all knew each other since forever, what would the point even be? He won’t complain out loud however because it gave him the perfect opportunity to learn additional stuff about Tweek. Therefore he was (mostly) in.

Huh, maybe everyone wanted to play for similar reasons as him. What a scary thought.

Everyone put ten fingers up in the air (since they were all a bunch of baby faced 13 year olds, no one managed to get access to alcohol. All they had was weed apparently). Bebe was the host, so she started with a question.

“Never I have ever obsessively stalked my ex online!”

A bunch of people Craig didn’t care for downed a finger. Pathetic. They just started teenage-hood and they were already getting into all that romance bullcrap, could never be Craig. Clyde downed a finger. Obviously, since he was pathetic. And Tweek didn’t. As expected since he was perfect. Next question.

“Never I have ever fantasized about my best friend’s partner.” Said Red with a cheeky grin. She liked drama way too much.

Tolkien downed a finger unfortunately, he was supposed to be more mature than this. But whatever it didn’t matter. Tweek kept his fingers up. Some people gasped at who downed their fingers but they all quickly moved on (probably for the best, Craig wished he didn’t have to see Kyle down a finger).

“Never I have ever regretted a kiss!” Said Stacy. She smiled bashfully before putting down a finger. Sucks to be Scott. Anyway, unfortunately, Craig had to down a finger there. He had a girlfriend back in fourth grade. She was two years older which was the ultimate flex, but it really sucked. He broke up with her after their first kiss, it felt like kissing a literal spoon. He wanted to take it back at the time but Clyde told him that it still counted as a kiss, no matter if it sucked.

Tweek still didn’t put down a finger. It either meant he never had his first kiss— surprising, seeing how amazing he was, but it would make Craig sooooo happy— or he just didn’t regret kissing whoever he kissed. Craig hoped it was the former, but he acknowledged to himself that it was pretty unlikely.

Later, he will wonder if he imagined the hesitation in Tweek’s fingers to stay up. At the time, he didn’t pay attention to it.

Craig tuned out after this.

He watched as Butters leaned close to whisper something in Tweek’s ear. It was probably something stupid, if Tweek’s ugly giggles said anything. The way it made him move around was entrancing, his cheeks raised up and his eyes closed making them look like little croissants, or the moon. Craig wished he could be the one to make him laugh like that. It would make him soooo happy.

“Never I have ever wished I could make out with someone in this very group.” It was the Kynny girl who said that. She put down a finger, blushing and looking at the floor. Everyone whooped loudly. Most people put down a finger, including Tweek and Craig. It was a mistake coming from him though, the avalanche of questions thrown at him made him regret existing.

“Oh my God do you like someone Tucker!?”

“Who? Who? WHO!? It’s Kelly right!?”

“-You guys would be super cute together!!!”

“Aw stop it you guys, you’re embarrassing me!”

“You’re such a lucky asshole Craig.”

“Well ladies, Maybe Craig should be left alone hehe! Stop crowing him.” Clyde (his bestest bestie) said.

“I am not responding to your stupid questions. This game sucks, let’s play something else.” Maybe rewatching red racer for the three hundredths time once he gets home will help him forget any undesired information he learned here.

“Awww, is Craig shy? Don’t worry, it’s okay if you want to kiss Kelly you know! She’s very cute.” Red said while snickering. He hated his cousin so much.

“Come on you guys, we should leave Craig alone. We’re making him uncomfortable,” Nicole, clearly the coolest girl here, interrupted. “Let’s play truth or dare! Never I have ever is starting to drag out.”

Once everyone gave their agreement, they started on the next game. At first, everything was going smoothly. Stan had to french kiss Kyle (Kenny was hilarious sometimes), Wendy had to make a fachist speech, Clyde had to admit that he still doesn’t put his toilet seat down after taking a piss, and Butters had to call himself a fag (?). The next in line was Craig, so he predictably asked Tweek something.

“Tweek,” Ah! I said his name! “Truth or dare?”

“Ngh- um…truth!”

YES!

“Have you ever considered kissing a guy?” Craig asked, making sure his voice was even and disinterested. He’s not sure if he was successful. Clyde gave Craig a sly look on the side. The other kids seemed surprised yet amused by his question. But what he was focused on was Tweek’s response.

Craig had obviously put Tweek on the spot. Because it was clear that he never asked himself this question before. Now, he looked a bit red. “Huhh…I don’t know man, what kind of shitty question is that!? No? But maybe? I never thought about it… I don’t think I would mind though.” He mumbled the last part quietly.

Craig had…mixed feelings about this response? On one hand, it confirmed that up until this point, Tweek’s love life only happened with girls. On the other hand, he just confirmed that he wouldn’t mind experimenting with a guy. So, hurray?

Whatever.

“Huh…Kelly!” Oh, so that was her name. “Truth or dare?”

“Dare!” She said confidently before trying to communicate telepathically to him. Or at least that had to be what she was doing, since the very intense staring in the blond’s eyes couldn’t be for fuck all nothing.

“Hum…I dare you to call mister Garrison and pretend that you’re the mistress of his husband!”

The whole group started laughing (including Craig) at the incredibly stupid gag. It was kind of evil, but they all hated Garrison so it should be fine. However, Kelly didn’t find this dare nearly as funny as the other kids. She looked at Red anxiously, blinking a lot, before turning back to Tweek.

“Are you stupid!? Everyone here knows what kind of dare they were supposed to give me and you give me something completely unrelated to my goal! Who invited this guy anyway!? He’s weird!” She looked like she was about to burst into tears. Her face was red. What was her problem? Nobody else reacted like this to the dare. She was so dramatic.

“What!? You can’t expect me to read your mind man! If you -ngh- want to kiss somebody how about you grow some balls and tell them directly! Instead of expecting other people to go along with your every whim! And it’s Kenny who invited me…no that I need to justify myself to you.” Tweek didn’t look that angry at her considering what she said, although he was twitching a lot. He was better than Craig. If that shit had happened to him, he would’ve outed her to her crush right here and then. Seriously, all of this for a kiss? He didn’t know who was her crush but he hoped that they would reject her. It would be well deserved.

“I’m not doing your stupid dare! Do you think you’re being funny? Because newsflash asshole, you’re not! Nobody likes you here! You’re weird!”

“Now now Kelly let’s relax for a second!” Bebe tried to calm down the situation, unsuccessfully.

“This is why we never talk to attention seekers like you. Screw you, you fucking freak!” Kaelli continued.

Instead of gracing everyone with a response, Tweek simply got up and left. Fuck! What was this girl’s problem???

“You’re a bitch.” Craig told her. “This party sucks, let’s leave Clyde.” Craig grabbed his best friend’s arm before leaving himself.

“Damn dude she didn’t need to say all that. I thought the dare was funny…” Clyde added shyly, like he was forbidden to find joy in Tweek’s prank.

“Whatever, popular kids are assholes.” 

The fact nobody tried to defend Tweek destroyed any kind of slim enjoyment Craig had for this party. This was why he never interacted with anyone outside his friend group. No one had the guts to speak out against that Kelly girl because she was considered hot. He hated middle school.

Clyde’s POV- present

What happened at that party was so crazy thinking back on it, considering Tweek was friend with roughly 70% of the people that were here. But it wasn’t enough to save his ass from the bashing clearly.

The only way to escape it would be to have the looks to overshadow it, like Craig! But Tweek was somewhat average looking. Not in a bad way necessarily. He could definitely be the handsomest guy to the people that have for type tired looking people that seemed like they could drop dead from fatigue at any second while simultaneously having a lot of energy… like Craig. But for everyone else that would be more of a downside than anything really. 

Some girls do find him somewhat cute despite that though! All the boxing made the surplus of fat on his body turn into squishy, soft looking muscles (Clyde wished that playing football would’ve given him the same build, or something similar at least. He’s still stuck with his disgraceful greasy body in the meantime).

But being 'not fully ugly' could not save you when you were a spaz who liked to collect bazookas and argue about gouvernemental conspiracy theories. So he wouldn’t fit in with the popular kids.

That actually lead Clyde to his next point.

Three: unlikely compatibility 

Tweek and Craig were similar people, but they shared too many faults to functionally work as a couple. They were both awkward, selfish, self centered, and they were kind of sissies. Perfect match right?

Wrong. They would want to kill each other if they spent one minute too many with one another. Clyde knew this because every time Tweek and Craig were put together on anything, they started fighting.

Craig liked simple and boring. Tweek was anything but that. As much as he believed that he wanted to be with Tweek, Clyde really wasn’t confident on how long Craig would last in the blond’s company. Tweek was messy, loud, impulsive, twitchy, and a bit rough around the edges. He would scare Stripe away, piss Thomas off, annoy Laura, and weird Tricia out. The red flags were waiving, like a pirate’s ship across the Mediterranean Sea.

Clyde actually had the perfect memory to illustrate the point he was making there. It happened in 7th grade.

Clyde’s POV- Seventh Grade

“Craig! What’s the answer to question 4? Craig? Respond asshole!”

“Go away Clyde. I won’t share my answers with you. You should’ve done your homework instead of reading porn.”

“Traitor you’re supposed to be my best friend! Just give me that one answer and I will leave you alone!” Clyde was whispering louder and louder.

“No! Why don’t you-“

“Just give him the answer so he can finally shut up, man.” Cut off Tweek on his right. The reason why Clyde was seated next to him was because of Craig. This morron figured that it was better to sit in front of Clyde instead of next to Tweek because that way, any time he would have to turn around to talk to Clyde, he would have the perfect excuse to look at Tweek. Whereas if Craig sat next to Tweek, his stares would be much more obvious and he would creep Tweek out. Clyde had to give it to him, it was kind of smart.

“The answer is 47.8” Craig mumbled right after, returning to his doodles. Clyde was willing to bet everything that his cheeks were red too, what a loser. Was he really going to let a random guy speak to him like that? Sure, it was his crush, but that didn’t give him a pass to talk to Craig like he was his bitch!

Clyde surprised himself by how strongly he felt about this. He desperately needed to express it. Not wanting to catch Tweek’s ire, he wrote it on a piece of paper, before throwing it on the desk in front of his.

He waited for Craig’s response while observing the caffeine addict. He was frowning at something under his desk. Upon closer inspection, it was his tablet… and a controller? Was he seriously playing Halo on the game cloud right now? Clyde had to admit, it was a genius move, he felt jealous he didn’t think of it first. Tweek was surprisingly good at fps games, so watching him was insightful. Clyde took some mental notes on what he was doing to get better himself later. 

The piece of paper returned to him.

Idk what you expect me to do ??? I can’t just argue with him right now. The teacher would have stopped us anyway and Lion would’ve stewed in his anger with me, and then it will turn into hatred, and then he will never want to be my boyfriend. The most logical thing to do was to just do what he said.

‘Lion’ was a code name they came up with for Tweek when Clyde almost spilled the beans one too many times to the whole school with his very enthusiastic retelling of juicy stories to their group of friends. It came from the shape of Tweek’s hair, since it lowkey looked like a lion’s mane most days. And he was born in August, therefore he was a Leo. It fitted him perfectly – It saved their asses many times, and it will hopefully save them more times. Especially considering the content of the notes between them right now.

Clyde was absolutely astounded by the amount of cope scripted by Craig’s loopy handwriting. What was Craig on about this time?

Dude, lion’s never gonna date you if you let him step all over you like that either you know. He will just think you’re a pussy. And also, even if what you said was right, do you really want to get him used to you being all quiet and agreeable? Cuz you aren’t like that usually so it might cause arguments later if you aren’t what he expects.

As he sent the paper back to Craig, Clyde felt very proud of his intellect on this one. He was usually seen as the stupid guy in his friend group, so seeing his brain conjuring up logical reasonings (more than Craig himself!!!) was a breath of fresh air.

Unfortunately, the teacher decided that it was their turn to get fucked today when she somehow caught the paper as it was flying. 

Literally how???

“Well well Donovan. I’m guessing that this conversation you’re having with someone else is more important than whatever I am teaching! Why don’t you share it with the class?”

Oh fist me. “Umm, haha no! It’s really not necessary ma’am haha! I can just go throw it away.”

“No Clyde you can read it first. I’m very curious! Why don’t you go read it near the board ?”

Witch.

As Clyde slowly got up to read those stupid notes, the class kept snickering under their breaths. Traitors. All of them. Thank God she didn’t know he was speaking to Craig. His best friend would have murdered him for sure.

“Um… so, the note start with ‘what are you doing loser. Why are you letting lion step all over you. Stand the fuck up,” Clyde was sweating as he read this. Thank GOD they made a code name for Tweek. This could’ve been so much worse.

Once he finished reading everything, most of the class was laughing, while the rest was trying to figure out who had the crush and who was the code name designating to. Luckily, they didn’t seem to reach the correct conclusion. Probably because Craig stayed stoic the whole time, so there wasn’t any suspicions towards him despite being Clyde’s best friend.

Yeah, because who would expect Craig fucking Tucker to write any of that shit. Of course he was safe. So the suspicion fell on Bebe (?? Okay?) and Kenny (huh?).  Anyway, once the bell rang, Clyde and Craig made a dash for the benches behind the school. Jimmy and Tolkien were waiting for them here.

“Ughhhhh I hate math class so much bruh, why did she made me read that?” Clyde complained loudly to his friends, out of breath.

“Whatever. At least nobody guessed it was me.” Craig replied, cool as always. Even after running around half the school.

“Of course they didn’t guess dude. That would be so out of character from you!”

“Ummm, do you mind filling us in?” Interrupted Tolkien.

“Y-y-yeah. W-what did you d-do this t-t-time C-Craig?” Added Jimmy.

“Guys it was crazy! Listen, I was asking Craig for an answer because I didn’t do my homework and everything, right? but then-“

“Clyde!”, a shriek rang out from behind them. They all turned around towards the voice and saw…Tweek running toward them?

“Oh, hey Tweek! How’s it going?” For all the stuff he said to Craig about Tweek, he actually liked that guy. He was pretty cool underneath all of the…well… anything and everything! Why would he want to talk to him right now though?

He probably wanted to steal his caramel filled, chocolate covered, coffee sparkled new edition donuts from the supermarket. Asshole. Clyde won’t let him!

Tweek panted for a moment before finally speaking, “Was it…phew…was I the one you were talking about in your letter?” 

Oh shit! They were busted! Quick, he needed to play it cool. 

“Hahahhah nooo wayyyy dudeeeee. What made you believe that?!” Clyde said with sweat rolling down his forehead. He could feel his friend’s stares on his back. They were watching him fuck up. Ugh, couldn’t they help him for once?

