Chapter Text
Tweek wasn’t as excited to move across the country, or maybe, he was… anything to escape the torturous place that was his hometown. It was a nightmare fueled place for him. The people there… his family… the awful things he had to endure at school. Maybe it was the idea of moving to a large city, where disease would be more common, people who were more likely to scream at you, and all of the bad things that Tweek didn’t experience in his small hometown.
It wasn’t that he didn’t want to move there, it was the fact it was a last minute decision, precisely at four am while he was up again from another sleepless night. Maybe it was the sleep deprivation induced mania, or it was just him finally coming to his senses that he needed to escape. That he needed to get out of the box he had trapped himself in.
When he had applied to NYU, he didn’t expect to be accepted. Where he didn’t think they would offer him a place to stay and a room to call his own, but Tweek had begged them to let him get an apartment. He could not share a bathroom with dozens of other kids. He explained his mental health, and they were wary but lenient as they had let other kids do the same.
He was able to get almost a full ride, and shockingly enough with all of the money he got from the state of Colorado on disability— he had crippling anxiety, was bipolar, and had major depressive episodes. And thanks to his stupid fucking parents, he had to deal with the long term effects of the meth which caused him to pass out, or even have seizures.
His grandma had immediately applied him to it, once she had gotten custody of him, that is, because his parents wouldn’t ever despite knowing that he was incapable of work and wouldn’t be able to work without sufficient therapy (which he went to), a lot of work, and all of his medications that he had to take. On top of all of that, he was an in recovery drug addict— which was an entirely different story that he doesn’t feel like remembering or going into with just anybody. To five years clean, Tweek supposes.
Tweek stares at the airport screen that is blinking ‘NOW BOARDING: DENVER, CO —> NEW YORK CITY, NY’ . His anxiety spikes, and he absentmindedly pulls out his medication and shakily pours out a pill— or two— to help calm his anxiety.
This was going to be a long journey. He had thought, he grabbed his carry-on suitcase and wobbly made it to the line. He had stayed up all night ensuring he would get a good seat, as he couldn’t handle getting on the plane last and the idea of getting anything other seat other than the back row, which was the safest seat on the plane and most likely would not guander any weird people to sit near him.
Tweek took a deep breath, walking forwards and flashing his plane ticket to the man at the walkway door. He gladly took his ticket and wished him a safe flight.
His mind was racing, thinking of all the possibilities of the plane crashing, exploding, him dying or having a medical emergency on the flight— but he knew it was all in his head. It was all nothingness that he needed to get over, and his medication would kick in and he would finally calm down a little bit.
Beelining for the back of the plane the moment he gets to the entrance, he quickly takes a seat by the window— not a window seat, to be more precise the middle seat in the third row to the back—and places his noise canceling headphones on until he knows that everyone has boarded.
Tweek looked out the window, eyeing everything he could and making sure the ground people were doing their jobs correctly. He had researched and watched videos about people who did this job, to ensure his own safety that he wouldn’t somehow be a part of a freak accident before the plane even took off.
A hand meets his shoulder, making him nearly jump out of his skin— a stranger touched me. What if they’re sick or have a contagious disease that will kill him? He snaps his head back and looks at the hand on his shoulder.
The person it belonged to, oh god. It had to be one of the most beautiful people that Tweek had ever seen. A boy. His grey eyes bored into his own.
Tweek took off his headphones.
“You,” the boy said, “Can I sit by the window?”
“Uh-“ Tweek looked at him for a second, “Y-Yeah.”
“Thanks,” the boy squeezed past him and plopped down, his knees hit the back of the seat in front of him and he settled in fairly quick.
“These are the safest seats.”
The boy looks at him, “Oh, yeah?”
“Studies showed th-that the seats in the third row to the back were the safest in a crash,” Tweek said, his hands twitches in his lap, “Middle of the plane and front of the plane are the most dangerous.”
“How come the third row to the back instead of the last row?”
“The rim… the rim of the wall around the window do you see?”
“Yeah, it’s weird.”
“That’s— that’s the escape thing… in case the plane crashes…” Tweek says, he nervously looks around to look at the people boarding, getting distracted from the worries that were filling his brain. God, when is this medication kicking in?
“You researched a lot about this,” the boy next to him says, “Glad to know I’ll survive.”
“It’s not one hundred percent,” Tweek says, then immediately wants to smack himself in the head, “Ah — god— sorry.”
“Nah, it’s fine.”
Tweek bites his lip, his hand gripping the fabric of his jeans and he looks down the aisle to see everyone had finally been seated. He eyes trail to the flight attendants busying themselves chatting and talking to other passengers.
Soon, all the voices that were crowding his brain slowly fade into a quiet humming, and his hands stop shaking as much as they usually do. Thank god. Tweek looks over to the seat on his right and realizes that no one sat there, which meant that there was no one blocking the aisle if he needed to get up.
“So, can I get your name?”
Tweek turns his head to look at the grey eyed boy and offers a week smile and nods, “Uh- yeah, it’s Tweek.”
“Tweek?”
“Yeah,” he says, “Um..”
“Okay, cool, I’m Craig,” the boy Craig offers, he nods and then looks out the window.
Should I ask why he’s going to New York? Is that rude?
“Um, why are you going to New York?”
“I’m going to college at NYU,” Craig responds, “And you?”
“Oh, oh , same,” Tweek awkwardly smiles, feeling a bit of happiness in his chest that he wouldn’t ever not see this guy again, “What for?”
“Cinema Studies,” Craig shrugs, “I want to be a filmmaker. Create crazy ass sci-fi horror films.”
“Oh,” Tweek offers a smile, “That’s pretty cool.”
“Have you seen Alien?”
“No- if it’s horror I probably haven’t watched it,” Tweek says, “But I think I’ve heard of it.”
“Ah, okay,” Craig looks a little bummed, but shrugs it off pretty quick, “What about you?”
“What?”
“What are you studying?”
“Oh… I’m studying music and vocal studies,” Tweek responds, “It’s not as cool as filming sci-fic horror films though.”
“Wow, double majoring?” Craig looks at him with a surprised look, “You must be pretty good at what you do. I think that’s pretty cool.”
“Thanks…” Tweek stops his sentence when he hears the flight attendant finally speak. She goes over the safety protocols and basic information that anyone needs to know in case of a crash. Then other information that Tweek doesn’t care about because it’s not about him surviving.
“You seem pretty anxious,” Craig mentioned, “Have you flown before?”
“No,” Tweek answered, “Uh, yeah I’m a bit nervous.”
God, if he knew he would think I’m a freak too. Everyone always does.
-
In seventh grade, Tweek had slowly come to the realization that everything he was going through wasn’t just anxiety. His jitters and hallucinations weren’t just that of an anxiety induced feeling, but more so what it felt like to be drugged out of his mind.
The reason he came to this realization? His parents were arrested and escorted out of their coffee shop as Tweek was being driven home from school in a cop car.
His mother had momentarily broken free from the cop's hold and grabbed him from where she was standing, sobbing into his shoulder and begging him to help them. She never apologized to him, all she did was beg for him to understand where they were coming from and why they did what they did.
But Tweek didn’t know what they did, and at the time he had nodded through tears at his mothers request. He hugged his mom and watched as she was dragged away by the police and pushed into the back of the car. Not once did his father look at him.
Tweek can remember waiting outside his house with a cop, who was trying to distract him from his reality by showing him an iPhone game on his phone and had bought him a donut. Then his grandma had rolled up to the house and ran to him in tears. She hugged him and kissed his cheek, vowing to never let his parents see him again.
