Chapter Text
He knows he is being broken up with.
It is obvious.
If he was less of an asshole, he would tell her to save the speech, but the thing is, he is an asshole, so he lets her suffer as she tries to gracefully put together the words to let him down, gently.
“I mean, when was the last time you even tried to kiss me? I feel like you are not into me, and I just… I need someone who is into me, Craig, it’s just what I need in my life right now to truly be happy.”
He nods, but still doesn’t say anything.
“I really hope you understand. It’s truly nothing personal, I just think neither of us are truly happy here, I mean... are you?”
Truly? Not really. It’s part of the reason he really does not care about her breaking up with him.
“Not really.”
“Yeah,” she nods, eyebrows slightly furrowing inward. “So, why fool ourselves — I really do appreciate the time we have had together, Craig, but I truly think it was just supposed to be a short time thing between us,” her smile is shaky, eyes not so sure of themselves. “I’m sorry,” she adds. She pulls her wallet out of her purse that hangs on the arm of the chair. She pulls out a twenty from one of the flaps and gently sets it on the table. He eyes it. “This should be more than enough to cover my meal,” she decrees. “One of the girls is waiting outside for me so I’m going to go.”
She stands up from the chair, giving Craig a forced smile before walking away from the table and eventually, out of his view — out of the restaurant.
He thinks it should hurt more than it does but he feels nothing.
The waiter comes around with the check. Craig grabs the abandoned twenty on the other side of the table, along with another handful of cash from his pocket, handing it to the waiter. “You’re all set,” he tells him, anxious to get out of here.
He slides on his jacket and walks out of the restaurant into the humid, late September air. He looks up, spotting dark, grey clouds. He picks up his hood, just in case it starts to storm before he gets inside.
His phone dings.
Kenny.
Heard u got dumped again.
He shakes his head. God, gossip in this town is fast.
Ya, w/e
U wanna come over to smoke?
Craig glances at the dark, grey clouds again and then his phone. Fuck it.
Sure
Kenny’s house is closer than his own anyways — he will definitely avoid the storm this way. He’ll just wait it out at Kenny’s until it’s over and then walk home, dry and high; a double win.
He walks to Kenny’s — about eight minutes away — and walks into the house without knocking; a typical practice. He is immediately met with the smell of marijuana. Karen is in the living room, on the couch, watching something on TV that Craig does not recognize.
“Hey Karen,” he greets the younger McCormick.
She perks up at him, grinning. “Hey Craig! They are in Kenny’s room.” They. Craig should not be shocked; it is a common occurrence that Kenny has someone else over. Usually he asks, makes sure it’s someone he is chill with, but today he just didn’t think to.
He usually doesn’t care who it is; only really irritated when it’s Stan because, well, the two are fucking gross and obnoxious with their PDA.
He opens the door to his room, and is sort of shocked upon who he sees.
Tweek Tweak.
He knows they are friends; sees them around sometimes; assumes Tweek still delivers special packages to the McCormick household, but Tweek has always been — well, used to be — against taking any drugs, ever since he found out his parents were pretty much running a full on drug operation.
He seems to have changed his mind though as he inhales the smoke of the joint, coughing into his arm. Kenny stares at him, “why are you just standing there? Take a seat,” Kenny throws his arm out towards the wholeness of his room. He decides to take a seat on the bean bag chair that resides at the end of Kenny’s bed — by his desk. Kenny’s room is really small, everything is next to each other.
Kenny and Tweek sit on their bed, backs against the walls and legs laid out in front of them. He cannot stop staring at Tweek as his coughing subdues, under a myriad of mumbled apologies, passing the joint to Kenny.
Kenny takes a drag as his eyes fall to Craig. Craig quickly looks away from Tweek and at Kenny.
“So,” he inhales, holding in the smoke a moment before speaking. “What happened with you and what’s-her-name?” Smoke surrounds his words. He immediately goes for another seamless hit, taking it down in a much more graceful manner than Tweek. Kenny has been smoking since the age of twelve though so it makes sense. He wonders how long Tweek has.
Craig shrugs, “I don’t know. I don’t care enough to think about it — it’s probably for the best,” he rests his head against the leg of Kenny’s desk behind him. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Kenny’s outstretched arm — the joint tucked in between his fingers.
He takes it, bringing it to his lips as Kenny asks another question.
“Wasn’t she, like, a freshman?”
“Sophomore,” Craig corrects as his exhaled smoke surrounds him. He eyes Tweek again, he has brought his knees up to his chest, arms encircled around them — eyes on him. He looks away, takes another hit and then reaches up and hands the joint to him — fingers brushing against one another as he passes it over — Tweek’s eyes locked on his.
He doesn’t like talking about this in front of Tweek for some reason. He just wants Kenny to shut up about it already.
“I bet she realized you weren’t the mystery, bad boy that everyone thinks you are, and that you’re actually just this huge, anime, guinea-pig loving, nerd.”
Craig swipes his eyes back over to Kenny, glaring and raising a middle finger. He hears quiet laughter — looking over to find Tweek laughing softly into his knees.
“What?” He asks.
“It’s just true,” Tweek shrugs. “That was just, ah, a good description for you.”
His eyes crinkle when he laughs; he has noticed this before a dozen times before but it has been awhile since he has seen Tweek laugh; it’s been awhile since he has seen up close Tweek, at all.
Craig’s eyes follow the joint Tweek hands to Kenny. The dirty-blond boy takes another hit, looking smug with his joke. Craig just frowns and looks away. How is it his fault people create this false image of him in their minds? It’s not. People are just fucking stupid.
“Oh, well,” Kenny murmurs, “I’m sure some other poor girl is already planning her move on you.”