“Because ‘lion’ would be a good code name to refer to my hair. And you kept giving me looks every time you said it.” Tweek explained slowly, like Clyde was a dumbass. “So it was me right? If it was, then that would mean that Crai-”

Clyde was panicking, Craig was so going to quick his ass after this! Tweek was way too close to figuring everything out! He scrambled for an excuse in his smooth brain, but before he could say anything, Craig jumped in.

“Not everything revolves around you, you know. There’s ton of people that could be nicknamed ‘lion’. So go mind your own business.” Craig explained in what sounded like his usual tone. But to Clyde’s trained eyes, he could see little tells that he was extremely nervous right now. His hands were shaking slightly and his eyes looked at something behind Tweek. His voice was a little bit weaker than normal too. But nothing too noticeable. Clyde was glad to see that Craig took his advices seriously! Clyde didn’t want to be friends with a low grade bitch.

“Huh? I wasn’t talking you! Where do you -ngh- come from man!? You’ve got some nerves -ack- telling me that the world doesn’t revolve around me while butting in my conversations!” Tweek seemed pretty pissed, but he didn’t raise his voice that much. Which meant that so long Craig didn’t add oil to the fire, he might get out of this scot-free.

He didn’t say anything back. His eyebrows simply drew down in a sharp scowl of protest, before flipping the guy off. It was most likely instinctive. Unfortunately, Tweek didn’t see it that way.

“Fuck you!” He yelled before pushing Craig. And while Craig was guilty of letting Tweek walk all over him most times, he wasn’t actually a pussy. So if Tweek wanted a fight, he would receive one. 

Craig pushed Tweek back twice as hard. That was all it took to start a full blown fist fight.

Tweek threw the first punch, as he did every time he got into a fight. And Craig, ever reactive when getting jumped, socked him in his stomach.

What followed was a brutal one to one fight between real men. Clyde, Tolkien and Jimmy knew better than to try to intervene. Once the spaz and the spaceman got into their bullshit, it was safer to let it run it course naturally. You would be crazy to try to get between the two best fighters in the grade anyway. 

Watching them was fascinating. Tweek kept being on the offensive while Craig kept anticipating, it was like watching a dance. When Tweek kicked Craig’s right arm, Craig punched his left cheek. Tweek shook it off quickly before attacking again. They continuously predicted each other’s next move in a choreographed sequence, like it was rehearsed. Neither was willing to give up. But give up what? Their ego? Their masculinity maybe? Why were they fighting in the first place? Clyde couldn’t remember, and he suspected they couldn't either even if they tried.

Tweek busted Craig’s lip after a well placed punch, making animalistic sounds. Clyde stopped himself from stepping in to help his friend, he respected him too much for that.

“Fuck you, you son of a bitch!”

“Take this asshole!”

Craig’s fists connected to Tweek’s body satisfyingly. Though he never managed to make Tweek stumble, it will definitely bruise afterwards.

The boys had attracted a lot of attention whether they liked it or not. Most of the school population came to watch them fight, when they were too busy paying attention to each other. Kenny was taking bets with him, Cartman was (surprisingly) cheering loudly for Craig, and Kyle for Tweek – purely to contradict the fat boy, his sweet Bebe was filming the fight while Tolkien looked like he wanted to step in. It was hard to keep track of what everyone was doing, but one thing was sure, everyone was invested. 

In some ways, it looked like they were having fun. Why would they keep doing this if they weren’t? They had to get something out of this. Something worth the suspension they were sure to receive later. If they did, Clyde sure as hell didn’t know what it was.

Once the cheering of the kids around them came to a peak, Mr. Mackey showed up to separate them. Yelling his usual disapproving words. Not that anyone listened to this guy, even on the good days. 

Before getting dragged into his office, Tweek sent Craig a small look on the side. Clyde wasn’t sure how to interpret it, but he didn’t seem angry anymore. He didn’t get to see Craig’s reaction to it. Not that it mattered, he immediately got swamped by an angry mob asking for a refund on the betting ring he and Kenny made earlier.

He really needed to stop doing that. Tweek and Craig’s fights always ended in ties.

Clyde’s POV- Present 

Do you see what Clyde meant about them being incompatible? The slightest spark and they were in for a fight. What if they got married with children? The kids would have to listen to every violent arguments going inside the house, and watch their parents box each other. Wouldn’t that be cruel? There was no use thinking that far ahead anyway, they wouldn’t be able to last that long. One of them would definitely go to prison for killing the other during an argument. This was exactly why a couple should make sure to have compatible astrological signs. A Scorpio dating a Leo was a bad idea. And Clyde will stand by it (It didn’t matter how much his friends trolled him for this, he fully agreed with the girls on this subject, signs compatibility was important. Fuck you Craig!). Them dating was a stupid, unrealistic idea. But that was just Clyde’s opinion at the end of the day. The next point was much more concrete than the previous one.

Four: Complicated history

Living in a small mountain town had a few perks. One of them is that everybody knows everyone since the day they were born. So even if Craig was a useless buffoon around Tweek, he still technically shared a backstory with this kid. Let’s pretend that Craig having a crush wasn’t strange, that Tweek wasn’t a freak, and that they didn’t have conflicting personalities. Well, they would still be incompatible with each other. Why? Clyde will tell why…

Tweek and Craig used to bully one another.

You’ve heard this right! Way before Craig developed a crush on the spaz, he used to harass Tweek every day. What? Did you think that Tweek was being a jerk towards Craig during their middle school years for no reason? Of course no. Tweek was a lot of things, but he wasn’t mean out of nowhere (usually). They don’t actually know each other, they never had a real conversation together, but they did hate one another. From third grade to fifth actually! And it wasn’t your usual baby spats like Cartman and Kyle. No. They were actually messed up now that Clyde thought about it. He wasn’t a relationship guru, but even him could tell that a past like that couldn’t lead up to anything good. Ever since that first fight when they were eight, it was like everything went to shit. Clyde had a very vivid memory that summarized their whole history.

Clyde’s POV- Fifth Grade

“What are we doing here you guys!? Tweek hasn’t done anything to us!” Whispered Tolkien. He was often the most mature boy among his friend group. Surely he will grow up to be a successful man in the future.

“Shhhhhh Tolkien! Nobody can know we’re here!” Said Clyde. 

It was concurrently 9 pm. Tweak Bro’s closed around 10 every night. So they had plenty of time to do what Craig had planned as a revenge towards the spaz.

Revenge for what, one may ask?

Well, a week ago, Tweek happened to have stolen something from shop class. It was a screwdriver? Maybe? Whatever, Clyde couldn’t remember. But once he got too close to being caught, he slipped his stolen item in Craig’s bag. And using surprisingly strong actor skills (if Clyde didn’t know the truth he would have fell for it too), he managed to convince the teacher that Craig was the perpetrator. This little stun got Craig a week of detention. Then Craig took vengeance by tripping Tweek while he was carrying his lunchbox in the cafeteria. Tweek retaliated by telling everyone that Craig was into space porn lobotomy. Craig got retribution by sending Clyde to tell everyone that Tweek was so scared of everything that he liked to put a tin foil hat on his head every night and slept with a ton of plushies in his bed. Before wetting his bed anyway of course. This thing between them kept escalating with Tweek throwing Craig’s phone in the school’s toilet, Craig filling Tweek’s thermos with cat piss, and finally, Tweek hitting Craig whenever no one was looking.

Craig couldn’t take it anymore, and Clyde understood his feelings perfectly. They needed to show that spaz that messing with Craig had big consequences!

So here was the plan! Clyde and Craig meet up at Clyde’s house the night before to think of it, they came up with something not even the brightest geniuses from Harvard could’ve thought of.

First, they needed to get into Tweek’s room. Easy, all they had to do was to wait till the whole Tweak family was gone (for work, because that was all these people knew how to do), and get in their house for about an hour interrupted. Then, they would wreak shit up in his room, before putting false evidences of it being Tweek tweaking out again. They needed to damage anything that Tweek might like. They should probably trash the rest of the house as well, a good ass beating by his parents may be enough to finally make him relax.

They were in the backyard of the Tweak’s purple home. It was the same size as everyone else’s in town, except that there was a nice garden of flowers in the backyard and a trampoline behind the big tree in the middle of it. It hid them pretty well from any potential nosy neighbor. They knew that Tweek’s room was in the right upper side of the house, based on the faulty lock of the window. Clyde threw a rope attached to a plug and began to scale up the wall, to the amusement of his peers.

“He’s going to fall for sure.” Craig snickered.

“Don’t fall Clyde!” Tolkien whispered. Tweek never did anything to him (except being his bro), so he was very reluctant to follow his friends in their quest for revenge. However, he was a ride or die kind of guy. So if they wanted to get back to Craig’s bully, he will (mostly) support them through it. It wasn’t like they did things like this regularly anyway.

“Shut up you guys!…Phew… I am super strong. I can totally -Nhg- handle this.” Clyde chastised them. 

The pudgy boy finally reached the window. He used a screw driver to open it, and held onto the damp rope to pull up his friends in the room.

Upon entering and switching on the lights, the boys were shocked to see the state of the room. There were clothes scattered everywhere. More toys on the floor than in their boxes. Dozens of coffee cups on every shelves, trash, and an obliterated punching bag laid on the floor near the exit of the room.

There was no way they could fuck up this room more than it already was.

Two things caught Clyde’s eye. First, there was tons of expensive stuff in this room. Clearly the Tweak’s business was going strong, if the amount of possessions Tweek had said anything about it. A gaming pc was on a desk. A kind of broken but expensive laptop was on the king sized bed. A switch and a ps4 were next to the pc. There were so many intricate lego and non-lego models and pricey looking military themed toys in the room. It kind of reminded Clyde of Cartman’s room, if the fatass was actually well off financially. 

Secondly, there was a parrot in a golden cage in the back of the room. It kept squawking “son of a bitch” over and over again ever since they went inside the room. the bird looked expensive, and well taken care of.

Perfect!

There was about ten thousand dollars worth of stuff in Tweek’s room. All they had to do was to break anything that looked cool and they were set. As for the cockatiel, they could safely assume that Tweek held a lot of affection for it, if all the bird toys and food around the cage were indicative of his love. The boys could set it free into the night. Not only they would save an animal, but it would also piss Tweek off. Clyde could have patted himself on the back for his huge brain.

“Okay so, what are we supposed to do?” Tolkien asked nervously. “It’s so messy in here, there’s no point in following the plan anymore. So now what!?”

“We should smash everything up dude! Look at that pc!” Exclaimed Clyde.

“Son of a bitch!”

“But what if we get caught!? We will have to pay everything back…”

“Whatever Tolkien, you are super rich. Im sure you could help us out!”

“Ugh, shut up Clyde. What do you think Craig? You’re our main concern here.”

Both boys turned toward their apathetic friend. As the one who held the actual grunge towards Tweek, he should have the final say on this.

“…let’s break everything.”

And break everything they did. By the time they were done, the twitchy blond’s room looked less like a (disastrous) room and more like the ground zero of an atomic bomb. All digital screens were shattered, the few books destroyed, the lego models torn apart, and the food rotting in bowls got thrown onto the floor. The boys knew that if they ever got caught, they would be in deep shit. Not that it was a real problem. The risk of them being caught for being evil in a town like South Park was laughable, only Tolkien was truly at risk. But Clyde didn’t care about that part, he was sure his friend could buy his way out of trouble anyway. So, they scattered some of Tweek’s belongings around the house in the hope that his parents would believe that it was him. After all, what kind of thief would trash a house without taking anything? It was far more likely that their son, during his usual meltdowns, decided to destroy everything for no reason in particular. Now, all they had left to do was to get rid of that bird. For all they knew that thing would snitch on them.

“Son of a bitch! Son of a bitch!”

“I don’t know about you guys, but the bird is really pissing me off.” Clyde didn’t think he ever felt this insulted in his life before. He didn’t think a bird would be the one to do it either.

“Yeah, let’s just release it outside,” It was obvious that Tolkien was done with this whole thing. “It sounds horrible too.”

“Yup.” Confirmed Craig.

And with that, they all placed their hands under the cage to lift it up. It was much heavier than they expected, their grunts could probably be heard by the whole neighborhood. Was it because of the materials used to make that cage that it weighed three tons? That was stupid. Before long, they reached the stairs. And Clyde didn’t know why, maybe the combination of a heavy cage, tired kids, and an annoying flapping bird didn’t help the situation. But they somehow let go of the cage…while going down the stairs.

It made an awful sound. The cage rolling and tossing for what seemed like forever. The crashing of the bars of the cage on the stairs were almost enough to shatter their ear drums. Once it finally stopped, the boys didn’t hear any noises from the bird anymore.

The silence was pretty awkward.

“Is it okay?” Clyde cried out.

“The fuck you mean is it okay!? Dude! We probably killed it!!!” Exclaimed Tolkien.

“No way. Go check it out!”

“Why me!? You do it!”

“Both of you shut up!” Craig sounded tense. Killing Tweek’s bird wasn’t part of the plan. At all. Sure, Tweek could go fuck himself, and his bird might have come from the deepest pit of hell, but that didn’t mean it deserved to die. Or that Tweek deserved to have his pet killed!

Craig slowly went down the stairs. Each steps from him made them make a creaky sound. There was an eerie feeling in the house, it was dark and quiet. The lack of clutter around didn’t help. It almost felt like some kind of trap.

Once he reached the cage, he put it back upward, and assessed the damages.

Clyde and Tolkien held their breath. They really hoped that the bird was okay, and was just pranking them somehow. After all, if it was smart enough to imitate human voices, maybe it was also smart enough to play dead? But then Craig made a swipe of his hand near his throat. The universal sign of “dead”.

Holy shit, what have they done.

How would they even move on from this? The clock on the wall showed that they had only ten minutes left to flee the house before the Tweaks came back home. And logically speaking, there was no way for them to frame this as a simple break in anymore. Only someone who had something personal against Tweek would go through such lengths to hurt him. Never mind trying to make it seem like it was Tweek’s own doing. In other words, they were screwed. Tweek might be a spaz, but he wasn’t stupid. Odds were that his suspicions would fall on Stan’s gang, or theirs. And once he would figure out who did this, he will be out for blood.

At least they didn’t have to worry about any kind of legal repercussions. This was South Park after all.

Clearly Clyde’s friends came to the same conclusion as he did, If the way they all rushed towards the exit said anything. This was so messed up. Probably the most messed up stuff they’ve ever done (at least for Clyde’s group). All of the times they bullied each other at school will never ever top this. They shall never speak about this ever again.

For some reason, Clyde felt a pang of sympathy for Tweek.