She was ranting to the cop, ‘how could parents do this to their kid?’, ‘why my baby?’, ‘they will never see him again’.
He remembers when he finally came to the realization that he had been nonconsensually drugged with meth for his entire childhood to help with his ‘mental problems’.
Tweek realized that he would be the freak of South Park forever. And he was right.
-
“Are you okay?”
Tweek looks at the grey eyed boy and nods, “Yeah… I was just thinking.”
“If it helps, airplanes are statistically more safe than cars,” Craig offers, “And the oxygen masks work. And pilots are retrained every six months.”
“Right, yeah…” Tweek feels better, he really does, and the fact Craig knows safety protocol on airplanes is a little endearing to him too, “Um, did you know that airplanes can fly with one engine?”
“No, I didn’t, but that’s pretty cool,” Craig said, he smiled a bit and shuffled in his seat to grab something out of his bag, “I have some music, I heard music is good with relaxing people when they’re nervous. I don’t know if it’s true though, would you like to listen?”
Normally, Tweek wouldn’t share anything with a stranger, let alone earbuds, but Craig was nice to him, it’s hard to imagine he would do anything wrong to him. So Tweek agreed.
“Have you ever listened to The Cure?” Craig asked, and Tweek shook his head, “Okay, well now you will, this song is called ‘Jupiter Crash.”
He doesn’t even realize the plane has taken off, and before he knew it he was listening to music with a stranger on a plane, who’s destination was the same as his, and deep down he hopes that somehow they’d stay in touch. But Tweek has long forgotten what trust means, so he doesn’t know if he was faithful in something as innocent as that.
The next time Tweek gains consciousness, he’s waking up to the feeling of the plane rumbling to a stop.
His eyes shoot open and he sits up, but he feels a comforting hand on his own, “Don’t worry, man, the plane just landed.”
“Oh- jeez, thank you,” Tweek laughs a little and waits for the plane to announce they could deboard, “How long was I asleep?”
“Pretty much the entire time, I guess The Cure is a little boring to you, huh?”
“What?” Tweek’s eyes widen, “No— I mean— I don’t remember much of the songs but-“
“Gah, I was kidding, don’t worry,” Craig waves off, “Should we exchange-“
“Hey, kid, mind moving your bag so I can get mine?” An old man grumbled to Craig, “I need to get out of here before my wife throws a fit.”
Craig sighed, grabbed his things, then squished between the seats and got up to grab his suitcase from overhead, and moved backwards to let the old man get his own. But then it happens, a group of four or so people suddenly emerge and now Craig is forced to get off the plane as people continue to push.
Tweek is the last one off, triple checking to make sure he left nothing behind, when he noticed that Craig had dropped a small cat keychain and quickly swipes it in hopes of seeing Craig when he gets off the plane to safely return it.
But when he exits, Craig is nowhere to be found. Tweek feels a little saddened at that, as he wanted to exchange numbers or possibly carpool in a taxi to campus. Dejectedly, he walks towards baggage claim, waiting for his suitcases to emerge. He looks around to see if he can see Craig, but unfortunately the boy is nowhere to be found.
He fiddles a bit with the keychain that was still in his hand, the little cat sitting down with orange fur. It was really cute, it made sense that Craig chose it whenever he did. Tweek wonders if this meant Craig was a cat person, because he’d probably have a dog keychain if he was a dog person.
Finally spotting his luggage, he grabs his suitcases and wobbles the best he can to the exits of the airport.
That’s when he sees it, Craig is standing outside with a bundle of luggage himself looking around, however, before Tweek can go up to him he’s stopped in his tracks by an elderly woman.
Tweek looks down at her and she’s eyeing him, “Are you my grandson?”
“Uh, no?” Tweek looked back up, and saw that Craig was begrudgingly hailing a taxi down and Tweek knew that this could possibly be the last chance he has to see Craig— despite them going to the same school, it was huge and their majors didn’t essentially align. He didn’t get his schedule until next week, so he wouldn’t know if he had any classes near wherever the film building was. He shakes from his thoughts, “I’m sorry, miss, but I need to-“
Then a taxi swings to a stop in front of Craig, and he’s putting his luggage in it, no longer looking around for him. Tweek feels his chest hurt, but not from anxiety this time, it’s more so the feeling of rejection that burdens him half the time. Tweek sadly hobbles his way to the side of the road, waving down a taxi and getting his own things in the yellow cab and says the address to the gruff taxi driver.
He takes his phone off airplane mode, and sees that his Grandma had texted him.
Nanna
Child, did you make it to New York City?
Yes nanna
Nanna misses you already!
I miss you too, ❤️
Please be safe for Nanna and remember
to take your medicine. And text Nanna if you
need anything…
Yes Nanna, I love you
I love you too, child
Tweek stares into the abyss of his empty apartment. The rest of the furniture that his grandma had gotten him wouldn’t be here for a bit, so he would have to settle with just a bed and a coffee table for now.
Everything hurts. It truly does, he doesn’t know why he made such a rash decision to go to a city that would most likely heighten his anxiety more than anything. Nothing feels safe, and no matter how far he goes he knows that everything comes in full circle. Everything follows.
His grandma did his best raising him, even offering him to be homeschooled but he declined. He didn’t want to appear as a wuss, despite knowing that being homeschooled would’ve definitely improved his mental health.
Through all the times he’s dropped into his manic depressive episodes, or to when he couldn’t even get out of bed, his grandma still loved him and made sure he was safe. When he was in and out of rehab over the summer for his mental health. When he hardly slept, screamed and yelled at his grandma until he broke down and collapsed on the ground… she never gave up on him.
Leaving her was a difficult decision, as she was his supporter from the moment she gained custody of him. And now he was seventeen hundred miles from her, in a city he’s never been to and going to a college where people are better, smart, and come from backgrounds where they’ve already made friends and lived full and beautiful lives.
Tweek shuffled over to the door of his bedroom, and just collapsed onto the empty bed after setting his things down. There was no place in the world for people like him. He never fit in, he always stood out. Everyone moved and succeeded around him, while all he did was stay the same, unmoving pace.
And that was just the way it always had to be, the way he always had to be alone.
He looks at the piano bag against the wall. The most important thing to him, that had followed him through the worst times of his life, to moments like this. Tweek understood that if he needed to be better mentally, he would have to want to be better. And that would take a long time, but it wasn’t impossible.
Rolling onto his back, he digs into his pocket and pulls out the keychain that Craig had left behind. He dangles it in front of his eyes.
I want to get better.
The following days, his schedule finally comes out. His furniture came in and he busied himself with decorating his apartment, he would also probably have to get a job. His grandma would send him money, without a doubt, she was always the rich grandma who would buy him a million things for his birthday and Christmas when his parents would get him nothing but a new thermo.
He threw them all away, as he had no use for them and no longer drank coffee as it made him feel sick and his skin crawled at the smell. But she would help him, without a doubt, but he couldn’t do that to her. She’s helped him so much already and he couldn’t burden her any longer.
A job sounds terrifying, especially in the big city. Not only that, but interacting with people every day— it wasn’t ideal. And he would have to go to the pharmacy whenever his medications would run out. Which was even worse, he feared for the day when he had to walk into a CVS or just a regular pharmacy and ask for his three different medications.
He remembers when he first asked for his antipsychotic medication at the drug store in South Park, the guy looked at him like he was actually psychotic and warily asked for his ID and paperwork. After that, he had his grandma get it for him.
And now he’s got to do it all by himself again.
