#multiparked

▸   @multiparked   ⟶   ❛  ❛   do  you  think  you  would  ever  hurt  me  like  that ?   ❜ (kyle @ craig LMAOOO)  ❜   ╱   (  dangerous , accepting .  )

Craig answered quickly, “Of course not.”  It was hard to tell if they were taking steps forward or back.  He had always wanted Kyle to acknowledge his part in the bullshit between him and Tweek, but ow that that was happening, Kyle was, perhaps rightly, looking at him like he was a monster.  And sure, he was.  It took a special kind of fucked up to do everything he had, but at least, he regretted it.

“I’m trying to do better.”  Craig had his arms crossed over his chest, probably not the most inviting stance, but it was a habit to go on the defensive, even subconsciously, when his relationship with Tweek was brought up.  “I’ve not hurt anyone since Tweek.”

Actually, that was not entirely true.  He still got in the occasional fight here or there.  But when it came to dating, as much as he hadn’t done a lot of that seriously, he kept his fists to himself.  “Well… nobody actually important to me, anyway.”  And Tweek was important to him, and Craig learned that he didn’t enjoy being that way to the few people in the world who mattered to him.

▸   @multiparked   ⟶   ❛  ‘  gay rights? true, as a gay, i am always right.  ’ (kyle @ craig LMAO)  ❜   ╱   (  gay rights , accepting .  )

Craig looked up at the sign as they passed it and rolled his eyes.  Knowing this town, somebody had read some online post about how corporations were terrible for taking down their pride stuff on July 1st, so they left it up well into the autumn months in an effort to seem more progressive than the rest of them.  He had never minded that Pride only lasted a month and actually preferred it that way.  It was people’s desire to seem progressive about The Gays that had fucked up his life for five entire years, so he wasn’t exactly as stoked on the whole ‘gay rights’ thing as other people were.  At this point, he cared about it more for Kyle’s sake than his own, wanting Kyle to stay safe and happy and not get hatecrimed, caring little about whatever happened to himself.

“Always is a bit of a stretch,” Craig deadpanned.  They were out shopping (more browsing, really), walking hand-in-hand, just something to give them both a break from their studies.  Finals weren’t too far off, and Kyle was as neurotic about them as ever, and Craig, not being able to stand another minute of it, dragged him outside.  At least, he seemed to be having fun with it now, and Craig would rather have him pointing out and giggling about obnoxious signage than whining about how he needed to be back in front of his books.

Deep down, Tweek knew he wasn’t going to do shit without rehab, and he wouldn’t have even been offended by the suggestion.  It wasn’t really in the cards for him right now, but he wanted to go—kind of.  If he could end up somewhere that didn’t feel too clinical.  But beggars shouldn’t try to be choosers.  He needed to go.  He’d been trying to quit for years and years, ever since he first figured out what was in the coffee.

But then it hurt so much, and he was delirious with fever, sick, so sick.  He had heard the talks in school about how drugs were hard to quit, but nobody had warned them how hard, how scary, how close to dying you’d feel.  Drugs might kill you, but they were also all that could make you feel like you weren’t on death’s door.

“I know,” he breathed.  It hadn’t ever been his fault, not really, not like he picked meth up on his own.  The shaking was an excess of energy with nowhere to go, not cold, and as such, it barely stilled when Stan’s hand moved over his back, but Tweek pulled himself further into the embrace, anyway.  It helped, even if that wasn’t noticeable.

“I—I’ll do b-better, though… hn… next time.”  But he didn’t promise because he couldn’t, and he didn’t dare say that he would succeed, jsut that he would try hard and maybe go a little longer next time, when he had more energy to deal with all the bullshit that quitting entailed.

The problem with meth was that he never felt much like eating—not like weed, which gave you the munchies.  His appetite was near constantly suppressed, but… he could try to eat something, anyway.  “I dunno wh-what I want…”  Nothing really sounded good, not even the baked goods he usually defaulted to.  He couldn’t live his entire life on scones, even if they would be good with hot chocolate.

Tweek could relate to a night of not remembering, albeit for different reasons.  There were at least three years of his life that only came to him in odd, dim patches, where he gave himself over to the oblivion foretold by the radio man because it was more comfortable than whatever his father had to say.  Even then, some of that slipped through on occasion, about how the current situation was all Tweek’s fault, or maybe he imagined that.  It sounded so much like something his father would have said that it might as well have been true, though.

People shouldn’t be too much blamed for actions they couldn’t remember taking.  My kitchen!  What did you do?  Tweek hadn’t had a good answer, all specific recollections of how what ended up where null and void.  There was broken glass and a knife and blood on the stove behind him and whatever pressure he had blown off building back up inside him and his mother calling an ambulance for Craig but probably not for him because that didn’t seem like something she would do.  They never liked to draw too much of that kind of attention to him, and for years, he had been grateful for it until he figured out why.