Clyde’s POV- Present 

Luckily for them, Tweek never found out who were the masterminds behind the death of his bird. He simply assumed that he had a stalker after him for a good week. Clyde was very grateful for the blond’s paranoid nature, and the fact that he wasn’t exactly the brightest in general (not that he could talk). Still, Tweek seemed pretty depressed for a month after this, and it actually said a lot. For all his anxiety and paranoia, the guy never really showed other emotions. Happiness and sadness were only seen when he was overfilled with them. So the fact that he was so obviously sad made Clyde feel much guiltier about what happened than if the blond just kept it to simply being paranoid. Craig had offendedly mentioned a few years after that if they ever became boyfriends, he would make up for what happened that night. But in Clyde’s opinion, this shouldn’t have happened at all. Something like that ruins any chance for a future relationship. It just wouldn’t be a healthy one.

Not that Craig cared. Clearly.

So, you might be wondering; How did this happen? Why? When? What will he do about it? And perhaps more importantly, why did Clyde care ???

Well you see, everything began near the end of fifth grade. They were small, innocent children back then… yup. innocent. Anyway. 

Clyde’s POV- Fifth Grade 

Clyde was in the school cafeteria, surrounded by his best friends, eating the best food ever; Tacos. Everything was good and dandy! It was a Friday, no homework for the weekend, Craig and him were planning on watching that new spider man movie Sunday. Yep. Life was good guys and gals.

The four dumbasses weren’t trying to start anything, nobody in his friend group had detention, and they had a weekend full of video game nights ahead of them. Clyde Donovan was very happy. And nothing could change that.

That was until Tweek Tweak came in and started screaming about his need to slice up their English teacher, mister Garrison.

“What is he on seriously?” Cartman complained out loud while Tweek continued his insane rant in the background. Clyde hated agreeing with the fat tub of lard, but yeah, what was wrong with Tweek this time? He couldn’t focus on enjoying his third Taco now!

“Hold up, repeat that last part Tweek?” Stan asked the distressed boy. Really, Stan should know better than to encourage Tweek when he was like this. The spaz really needed to slow down on his ‘cough medicine’ intake.

“I said that this asshole Garrison just told me earlier in the hallway that he forgot to give us homework, and that we have three different projects to do this weekend due for Monday worth 35% of our grade!”

“What!?”

“He can’t just do that!”

Outrage sparked amongst the children who heard that part of Tweek’s rant. Clyde one of the loudest among them. Ughhhh, this weekend was supposed to be perfect! He knew that his empty schedule was too good to be true…he felt it in his balls!

“Well he did! So now we are all fucked!”

“This has to be a misunderstanding! He can’t expect us to produce three projects in two days can’t he?” Wendy, arguably the smartest person in the whole school said. “Don’t worry you guys, I will go speak to him.” She reassured them, what a queen. She may not be as beautiful as Bebe, but she was just as impressive.

She stood up and walked in direction of the teacher’s lounge. All the kids watched her go in anticipation, their free weekend was entirely dependent on this.

“Oh boy, if my parents learned that I failed English because of a project I will get a spanking alright.” Even though no one had parents as hardcore as Butter’s, they still shared the sentiment perfectly.

The mood in the cafeteria was completely ruined. Tweek, having calmed down from his tirade, went to sit next to Kenny, which made him be right in front of Craig. Clyde could see his best bro throwing harsh glances at the spaz. Not that he got it, it has been awhile since they’ve had any serious arguments. Craig should probably stop trying to revive the fire of rivalry between them. Especially after what happened that night with the whole bird thing. Tweek got a new one since then but still, they should probably lay low.

Wendy came back with a distraught look on her poor face. It didn’t take a genius iq to guess that she wasn’t a bringer of good news. Matter of fact, she looked like the situation was even worse than what was explained by Tweek. She was carrying a stack of paper that she definitely didn’t have when she left. Clyde may be dumb, but he didn’t have dementia yet.

“Well…I am so sorry. Just know that I’ve tried everything in my power to prevent this.”

“It’s okay Wendy, we understand.” Tolkien reassured her with a soft smile, gaining a glare from Nicole and Stan simultaneously.

Wendy gave back a sad, sympathetic look before continuing, “Yes, we indeed do have three projects to do this weekend.”

“Awwww”

“He said he will send us the instructions on the school’s site. But one of them is also a team project… and he gave me the list of the pairings. Because he made them beforehand…of course.”

“Awwwwwwwwwwwww”

She passed the sheets around. Clyde prayed to every Gods under the sun that he was paired with one of his bros. He already sucked at working under pressure, but with the wrong people he was even worse somehow.

Once the sheets reached him, he quickly scanned it for his name. And as expected, he got paired with the worst person ever. Eric Cartman. Just strike him down at this point. He may as well accept his F on this project and copy off Tolkien for the others to make sure he would at least get a C. Before passing the sheets to the next person however, his eyes fell on his best friend’s name. Craig got paired with Tweek, because why would anything else happen?

To make matters worse, unlike Clyde, Craig did somewhat care about his education. It was, as he put it, his “ticket to quit being lower middle class”. So even if he despised Tweek with a burning passion, Clyde knew that Craig would force himself to work with him anyway. Luckily for him, he may be apathetic enough to survive this. Probably. Will Tweek even be cooperative? Clyde will have to check up on Craig during these next days.

It was 8 p.m. Sunday. Clyde completed the first two projects, completely ignoring the team one and accepting his crushing future grade. He will be lucky to pass English truly. It was so complex for no good reason. The fact that there was multiple good answers and that you were supposed to find all of them to get a decent grade threw him off. He much preferred P.E. P.E didn’t require him to read books during his free time. Therefore it was better.

He suddenly felt his phone ring with Craig’s contact shown. How odd, Craig never contacted anybody first. You were better off going directly to his house than actually expect any kind of communication through a digital screen with him. The last time he did this was to tell him about Stripe the third’s death. Now feeling worried for his best friend, Clyde threw himself on his bed to respond.

“Dude, I think I am fucked.” Craig said as soon as the call started.

“Huh? Are you okay bro?”

“No. Remember that stupid group project Garrison gave us?”

“Yeah I remember. It was bullshit, no teacher in their right mind should do this to their students!”

“Ya whatever, we all know that Garrison sucks. Anyway so, I got partnered with Tweek. So today we went to the library to complete our project because there was no way he was going into my room right? So we were working and stuff, but then I guess he was annoyed with the way I was working? Because he kept staring at me the whole time and mumbling and stuff.”

“How does this mean that he was annoyed?”

“Because. When I say that he was staring I mean like, staring. Usually I wouldn’t care. But it was pretty crazy.”

“Oh. Then I guess he still isn’t over your guys beef from before.”

“Hmmm, I don’t think that’s it.”

“Huh? What do you mean.”

“I think he has the hots for me.”

“What!?”

“Yup. He totally likes me.”

“Did you smoke glue earlier?” Clyde chuckled, “Tweek isn’t fucking gay.”

“Yeah well you might want to get that double checked, because there was no other explanation for what happened today.”

“Craig, do you realize how crazy you sound…?”

“And I think you always sound stupid but you don’t hear me complaining now, do you?”

“You’re complaining right now! Also I don’t sound stupid. You sound stupid!” Clyde very intelligently retorted. “But you might need to give me more details because I am like, totally confused.”

“Of course you are. Fine. So long story short…”

Craig’s POV- Fifth Grade

Craig was walking towards the dingy and semi abandoned library of South Park. He had a group project to do with his mortal enemy, and that waste of space spaz won’t be able to drag him down to his D average hell. Craig might not be the brightest, or the model student that the best schools wanted to recruit, but he still wanted a white collar job in the future (even if he was seen as stupid and dumb next to his coworkers). And to achieve this, he needed at least a C in this project. There was no way he was going to Tweek’s house or inviting him to his house, so to the library they went.

As he entered the creepy place, he went to the furthest corner he could find and placed his books and computer on the table. He would rather not be seen hanging out with Tweek by other people. Even if the amount of classmates that came to the library was amount to zero.

He decided to start on the project early. Garrison asked them to do a presentation on the book of their choice (only those seen in class of course). They had to explain its themes, the message, a summary and the likes. Honestly it sounded super easy, he could have done it himself, if not for the fact that Garrison always asked overcomplicated questions to make sure that everyone had participated in the project. So he needed Tweek’s presence in order to tell him what they were going to do, so he won’t screw up their grade.

The slamming of a bag on his desk dragged Craig back down to earth. The man of the hour finally came – only twenty minutes late. Better than what he expected. Upon arriving, he sat down next to Craig after huffing out a deep sigh. He clearly wanted to be there just as much as Craig did. Good to know honestly. 

“Okay, so which book are we working on?”

“I was thinking that we could do it on Manon Lescaut.”

“That’s super lame man! Garrison won’t shut up about it.”

“Which is exactly why we should do it on this book.”

“But it’s a romance book, it sucks and I haven’t even read it anyway.”

“What do you mean you haven’t read it, we’ve been reading it for over a month already?”

“Annnd? Don’t tell me you -ngh- actually read the books they assigns us to read in class?”

“Uh yeah?”

“Pfff, I knew you were a nerd.”

“Excuse me!?”

“You’re excused.”

“Fuck you!” Craig flipped him off, “This is why everyone think you’re a waste of space.”

“You fuck you! You think you’re so smart just because you suck up on the teachers all day, well guess what asshole, they still see you as a no good, no future, no brain trouble maker! And you don’t know the first thing about m-me.”

“I know enough to hate your guts!” They were lucky that the library was deserted. Anywhere else and they would’ve been thrown out by now. It was in small moments like these that Craig was thankful that he lived in South Park (it didn’t happen often, so he had to find joy where he could).

“Oh really!? Because I can give you a real reason to hate my guts!” Tweek shrieked, looking more than ready to make Craig’s face well acquainted with his fist. 

“You don’t need to asshole! I know you are a pathetic pussy who cries and hide at the slightest amount of 'pressure'. That’s more than enough to hate you.”

All the fight seemed to leave Tweek’s body after hearing that. He mostly looked confused at Craig’s explanation, as if his opinion surprised him. What, did Tweek thought he hated him for something else? Now it was Craig’s turn to be confused.

The spaz, honoring his name, quickly moved on from their scalding confrontation and went to focus on their work as if nothing had happened. Craig felt slightly embarrassed that even this idiot had a better sense of priorities than him, if he managed to be the bigger person in order to work. Or maybe the dumbass’ brain was way too smooth for him to stick to one battle at a time. It wouldn’t surprise Craig honestly.

“Whatever man. Let’s just get this shit done so I can go home.” Mr.Superlame murmured.

“Ok.”

They started analyzing the book. 

Mr. Garrison’s husband happened to have French origins. So their teacher suddenly developed a love for everything and anything that had to do with France. Hence why they had to work on this stupid book. It was a dumb love story à la Romeo and Juliet with an impossible love and fate separating the two leads. In Craig’s opinion, it was the least horrible choice (actually Les Misérables was significantly better. But it was much too long for this project) among all the other old French books their teachers had given as options. So he couldn’t complain as much as he would like. His partner didn’t quite get the memo however.

“This is fucking ridiculous. I hate reading all of those stupid stories where the two characters could easily be together, but then they create stupid, unnecessary threats to make the story more interesting! Who cares if your parents don’t agree!? It’s not a big deal just elope man! You’re isolating yourself from society over nothing! And also, true love my ass! All he cares about is her looks. They don’t know anything about each other and we’re supposed to believe that this is true love. I hate it! This is why romance fucking sucks!-” 

Tweek continued his little rant for a bit longer. Craig was confused as to why the blond decided to vent to him. It’s not like they were friends. But then again, the guy probably didn’t have many people to talk to. So it wasn’t surprising that he would take the first chance he got to express his opinions to someone, even if it was his worst enemy. Craig had to admit though, Tweek had a point.

“–and it’s so stupid I just-“

“Yeah, I always wondered why it’s called tragic romances when the tragedy can easily be avoided.”

The blond cut off his rant and stared, wide eyed at Craig. Craig felt a bit silly for giving his opinion to his rival, but he was interested in this conversation. Sue him! He tried his best to ignore the growing heat on his cheeks. Tweek threw a suspicious glance at him, yet continued as if it was completely normal for them to discuss civilly.

“Yeah man. I mean, if she’s worth that much to him, he doesn’t need to become a criminal to keep her. Just force your dad to accept her or get a job. Nobody’s -ack- no one is going to kill you for liking her.”

Craig blinked, “..It’s pretty obvious the writer just want to create false problems to try to make their story seem deep, but most of the issues could easily be fixed if the characters used their brains.”

Tweek simply nodded at that. But surprisingly, Craig didn’t want their conversation to die, so he added more to it.

“Did you notice that all the characters in those type of books care about is either riches or their love interest’s look? It’s pretty weird.”

“Yeah I did. I can never feel bad for them because -ngh-, why would you throw your life away for a glorified prostitute?”

The adjective caught Craig off guard, making him laugh before he could stop himself. Tweek’s mouth twitched.

“No seriously man, this is ridiculous. I do not care how hot you are, I will not give up on my empire for you. Jesus, you’re crazy!”

“You’re right you know. If anything those 'romance' books should be about trust and loyalty. Looks should only be a plus. Because what about when they become old, bald and wrinkly? Do they just get a divorce? What’s the point.”

Tweek nodded, “The writer always do some kind of loophole by either making them die young, look young forever, or make up some bullshit love spell were they see each other as beautiful forever.”

“Haha yeah it’s always like 'oh! You are covered in wrinkles but all I see is your beautiful face from 3000 years ago'. Because that makes sense.” Craig modified his voice to make his quote…funnier maybe? He wasn’t sure if his joke would land because no matter what, his tone was always somewhat bland according to others. But Tweek smiled slightly in response so he mustn’t have done that bad. He usually had to make ridiculous faces and movements to get his point across.

“I just don’t get it man. Just make your characters accept that they’re now ugly and dusty, but they still love each other because of their history and personality. It’s not that hard. But like I said, Romance sucks. Mr Garrison also sucks.”

“Mr Garrison has always been stupid. It hasn’t changed before and it won’t change now.”

Tweek let out a small amused huff, making Craig’s chest do a tiny somersault. Wow. That lasagna from last night must be wreaking havoc in his stomach right now.

After talking for a little while, Craig couldn’t help but feel like Tweek was smarter than he had first assumed. The blond seemed to ask himself questions like that pretty often, it’s just that he had nobody to air them out to. It was kind of a waste in Craig’s opinion. Tweek’s thoughts were interesting and fun to partake in. Craig loved his friends and family (even though he sometimes pretended otherwise), but he never really had any 'deep' conversations with anyone. It didn’t bother him too much considering he preferred to keep his thoughts in his head. But this was a nice change of pace.

“I didn’t think you cared that much about romance.”

“I don’t really…I have pretty strong opinions on most things. Whether I care for them or not doesn’t really affect it. My parents say it’s because I am a spaz.” He whispered that last part angrily, giving Craig a side look.