Tweek ignores whatever onslaught of thoughts that were going to come and opens his laptop, clicking play on his Spotify playlist and busying himself with whatever could take his mind off things.
The sound of classical music fills his ears, as he picks up a few boxes full of knick knacks to put on his shelves. A small reminder pops up in his brain and he turns around to his laptop, and types in ‘The Cure’.
Jupiter Crash.
He goes back to what he was doing, he did like this song when Craig played it for him, so he decided to play that and then whatever songs were to play afterwards. As he’s setting up his shelf, the voice of a man begins to sing after about a minute or so of instrumentation.
Tweek bobs his head a bit, it’s nice music to listen to. He usually settles for classical and other pieces surrounding it. He loved music, but he couldn’t seem to find the exact genre he was interested in other than classical. Besides, it relaxes him, so he enjoyed it even more.
Irresistible attraction and orbital plane
Or maybe it’s more like a moth to a flame
Tweek awakens, first day of school. Groaning, dreading the day wasn’t enough for him, he needed to run away before he got caught in a whirlwind of a dead end job. But he can’t, if he ever wanted to become a musician or vocalist he needed to get himself prepared for just how difficult it would be. Nothing was going to be easy for a guy like him, ever.
He gets out of bed and trudges to the bathroom just outside his room, brushes his teeth, and then tries to settle his hair as much as possible. Opening the medicine cabinet, he grabs his anti-seizure medication, his anxiety one, then the antipsychotics. The other would be taken later at night.
If he was going to commit to school, he needed to stay out of everyone’s radar. There was no buts about it.
Dropping the three pills in his hand, he swallows them dry and heads back to his room to get dressed for the day. He usually just stuck with the same old hoodie and jeans, but his mind traced to the button up and sweater that was neatly hung up. The button up was dark brown, and the sweater was a forest green, so he would have to settle with the dark brown jeans he had as well.
His first class of the day was music theory at 11:30, and the time was about 10:00. He had an hour and half to get to campus and find the class. Tweek was not really interested in doing a tour, as he hadn’t wanted to draw any attention to him before school even began.
Rushing out of his room after grabbing his headphones and phone, he grabbed his keys and wallet that were sitting on the counter, then headed out.
He places his headphones on as he walks, shuffling his classical music playlist.
Once he made it to the street, he could already feel his hands shake and his eyes fly around. Thank god that he was wearing his headphones, or else he’d probably become too overstimulated to actually pay attention for the rest of the day.
The walk to campus wasn’t long, he’d specifically chosen an apartment that would be close enough for his classes, but far enough to where he didn’t think he’d run into any other people going to the university.
He enjoys the walk for the most part, it begins mellowing out the closer he gets to campus and his medication is actually starting to work. Tweek would be fine, as long as nothing went wrong the rest of the day.
The campus is bombarded with students, and Tweek keeps his head down to avoid eye contact with anyone. Back in high school, if he made eye contact with anyone that was almost an immediate death sentence for him. No one wanted to even look at him.
Tweek should probably stop assuming the worst out of people.
He looks around, and sees a large building not too far from him, that’s just a little past Washington Square. Tweek picks up his pace and tries to get a little closer.
Before he could, he crashed into someone and fell over, his hands breaking his fall and making him wince from the pain. Tweek sits up on his knees and realizes his headphones had fallen off too.
“Oh shit, sorry about that,” a voice says, “I didn’t even see you there.”
Tweek looks up to see a boy, his hair is curly and red, and his eyes are boring right into his. He looks away quickly and grabs his headphones, to which one of the sides had popped out. He curses a bit.
“It—It’s fine- um,” Tweek says, his voice quiet, “Uh, I’m sorry too.”
He begins to walk away, doing his best to not cry right then and there, because now this was way too much for his first day. The guy would probably tell all of his buddies that he ran into some loser at the quad. Stop it. Stop-
“Hey!” The same voice from earlier calls, “Your hands were like, bleeding, uh I carry a first aid kit. The least I can do is help you clean up.”
Tweek turns around, he looks at the tall guy and realizes there’s no malice behind his eyes. He looks concerned.
“O-Okay,” Tweek walks back over, feeling slightly awkward, and the guy motions him to sit down, Tweek’s eyes widen, “On the ground?”
“Yeah,” he shrugs, “It’s okay. If you’re worried about bugs I think they’d be in the grass.”
“It’s not-“ No. Don’t say anything that would make this guy think we’re a freak, “Okay..”
He follows the redhead as he sits down, and the guy begins digging through his backpack and retrieves a red box with a cross on it.
“I insisted to my mom that I definitely didn’t need it, but she pushed for me to keep it on me in case anything happened,” he laughed, “I guess I should always trust my mom, huh?”
Tweek offers a light smile in response, and the guy takes his wrist and flips it over. He won’t lie, he’s pretty sure he fucked up his wrists because they’re aching. The redhead looks up at him.
“So, what’s your name?”
“Tweek.”
“That’s fucking sick,” he says, and he doesn’t sound sarcastic, “Like god. Now my name sounds lame.”
Tweek looks at him curiously, “What is it?”
“Kyle,” he says, a little sad, “I wish I had a more unique name. I just sound like an asshole.”
“It’s not a bad name,” Tweek offers. Kyle smiles and dabs at his hand with a rubbing alcohol cloth, it makes him wince.
“Sheesh, sorry,” Kyle tsks, “I was walking backwards and then all of a sudden I heard someone crash onto the concrete. I also think I broke your headphones, I’m so sorry, I can buy you new ones!”
“Oh- It’s fine,” Tweek responds, “Um, I can always buy them.”
“No,” Kyle drawls out, “I broke, I repay. I feel really bad.”
Tweek checks his phone after pulling it out, seeing that it’s 11:12, and feels a little anxious— his class starts at 11:30 and he has no idea where he’s going.
“Do you have class today?” Kyle breaks the awkward silence and tilts his head a bit.
“Yeah- 11:30,” Tweek replies, “And thank you for uh, cleaning my hands and offering to buy me new headphones.”
“Oh shoot, me too, what class are you heading to?”
“Music Theory.”
“Wow, what a coincidence, I am too!” Kyle grins, he moves onto the next hand and pats at it, “That’s crazy, you know, I think you would get along well with one of my other friends.”
Tweek looks at him, this guy talks a lot… but feels a wage a relief wash over him knowing that Kyle would know where the class is, probably.
“That’s cool,” Tweek says, “That w-we share a class.. uh, really? About your friend?”
“Yeah, he’s super cool, and he got a full ride to go here,” Kyle responds, “He’s kinda quiet like you are— well we just met, but you guys seem like you would be good friends!”
Tweek nods a bit, “Okay, cool.”
“I actually have like, four friends that live here, well one of them I made during the campus tours and we’ve been hanging out a lot, he’s chill, I have another friend who goes to a different college here,” Kyle says, “You should meet them. I think you’re pretty cool and would get along with them all.”
Tweek feels like he’s entered a fever dream, or is having some medicine induced hallucinations, because there is no way that someone is actually offering to be his friend.
“Thank you,” Tweek says, and Kyle gives him another smile, his eyes brightening. After he finishes up, he places some bandages on them awkwardly and stands up, then offers a hand to him.
“We should get going for class, though!” Kyle points, “It’s not too far from here!”
They quickly exchange numbers, and if Kyle sees that he only has two contacts in the entirety of his phone, he doesn’t say anything. He leads him to the building where the class would be and even sits next to him.