Kenny passes him the joint. He takes a hit. Holding onto the smoke in his lungs and releasing.
He gets a lot of attention from girls, especially after he got his braces off freshman year. He likes the attention; likes being adored by these girls. It makes him feel better about himself, but he never really has any feelings for them. He supposes it sort of makes him an asshole, maybe, to go out with them, but he is a guy — he is supposed to go out with dozens of different girls in high school. They make it so easy, throwing themselves at him.
He doesn’t really get it.
He doesn’t do sports — sports are lame. Instead, he works with Kenny on the AV Club, filming the morning announcements and occasionally going out to one of the football games or, whatever else school event, to get some footage to air on the morning announcements the week after.
He is tall. He guesses girls like that. He is the tallest guy in their grade.
He guesses he is attractive — he has been told many of times by many different people.
And he guesses he seems mysterious to people but it’s only because he hates a lot of people, hates his classes and teachers. He doesn’t make any effort to really talk to anyone outside his friend group, barely showing up to any class parties, unless Token or Clyde force him.
He is much unlike the two blondes who surround him.
Kenny gets along with everyone — chill and laid back, hard to not get along with, and Tweek — he is weird on the surface, jittery and anxious, but once people get to know him, they love him. Tweek makes it easy to get to know him, always saying what’s on his mind, engaging himself in multiple different cliques of people. He just floats around because he can, because he is interesting enough, and any person is happy to adopt him into their friend group.
Craig was once friends with him too.
They were close — like really close, but it wasn’t even like Tweek was his best friend or anything — that’s always basically been Clyde, but their friendship was different than his friendship with others. It felt special; he wasn’t like Clyde or Token. He was Craig’s friend —If he was hanging out with their group, it was because Craig invited him. He was close with Tweek in ways he wasn’t with Clyde, and it felt different.
He didn’t want Tweek to be part of his group with Clyde and Token. He just wanted him for himself.
He thinks he was sort of obsessed with him. Maybe . It was weird — it still weirded him out. It’s part of the reason he distanced himself from him — it was just way too fucking bizarre with Tweek; he is too encapsulating of a person to just be around casually.
But now, here he is again, right in front of him, looking soft and glowing under the smoke and slight buzz.
Kenny snaps his fingers in his face. “Dude, pass it.”
He blinks. Passes it to Tweek again. Their fingers brush against one another. Something twinkles in Tweek’s eyes. It makes his stomach flutter. He hears thunder.
“I should —,” he is ready to spring up and get the fuck out of here, but then Karen interupts.
“ Kenny! The ceiling is leaking again!”
“Aw, shit,” Kenny mumbles, immediately springing up off the bed. “Be right back,” he adds, shutting the door as he leaves.
Craig just stares blankly, the words on his tongue dying. He slinks back into the bean bag, biting his lip, eyes falling to Kenny’s dirty carpet. He cannot just leave now — it feels too awkward, would be way too obvious.
“Craig.”
“What?” His eyes flash up. Tweek’s arm is extended up to him, joint in hand. “Oh,” he mumbles sheepishly, taking the joint. Touch.
He brings it to his lips, inhaling too sharply and coughing into his arm.
He hears Tweek laugh through his coughs. Craig stares at him. His eyes are pink now. He is smiling. “It makes me feel better that the elusive and cool Craig Tucker coughs up a shit storm when smoking too.”
He abruptly stops his coughing, even though it hurts to, as his eyes water up. The tickle in his throat betrays him, forcing out another cough, eliciting a laugh from Tweek again. He flushes red — convinced it is from the lack of breathing. He flips Tweek off. “I usually don’t,” he argues, passing the joint back over. Touch .
Tweek brings the joint up to his lips — there is barely anything left of it and his slender fingers almost touch the embers. Smoke pours out of his mouth as he speaks, “don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone.” The smoke evaporates. Tweek is smiling again — his brown eyes crinkling and that one dimple on his left cheek present. He knows he should stop looking but he doesn’t. He doesn’t know why Tweek doesn’t attract more female attention. He is objectively good looking — long, blonde hair that hasn’t lost any brightness since childhood, full, pink lips and a long straight nose. He supposes the only thing is his height: he is pretty fucking short — probably his parents fault for giving him so much coffee at such a young age, stunting his growth. Craig thinks that if he was a girl though, he would find it cute — it wouldn’t bother him; it was, in fact, endearing.
“What?”
Craig realizes he has been staring. Fuck . He stands up. “I should go, my parents are expecting me home.”
“Oh, okay,” Tweek responds — a frown on his mouth. Does he care? Does he want him to stay? It doesn’t matter. He is going anyways. “Do you want one last hit before you go?”
He eyes it. It is barely a roach but he reaches forward and grabs it anyways, his fingers brushing against Tweek’s in the process. The embers nearly touch his skin as he inhales one last time. He exhales the smoke, then puts the roach out on Kenny’s ashtray.
“I’ll see you around, Tweek,” he mumbles, not looking at him as he opens Kenny’s bedroom door, immediately shutting it behind him.
He says goodbye to Karen and Kenny as well — Kenny too invested in stopping the leak to question his quick departure. Thank God. It was easy with Tweek — he doesn’t know what his parents are like anymore — if he told Kenny, he already knows what he would say — “ your parents don’t give a shit! Just tell em’ you’ll be home later.”
He doesn’t even really know why he is leaving — why he is choosing to walk through the fucking pouring rain in the middle of a thunderstorm when he could just wait it out at Kenny’s — the obvious answer is Tweek, of course, but what about him? He doesn’t want to think about it.
Out of sight. Out of mind.