Craig felt a bit guilty at that. He did give Tweek a lot of shit for his non-nonchalant behavior. 

“I think it’s pretty interesting. Most people minds are kind of like thoughtless drones who go on with their day like they’re stuck in a time loop. They never really question the world around them. Sooo it makes you kinda cool I guess.”

Tweek vibrated. He brought his thermos to his mouth, “That’s not what you said earlier -ngh-“ 

Craig didn’t respond. He sent instead a middle finger his way. Tweek gave him a glare in return, ruined by the small amused glint in his eyes.

“Do you think love is scary?” Tweek suddenly asked.

“What?”

“I think love is scary. Do you think so?”

“Not really.” 

Tweek didn’t say anything after. Craig was curious though. How could love be scary? If the stories were to believed, it was more appealing than anything. It felt bizarrely hard to ask when he did.

“Why do you think that?” 

Tweek didn’t respond immediately. Which made Craig think that he just got ignored. It stung a bit for some reason. That’s what he got for trying to… trying to do what exactly? He hated Tweek. A silly conversation wasn’t going to change that.

“Can I trust you?”

It was in insight a weird question. Why would Tweek even bother to ask Craig that? For all intents and purposes, they were still worst enemies. Of course he couldn’t be trusted. But in this moment, looking in Tweek’s eyes, it felt like he could see him. Truly see him. As in, his soul. Craig didn’t question anything in this moment, he simply nodded. He knew that no matter what, he would keep what Tweek was going to tell him to himself. Even if he had gossiping tendencies.

Their stare-down lasted an uncomfortable amount of time, but Tweek seemed to have found what he was looking for in his eyes. His shakes stopped, and leaned back against his chair.

“Growing up, I never really understood why everyone was so eager to get into romance.” He says before glancing at the book.

“It just feels like a lot you know? First, you will be fully responsible of what happens to them. If they are sad, angry, disappointed or anything, it will be your responsibility to fix it. I will have to give up my free time to them. But I don’t have a lot of that already! I’m always busy, so I will just end up neglecting them, it will break their heart and it will be all my fault. If something happens to them and I won’t be able to stop it then it will also hurt me.” He looked at Craig before continuing.

“You know, recently I’ve lost my cockatiel. It was my pet bird. I had it since I was five. And I have no idea what happened to him exactly. I just came home after work and found him dead on my floor,” his voice broke, “and I just feel so bad because he was under my responsibility. And now it just feels like I let the pet I love die and I can’t even do anything about it! I can’t get revenge for him or anything!

“And I just wonder how much worst it could get in an actual relationship. What if something happened to them? What will I do? It has to hurt right? I don’t want to go through that. I will have to open up, let them in, be vulnerable and give them access to my heart, knowing that at any moment they will be able to break it. It feels scary... 

“Maybe I will grow out of it. Maybe I won’t. But either way, I just don’t see myself in a relationship.”

Craig felt warmth spread through his stomach, sympathy rushing to his head. The blond looked away as soon as he was done with his monologue, but Craig could still see his red ears. It made for a sad image and given the context, he wanted to offer him an olive branch.

“You know…having a pet isn’t exactly the same as having a lover. A pet is more similar to a kid. They are fully dependent on you, so every bad things that happens to them will indeed be your fault…

“But a lover is someone who will stand on equal ground with you. Your responsibilities won’t be over them, but for them. You will be able to support each other. A relationship is a strength, not a weakness. You will fill each other’s blind spots in a way. If something bad happens to them it will also be their fault. Not just yours. And you won’t be the only one being vulnerable, the other person will also be. You will be taking care of each other’s heart. Any negative aspects of a relationship will be worth it if you love them. It doesn’t sound terrible…” Craig averted his gaze. 

“All you have to do is to find someone worth it. Someone you know you can trust and will push you to become the best version of yourself for them and – Hum. So huh, yeah. It’s pretty cool in my opinion.”

Sharing all of that cheesy stuff felt ridiculous, but he didn’t want Tweek to be alone in all of this. The blond was looking at him like he never saw him before. He wasn’t sure what to think of it.

“That sounds… nice. Corny. but it sounds nice…”

Entering the library, Craig didn’t expect to have a heart-to-heart with Tweek of all people. What they shared with each other sat between them, some sort of tension, knowing that the only thing that would keep the peace is pure thrust in the other. It was made especially uncomfortable by the fact that Craig had caused Tweek so much suffering these last few months. The boy had felt some sort of lingering guilt, but it was never big enough for him to seek forgiveness, it was like stepping on an ant. But now, he felt like he knew Tweek on a more intimate level. He wasn’t just a prop to fill up space anymore. He was somebody, somebody with feelings, and thoughts. And that somebody lost something precious because of him, over a petty rivalry. How would Craig feel if someone had killed Stripe over an argument? The closest he got to this was with his father, who he suspected poisoned Stripe the third. He didn’t have any proof, but it was enough to cause a strain in their relationship. Not that he had a relationship with Tweek, but he could feel the potential in them becoming friends one day. So the pressure of what he did weighed on him a lot more now, he needed to come clean about it. 

All he could see now every time he blinked was Mocha’s cage tumbling down the stairs.

“Sooo. Huh, I have to tell you something really really important. But I need you to promise me that you won’t hit me first.”

“What?”

“Yup, it’s- it’s pretty bad, and I totally get it if you won’t ever forgive me. But I don’t want to get into a fight with you today.”

“-ngh- What is it man you’re making me anxious!”

“Promise.”

“But-“

“Promise.”

“Okay fine, I promise I won’t hit you. Now talk!”

“So. Before, like, a few months ago, I used to really really hate you and I kind of wished the worst upon you on general you know? So we did all of those little pranks back and forth, back and forth in order to get back at each other so one day-“

“You’re rambling dude just say it.”

“Right. Sorry. So hum. I guess me and my friends we just…”

“…?”

“I am so so so sorry about your bird Tweek! I promise we didn’t mean to kill it—it was an accident I swear! We just wanted to trash your room a little and free your parrot out of its cage to piss you off, but it was too heavy so then we let it go on accident and it was dead and then it made me think about that time Stripe got murdered so I feel so guilty but I don’t know what to do and now you’re saying how much it made you feel bad and I feel like a monster and-“

“Okay okay dude! Let’s just stop for a bit.” Tweek put a hand on his back, making him flinch. But seeing as it wasn’t bringing any harm he focused on regaining control of himself.

They breathed softly together. Slowly calming down. Now that his head was clear Craig felt embarrassed at his outburst. But a much bigger part of him was worried about Tweek’s reaction to this. He wouldn’t be surprised if Tweek decided to hit him anyway despite his promise. But he hoped it wouldn’t come to that.

“…so you killed my bird?”

“Yes.”

“As an accident?”

“Yes.”

Silence.

They sat there for a moment.

Tweek took a deep breath before speaking. “Okay. Now I won’t sit there and pretend that everything is fine and dandy with what you did and that I don’t want to hit you. However, I promised that I won’t, so that’s what I am going to do... Ok. Well…Thank you for coming clean about it. I know it takes a lot of guts to say something like this and I respect it. You also obviously feel guilty about it and I know we never really had the best relationship ever in the first place. But.” 

This is the part where things get crazy for me.

“I don’t fully forgive you either-“

“You’re forgiving me!?”

“Fucking wait I’m not done!”

“Okay sorry.”

Awkward silence.

“As I was saying, I don’t fully forgive you for what you did because mocha really meant something to me man. He’s the only being I really liked so you being the cause of his death really makes me mad at you… Under other circumstances, I would be trying to make you pay. But you took responsibility and came clean about it. I am not sure if I will ever forgive you. But you are welcomed to try and make me change my mind.” Tweek paused before continuing with a flatter tone. “But if you ever, ever do something like that again. I swear to you that no one will ever be able to find all of your missing body parts.” He seemed purely serious in his statement. The flat look in his eyes indicated Craig that those weren’t empty threats. But stupidly, Craig felt so relieved at that. He didn’t expect to be forgiven so easily! Tweek must have a really good heart, admirable, considering what Craig did. He couldn’t help the gratefulness spreading through his body.

“I will try my best to make it up to you one day, I promise.” Craig’s words hung in the air between them. 

Tweek just grunted “Sure sure.” But the fire in his eyes disappeared. He simply looked…worn out. However, the weight on his shoulders seemed to have eased just a bit.

And they left it at that.

Once they finally begun truly working, Craig could feel Tweek’s heavy stare on him. At first he didn’t question it. After all, he recently found out that he was the murderer of his pet. Albeit accidental, it was pretty bad still. A moment later, the staring was really getting to Craig. It made the grumbling in his stomach bad again, it was starting to piss him off.

“What?”

“What what?”

“Dude, why are you staring at me?”

“Ah! Sorry it’s just -ngh- I just realized you weren’t that bad so it took me by surprise.”

“Oh. Well you’re not that bad either. It would be awesome if you could stop with the staring though. I can’t focus.”

“Sorry.”

Tweek finally started putting real effort into the homework. It was long, grueling and boring, at least it was mostly done now. They just needed to tweak a few things and fix the grammar of the powerpoint for the teacher before training with speaking. As Craig tried to grab his eraser, Tweek reached for it at the same time.

“Sorry!”

“No it’s fine take it.”

“No dude it’s yours go on.”

“Okay.”

Craig felt so awkward, his cheeks were burning. He wondered if Tweek was red too. Probably? it was a pretty embarrassing interaction. However, the way his heart was pounding was definitely not normal. He couldn’t help but notice that Tweek’s hand felt very nice to touch. 

Well that’s a weird thought.

He needed to sleep more at night. Clearly eight hours of sleep wasn’t enough if this was what his brain conjured up after grazing someone else’s hand. He took a subtle glimpse at Tweek to see if he was also feeling weird, but the other boy didn’t seem to react to this situation at all. It was as if nothing had happened and it was all in Craig’s head. Craig was officially confused, what was wrong with him today?

They finished their work quickly together. Putting back their supplies in their own bags, Tweek gave Craig a small smile before getting ready to leave. 

“Bye Craig.”

“…bye Tweek…”

Craig felt like his legs were about to give under his own weight. His hands were shaking. He quickly took a step back to better ground himself. Until gravity decided to turn against him, making him trip on the chair’s leg. But before he could hit the ground and die from a cracked skull, something caught him.

“Oh Jesus man be careful! You could have hurt yourself really badly here! What if-“

Craig couldn’t hear the rest of what he was saying. Oh God, he was about to die! His heart was trying to escape his ribcage, it hurt. He could feel Tweek everywhere. His chest against his. His hands holding him. His face was so close to his. Seeing him from up close was very eye opening. He had so many freckles on his nose, he wanted to trace constellations on them. His eyes were full of worry for him. The deep brown—no, reddish, muddy-wine was a shade he never saw anyone else have before. He had a tiny scar on his jaw. And his lips were super symmetrical, he wanted to get closer and-

He was certain he never blushed this much in his life. He probably looked like a tomato. 

“Sorry -I will just-“ oh God his voice cracked for sure. “Let me-“

“Oh yeah, my bad!” Tweek finally let him go. His cheeks were slightly red but he was still trying to catch Craig’s eyes. “Sorry I was rambling. I guess it’s time for me to go home now.”

“Yeah…bye.”

“Bye… don’t trip this time!” He added with a hidden laugh. The asshole.

Craig gave him his signature middle finger before finally leaving. He didn’t want to stay any longer here to look like a fumbling loser in front of Tweek.

In his hurry, he missed Tweek’s fond look. 

While hurrying home, hand on his chest, the entirety of their conversation kept replaying in his head. But one particular sentence stood out to him.

“Now, all there’s left to do is to find someone worth it.”

Maybe Tweek was someone worth it.

Craig’s POV- end

“-Yeah and he kept giving me little looks and everything, so then I thought, he is totally into me right? I mean-“

“Wait hold on, how does this mean that he’s into you at all?” Clyde asked.

“Because Clyde, don’t you see? Why would he stare at someone that he doesn’t like!”

“You wanna know what I think?”

“No but go ahead.”

“I think you’re the one who has the hots for him.”

“What!? No I don’t!”

“Yeah dude and now you’re just projecting because you’re hoping he likes you back! That’s pretty pathetic stuff Craig.”

“I don’t like him.”

“Yeah okay, you don’t like him. Sure Craig! Just so you know, once you decide to get your head out of your ass, I will be willing to help you! I will be like, the best wingman ever! You will see, I will be the unrelenting support in all your bad decisions bro!”

“What? Ugh, whatever Clyde.”

They continued their conversation about other things. But Clyde couldn’t help but be proud that Craig just got his first crush ever. The idiot was obviously in denial about it, or maybe he simply wasn’t ready to admit it to anybody. But Clyde was still super proud of him. He really hoped Craig would have a better love life than him, Clyde was so sick of being treated like shit by every girl he liked. It was probably because he was unattractive, stupid and a crybaby. Craig didn’t have those flaws however, so he should have a fulfilling love life. And as his best friend who adored him very much, he will help him in whatever relationship he desired to pursue! 

He just wished it wasn’t Tweek that was getting chased through…

Clyde’s POV- Present 

Despite all of their differences, Clyde was still perfectly willing to help his best friend bag his future husband. And help he did need. Because it has now been six years and he still hasn’t made any progress ever since that day in the library. It was pretty sad. So, Clyde decided to make a plan!

Clyde was a genius, and anybody who disagreed could go fuck themselves. The plan was very simple and boring, just like the way his best friend preferred it. All Craig needed to do will be to go up to the guy, strike a conversation, slip in a few compliments here and there to hint his intentions and finally, ask for his number. Blunt and straight to the point. If the object of his affection said no, he will be able to move on. And if he said yes, he just got himself a boyfriend. Yes, Clyde was indeed way too smart for this world.

Craig surprisingly disagreed with operation “Talk To The Guy Like a Normal Human Being”. Not failing to add that Clyde was “an absolute idiotic buffoon that will die in his twenties after trying to hit on the daughter of the leader of a gang in a disrespectful manner before getting brutally killed and dumped in a ditch”. He was such an asshole, why was he even helping this loser? But never one to give up, Clyde convinced Craig to go with operation TTTGLNHB in the smartest way ever. Beg and cry insistently. 

“coome ooooooone duuuuuude don’t you  wanna be Tweek’s boyfriend???? it’s been years.”

“of course I want to be his boyfriend, but your plan,” he quoted “plan” with his fingers, “is stupid because I already tried it a hundred times so I know it will fail.”

“No it won’t! Because this time, I’ve added an absolutely foolproof trick to it! Bet you never tried that before huh!” Clyde said, smugness oozing off of him while he gave Craig his special weapon for this mission. A cat!