After a bit, the professor walks in and greets the class and begins with a small slideshow he put together for the beginning of the year. It’s a bit boring and the students around him and Kyle are slightly whispering to one another. It makes him feel a little on edge, but he can’t really place why.
“Well, class, there isn’t much that I can over today, so I’ll dismiss you guys for the rest of the day,” the professors says, turning off his laptop, “If you have any concerns or medical info that I will need to know please see me after class and I can make sure to note it down so in the future I can adequately accommodate to you.”
Tweek twitches his fingers, and looks at Kyle who is packing up his things. He bites his tongue, and feels it’s necessary for him to tell the professor he may have seizures or have fainting spells. It’s not like he’s had one in a while, but he still feels it’s necessary especially if some freak accident happens and he ends up not able to take his medication for the seizures and he drops in class.
“Hey, I need to stay after f-for a second to tell the professor something.”
Kyle looks behind him and nods, “Sure, man, if you want I’m getting lunch and you can join me. And hey! The friend I was telling you about will be joining us too.”
Tweek offers a smile and then gets up himself. There are a few kids talking to the teacher already, so he patiently waits for them to finish, watching as Kyle leaves and waits across the hallway for him. After about ten minutes, when everyone has cleared the room except him, he nervously walks up to the professor who offers him a slight smile.
“What can I do for you?” he asks, “And can I get a name?”
“I-I’m Tweek, uh,” Tweek anxiously bites at his lip and looks back at the door, “Um, so,” then back at the teacher, “I think I should let you know that I can sometimes experience seizures and fainting spells, uh, I take medication for them but just in case something were to happen, you know.”
“Oh! Well thank you for letting me know,” he replies, “If at any point you feel you are going to, you can raise your hand to be excused and I’ll have someone escort you out and make sure you’re safe.”
“Thank you,” Tweek says, “Um, I also have really bad anxiety, so if it’s okay, could I do any projects we have just in front of you? Unless it’s required, that is, but um, I’m working on it and it’s gotten a lot better.”
“I don’t see why not, although I may in the far future have you try it at least once, just so you can get used to it and help you out— but if it ends up being too much, then there is no problem with letting me know,” the professors sits up, “I care about my students and want them to succeed. So anything that’s wrong, or you have a problem with, just let me know. Or just go ‘Hey, Professor Robins, can we chat?’ And I’ll be there!”
Tweek feels grateful he hadn’t been treated differently. When he was at his worst in school, his teachers had treated it like a burden on them to help him in the slightest, even knowing his history and what he had gone through. Some teachers even held it against him, as if it was his fault. And he didn’t miss the eyes on him when in health class and they talked about drug safety.
He exits the classroom and greets Kyle, who smiles and waved at him.
“Are you okay with sandwiches?” He asked, and when Tweek nodded, he smiled even bigger, “Sweet! It’s not too far from campus, so we can walk. Do you have other classes today?”
“No, do you?”
“I have a class at five, but other than that no,” Kyle replies, “Let’s go?”
Tweek feels a warm sensation fill his chest, slightly giddy at the aspect of actually having friends, like real friends. He’s never had one of those, so he doesn’t really know what to talk about or what to do, how to act. But he calms himself before his brain spirals into worrying about it, instead enjoying the beautiful weather and the scenery of Manhattan.
The sun was midday, and for once Tweek actually felt excited to eat, and wanted to. He wanted to be out and about, be around people. This could be a random euphoria, but he really hoped that it wasn’t. If this is what being happy feels like, Tweek wants to stay that way.
The walk really isn’t that long, and they arrive at some sandwich place about ten minutes off campus. Kyle goes on first and Tweek follows, his eyes scanning the room to see if he can spot anyone that seems like they’d be Kyle’s friend.
But then there’s a handsome tall boy that stands, waving them over and Tweek feels a small warmth creep up on his face. The boy was handsome, like very handsome. He was tall, sharply featured, and his eyes were bluer than he had ever seen. Tweek suddenly felt dull compared to him, but he still waved as the two of them walked over.
“Tweek, this is Kenny, and Kenny, this is Tweek,” Kyle introduced as he sat down, “I met Tweek earlier, I kinda wounded him so I’ve decided he’s now my friend!”
Tweek smiles a bit. Friend.
“Hi, Tweek,” Kenny says, “So, what do you study?”
“Music and vocals,” Tweek replies, “Um, I play the piano but I can also play the guitar, violin, and drums.”
“No fucking way, that’s sick,” Kenny said, “You said vocals, so you can sing too?”
“Um, not the best, but yeah, I used to practice a lot when I was younger so I wanted to start back up, you know?” Tweek played with his fingers a bit, “What do you study?”
“Soundboarding for films, basically,” Kenny says, “But also music, I play the guitar, both electric and acoustic. I’m in a band, you should come to one of my shows!”
“Oh, I don’t want intru—“
“Nonsense, man, a cute boy like you would definitely be something I want to see in a crowd,” Kenny smirks, “Plus Kyle is in it too.”
Tweek’s face blushes, and he sputters before responding, “I-I— oh, god, um, okay. Yeah, I’ll try to make it.”
“Anyways, enough of that, Tweek and Kyle, how would you feel about going to the welcoming party that’s happening at one of the boy’s campus houses?” Kenny asked, “Getting shitfaced right before everything goes down sounds like a dream.”
“A party, already?” Kyle groans, “How the hell do you find this stuff out?”
“There’s a guy in my class who attends, I helped him out with something and he said I could come and invite my friends,” Kenny shrugged, “You guys in?”
“Guess so, Tweek?”
Tweek blinks, “Um- I don’t know. I’m not good with crowds.”
“You can stick by us the entire time, we’ll be like human shields!”
“Uh, can I think about it?”
“Of course, no pressure!” Kyle says, “Kenny can give you his number, and then you can message us in a group chat, alright?”
“Okay, sure,” Tweek says, “Um, here’s my phone.”
He hands it to Kenny, letting the other boy type in his number and hand it back to him.
Now three contacts was four, and the rush of feeling like he belonged was beginning to become stronger.
Later, after lunch, Kyle had kept his word and bought Tweek new headphones, they weren’t the same, but he made sure that they were noise canceling ones. Tweek also made sure that they weren’t extremely expensive, as his old ones were only around fourth five dollars.
He had decided to go a little more downtown in Manhattan, thinking that he just needed time alone. Tweek would end up having to take the train, and sighed as he made his way down the stairs of the subway.
Tweek stood a little off to the side, making sure he was in no one’s way as he waited for the train to arrive. He put his hand inside his pockets and felt the small cat keychain that he still needed to give to Craig. Someone he also needed to find a way to meet up with.
About five minutes later, a train comes to a speeding stop and a bunch of people get on as he pushes his own way to get on. The subway was definitely something he would have to work on, because his medication is beginning to wear off and he can’t take it anymore until tomorrow.
He stands against the wall of the subway train, mentally noting the stop that would be downtown, and practices his breathing. There was an abundance of people on the train, and he couldn’t bear to look up from the ground at all, so he kept his eyes on his feet and would look up whenever the train would stop, only to check the stop name.
Eventually, the train finally reaches his destination and he gets off, pushing through the crowd of people and taking deep breaths, when he looks up at the train just across from him, that’s when he sees it.
Craig. Tweek rushes up to the doors, but they close and then the raven haired boy sees him himself, and his eyes widen. They can only look at each other in shock as the train begins to move, and Craig never takes eyes off of him. Tweek groaned mentally, it was as if the world wanted them to stay apart.
But Tweek just sighed, accepting defeat and strolled to the top of the subway station to look around the downtown area.