He went through that often, fed a lot of contextless information, piecing it together much slower than he ought to.  So, he related to that part of Stan’s problem, waking up only to get smacked with a laundry list of shit—empty bottle, vomit smell, migraine—and having to quickly put two and two together to hopefully make four—must have acted like a jackass.

But even though Tweek believed people couldn’t be fully blamed for crimes they didn’t remember committing, he still understood the desire for accountability for them.  He wanted to know if he hurt somebody, after all, and felt terrible if it turned out to be the case, even if he didn’t remember doing it.

“Well, you did get on some bullshit,” Tweek teased with a merriment in his eyes that suggested everything had already been forgiven.  “You know, some sort of… ‘If you leave me, I’ll track you down,’ and other edgy shit.  And I tucked you in and said, ‘Oh, is that all?’ ”  He buried his face in Stan’s shoulder and laughed at the memory of the other’s anguished pout.  “You didn’t like that one!  I said, ‘Brother, the government’s already tracking me.  Get in line.  Take a number.’ ”  That hadn’t been the exact line—Tweek thought of it just now and evidently found it hilarious, dissolving into cackles again and kicking his feet as well as his proximity to Stan would allow.

▸   @multiparked   ⟶   ❛  ❛   stay  back  or  i  will  rip  your  head  off  !  ❜ (stan @ craig :33)  ❜   ╱   (  dangerous , accepting .  )

Craig rolled his eyes.  He knew that look.  Maybe not that exact one, but something very similar, those wild eyes; he had seen it on Tweek many times—Stan was high again.  It made sense, but Craig still hated to backtrack with him when he thought they were making progress before.  He thought he made it apparent that he wasn’t Stan’s enemy and didn’t have anything against the guy, but well… maybe he was about to.

🍭 @multiparked . asked for a starter

▸   @multiparked   ⟶   ❛  things with us were a disaster in slow motion. (stan @ craig… stan not trying to punch craig?!?! shocker)  ❜   ╱   (  the balloonists , accepting .  )

Finally—this was all Craig had wanted for a long while, just to sit down with Stan and not fight him.  He nodded solemnly in response to Stan’s admission that he and Kyle hadn’t been good to or for each other in a long time.  “Yeah, I knew there was more to it,” he said.  “That’s why I’ve wanted to sit you down and get your side of it.”

There was the media portrayal of abuse, with one clear-cut victim and one irredeemably evil abuser, but because of Craig’s own relationship, he knew that often wasn’t the case.

He ran into Stan toward the end of the day, after running errands for his mom, and they sat on a bench with the sun setting behind him, dark violet washing over the sky, a plastic bag of canned beans and sage leaves sitting next to Craig’s right sneaker.  He liked to help his mom out when he was in town and able to.  Having an opportunity to sit down with Stan and not have to rub the guy’s face into the concrete was such a rare occurrence that his mom was just going to have to wait a while for her groceries.

“I’ve never once believed all of his hapless victim bullshit.  I wasn’t about to start hating you just because of something he said.”  That would be like asking someone to hate Tweek on his behalf, even though Craig had done plenty of objectionable shit to him, too.  Craig wore the scars from that relationship all up the left side of his face, whereas Tweek wore his on his shoulder and his right temple, right by his hairline.  So, they were less obvious, and therefore, it was easier for Kyle to form his own narrative about it.

“He’s tried to project it onto me, too, like claim that I’m some angel or whatever and assume the worst about Tweek.”  Craig’s expression darkened, his thoughtful frown deepening into a more dismayed one.  “I don’t let anyone talk shit about Tweek—ever.  Jimmy tried it when I first got back in touch with him, and I almost broke his stupid fucking jaw.”

things that you want to hear.

@multiparked

Craig hoped that this was true since he had loved the man in front of him since their fourth year of college together, even allowed Tweek to stay at his place whenever he wanted to now that Craig was finally able to afford his own apartment and had also graduated from college.

However...

"There's not way..."

This all had to be a lie.

No one would ever love Craig. He was a freak with supernatural-like abilities. During a private investigation he had murdered someone without intending to do so. He had hoped no one had witnessed his accidental murder, but unfortunately there were but no one has said a word about it or turned him in to the police. Part of him was glad no one had turned him in yet, but part of him also felt he deserved to be taken in by the police, despite him actually being part of the law enforcement now. Craig has told no one about the incident. His family are unaware and so are his friends. Not even the love of his life knew unless Tweek was actually there but Craig had doubts he was there to witness Craig having accidentally murdered someone before is eyes when these unique powers of his had awoken. Craig wasn't even aware of his own unique powers until that incident.