“…”

“Wait! Hear me out! This is genius.” Clyde begged Craig when he saw the taller boy going back to his phone.

Craig sighed, he turned his phone off and listened to Clyde again, if only to get him off his back. “Ugh, what are you on this time?”

“I’ve learned from Minnie who heard from Annie who asked Wendy who heard from Kenny who talked to Butters who saw Kyle overhearing a conversation between Stan and Henrietta who were talking about-“, Clyde felt sweat rolling down his cheek as he watched Craig’s impassive face progressively get more intense. “Huh anyway! Point is! Tweek really likes cats! Maybe as much as he likes birds. And it happens to be common practice for people to come for favors to Tweek while having a cat in their arms. It apparently makes him more receptive? So yeah! Here!” Clyde finally stopped his rant, and dropped the black cat in Craig’s arm.

Craig sighed, preparing himself for your typical ‘South park stupid moment’. 

“Okay, let’s say that what you’re saying is true and that cats do keep his attention. How could this possibly help me convince him to be my boyfriend?”

“You just need to get creative Craig! I don’t know, say something like ‘hi! my cat has a headache, do you want to accompany me to the vet?’ or something.”

“What? That doesn’t make any sense. How could I know that this cat has a headache?”

“Who cares! I’m just saying find an excuse. Come on let’s go find Tweek.”

Finding Tweek somewhere can be either the easiest or hardest quest depending on the day. Sometimes, Tweek was the only thing you could hear in 100 miles radius if he happened to have filled his stomach with only coffee during lunch (his hungry meltdowns were no jokes). And other times, Tweek managed to make himself so sparse that you questioned if he even came to school at all. Today was one of those days apparently. Clyde and Craig looked through every hallway of the school and asked every single one of Tweek’s friends. They all confirmed that he did come to school, but they had no idea where he was. The weird looks they gave Craig for carrying a cat around was making his mood worse.

“This is stupid, you’re stupid, and that cat is also stupid.” Craig adjusted his grip on the feline, who didn’t hesitate to hiss at his face. “See? Even the cat agrees with me! Let’s just go back to the cafeteria.” Craig’s whinny voice was so annoying, it was maybe worst than a rusty nail on a chalkboard. Clyde started to rethink Craig’s chances with Tweek just for this.

“Craig. If you want your man, you gotta get active. Standing around hoping for something to happen won’t get you anywhere!” Such wise words.

“Who told you that? Chat gpt?”

“No. I came up with this myself thank you very much,” A drop of sweat rolled down his face. “Now come on and quit being a Debby downer.”

“I’m not being a Debby downer, you are just too stupid to realize that us walking around with a cat in our arms is just begging for PC Principal to give us detention. Animals aren’t allowed at school dumbass. Trust me, I would know.” Of course he would know. Clyde was willing to bet 3 months worth of tacos that Craig tried to bring Stripe to school as many times as Clyde ate a spicy burrito in his life.

“No way, even if we get caught the cat will manipulate our way out of this.”

“What-?”

“Wait here’s Tweek!”

The guy was located at the end of the hallway. He was drinking a suspicious looking cough syrup. Probably the same one that everyone used to get high a few years back, what was this tweaker doing this time? Clyde was exasperated at his best friend’s taste in men. Sure, be gay, but at least pick the normal dudes. Craig could probably get any guy so long as they had at least 1% of homosexuality in them, considering how attractive people seemed to find him. Which was also why Clyde was convinced that Craig had a chance with Tweek in the first place.

“Oh… Now what do I do?” 

“I don’t fucking care bozo just go talk to him!”

“But I don’t even know what to say!?”

“Just-!” Clyde, tired of Craig’s antics, pushed the taller boy towards Tweek’s general location. Good luck to him. Clyde was done holding his hand through this.

What followed might have been the most crazy, cringey, stinky attempt at a first move Clyde had the displeasure of seeing with his very own two eyes. Oh he wished he was blind and deaf.

At first, everything was going swimmingly. Tweek jumped when Craig first showed up, looking defensive, but at the sight of the cat he subtly relaxed. Craig was talking to him, trying to look cool, though the effect was somewhat ruined by the cat hissing and trying to escape. From what Clyde could hear he was asking him a favor involving the cat. Something about the infirmary? Whatever he said dragged a small smile out of Tweek, Craig blushed at it. Gay. They started walking together towards the lockers. Towards him. Clyde pressed himself harder into his hiding spot, trying to become one with the wall. It was cool for listening in but terrible for his heart rate.

He wished he hadn’t listened in. Because once the two boys suddenly stopped, Tweek whispered something urgently in Craig’s ear. Not the smartest move honestly, but it wasn’t like he knew that it would make Craig go insane. 

He was saying stuff like something something “behind the wall” something something “someone’s watching” something something “act natural”. Clyde understood that Tweek probably felt his gaze from his hiding place at the lockers, and being the paranoid freak he was, he tried to convince Craig to go the other way with him. Unfortunately, he just had to do it while leaning all up in Craig’s personal space, touching his side and angling his face really close to the other guy. 

It was clearly too much for Craig to handle, his face became tomato red and his whole body started shaking. The loser looked like he was just about ready to faint. He said something like “W-w-w-what?”, putting Jimmy’s stutters to shame, and Tweek said “What what? Just walk with me and whatever you do, do not look back.”

This of course, led Craig to immediately look back and focus hard on Clyde’s direction. This jackass really had no sense of subtlety. 

“What the hell are you doing!?” Clyde mouthed. “Turn back!”

Craig turned back around only to find Tweek more than ready to yell at him “-what are you even doing with that cat!? Put it down, I know it isn’t sick man, Clyde is stupid!”. Oh! Okay fuck you too then freak. Ignoring the insult towards Clyde and trying to focus on his advices from earlier about being creative, Craig said “Clyde just said to do something for the cat, which is why I am talking to you because he said you like cats and I like you so- No wait! I like cats. Not you! I mean yes I do like. You like. I mean. Huhh. Fuck.”

Tweek’s face did something unreadable.

Craig said, “That came out wrong. The cat –  Huh… the cat warned me you were in danger!”

Blank stare from Tweek.

Welp, Craig had to commit now. “The cat. He can- he. He speaks. Not English. Obviously. But like, I get him?- it’s a twin thing. I mean we’re not twins but. Like. Spiritually! We’re twins. We’re twins spiritually. He said you needed help so. Here I am. With the cat.”

Silence.

The cat hissed.

It took all the strength in the world to keep Clyde from howling in laughter and keep his cover. Tweek luckily didn’t have that kind of limitation, as he completely sidelined the previous danger in favor of laughing in Craig’s face. His poor best friend was as red as his backpack, making his grip on the cat relax a bit. 

The fussy creature clearly saw this as a sign from God to chase freedom. And as a pure blooded American cat, freedom it chased. It scratched Craig’s hand before throwing itself in the music room Tweek had left open earlier, a ruckus could be heard from the room immediately after. Tweek ran after the fur ball, leaving Craig and his bloody hands behind. Craig, waking up from his cringe induced daze, made a dash for the cat as well.

From what Clyde could see, Craig somehow managed under one minute to crawl under the desk, knock two pianos on the floor, and trip thrice. All in front of Tweek. Tweek finally put an end to this embarrassing scene by catching the cat as it was about to escape by the window. He also knocked a few things over, but it was only a few drum sticks and two ukuleles. So it was whatever. They didn’t do too bad all things considered!

Clyde thanked every Gods watching that he was well hidden behind the lockers. Because he absolutely didn’t notice the heavy steps of PC Principal, and the other boys didn’t hear it either. But the muscular douchebag definitely heard all of the ruckus from the cat, if his face was anything to go by. He was staring them down like his eyes had the power to reduce the both of them to ashes. And maybe it could, Tweek and Craig quietly hunched over themselves. The cat, who had apparently developed a sudden sense of politeness, was now purring and rubbing its nose against Tweek, at the worst possible moment of course. There was no hope for them to blame all of it on the cat if it was acting like an angel. Not that it would have helped since they weren’t supposed to have that cat in the first place. In other words, they were thoroughly screwed.

“What do you two think you’re doing in my school brah!?”

Neither boys responded.

“So you think that you can just show up in my school, bring an extremely against the school regulations animal, wreck havoc inside my classrooms with my music equipments, and then leave when you’re done!? That’s not how things work around here brah!”

PC Principal continued on his rant for a little while after that. Promising them detention. And giving vague threats about expulsion. He told both boys to come with him to his office once he was done, his face was red and his fists were shaking, full of rage. Clyde had no idea how Craig would get himself out of this one.

He did notice that Tweek didn’t give the cat back. Better yet he started waving it around. He stepped forward, put himself between PC Principal and Craig, talking fast, braving the heat. Clyde couldn’t hear what he was saying. But he could see the shape of his words. Tweek was throwing himself under the bus.

Huh.

Interesting.

-

“Craig, Craig, Craig… I don’t even know what to say to you anymore.”

“Then don’t say anything.” Craig’s resentful response was muffled by the pillow he was laying on. He was probably trying to suffocate himself after the stinker that happened earlier. 

Clyde let out a long sigh. He was in Craig’s room, playing on his computer, trying his best not to fall to the distraction that were the tits on the screen. His best friend needed him right now, and boobs certainly wouldn’t help him feel better. Maybe showing him some nice, hot abs would? 

“Tweeeeeek.” 

Or maybe not.

Unfortunately, Clyde knew exactly what Craig was feeling right now. The despair of seeing the love of your life make a ridicule out of you was the worst (Bebe was rather ruthless). But at least that also meant that he knew exactly how to fix it. 

He quickly went into the kitchen to scavenge the Tucker’s freezer. After finding what he came for, he went back to his bro to give him the goods.

“Here.”

Turning his head, Craig seemed grateful at the offering. He sat down and started eating his ice cream. Since Craig was as much of a sugar fiend as him, it was bound to calm him down a bit. Stripe also did his job by cuddling up to his owner. Craig adored his guinea pig, so the two things combined could only help him.

Now that Craig was in the process of calming down, it was time to think about what to do. This has been going on for much too long. About six years, which was absolutely ridiculous. Clyde couldn’t even count how many times this exact situation happened. Sure, most of the time it was him doing the crying over Bebe, but still.

What happened earlier kept replaying in his head, he felt like they were doing no progress. But he wasn’t about to give up! Not on Bebe, and not on Craig’s only chance at love. He owed this to his best friend.

It was about time that they did something to make Tweek and Craig a real thing. But here laid the problem, they still had no idea on how to approach this guy. Clearly going to him and talking didn’t work for Craig, the master of unsuccessful communication. They needed to get a new angle to this whole thing. What did Tweek like? 

Well, that was the million dollar question wasn’t it?

Clyde sat in Craig’s chair and raked his brain for a solution. The background noises of Craig sniffling tears and Stripe’s purring made him feel kind of bad. As much as they gave each other shit, he truly did love Craig. He wanted to distract him.

“You know what Bebe said to me last night? Apparently Wendy and Stan broke up again. But this time it’s super serious. Apparently, Wendy found out that the only reason Stan took her to Stark pond every weekend was to feel up her boobs. She is pretty pissed. I wonder if that’s true though. How did she even found that out? Any idea?”

Craig mumbled, “I don’t know.” He clearly wasn’t listening to anything.

Welp. Distractions weren’t working. Clyde wasn’t sure what to do now. If the food and Stripe’s company weren’t enough, he wondered what could make Craig feel better.

Other than getting with Tweek of course.

Clyde twirled around in on Craig’s chair to try and find an idea. The boy’s room was as clean as ever. Everything was in the right place. Each book was stacked on to each other on his desk, there was no laundry to be found anywhere except in the closet, and there wasn’t the slightest hint of dust on the floor. His best friend has always been a clean freak, easily disgusted, so this didn’t surprise him. He was jealous of Craig sometimes for having his life in such control and in order. Despite his parent’s financial situation, he still managed to appear above it all. The Tweek situation must be hitting him extra hard, it was the one thing in his life that was out of his control.

While eyeing the desk to find video games, Clyde’s fingers knocked on a small notebook with the word “Entries" written on it. He assumed it was something that Craig used to keep track of all his theories while watching his stupid shows. He was going to ignore it, until the smallest sheet of paper escaped the small book once he picked it up.

It was a drawing of Tweek. A really detailed one at that. He was making a peace sign forward while smiling and winking. The hair and the freckles were ridiculously well done. Clyde knew Craig doodled sometimes, but he had no idea he could draw this well, so he was plenty surprised seeing his friend’s signature on the bottom of the drawing. However this confirmed that this notebook wasn’t about theories. Or at the very least not theories about shows. 

Clyde turned around to watch Craig. The teen was still sniffing and eating his vanilla ice cream pitifully, completely distracted. He turned back to open the notebook.

Honestly, he wasn’t sure what to expect. Despite his crush, Craig has always been cagey about Tweek. The only person he was open about wanting to date him was Clyde. And even then, beside drooling over Tweek’s appearance, he never really said anything special about him. It was always Clyde leading the operation and handling conversations with the rest of their gang. He actually had no idea just how well Craig knew Tweek in reality. In front of other people, Craig was downright mean when asked about Tweek (although he was asked rarely, he never failed to call him a weird spaz).

The book was filled with informations about Tweek. From the practical kind like his height, birthday, and family background. To the general kind like all of his likes and dislikes. Most of the book was filled with theories that Craig had seemingly crafted about Tweek. From how he would react in a slasher movie. To how he would prefer his eggs to be made in the morning. While describing how he would act in a relationship. There were some hopes about what they would do as a couple (Clyde hated admitting this, but most of those were pretty fucking cute). But what was most surprising, was the…psychological analysis?  

Craig seemed to have grasped the way Tweek’s brain worked to a T. From his mental issues to his identity in general. He made some tentative mental diagnosis with little mentions of wanting to talk to Tweek about it if they did end up dating. But none of those things were to be seen by Clyde. As much as he was a gossip, he wanted to somewhat respect Tweek’s privacy. But he still focused on one particular page.

From what I’d observed, Tweek is introverted. It has been proven many times over the years. He always looks drained after spending time with people and he avoids social gatherings. That doesn’t make him shy, timid, quiet, or any of the stereotypes that gets associated with people like that though. He’s open about what he thinks, loud and bold. Like a fire. This makes him hard to truly befriend, as he won’t hesitate to tell you to scram if he doesn’t want to see you. He’s kind of like a cat in a way. Those animals will let you pet them and interact with them if they like you. But they will still keep away and prefer staying alone rather than being in your company. You need to gain their trust and let them come to you, not the other way around. It makes me think of Tweek. It’s perfect because then it means that I won’t have to share him. That is if I do manage to get with him…

Ignoring Craig’s weird jealous sentences, there was actually one line that could truly help him in all of this.