It was all about stepping out of his comfort zone now. He’s an adult, he has to get used to it.
In truth, Tweek didn’t need to completely act like an adult, he was only eighteen, but he knew he had to try and be better if he wanted to be better.
Tweek goes to the park that he sees, finds a bench away from the rest of the people and sits down. He pulls out his sheet music and begins to read them over, imagining it as if the piano was right in front of him. He knew the keys by heart, but still fumbled sometimes and needed to practice it more.
As he studies, he fails to realize that the sky has grown darker, signifying an oncoming storm.
The only thing that pulls him out is when he feels a raindrop on his head, making him look up. Tweek’s stomach twists. Fuck.
Oh god, fuck. Tweek shoots up and almost falls over from how fast he stands, but he manages and starts speed walking to the station. The last thing he needs is to be trapped outside during a storm, he could go into a nearby store or a food place, but his anxiety is spiking and if he has a panic attack in front of other people he might actually lose it.
It wasn’t that he was scared of storms themselves, but the possibilities that can come from storms, the loudness, the flashing, it all made him freak out. It’s been that way since he was a kid, and he really truly knew he needed to get over the childishness of it all, but every time he tried he almost spiraled.
The rain doesn’t hesitate to slam down around him, and now Tweek is getting wet, his close aren’t fitting right, his hair itches, everything is becoming a sensory issue and he wants to explode, his headphones are noise canceling, thankfully, but when lightning flashes with him still outside, Tweek gasps. He looks around and spots a stupid and sketchy looking public bathroom and practically sprints to it.
After checking that no one was in there, he slams against the wall and slides down. He tries his best to focus on breathing, but he can’t. This was too much for one day. It was supposed to be baby steps, not whatever this was. Tweek feels his heart skip beats, pumping so rapidly that he feels sweat form on his forehead.
He’s shaking, he puts down his head between his knees, but that only knocks his headphones off his ears and they clatter off. Tweek is too out of it to try and find them. His shaky hands are clawing into his chins and making him wince, but he doesn’t care.
A crack of thunder makes the mirrors and doors of the bathroom shake, making him whimper into his legs, he’s trying so hard to gain his composure back, but nothing is working.
I’m in a field, the grass is green and the skies are blue.
I’m in a field.
There’s wind, it’s blowing gently.
The flowers are blooming and the sun is warming my skin.
I’m in a field.
I’m in a field.
I’m in a field-
A distinct voice is heard behind him, but he can’t bother himself to care anymore. Everyone thinks he’s a fucking freakish spaz anyways. What’s one more? Hell make it the entire fucking world.
Tweek wants to curse himself, send himself to the depths of hell, god he’s so stupid for thinking he’d be able to do this, maybe— fuck, Tweek feels his stomach twist, the loud thunder pounding his ears and the wetness of his clothes is constant, his senses are going crazy and nothing is fucking working.
A voice sounds again, and Tweek feels like he should’ve just stayed in South Park and rotted, just curled up on his bedroom, sulking, and then just killing him—
“Tweek?”
Somehow, the voice breaks through the barriers, and Tweek feels his stomach lurch even more.
“Oh god,” the voice says, gentle hands cup his face and headphones are placed over his ears, immediately silencing the world.
Tweek peels his eyes open to see none other than Kenny, of all people in this entire fucking city, it’s Kenny, it’s the fucking friend he just made. How was his luck so fucking bad? Why does the world hate him?
A calloused hand takes his wrist and places it on his chest, making him feel a steady heartbeat underneath it. Tweek blinks slowly, he focuses, and he realizes something small, the fact Kenny doesn’t look weirded out or angry. He looks worried, his eyes gently looking down at him as Tweek tries to regain his consciousness through another’s heartbeat.
I’m in a field.
I’m in a field.
“I’m in a field,” Tweek whispers, or tries to.
Kenny curiously looks down at him and tilts his head, he holds his free hand up in a thumbs up, then down, then midways. It’s sort’ve cute, and if Tweek wasn’t dazed out of his mind then he would have blushed, maybe.
Somehow, Tweek had come down from what had to probably of been the worst panic attack he’s had in forever, slowly removing his hand from Kenny’s chest and taking a deep breath.
The pair stare at each other for a while, and then Kenny goes to type something on his phone. His phone pings, and Tweek shakily grabs his from where it had fallen out of his pocket next to him.
Ken :)
it’s been just rain for a while now
but if u want to just text then that’s cool
I feel better with texting
I’m sorry
Seriously, I’m so sorry.
Oh, what for?
The fact that you saw me in this state
It’s embarrassing and I am ssorry
it’s not embarrassing
u can’t help it
my lil sis used to get panic attacks
there’s nothing wrong with thay
Thank you
I appreciate your hhelp I
Do o
hey, anytime :)
now, once the rain clears up
i’ll be ur personal escort to ur dorm
I actually have an apartment
And you don’t hsve to its ook
whaaaatt
no way
you have an apartment :’(
I wasn’t allowed
(I don’t have the money for that)
I am going to walk you home
Ah haha certain things
Accommodated to me
Whst u saw is just notmal for me
But umm
Really, it's alright
ahhhh okay cool! sounds nice :)
nope :3
i am walking u home
What is :3 ?
like a cat smile
:3
:3
:3
cute right
Yes
I like cats
:3
there ya go
oh gosh
i’ve infected u
don’t tell kyle it was me
Safe with me
Is the rain still going?
radar says about fifteen minutes
want to play an iphone game?
Like an app?
nooo like game pigeon :3
Oh
How do I do that?
come to me
plssssssss <3
Oh wow
That’s like a heart
<3
I never would’ve thought of that
:3
aww ur cute i feel like
i’m teaching u the world
i love it
aha!
[Let’s play 8Ball!]
Whatt
Wow
That’s so cool!
im 100% winning for real
Tweek giggles a little and focuses on the small ball on the screen. It was actually a pretty easy game to play. All you had to do was align the small white line and hit the ball in.
[You Won!]
wtf
ur def a secret pro
i just lost my 80 win streak
kyle is so bad at 8ball
so is stan
LOL
I know that one
You’re laughing
But you’re not laughing in real life
:(
I feel like I just kicked a puppy seeing u pout
both irl and on the phone
</3
:)
perfect
smile more often ;)
:3
Oh, also who is Stan?
me and kyle’s friend
he goes to Baruch
if U know where that is
Oh yeah
Cool!
Tweek looks up, and Kenny is already looking at him and he offers a thumbs up. He slowly takes his headphones off, and it’s all silent.
“Thank you, Kenny,” Tweek says softly, “I’m sorry too. I’m glad it was you and not a stranger though.”
“Hey, don’t worry, and yeah I was on the phone with Kyle and enjoying the rest of my day off, you know,” he replies, “And out of nowhere this storm just started and I swore it said it was clear weather. Guess that was a lie.”
“Yeah, the same th-thing happened to me pretty much,” Tweek responds, “Um, I think there’s another train in like, ten minutes.”
“Oh yeah! Let’s head out.” Kenny pauses as he gets up, “Hey, message me if you ever need help with anything okay?”
Tweek nods, then allows Kenny to take his elbow and lead them out of the bathroom. He was definitely going to have to take a long shower and rid himself of any germs that go on him on the bathroom floor, but right now he feels okay. A part of him knows he should tell his grandma what happened, but he doesn’t want to. It feels too soon to tell her that he just had a giant panic attack after not having one like that in a good few months.