“Wait. Hold on. That’s it! We’ve been doing this all wrong!”

“Sniff. What?”

“Dude, Tweek is paranoid. If you want to get close to him, you shouldn’t just go to him, he will be on his guard. The only way to avoid this is to do the opposite!”

“…what do you mean?”

“What I mean is that we need him to make the first move. Not you. Or else nothing’s gonna happen.”

“Sniff. You think so?” Craig whispered. He offered a bite of ice cream to Clyde, only to retract it last second. Asshole. But if being petty helped him feel better why not.

“Yeah!”

Craig seemed to take a moment to think about what he said. Before replying, “Okay. Let’s say that I agree with what you’ve said. How do I get Tweek to come talk to me?”

“Well Craig. That’s where all of your creepy knowledge comes into play. You know what he likes right?”

“Well, yeah.”

“Then you need to make him think that you’re the perfect person for him. Enough to convince him that interacting with you could be worth it.”

“Like how you keep pretending to be a makeup expert around Bebe?”

“Yeah! Exactly-“ he paused once he saw Craig’s smirk. “You know what? Fuck you. I hope Tweek never lets you get into his pants you dick!”

“Hit a nerve here, huh?”

“Whatever man, I’m going home. Clearly you’re fine now.”

Craig’s laughter could be heard around his room as Clyde left. As he was about to exit, Craig called him one last time.

“Clyde.”

Clyde turned.

“Thanks.”

“…of course dude. Anytime.” Clyde said, and finally left.

Craig’s POV- Present 

Craig had spent the last three days trying to figure out how to attract Tweek to him like rotten food would attract flies. Three days. Seventy-two hours. The results? Nothing. The abyss held more within it than Craig’s brain lately. He had a notebook full of Tweek facts and exactly no idea on how to use them. Clyde’s “brilliant plans” got him cat wounds and a date with PC Principal in his office instead of a date with Tweek under the stars. Some wingman.

Staying in his room wasn’t doing anything good for his thinking abilities, so he decided to take a walk to clear his head. While going down the stairs, his mom stopped him.

“Oh Craig, there you are sweetie! I thought you weren’t going to leave your room today!” Laura said while cooking dinner.

“I wasn’t planning to. But I’m going on a walk.”

“Hmmm, where are you going?” She added more spices to the chicken.

“I don’t know. Stark’s Pond I think.” He replied while tying his shoes.

“Oh really? Well you can take some bread with you if you’d like to feed the challlwakuna in the pond.”

“Okay. Thanks mom.” He went to the pantry to take a loaf of bread, before walking to the door.

“One minute Craig.”

“Yes mom?”

“Could you bring this to Janice please? She said Clyde liked them last time and wanted some more.” She handed him a plate of muffins, then turned back to the chicken without waiting for her son’s response. “I need to finish this before your sister comes home.”

Craig softly nodded and left the house.

He quickly turned to Clyde’s house, which was right beside his. He rung the bell and waited for someone to arrive. Clyde’s dad, Clyde’s stepmother, maybe Clyde himself. It didn’t matter. Heavy footsteps followed the sound, the door opened with a rusty groan.

“Yo bro, what’s up?”

“I’m not staying. My mom gives this to Janice.” He shoved the plate in Clyde’s arms, not bothering to hide his annoyance over his plans being disturbed anymore.

“I really love your mom so much Craig. Those are like, the best thing ever. Tell her that I love her.”

“Okay Clyde.” He turned around to quit those distractions at last.

“Hold on dude! Don’t you want one? You seem grumpy today, no offense.”

Craig thought about it. He didn’t feel especially hungry, but one would be crazy to refuse his mom’s baking. So he took one of them by principle and promptly left.

The walk to Stark’s Pond was quicker than he would have liked. Instead of getting to clear his head, he got to see yet another Randy Marsh stunt. The man had managed to gather most of the town in the community hall to fabricate, and he quoted, “a machine that gives water the same effects as alcohol”. Craig assumed that Sharon had banned him from Skeeter’s Bar yet again. He couldn’t bring himself to feel bad for her unfortunate choice of husband though, she had the chance to leave him many times and she wouldn’t. That would explain why Stan sucked so hard. Craig should offer a class to teach all the women in South Park how to get better tastes in men.

Or maybe not. Let them suffer.

He kept walking, watching the adults nodding to Marsh’s speech as if what he was saying was normal (and possible).

Once he arrived at the Pond, he was completely alone here. The bench was empty and the ducks were quiet. How rare. Maybe God felt pity for him and provided a quiet environment for him to regain control over his thoughts. That would be soooo nice of him.

He sat on the cold wood of the bench, sighed, and began to throw some bread in the water. He offhandedly noticed that most of it wasn’t being eaten by the fishes, but by the ducks. He didn’t let it interfere with his musing.

Boxing. Tweek loved boxing. Craig could take boxing classes. He would get to see Tweek all sweaty, probably shirtless, beating things up while making that focused face with his eyebrows facing downward—that would be worth the broken ribs. But then what? He would just be yet another loser at the gym. Tweek would probably think, “oh cool. You box now”, and then go on with his day. Or even worse, he would want to spare. And unable to use underhanded tactics or his judo training, Craig would get his ass handed to him in front of everyone. Then Tweek would see him as a loser. And then they would never speak again.

So nope. No boxing. But maybe with conspiracy theories he would have better luck? Tweek loved those. Craig could learn a few. And drop them casually in the hallways, “yeah, the government is secretly controlled by a small group of people on top”. But then what? What if it did cause Tweek to notice him? Then he would want to discuss with him deeper about those things. And then he would notice that Craig was just a poser. And then hate him.

Nothing was working. Everything in life sucked, Craig thought as he threw another piece of bread into the water – a duck caught it mid-air.

A voice cut through his thoughts, “Hey! What the hell do you think you’re doing!”

Craig’s heart stopped. No way. He turned – as slowly as he could, acting as if he wasn’t about to pass out – and there was Tweek Tweak. The glorious blond was standing ten feet away from him, crossing his arms, looking positively furious.

Furious about what? Craig couldn’t guess for the life of him. Not that it mattered. Tweek was here. At the Pond. With him. Yelling at him sure, but it wasn’t important. Craig’s day became drastically better instantly. The sun shined brighter and the birds sounded sweeter.

“I’m feeding bread to the Pond.”

Tweek stared at him.

Craig stared back, a drop of sweat rolling down his cheek.

The ducks kept feasting.

Craig was spending too much of his time with idiots, they were contaminating his brain, he needed to drop the dead weight. Clyde would inevitably cause his doom, even without being present. Feeding bread to the Pond!? What did that even mean?

“Ugh, not that! I mean why are you giving bread to the ducks!?”

Craig looked down at his hands.

“Huh…” he failed to see what the problem was. “They’re the ones eating it? I was aiming for the fishes…” 

Tweek’s eye twitched, he was staring at him as if he were the biggest moron to disgrace this planet.

Craig’s mood crashed back down again. Wow, not even two sentences in and he already made a fool out of himself.

Instead of spitting on him like the worthless bum he was deserved, Tweek took a deep breath, calming himself down, and kindly explained to him the problem.

“Look man, ducks are a bit dumb. So they can’t really tell what’s good for them or not. It is our responsibility to not poison them with our bad food.” He began while dropping his arms. “Bread doesn’t nourish them, it just fills them up. So then, they don’t bother looking for nutritious food anymore, and they become all skinny and they die when it becomes too cold.” He finished.

“Oh. I didn’t know that. Sorry I will stop.” Craig responded by putting the bread back in his pocket. Sucks to be a fish, but they won’t get anymore food from him.

“No problem. Most people don’t so as long as you stop it’s fine.” He looked satisfied with himself. He shifted like he was about to turn around and leave before Craig even got the chance to truly bask in his presence! He couldn’t let that happen.

“Why do you know so much about ducks?” He quickly let out, hoping to stop Tweek. He already knew why Tweek knew so much about them. But Tweek didn’t know that, so he felt safe asking that.

Tweek hesitated for a second before turning back, one eyebrow raised.

“Well. I used to be a huge fan of dinosaurs as a kid. Then I learned that some of them evolved to be birds. So then I became a fan of birds. And ducks are birds so I know about them too.” He breathed out the last part of his explanation and turned around to leave again. Ughhhh, he always had somewhere to go! Quick, what was the plan again? Attraction? The last time he hooked Tweek up in a conversation was during their group project six years ago (wow. Six years). How did he do that!? Why did his eleven year old self had more flirting skills than him right now!? 

“Oh that’s cool. I’m more of a guinea pig person. Dinosaurs never really caught my attention as a kid.”

Tweek paused. “Why? They’re great.”

“They’re just big lizards dude. They’re cold, skinny, and not cute. Mammals are better.”

“Yeah okay. Because big hamsters are so much cooler. I bet all your pet ever does is eat all day-”

“Don’t you dare talk about Stripe like that you son of a bitch!” Craig didn’t care if Tweek was the best human being ever. Anyone who talked shit about Stripe deserved a trip to a trash can.

Tweek jumped at his snapping before relaxing again, looking thoroughly amused. He slowly approached Craig.

“Yeah? What are you gonna do about it then?”

“I will kick your ass.”

Silence.

“Okay.” He said before sitting next to Craig on the bench, “enlightened me Craig. What makes big hamsters so great.”

A question. For him. About guinea pigs? Luckily for Tweek, he asked an absolute pro.

Craig entered a mode of expression affectionately nicknamed by his friends “uber nerd mode”. This despicable version of Craig consists of him info-dumping on an unfortunate victim about inconsequential things for numerous minutes during which interruptions are not taken into consideration. For the next five minutes, Craig had given Tweek a veterinarian-level crash course on guinea pigs. What they were, where they came from, and silly fun facts about them.

“– and that’s why those stupid inca-killer colonizers mistook them for pigs despite them being rodents.” 

He took a much needed breath once he finished. 

Tweek had stayed quiet. Completely silent. The whole time. Craig’s stomach dropped.

It was pretty rare for anyone to ask him about his interests, and when they did they mostly asked him to shut up when it went on for too long. Too long. Much too long. Like here for example. Jesus, he spoke nonstop for the past five minutes and Tweek hadn’t said anything. What was he thinking!? Well – nothing. And that was the problem. Nothing gave more virgin energy than going into huge rants about animals. No wonder Tweek didn’t want him. He should prob–

“I just don’t get it man. They really don’t look like pigs to me.” Craig blinked, a bit thrown off. Had he listened? Tweek looked away. “How did they make that mistake?” He twitched. “They look like rats,” Craig’s face did something funny. Tweek added quickly, “No offense.”

Wow, Craig felt like his chest was spilling warm tea in his stomach. Did Tweek really listen to him? The whole time? A smile was tugging on his lips. He was soooo happy.

“Well, Europeans only had gross, grey street rats as reference for rodents. Actually, they had no idea what rodents even were in the first place. Evolution theory wasn’t a thing yet. So animals were separated purely by their use and appearance.” Tweek made a face. “Guinea pigs were round, made oinking sounds and were raised to be eaten by incas. And they used to call anything piggies at the time.”

“That makes sense I suppose. Man, living without science must have sucked.”

“Yeah, for all of its nonsense, today really is the best time to be alive… At least in first world countries.” 

And not just for the scientific advancements, Craig thought. He didn’t say the rest, but as a poor, gay, kinda mixed man, he was aware that had he been born just a century earlier, his life would have been considerably worse. He reflected on this sometimes late at night, feeling lucky in a way that he couldn’t quite put into words.

“Hm.”

Silence.

They spent a moment sitting there, watching the ducks in the pond. It was quiet and relatively warm for South Park standards. And even if it wasn’t, Tweek’s body heat would have kept him warm.

He was glad he took this walk.

“I still think it’s bullshit how we’ve got suspended.” Tweek broke the silence.

“Yeah,” Craig chuckled. “PC Principal is so overdramatic. Two weeks for a cat was just too much.”

“I know right? Cartman and his gang always do much worse yet they never get punished.”

“Ughh, Stan and those guys sucks.”

Tweek giggled, his eyes shaping half moons, “True. I’m half convinced Cartman’s mom went under the table to make PC Principal this chill about their shit.”

Craig giggled as well, caught off guard, “Don’t say this too loudly dude! He’s going to show up out of nowhere and kick your ass for being misogynistic.”

“I’m not being misogynistic man. It’s common knowledge that Liane Cartman is a whore.”

“Bet you wouldn’t have said that if she was a guy huh?”

“Yes I would have. I insult Kenny all the time!” He said, faking offense. “And there’s nothing wrong with being a whore. It’s just an objective statement.”

“Sure Tweek, sure.” Craig side-eyed him, “And that’s why you’re using it as an excuse to insult people you don’t like.”

“Yes.”

“You do realize how stupid that sounds?”

“Yes.”

“Glad you’re self aware.”

“Fuck you.”

“Right back at you dude.” Craig flipped him off. 

Tweek smirked.

“So you do know how to talk.”

“What do you mean?”

“Oh nothing,” His mouth did that thing. That thing he did when he was about to say something annoying yet he pretended he wasn’t. Though Craig took his words at face value, so he was unprepared when Tweek continued, “It’s just that when PC Principal came to screw us up you completely froze, man. He almost forgot to include you in the punishment.”

Was Tweek mad about it? He couldn’t tell, but stepping in his shoes made him realize how much he acted like a bitch during this whole thing. He just stood there, did nothing, like a statue. Even though it was his fault – with the cat, the plan, the music room – that Tweek was in this situation in the first place. And he said nothing, he just let Tweek brave the heat on his own. He acted like an asshole.

“I’m sorry.”

“Uh?” Tweek looked confused before saying, “Oh no! I was just joking man don’t worry about it!”

“No dude, that was messed up of me. I got you in trouble and I did nothing to defend you.” Craig lowered his gaze. “So I’m sorry.”

He waited for Tweek to agree. To say, “Yeah, you’re such a fucking dick” , to get up, leave him and never speak to him again.

“Well it wasn’t really your fault you know. I’m guessing it was Clyde’s cat.” He rolled his eyes. “So he should’ve been the one getting punished. Not us. But apologies accepted.”

Oh yeah. It was Clyde’s plan in the first place. That fucking bitch, he just escaped and came back after the war for his cat.

“Yeah Clyde is a douche.”

“True.”

Silence again. Both boys watched as two ducks chased each other’s behinds in the pond. One looked more desperate than the other, although the calm one’s speed betrayed his intentions as well. Wind started picking up softly.

“Honestly I wish that I had just gotten suspended.” Tweek’s voice was quieter now. “PC principal got nothing on my parents.”

Craig looked over. Tweek wasn’t staring at the ducks anymore. He was keeping his eyes on his hands.

“What do you mean?” Craig turned curiously to him.