He and Kenny stand close to each other on the platform, busying themselves away from the rest of the people waiting for the train. Kenny’s showing him silly videos on his phone, making Tweek laugh a little. He also showed him a few photos of when he was younger with Stan and Kyle, the three of them standing in front of different places.
It’s cute, and unfortunately he doesn’t have any cool photos with friends to show Kenny, but he does show Kenny the photos he would take when on walks and such. And there’s a few photos of stray cats he thinks are cute.
The pair gets on the train and they’re actually able to get two seats, making it a little easier on Tweek as he feels so from how much his body was tense and shaking, so he relaxes. They talk about video games and so forth, and Tweek mentions he likes romcom movies.
Kenny likes them too, is what Tweek learns. After a while, they just begin to relax and Tweek doesn’t feel as overwhelmed with his surroundings anymore.
People on the train now aren’t as rowdy as they were on the train ride here, Tweek assumes it’s because everyone has mellowed out with the storm that rolled through. As they come to their stop, Kenny places a hand on his shoulder to signify that they have arrived at their stop.
The walk is peaceful, even if he hates the loud noises of the storms, he can admire them from a distance. Dark clouds rolling in the far distance with flashes and bolts of lightning every now and then, and if he listens close enough he can hear the loud rolling of thunder. Kenny and him walk almost shoulder to shoulder, the taller being Kenny, so it’s more of his shoulder to about an inch or so below Kenny’s. Tweek isn’t super short, he’s about 5’9 almost 5’10, but Kenny is probably 5 '11 or 6' 0, though something tells Tweek that he would definitely tell others it’s the latter.
Tweek’s apartment building isn’t too much of a walk from the train station, so in no time they’ve arrived in front of the building he’s staying at.
“Well, this is my stop,” Tweek says, “Thank you again, for everything.”
“No worries,” Kenny nods, smiling a bit, “And hey, just remember to text me if you need anything. I’ll come over, talk, or do whatever you want me to do.”
“I appreciate it, sorry that the first meeting had to be so rocky…”
“I’m gonna have to teach you that you don’t have to apologize for anything,” Kenny pats his head, and then pulls out his phone, “Let me send you this song. I think you’ll like it.”
“Alright, I’ll check it out when I get inside.”
“I’ll see you later then?” Kenny says, hope in his voice.
“Definitely.”
After they depart, Tweek heads back upstairs and gets to his apartment door, quickly entering and closing the door behind him. He locks it and unlocks it three times, then locks it and tosses his keys on the table. His mind is still foggy from everything this morning and afternoon. And the medication he had taken was finally wearing off.
He pulls up the song that Kenny had sent him on his laptop and pressed play, ‘CUT’ by Panchiko. The electronic-sounding instrumental filling his ears. Tweek looked at his kitchen, wondering if he should make something to eat or if he should just go to bed. He was exhausted, and didn’t really know if he was up for anything to eat,
At least he ate today, that’s what mattered. Tweek decided against it and heads to his bathroom, running the shower and grabbing his insomnia medication and goes back to the kitchen.
The melody of the song fills his ears, and the gentle singing voice washes over his senses.
“…Try to describe
The voices in your head
They're hard to disguise
Somebody said
Come back to Earth
You've gone too far this time…”
The song finally began to come to its end, and Tweek opened his medication to sit on the counter next to a glass of water, for after he showered.
In the following week, Tweek has decided that he would go to the party. He was feeling better after the whole ordeal with his panic attack, hanging out with Kyle and Kenny more, too. And his classes were going well, too.
Kenny was thrilled when he found out that Tweek would be going, and didn’t shut up about how much fun they would have. Tweek trusted him enough, they’ve been close ever since they met and were getting to know each other even more.
Aside from that, Tweek has seen Craig two other times since the train. He saw Craig enter one of the buildings on campus, but since he was with Kenny and Kyle he couldn’t run off to see him. The other time was again, on the train, but this time they were in opposite train cars and Tweek had seen him through the window. Craig had seen him too, but unfortunately, they hadn’t gotten off at the same stop.
It was borderline making Tweek feel crazy that he couldn’t get in touch with Craig, and deep down he hoped somehow Craig would be at the party so he could finally get in touch with him and return his cat keychain, and maybe be friends.
He gets a text.
Kyle
Party is at 8:00
Kenny
8:30*
Kyle
Shut up Kenny
We meet at 8:00
Kenny
mhm mhm
tweeeeeekkkkkk :3
Hello
:3
Kyle
Oh god
Please tell me Kenny didn’t wear off on u
Tweek
Tweek
Tweek
Oh no
I just use it
:)
I’ll see you guys at 8:00
Kenny
see bro
tweek is his own person
:3
:3
Kyle
Oh god
Tweek laughs a bit and starts to get ready for this party that they had convinced him— and he convinced himself to go to. He decides on a nice sweater vest and a button up, per usual, and some cargo pants. Kenny had convinced him to get them, and they happened to tie the outfit together really nice.
He has already taken his meds, so he gets his stuff ready and goes out to his living room, and shuts his laptop off. Grabbing his headphones, he checks the time on his phone and realizes to be on time he would have to leave about now. Tweek texts the group chat.
On my way :)
Exiting his apartment, he locks the door doing his usual routine of triple checking it’s locked out of habit. Then heads down the steps instead of the elevator, as he never trusted them anyways.
The walk is the same as it always is to Kyle’s dormitory, and he waved at the front desk person as they buzzed him in and he started his way to the dorm.
“Yo, Tweek!” A voice hollers, and Tweek turns around to see Kenny entering behind him, “Seems we’ve made the similar decision to come at the same time.”
Kenny easily slides an arm around Tweek and they find Kyle’s dorm, to which the door is left open half the time so they just walk in. Kyle is fixing his hair, which was recently cut shorter and he turns around to greet them.
“Who’s ready to party?” Kyle grins, showing off his outfit. It’s quite out there, a tee shirt with the sleeves cut off, skinny black jeans with rips, and his combat boots, he throws on a beanie too. His fingers have some rings on it and they match his necklaces, as well.
Compared to Kenny’s outfit, which was a burnt orange skeleton shirt, with a leather jacket and washed blue jeans, and his beat up converse; he even settled with some smokey liner around his eyes. And his usual mess, blonde hair that had some red in it from a time he said he tried to dye it with kool aid.
His outfit was just his white vans, and the outfit he considered a little too nice for a party now.
“Won’t you be cold?” Tweek asks, “It’s chillier at night.”
“Eh, I’ll be inside partying so I don’t need to worry too much about being cold.”
Kenny looks down at him, “Tweek, as cute as you are in your nerdy outfit, I think you need a Kenny makeover for this party.”
“And why not a Kyle makeover?” Kyle questions, “I have plenty of stuff that can make Tweek stylish.”
“My style is still better,” Kenny laughs, narrowly missing the hit that Kyle sent flying towards him.
Tweek smiled, “Okay, but will your clothes even fit me?”
“Yeah, plus it’s cute to wear oversized things even if they didn’t,” Kenny winked, “Come on, let’s go and we can surprise Kyle when we relink.”
Kyle looks dejected, but shrugs and says he needed to meet with Stan anyways. Tweek has yet to meet Stan, but he’s heard plenty about the grungy boy to say he knows him well enough.
Thankfully Kenny is in the same dorm as Kyle, so they will still be close enough to Kyle to not worry.
Kenny unlocks his dorm and enters them, it’s surprisingly cleaner than the last time Tweek was here and pointed out that he should clean it.