Tweek sighed before continuing. “I’m sure you know that already, but I get in trouble pretty often. Half the time it’s not even my fault. I genuinely forget to do my homework! And I can’t always stay still. I can’t control that. But the school takes those offenses more seriously than they should because the other times I get in trouble are completely my fault.” He looks away with slightly red ears.

“Sometimes, people really piss me off. So I either get into fights or I break things, and they give me detention. Except I can’t go to detention because I have to work. So they give me more detention. But I still can’t go because I have to work. And my stupid parents keep telling me that it’s my fault for not upholding my responsibilities even though they’re the ones forcing me to work everyday so it’s like I’m just stuck in a loop of troubles with no way of escaping it and my grades are getting bad so I keep getting grounded which make them worse so colleges will never want me and – and-“ Tweek was breathing harder and harder, Craig said the first thing on his mind, cutting Tweek off.

“My parents are also annoying sometimes.” 

Tweek took a couple of panicked breaths quickly before saying, “What?”

“My parents. When I get detention they spend forever reprimanding me. Even though it’s technically their fault that I get detention in the first place.”

“Oh! Hum… how is it their fault?”

“Because they’re the ones who taught me to flip everything off constantly.”

“Ah.” Tweek let out confused chuckles. “I guess it would be their fault then…”

Craig stared at the water. Why did he say that? It was so stupid. Tweek was complaining about something real and Craig made it about himself instead. It wasn’t intentional, but he still acted like a dick.

The silence was awkward this time.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to vent like that. Jesus Christ.” Tweek whispered, cheeks red. 

“It’s okay. If it helps, your parents sound stupid as hell.”

“Yeah…” he didn’t say anything else.

Craig didn’t want Tweek to feel bad over something this silly. The poor guy almost worked himself up to a meltdown and the last thing he needed would be some asshole to tell him to quit being dramatic. Craig wanted Tweek to feel better, the sad look on his face was doing bad things to his heart. So he did the first thing that came to mind, pulled out his mom’s muffin from his pocket, and dangled it in front of Tweek.

“Here. It’s my mom’s.”

Tweek didn’t immediately respond. Instead he looked at Craig like he was offering him literal stardust. His eyes went wide and his mouth was slightly ajar. He softly nodded with rosy cheeks, leaving Craig red himself, before saying “thank you” quietly.

Craig was satisfied with himself for once. He was glad he provided comfort to the blond. He deserved someone who cared about him. The type to cook him a homemade meal after a long day, or to bring him a drink every now and then. Craig wished, not for the first time, to be that person one day. He made a mental note to himself to take his mom’s cooking lessons more seriously. But for now, that muffin should be enough.

Craig went back to watch the ducks. One of them must have successfully caught the other, because they were eating leftover pieces of bread together. They looked silly perched like that. And yet those two animals still had more game than Craig, so maybe he shouldn’t talk about silliness. Nevertheless he hoped that they would break up. If birds could break up that is. 

A hand interrupted his petty thoughts, bringing something up to his face. Tweek was holding the last piece of the muffin to Craig, while looking somewhere behind him.

“Thanks for that dude. I’m full though, here.”

Craig took the rest without saying anything. He simply shoved it in his mouth and went back to stare at the water. He noticed that Tweek left him the best part – the middle – though he didn’t think anything of it.

The wind blew harder. It was starting to get cold as balls out here, reminding Craig of something.

“What were you doing here?”

“Huh?”

“Why are you here? I mean, did you have nothing to do at home?”

“Oh! No man, it’s just that I’ve been playing games for hours already. I needed some fresh air.”

“Really? What games?”

“Poppy playtime. It’s been four hours and I felt like I was about to break my PC so I left.”

“What?” Craig laughed. “You would break your PC over that? Not over some other games?”

“Don’t laugh at me dude!” Tweek sulked. “Fps games aren’t rage inducing. I mostly do good and when we lose it’s not my fault. So I can just insult my teammates and move on with my day. Solo games are the worst. If I lose, there’s only myself to blame!”

“But how does that translate to wanting to break your computer.”

“It makes perfect sense to break your computer if you’ve been stuck in the same puzzle for over an hour and a half and you can’t figure it out because the devs are assholes.”

“Can’t you just review bomb them?” Craig asked amused.

“Yeah I did. But then I have to break my computer over my own stupidity. One hour and a half man. That’s so embarrassing.”

Craig giggled, “Yeah okay. Maybe it was the right call to come out there. Leave your poor computer alone.” Craig waited a bit before adding, “Since when do you play horror games though?”

“Since they’ve started popping up everywhere on Steam. Fps are super fun but they get repetitive sometimes. I wanted to try something else, you know.”

“Yeah I get that…do you like them so far? I haven’t played any.”

“They’re really fun! So long as there aren’t infinite puzzles,” he whispered that last part. “You should play them. They don’t even cost that much.”

“Oh. Well then, which one do you recommend?” Craig couldn’t believe it. He was actually having a normal conversation with Tweek. If he was dreaming, he wished to never wake up.

“Hmm. Arg I don’t know uh. You like space right?”

“Yes.” Craig tried his best to not sound giddy, but he was overjoyed. Tweek remembered he liked space! 

“Then you should try Alien Isolation. It’s really good I promise! It’s in the Alien movies universe.”

Craig was a huge fan of Alien, so he was definitely checking this out later. He wasn’t even aware that a game existed. A disgrace really. But at least it gave him an excuse to talk to Tweek.

“You’re-“ Tweek paused. Starting again. “You make it really easy to talk you know.”

Craig’s brain short-circuited. “Oh! Huh– really?” It was unexpected to say the least.

“Yeah.” And Tweek left it at that. As if this compliment (?) didn’t come out from absolutely nowhere. But Craig would take it, even if he couldn’t quite believe it.

For his whole life, everybody had told him that he was a cagey guy. Difficult to talk to, and sometimes even boring. He emoted rarely, and even when he tried it always felt forced. He remembered what most people told him clearly; You should smile more Craig, we don’t get what you mean Craig, Craig, don’t be an asshole, there’s no talking to this guy ain’t it? Stop being difficult Craig. He wasn’t doing it on purpose, and the comments always left him with a feeling of confusion (and sometimes, late at night, resentment. He felt like an alien amongst his own circle. Never to be understood, either unappreciated or admired for the wrong reasons). So to have Tweek saying this to him. Even if he didn’t understand why. It made him feel…

Like he was worth it.

His hands tightened in his pockets.

Both boys stayed at the pond for a few more minutes, parting ways once the wind became unbearable. He gave Tweek a smile and a wave of his hand, receiving a shy nod in exchange. He felt much lighter on the way back home.

He could still hear Tweek’s voice in his head.

Clyde’s POV-

Clyde loved lunch breaks more than anything, especially Thursdays lunch breaks. It was taco day today. He just finished a huge test, and his best friend finally came back to school. All was well in the world.

Him and his friends headed to their usual table at the back of the cafeteria. There was him (obviously), Tolkien, Craig and Jimmy. They were talking about something inconsequential, as they always did, when it happened.

Tweek Tweak randomly showed up at their table, vibrating as he often did, holding a crumbled paper in his hand. He turned towards Craig without looking at him.

“That’s for y-you.” 

He wasn’t moving.

Craig wasn’t taking the paper.

Before the silence could stretch out for too long, Tweek slammed the paper on Craig’s table, and left like the interaction had physically hurt him.

Clyde’s table stayed silent for approximately three seconds. Just enough for everyone to see Craig’s face going from impassive to a bright, deep red. Tolkien didn’t hesitate to steal Craig’s paper from his hand. 

“It’s an invitation to – hah? Wait I can’t read this shit hum – to the town’s arcade Saturday at four…What?”, Tolkien said. 

“D-d-d-damn C-Craig. G-g-g-gett-g snatching a hot d-date?”, Said Jimmy.

Silence from Craig.

“Whatever dude,” Clyde rolled his eyes while taking the paper from Tolkien’s hand. There were some suspicious brown stains on it. “He probably gave this to people at random. Maybe he wants to do a tournament.”

“In t-that c-c-case, w-why wouldn’t he in-invite u-u-us t-too?”

“Uh, because we suck?” Tolkien said, as if it was obvious.

“No we don’t!” Cried Clyde, “and even if we did, Craig sucks just as much as us!”

They all turned towards Craig. Who didn’t respond, he flipped Clyde off.

Tolkien shrugged. Jimmy went back to eating. Clyde stared at his bottle of milk, frowning. It was probably just Tweek being his typical weirdo self. Although Clyde couldn’t help but be intrigued, why would the spaz invite Craig specifically? And why not by message? What happened between now and the cat plan? Did Craig do something? Clyde was a bit lost. But since he was used to the feeling of confusion being an ever constant presence in his life, he let it roll past him and focused back to his darling taco.

Craig told him he had a doctor appointment Saturday anyway. So yeah, sucks to suck Tweek. But whatever you’re planning, it’s not happening.

Craig’s POV- Saturday 

Craig cancelled his doctor appointment.

Of course he cancelled his doctor appointment. Not doing so would have been moronic. Tweek Tweak went out of his way to ask him to hang out, it was his one in a life time chance! So what if he has been getting random headaches lately? He could go another day, this was much more important.

The town’s arcade honestly wasn’t anything to write home about. Sure, it was relatively big, and had many activities to offer. But it always smelled like piss and everything was dirty and underwhelming. It was better to simply play games at home on a call with your friends.

But now wasn’t the time to shit on his own parade. Craig was on cloud nine entering the shaggy place, even when the weather has been showing heavy signs of something crazy incoming. Nothing in the world could make Craig miss this. He had spent at least three hours making sure he looked good. His usual 50 minutes hygiene routine ditched to make sure he wouldn’t look like a sewer rat next to Tweek. He had spent extra time on his hair – trimming the weak strands off even though most of it was hidden under his hat anyway – to look sharper. He actually fucking shaved his body’s hairs because even though there was no scientific evidence to show that it made you smell bad, he refused to take any chances. He stole his dad’s expensive cologne, and he abandoned his everyday blue tracksuit for a layered outfit and a few subtle jewels.

He looked so sick in the mirror, his efforts weren’t gone in vain. He hoped Tweek would agree.

The arcade was crowded when he entered. It was as if all teens within a hundred miles radius decided that today was the day to go play shitty 2D games in this cold ass weather. It made finding Tweek harder than it should have. But when he did, any annoyance he felt evaporated from his body.

The blond looked the same as he always did: Baggy jeans, button up, plus an undershirt. Not that he needed anything else, his looks weren’t what made him perfect. But it did remind Craig that this wasn’t supposed to be a date, they were simply hanging out together. And as much as it sucked, he would deal with it. Either way, tonight was the night to prove to Tweek that he and him were meant to be. 

He took a deep breath, relaxed himself, and moved toward Tweek.

Ok here we go.

“Hi.” 

Tweek startled a bit at his greeting. He flushed at his own skittishness and returned the greeting.

“So, why did you invite me here?” Craig knew he didn’t exactly sound enthusiastic. But he trusted that Tweek knew him well enough by now to understand that it was just his usual tone quirks, and that he wasn’t actually complaining.

“Well, last time we talked you seemed interested in video games and stuff. So I thought–“ he looked away and continued. “That I could do some assessments- On your level? To like, huh, see if you’re any good.”

Craig blinked. “So you asked me out–“

“To hang out!” Tweek’s head twitched. “To hang out. That’s it. Nothing else.”

“…ok.”

It weirdly felt like Tweek was lying to him right now. Craig couldn’t guess for the life of him why Tweek would lie at such an innocent question, but whatever. It was fine. Even if Craig disliked dishonesty, Tweek’s decision brought them here alone. Therefore the end justified the means in this situation.

“So…which game do you want to play first?” Tweek said.

Craig thought for a moment before pointing at Pac-man. A classic to start was always a good idea. Or at least that’s what his dad tells him about everything, but the advice worked well enough here.

Tweek nodded at his suggestion and they walked together toward the machine. Craig was right, there was too many fucking people here. Even walking from point A to point B was a difficult task, like he was walking through a swamp. But once they arrived, he and Tweek shared a small look of solidarity.

“It was your suggestion. Go first.”

Craig had never been the greatest at silly arcade games like this, he was a literal sloth. His brain was constantly moving through sludge, making him unable to dodge the stupid little monsters anyone could have seen coming a thousand miles away. Except this time Tweek was directly watching him. So he did his best to not do bullshit, the last thing he needed was for Tweek to believe he was unfortunately underdeveloped mentally and unfit to be his soulmate, so he fully locked in during this stupid task. He didn’t do half bad if he was honest, it was (embarrassingly) his best score ever. And he only died once. But Tweek stayed quiet the whole time, which wasn’t exactly encouraging.

Curiously enough, when he turned to make an assessment of the other teen, he shifted away, as if he had been caught doing something bad. His ears seemed a bit red. He didn’t linger on it, being so close to somebody would make anyone uncomfortable.

“Do you wanna play?”

“Nah, I suck at that game.” 

He just admit it?

“Haha yeah, this game is probably older than our parents anyway…”

“You know what we should do? We should play that zombie shooter game at the back!”

Those types of walking dead reap offs were a staple in all shitty arcades ever. Luckily this one was coop. So they would be able to play at the same time.

The beginning of the game was pretty easy. Especially with two payers. They just situated themselves back to each other and shoot without thinking too hard about it, until the game decided it was a good idea to introduce aliens on top of the zombies. Although it didn’t make any sense, Tweek seemed to get really into it. Letting little shrieks each time a gory creature threw themselves at him. Craig was too in the zone to notice, keeping a steady pace while moving through each wave. Each shot perfectly accurate. He wasn’t killing them fast enough though, and he recognized that the game over screen might come over him early if he didn’t do something. As the thought ran through his brain, a green zombie spilled from a corner like a creep and tried to take a bite of his cheeks. Instinctively dodging it in real life, Craig knocked back into Tweek, earning a scream from the other teen.

“Dude! Watch where you’re going!”

Craig rolled his eyes, “Won’t you help me already? I’m sick of you staying at the back.”

“Staying at the back? You’re making it sound like I’m doing nothing!”

“Because you are doing nothing. Look at your score!” Tweek was about 300 points behind Craig.

“Oh I’m doing nothing? Ok fine.” Tweek let go of his gun and watched his character get eaten. Craig wasn’t sure what point he was trying to make here, but he refocused forward to avoid the fate of the dumbass next to him.

Except he immediately got eaten too. The culprits being the zombies coming from behind since Tweek wasn’t there to stop them anymore. Craig sighed, “fine, I’m sorry for calling you useless.”

Tweek had a satisfied smirk.

“It looks like we’re playing solo on a coop game tho. That’s pretty stupid. We should move forward together instead,”

“Wasn’t that what we were already doing?”