The tall boy turns right to his clothing wrack and grabs a few things and throws them on the bed. There were a few t-shirts, but one hoodie that was brown and had GAP written across it. Tweek chose that, and then Kenny picked out darkish blue jeans that had faded painted stars on them.
Kenny turned around while he changed, and then turned back around when he heard Tweek burst out laughing.
“These jeans won’t even stay around my waist!” Tweek giggled, “How do you even fit into them?!”
“Belt,” Kenny says, holding a finger up as he went over and grabbed a belt off the hook. He walked back over and motioned for Tweek to hold up the sweatshirt.
For anyone else, this would be a really intimate moment, sort’ve. In Tweek’s mind it was, but to Kenny it was probably just him being friendly. Tweek smiled when the belt finally tightened enough to keep the jeans up. Kenny laughed though, “That’s the hole I had to poke through this belt like years ago. In freshman year of high school.”
Tweek blushed a bit, “Sorry…” he says it a little jokingly, and Kenny just shakes his head and nods as he walks back.
“That’s what I’m talking about,” Kenny nods, “Just a jacket and then youre done.”
He pulls out a large, black windbreaker and hands it to him, and Tweek puts it on.
“Ah! Perfect, you’ve been Kennyfied,” the dirty blonde man grins, “You look great.”
After a while, Kenny ended up putting smudged eyeliner around his eyes just like he did to his, something about matching, for the fully Kennyfied party look, in his words.
Tweek follows Kenny across the quad to where he sees two people standing, one of them being Kyle and the other presumably Stan.
Stan is the same height, or maybe the tiniest shorter than himself, and he’s wearing all black and a ton of jewelry around his neck and on his wrists. His hair is bleached blonde that has grown out a significant amount, but still looks good nonetheless.
“You’re Tweek, right,” the guy says, “Stan. But I’m guessing you already knew that.”
“I assumed, and yeah, I’m Tweek,” Tweek replies, offering a small smile.
Kyle claps his hand, “Alright, boys, let’s go!”
Tweek feels slightly anxious about going to the party. He knows that he’d be by Kyle and Kenny the entire night, but his hands feel shaky and his stomach is beginning to twist. Kenny’s arm falls around him effortlessly, and he begins talking about party games they could play if everyone else would be down for it.
The thing is, Tweek has never been to a party— or at least willingly been to a party. He cringes when he remembers the only party he ever went to in high school, it was probably one of the most humiliating nights of his life. Another reason why his trust in people has stooped so low.
But he sucks it up. For the first time in his life, people actually like him and aren’t weirded out by his behaviors.
When they arrive at the house, Tweek can already see people talking outside and the colorful lights inside. Kenny’s reassuring arm flexes to rub his hair, as if he was saying that it would be okay.
A boy runs down and engulfs Stan and Kyle into a hug, “My guys!” He cheers, “Who’s this lil guy here?”
He drunkenly holds a hand out, “Clyde Donovan to your service!”
“Um, I’m Tweek.”
“That’s fucking gnarly.”
“No one says gnarly anymore, Clyde.” Kyle teases, “Tweek, this is Clyde. He’s in me and Kenny’s band too, we’re playing tonight, by the way. So you’ll get to see us perform.”
“That’s cool,” Tweek says, he actually already knew that, as Kenny had told him a few days ago, “It’s pretty chilly, can we go inside?”
Clyde laughs loudly, “You’re going to wish it was outside after a few minutes inside, but let’s go.”
They enter the house and Tweek’s ears are immediately bombarded with loud music, chatter, and sweaty bodies surrounding them. He recoils back almost, but keeps his composure as he didn’t want to make anything difficult tonight or ruin anyone's fun.
Kenny brings him to the kitchen and holds out a bottle that says, Smirnoff Ice .
“Before you drink that though,” Kenny whispers down into his ear, making his spine tickle, “Are you on medication? You shouldn’t drink if you are.”
“Um, I just-“ Tweek pauses a moment, “I can have one or two drinks.”
“You sure? Like positive?” Kenny asks, “It’s totally fine if you can’t.”
“Nah, I can,” Tweek knows he probably shouldn’t, he really does. But two drinks wouldn’t kill him, and it’s now been a couple hours since he’s taken his medicine. There’s the small voice in the back of his mind that reminds him his last meal was lunch, which was just a bagel with light cream cheese.
But he graciously takes the bottle and takes a sip, it doesn’t really burn or taste too much like alcohol, so he takes just one more sip.
He trails behind Kenny like a lost puppy, holding onto Kenny’s jacket and going wherever he’s going.
They go downstairs and end up in the basement, where a group of people, including Stan, Kyle, and Clyde are sitting around and drinking, having a good time. They have a mini fridge next to them, and he assumes it’s to keep alcohol in it.
Kenny lets him sit first, and then he sits next to him.
“What’s up?” Kenny asks one of the guys, and he shrugs, “Y’all doing anything we’ve intruded on or just chatting?”
“We might play like, truth or dare, maybe,” a girl says, she giggles after and leans to tell her friend something, “But like… you have to answer or you’ll take a shot.”
“Are we like, seven,” another guy says, “Come on.”
“That’s why we added the drinking part, man!”
“Whatever, dude,” the guy sets down his drink and looks over to the girl, “How are we doing this?”
After she begins explaining, she goes around and gives everyone a number, and then says that her phone will go around and roll a random number, and whoever it lands on they’ll ask that number truth or dare. Tweek feels like that’s easy enough, he knows the basic premise of truth or dare despite never playing it before.
Kenny nudges him, “You okay with this game?”
“Yeah, sure,” Tweek says, “It seems fun.”
The dirty blonde smiles a little warily, and nods, “Cool, cool.”
Tweek tries another sip of his drink, if he’s honest, he has no idea what to expect. He’s only been drunk, unwillingly, once, and he hated it. So he was hoping that this one bottle wouldn’t do anything to him. Or the second one he might have.
The girl pulls up a random number generator and assigns everyone a number and then re-explains the rules, as someone sets down a few shot glasses and then the game begins. He’s number nine.
Nine
Nine
Nine
It starts off fairly innocent, nothing out of the ordinary from what he’d expect, but then Clyde whines about it needing to be a little more wild and crazier, so people actually might have to take a shot.
The phone gets passed to brunette boy, and he rolls it, and he looks up, “Who’s nine?”
Tweek meekly raises his hand and the boy nods, and then offers a smirk in his direction, “Truth or dare?”
“Um,” Tweek looks at Kenny, and then back at the boy, “Uh, truth?”
His smirk is plastered even further, and he pretends to think, “Alright. Craziest place you’ve had sex before?”
His stomach lurches almost immediately. As if. He’s never even been in a relationship, let alone has had sex with anyone. Tweek feels everyone’s eyes on him, would he be a freak if he answered he was a virgin? What would everyone think of him?
“I—I’ve never,” Tweek sputters and bites his tongue a bit, “I’ve never had sex before?”
The guy hums, “I don’t even know what to say to that.”
A couple girls coo, and giggle with their friends, while the guys he doesn’t know laugh and smack at their friends.
“Well, I think you should take a shot for being a virgin,” he points out.
He feels Kenny tense, “Yo, he answered the question, why should he take a shot?”
“Because… he didn’t technically answer,” he laughs a bit, and he looks back at Tweek, pointing at one of the shots, “Drink up, flower.”
Flower? Was that supposed to be an insult? It felt more like a compliment. Fuck. This is high school all over again, he was a fucking loser once more. Now everyone was looking at him, he should’ve just stayed out of everyone’s way, he should’ve just left sooner when he left for school on the first day. This will always somehow tie back to being his fault, it always does. His heart rate is beating sporadically and he thinks he’s going to faint.