“No, like,” he made a general swipe of the area, “together. In the same zone.”

“Oooh ok. Let’s try it.”

The following hour was spent doing exactly this. Craig felt like an idiot for not having this idea earlier, him and Tweek were destroying absolutely everything on their path. Between Tweek’s chaotic shots and Craig’s steady aim, the monstrous creatures stood no chance. By the time they reached the end of the game, neither of them had noticed the ridiculous amount of zombies coating the screen. 

“Oh god, Craig behind you!!!”

“Fuck!”

“Hahahahaha! Can’t even dodge right!”

“Shut up! You shouldn’t even talk when you’re behaving like a sidekick!”

“A sidekick!? Fucking excuse me, I’m carrying you!”

“Carrying your ass more like, I always have to save you from the mini bosses,”

“Yeah, only because I’m too busy healing you!”

“Exactly, sidekick.”

“I will show you sidekicks stupid!”

“Ow! Ow! Ow! Fuck off- ow!”

“That’s what you get,”

“Where’s that energy when it’s time to pound zombies!?”

“Where’s your energy when it’s time to avoid traps!?”

“It’s not my fault that I’m getting camped!”

“Yeah, that’s what they all say!”

“You wouldn’t understand, you need to actually be proactive in order to even get stuck in the traps.”

“I’m twice as proactive as you! What are you talking about!?”

“That’s not what the score says spaz,”

“The score doesn’t mean anything, but if that makes you happy I guess…”

“It does. So shut up and be useful for once.”

Once they cleared everything out, they gave each other a small thumbs up with the intention to finally dip this grim machine. Until the words New Record illuminated the screen.

“Oh, we beat a record.”

“That’s so sick! Come on man, let’s look at the leaderboard.”

Tweek grabbed his arm and ran toward the back of the arcade. The pressure on his arm made him feel dizzy, and the warmth emanating from Tweek wasn’t helping.

“Woah look! We’re first!” Tweek screamed.

“It’s not that impressive… people here must have a combined amount of talent relative to zero.”

Tweek ignored him, “come on, we need to type our names,”

There were only three letters allowed per player’s name. Tweek went the obvious route and wrote TWD, meanwhile Craig went with DIH.

“You think you’re so funny, don’t you?”

“I’m hilarious.”

Tweek chuckled, “Ok Craig.”

They went quiet after that. They were standing around the score board aimlessly. Now, Craig wasn’t an expert at dating by any means, but he knew that standing around while doing nothing would leave a pretty bad impression on Tweek. Making conversations appear out of thin air wasn’t his biggest strength, so he went with the best route: doing something.

“You know what we should do now?”

Tweek perked up, “What?”

“We should test directly who is the best by doing a competition. Whoever gets the highest score is the better player between us.”

“Hmm, okay! And the loser has to do something for the winner,” Tweek added excitedly.

“Deal,”

And that’s how Craig’s afternoon completely disappeared. The next two hours were a blur.

The kart game was an easy win for Craig, his obsession with red racer made him try much too many road games in his childhood, no amount of cussing could have saved Tweek from the embarrassing loss that came from this. The street fighter game was another story, as Tweek was a cheating asshole who already had the game at home, so the fight wasn’t even fair. After playing mini basketball, treasure hunting, the dance machine, and the dart game, the boys were even. They decided to settle this like men in one of the best games in an arcade, air hockey.

“You’re the worst person to ever live Craig! Quit fucking cheating!”

“How is throwing the disc cheating!? You’re just jealous you didn’t come up with this tech first” he threw it again, this time aiming at Tweek’s hand.

“Gah!” He dodged it last second, using the momentum to mark against Craig. It brought the score to a whole… 2-8. Just as the game decided to lock out.

“Huhehe I won.”

Tweek took a deep breath, using the rack to rest his arms. Unfortunately for him, they didn’t make any rules against cheating. If they had, he wouldn’t have won that treasure hunting, so Craig knew that he could gloat as much as he wanted.

“Hmmmmm, I wonder what do I want as the winner… maybe a lifetime of maths homework? Or maybe you buying Stripe’s food from now on? Soooo many possibilities.”

“Shut up. You’re getting a meal and that’s it.”

“What? That wasn’t the agreement.”

Tweek ignored him (again), and dragged him away from the games area, skillfully dodging the sweaty dudes lingering in the arcade. Some people should really consider taking showers, the stench of the place couldn’t be only caused by old food and humidity. 

“Move asswhipe!” Tweek’s voice brought him back to reality, a fat dude had happened to block their way for a second. Was Tweek genuinely mad? It wasn’t like him to randomly insult people like that. 

“Are you mad?”

“What?”

“Are you mad?”

“No, I heard you the first time,” Tweek stopped. “Why do you think that?”

“I don’t know? You talked to that dude earlier weird. Are you mad because I cheated?”

“Oh! Oh no man, I’m not mad at you! I mean… I’m a bit disappointed, nothing to do with you though, don’t worry.”

“I’m not worried, I was asking a question.”

“Yes Craig. Anyway, where do you want to eat?”

“Why are you disappointed?”

Tweek sighed, “Why do you want to know?”

“I asked first,”

“Does it matter? I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Oh okay.” Did Craig ruin it? He was confused about Tweek’s mood when everything went well earlier. Was he supposed to tone down his trash talk? After all, insulting someone wasn’t very romantic. Maybe Tweek didn’t want to buy him food. Or maybe he wanted to ask Craig something after winning? And Craig ruined his plan by cheating? That seems like the most likely explanation. Tweek started acting off when he won, so maybe he did have something to ask. Maybe Craig offering it anyway would fix it?

“Do you want…” he stopped his sentence when he met Tweek’s eyes. He was looking at him softly, squeezing his hand, and pointed towards the food court.

“Where do you want to eat?”

Since he wasn’t getting anything out of Tweek, Craig focused on his future meal instead. Chunk E. Cheese sucked. Same thing for Dave & Buster’s. So he went for the classic, McDonalds.

The fast food place looked as always greasy and terrible. Not the best date place, but at least he could order something without feeling guilty about Tweek’s wallet (even if he was simply collecting his win). They sat near the front, away from the drug dealers at the back at Tweek’s request.

While Tweek was busy looking through the menu, a memory of Clyde erupted in Craig’s head.

“Then you need to make him think that you’re the perfect person for him. Enough to convince him that interacting with you could be worth it.”

He should probably try to make Tweek like him no? Again, staying in pure silence wasn’t the best idea, so striking up a conversation was crucial. Something smooth, simple, and enjoyable for Tweek. Easy.

“Soooo. Did you finish Poppy playtime?”

“Yup.” Tweek said, eyes not leaving his menu.

Silence.

Try again.

“I noticed that you’ve won your last boxing competition. That’s so awesome.”

“Thanks!” Tweek responded more enthusiastically, his eyes still on his menu.

Silence.

…this wasn’t working. What did people talk about during dates (even if unofficial)? 

“…what will you order?”

“I don’t know, I’m looking for something right now.”

“Ok.”

Silence.

The waitress finally came to put an end to this embarrassing attempt at chitchat from Craig. He took it as a sign from God to never try again in life.

Craig ordered a simple cheeseburger while Tweek asked for a filet o fish, earning a weird look from Craig.

He tried to avoid his eyes, but Craig wasn’t letting Tweek get away with this. He thought that his (future) man was better than this.

“What!?”

“There’s no way you actually like fish,”

“Yeah? Why are you saying that as if it was shocking?”

“Because fish is disgusting and anyone who says that they like it is lying.”

“I literally saw you eat the school’s sushi rolls yesterday Craig!”

“Sushi doesn’t count,”

“Yes it does! It’s fish inside rice, except it’s even worse because it’s bland fish on an ever blander side dish,”

“Did you just call rice bland?”

“Yes man, it’s the whole point of rice,”

“You have shitty tastes.”

“Says the guy who drinks Dr pepper like it’s water” Tweek snickered.

“Dr pepper is good!”

“Yeah. If you’re too much of a sissy to handle some coke then sure!”

“What would you know about sissies? You’re the biggest baby I know,”

“I know enough to know that sissies enjoy feeding bread to Stark’s Pond.”

“You were supposed to forget that!”

“How could I? Do you know how hard it was to not laugh in your face man!?”

“At least I don’t suck at puzzle games!” Craig raised his voice.

“Of course you don’t, your mouth is already full with Reder’s dick!” 

“Don’t you dare bring Red Racer into this asshole!”

They stopped for a breath, realizing that most patrons were staring at them. Embarrassingly, they hadn’t noticed that they were practically screaming in the food court. When catching Tweek’s eyes, Craig felt an hysterical laughter burst out of him, Tweek following immediately after. The waitress approached them with their food.

“Boys, I will need you to quiet down a little bit,”

“Yeah sorry,” Craig took a breath, “we will shut up.”

The waitress left as soon as she came, letting Tweek devour his food like a savage. Before Craig could do the same, his phone started buzzing in his pocket. Looking at his notifications, he saw a storm warning flashing through his screen.

“Damn it,”

“Dude,” Tweek chewed, “did you see that?”

“Yeah, we should leave once we’re done here.”

As they finished their food, the light drizzle from earlier had transformed into a full downpour. Walking home, even with an umbrella, while staying dry would be impossible. And of course, Craig hadn’t bothered to check his weather app, so he didn’t bring anything for the rain. Some lighting strikes could be heard from afar, making Craig’s skin crawl.

The rain was getting heavy enough for them to hear it through the roof. He tried his best to relax, the last thing he needed was for Tweek to think he was a pussy. But goddamnit the lighting strikes were so fucking loud. Tweek looked excited every time he heard them, which made him feel worse for some reason.

He gulped, “You like storms?”

A strike raged from afar.

“Yeah man. I don’t know why but I find them so cool! I mean, I should be scared because it’s loud and chaotic and unpredictable. But I like them anyway.”

Another.

“But they’re dangerous and stuff…” it wasn’t why Craig hated them, although Tweek should hate them for this reason at least.

“True. But I like the adrenaline it gives me.”

One more, slightly louder. Craig held back a flinch.

“Oh.”

The power went off.

They were now in the dark, they only had their phones as a source of light around the place. Other customers were talking much too loudly over nothing. Craig could hear the humming from the food machines, every murmur, even the cold was pissing him off. He wanted to go home.

“Jesus.” Tweek whispered, sounding like he was yelling. “We should get out before we get stuck here. Come on, tiger.” He reached over to grab his hand before going towards the door.

Craig was surprised, he honestly didn’t expect Tweek to do this. His hand was cold, helping Craig focus entirely on it instead of what was happening around him. He took a deep breath and followed the blond out in the rain, the wind quickly drenching them in water.

Normally, walking outside during a storm would be thoroughly moronic. You never knew where a lightning bolt would strike, it was a perfect way to cosplay a fork stuck in a working toaster. But he wasn’t thinking straight right now. Tweek’s hand was serving as a good distraction from anything going on in his mind, so he held his hand tight and pressed closer to him. Tweek didn’t seem to mind, focused on the path ahead, it was like he didn’t notice anything.

Wet, sticky hands pressed together. In the loneliness of the weather, it felt like they were the only people left in the world. The storm blocking out the remnants of the afternoon sun and making the streets seem apocalyptic. Yet strangely, for the first time, Craig was managing the storm. He certainly didn’t feel good about it. But the warmth from the other teen was grounding him to the earth. 

Two teenagers walked under the rain.

They looked at each other. One confessed through his eyes that the other gave him the strength to handle anything. A soft nod was shared between two steps.

The feeling was required.

-Sunday

Clyde was about to hit a mouth orgasm. A mouthgasm. A climax, but in his mouth, if you will.

They should really let me invent words for the dictionary one of these days.

But seriously, this burger was so fucking good. KFC knew their shit in his humble opinion, even if most of his friends disagreed. It was the perfect mix between moist and crunchy. Successfully distracting him from the loud, greasy, chaotic atmosphere of the fast food restaurant. 

Almost.

Because unfortunately, even the best burger ever wasn’t enough to distract him from the absolute bullshit that was happening at the dinner table right before his very eyes.

“Here,” Craig handed Tweek a full thermos of coffee that he pulled from his bag. “I kept that for you.”

Kept that for you. He said.

Since when did Craig carry around drinks for people?

“Thanks man.” Tweek hesitated for about half a second before chugging the drink, without making any comments about poisoning risks (a miracle, he even did it to his own food made by him sometimes). Craig smiled at him softly, subtly, disgustingly. Then he went back to his fries. As if he did nothing wrong.

What the hell was going on here?

Why were they acting like a couple now? What happened? Craig hadn’t said anything about that! What did Clyde miss!?

Clyde looked left and right at his other friends to see if he was the only one seeing this. He had to be hallucinating. There was no way! Tolkien and Jimmy seemed just as shell-shocked as him. So he was sane right!? 

Craig went to the doctor yesterday.

And here he was now, acting like someone’s housewife.

Since when did Tweek accept anything without acting like it was laced with cyanide??

Since when did Craig even know how to make coffee? He hated that shit!

Did the doctor replace him with an alien?

Or was Craig finally about to introduce them to a boyfriend?

Was this why he was so insistent on bringing Tweek with him today?

Was this why Tweek paid for both their food earlier?

Was this why they were sitting right next to each other?

“Uhm. Congratulations you guys!” Said Tolkien.

Tweek looked at him like he just grew two other heads right in front of him. Craig simply raised an eyebrow, a silent question on his face.

“Well you know…” Tolkien was about to backtrack, thinking better of it, before putting on a determined face. “Congrats on…whatever this is. You guys seem happy!”

“Y-y-yeah. C-C-Con- Salutations.” Said Jimmy. He looked smug and Clyde knew exactly why, it looked like Tolkien owed him a hundred dollars. 

Craig became bright red. He didn’t respond, opting to glare at his plate instead. 

Tweek didn’t follow his lead though, and huffed out with blotchy red cheeks.

“We’re not.” He said quickly.

Silence.

What did Clyde expect? Of course Craig could never grow balls. That would go against everything that made him Craig. Communication was like a kryptonite to this guy. Maybe it was for the best though. Tweek sucked lowkey. Not as a person, but…yeah.

“Welp. That’s awkward.” Chuckled Tolkien. He looked immensely relieved. Probably because of the bet. Jimmy on the other hand appeared devastated.

The rest of dinner went simply like this. With Clyde and his friends discussing their last COD game, and Tweek and Craig looking lost in their own little world, talking much too fucking close to the other, giggling a bit too often. But sure. They weren’t dating. 

Welp, if they wanted to be morons some more, be Clyde’s guest! Apparently this totally wasn’t happening, so he would be a good friend and play along.

Craig really pissed him off sometimes. He was so stupid.

He better not get hurt.