“Dude, lay off,” Kyle jumped in, “Who gives a fuck, his answer was fine. I’m sure everyone else agrees too.”
Most people nod. But Tweek still feels sick to his stomach. His mind is racing with thoughts about how everyone has got to think he’s weird now, because he’s just sat in silence and hadn’t said a word to defend himself. Yeah, he definitely felt like he was going to pass out at any moment if he didn’t get out of here. He grabs Kenny’s jacket and looks up at him.
He hopes Kenny understands.
The guy rolls his eyes, “God, is he fragile or something? Just take the fucking shot!”
Kenny abruptly flies forwards, taking one of the shots in the middle of the circle and downs it without a thought, he looks angrily at the brunette and flips him off.
“There,” Kenny stands up, taking his arm and then pulling them up the stairs after Tweek himself stands. He can hear a couple people follow after them, and Tweek kinda wants to throw up everywhere from how stressful that is. They stop, and Kenny flies in a circle to face him, and looks down, “Sorry, I didn’t think people would be such assholes. Our band plays soon, though, so we can chill in the backyard by the bonfire.”
A hand touches his shoulder, making him flinch, and Kyle apologizes. He whispers something in Kenny’s ear and looks down at Tweek, “Hey, do you want to go to a room to calm down maybe? That was pretty annoying. I’m sorry.”
“Um, yeah, but is it okay if I’m just by myself?” Tweek says, “I need to just be alone.”
“Are you sure?” Kenny asks, “I don’t mind hanging out with you.”
“No, I’m sure,” Tweek confirms, “Please.”
Kyle and Kenny share a look, and then both nod. They take him upstairs to an empty room and Kyle sighed, “Text us if anything happens or if you just need anything. We’ll come get you when the band starts.”
Tweek smiles and nods, and watches as Kyle closes the door behind him and he lays back on the bed. The room is clean and organized, which makes him feel a little better in an odd way.
He feels tired. Once again, he’s made another mistake. Tweek seems to constantly do that, he just needs to suck it up and get out there.
Tweek takes a deep breath and stands up from the bed, storming over to the door and going to swing it open, but someone else does first and it almost makes Tweek jump out of his skin.
Until he realizes who it is. Tan skin, dark grey eyes, tall, beautiful. A stupid chullo hat encapsulating his hair, and then he actually could pass out now.
“Craig?”
Craig is equally as shocked as him, and he walks up and takes him by the shoulders, “Holy fucking shit. No way?”
“Oh my god,” Tweek smiles, excitement filling his chest, “Agh! I’ve been looking everywhere for you! This is amazing.”
“You’re telling me, the amount of times we’ve seen each other at the wrong moment has actually driven me insane, like I’ve tried everything to find you,” Craig replies, “How are you? Why are you in a room alone?”
“I needed to cool down— but I’m good, I’ve made some friends,” Tweek says, “You? How are you?”
“I’m great, uh, I’ve made some friends too and they’re actually here if you wanted to meet them,” Craig offers, “And we can find your friends too?”
“Oh! Yeah! Let me text them,” Tweek pulls out his phone and begins typing.
Guys!!!
Something exciting just happened!!!
Kenny
?
what happenef
what’s up
Kyle
Yeah! What’s up?
Do you remember the guy I said that i met?
On the plane here?
Kyle
Oh yeah! Did you find him?
Yes :D
I finally found him!!!
Kyle
Aw i’m happy for you
And Kenny has disappeared
:|
We are on in like 10 minutes man
Tweek looks up from his phone and is about to tell Craig that his friends are playing in the band that’s about to go on, but a shadow casts into the room and he sees Kenny standing there. His eyes are trained on Craig, who is looking over at him confused.
“Tweek, are you feeling better?” Kenny asks, he turns the light on and strolls next to him, plopping his arm around Tweek’s shoulders. He smiles at Craig, but to Tweek it looks sort’ve fake, “Oh, sorry, I’m Kenny.”
Craig awkwardly smiles back and holds up a hand to wave, “I’m Craig.”
“Yeah! He’s the one that I wanted to-“ Tweek is about to say something, but now Kyle is entering and scolding Kenny for running off.
“Kenny, come on, we’re on in like, six minutes, what’s wrong with you!” Kyle frowns and pulls Kenny away from Tweek, “You’re Craig, right? I’m very happy that you and Tweek have finally met up again. He was really sad that he couldn’t find you.”
The pair exits and Tweek hardly misses the way Kenny’s eyes linger on the two of them before finally giving into Kyle’s pulling.
“Kyle,” Tweek seethes, “Um, anyways, do you want to watch their band together? It’ll be fun.”
“Oh, sick, I heard there was a band playing, but it’s even cooler that they’re your friends,” Craig grins, “Let’s go?”
“Right on!”
Tweek leads them to the outside, and there’s no music on except for the chatter around them which isn’t much. he brings them to stand by the firepit, the makeshift stage isn’t too far away so Tweek still can see them clearly. He grabbed water on the way there too, so he sips away at it and turns to Craig.
“The boy with curly red hair is Kyle, the dirty blonde is Kenny, as you know, and the brunette is Clyde,” Tweek says, “I don’t know Clyde as well, but Kenny and Kyle are great. You should definitely hang out with us sometime!”
“Oh, for sure, you still gotta meet my new buddies too, they’re somewhere around here, I’m sure they’ll pop up eventually,” Craig says, he pulls out his phone and points to it, “But hey, I should probably get your num—“
The loud sound of the electric guitar interrupts quite literally everyone, and he can hear Kyle smacking Kenny on the arm. Kyle goes into the speaker, “I promise it won’t be that loud the entire night. Dipshit didn’t turn it down.”
“Anyways, as I was saying,” Craig breathed out, “We should exchange—“
“C-C-Craig!” A voice from behind says, and Tweek looks behind the tall boy to see two people walk up behind him, one is a boy with a yellow sweatshirt and elbow crutches, the other is a dark skinned boy in a grey band t-shirt with an annoyed expression on his face, “F-F-Fancy seeing y-you here, wh-where’d ya go? Jerk o-off in the bathroom?”
Craig groaned, “Language, Jimmy, come on man.”
“Dude, some of these people are total assholes, I told you this party was some huge mistake,” the band-shirt guy says, “Who’s that?”
“I’m Tweek.”
“Cool,” he nods, “I’m Tolkien, but most just call me Token. And as Craig said, that’s Jimmy. Are you a friend of Craig’s?”
“Well—“
“He’s the guy I said I met on the plane, you know, the one that I keep running into but it seems as though the world has it out for us?” Craig said, “Now, Tweek, can I please get your number?”
He holds his phone out and Tweek eagerly takes it, making sure that he typed in his number right and then texts himself, “There. Finally, good god.”
“You’re telling me.”
“Oh! Craig I have something for you,” Tweek smiles, he reaches into his pocket, and at the same time he’s pulling it out Kyle’s voice sounds over the speakers and Tweek jumps, ultimately dropping the cat keychain.
He gasps, but it seems Craig had the same idea to bend down and grab it, because their foreheads collide and they both burst into laughter.
Tweek regains his composure and goes back down, picking it up and holding it out to Craig, “You left your cat keychain on the plane.”
Craig grabs it, and at the same time, before he could reply, Kenny’s voice speaks through the microphone.
“This first song is a cover, it’s called Cut by Panchiko.”
And his eyes are directly on Tweek’s.