FicWad

To Hold Water (to be reasonable, sound or valid, usually when talking about a statement, theory, etc)
California, June 2015, Summer
Craig came back into the house a little before midday to find Tweek’s battered old suitcase next to the front door. Tweek came out of the bedroom, wearing the long travelling jacket he had worn during their return trip from South Park. Now that he was thinner than ever, it hung from his body. He picked up the suitcase and raised a hand in farewell. Tears were falling thick and fast down his face as he choked his words out.
“I’ll be going now, Craig. You can have the apartment; I’ll pay the rent for you. It’s the least I can do.”
Craig closed the front door behind him and stood in front of it. Tweek stood and stared at him, shaking his head stubbornly. "Craig - "
“Tweek. Wait. Just listen to me.”
He took a deep breath as Tweek watched him, sniffing hard.
“Tweek, look. Don’t go. You can’t beat this on your own. You know that. It doesn’t work like that. I know you tried. I know how much you wanted it to. I know that. I know you. At least, I hope I still do.”
Tweek watched Craig pull his cell phone from his pocket, his heart pounding as Craig spoke again.
“Look. I’ve been busting my ass trying to get you some kind of treatment for your anorexia for months, ok? I know it’s pretty much impossible to get any kind of professional support if you don’t have any money. And, we don’t. I’ve been looking at personal loans to pay for rehab, but we don’t meet the criteria. And the interest rates are unmanageable. Narcotics Anonymous is a thing too, but I don’t think it’s for you, somehow. I don’t believe that you’re powerless.”
“You’re right. Craig, I don’t think I can -”
“Honey. Look. I did a lot of googling, and if you’re serious about getting clean, we can do that.”
“It’s not -”
“Look, baby, please let me give you the spiel first.”
Tweek opened his mouth, then closed it again and nodded. He squeezed the handle of his suitcase.
“Tweek. Honey. Look. I know it will be really hard for you. I know it will be way harder to go for some crappy DIY 5-minute crafts homemade version than a clinic, but we can figure out a plan of what we need to do for you to detox here.”
Slowly Tweek placed his suitcase on the ground and leaned against the wall for support. He couldn’t speak as Craig went on.
“Look. I can’t make you do anything. I really can’t. It’s your life. It’s always been your life. But I’m done acting like this isn’t a problem because I’m scared of making you worse. I get that you’re not well, and this sounds really harsh, but you made this get pretty much as bad as it possibly could have all on your own, without any help.”
“Craig, you don’t -”
Craig shook his head and furrowed his brow slightly as he took a step forward.
“Tweek, you can tell me to go fuck myself if you want. Seriously. I don’t give a fuck. But as far as I’m concerned, you need to get healthy. You really, really need to get healthy. You can’t go on like this. I can’t go on like this. You’re killing yourself. And you’re killing me. I’m not going to let you kill yourself.”
Tweek opened his mouth to speak, but found himself suddenly uncontrollably sobbing. Craig wordlessly opened his arms and Tweek stepped forward into them, burying his face in the groove of Craig’s chest, forever his favourite spot even if he hadn’t been there in months. Craig gently rocked Tweek as he cried, his face hidden, one of Craig’s arms at the base of his back and the other gently wrapped around his neck in a way that might have scared him after Sam but for how safe Craig always made him feel. Tweek reacquainted himself with the warm scent of Craig that would always be familiar to him no matter how far he strayed. Craig would always smell like home.
After he had cried every last one of the tears he had left, Tweek nodded and finally spoke, his voice weak and muffled against Craig’s chest.
“Ok.” .
Suddenly a loud squeaking filled their ears. Surprised, they softly pulled apart together and looked down to see their two guinea pigs sitting on the carpet, blinking up at them expectantly, their eyes bright and their noses twitching.
Craig made a weak choking noise that might have conveyed mirth, squeezing his arm around Tweek. “Oh sweet, look, the kids are home!”
Despite himself, Tweek smiled. Gently he disengaged himself from Craig’s arms and bent down to gently pick up the guineas. He clutched them to his chest, letting them nuzzle into the front of his shirt.
“I can’t believe that they always know when we’re sad and they just want to make us feel better. They’re fluffy little angels, Craig.”
Biscotti scrambled up to nuzzle into Tweek’s neck, while Piccolo nestled into the inner crook of his arm. For a few seconds the apartment was silent except for the humming of the fridge, the soft squeaking of the guineas, and Tweek sniffing hard.
He straightened back and looked up at Craig, his face exhausted and gaunt yet determined as he met his eyes and spoke more strongly than he had in over eighteen months.
“Let’s make a plan. Let’s do it. I’m ready.”

With their two guineas snuggled in their fluffy bed on the kitchen table, Tweek and Craig spent a couple of hours researching what meth detox would look like; what to do, with the symptoms they could expect and their timeframes.
By 2pm Craig was struggling to focus, his eyes heavy from lack of sleep. He could tell Tweek was still wired.
He blinked rapidly, fighting a yawn. Tweek noticed. He stood up and stepped behind Craig and gently began rubbing his shoulders. Craig smiled.
“You wanna crawl in there with Biscotti and Piccolo and have a sleep, honeybee?”
Craig grinned. Tweek wrapped his arms around Craig’s shoulders and leaned in, burying his face in Craig’s neck, breathing in his warm scent.
“Ha. Well, hello there.”
“I really can’t get enough of you, ok?”
“No complaints from me.”
“I really am sorry, Craig. I know you know that. But I really am.”
“I know you are, honey.”
“Did you want to go to bed?”
Craig shook his head, Tweek’s hair tickling the side of his face. It was slowly regrowing after he had buzzed it a few months ago, and while it looked like it would be prickly Craig was learning it was actually really soft.
“No, I’m ok, Tweek. I want to stay here and do this with you.”
“You don’t have to sleep in the guinea pig basket.”
“Ha. I know.”
“We have a whole ass bed.”
“You do make it sound good.”
“I can do this myself, Craig. I’m, well, I’m still buzzing from the pills I took last night, and I will be for a while yet. But without the use of a Class A and relying on the low levels of caffeine in earl grey alone, you look really tired.”
Craig reached up and gripped Tweek’s forearm. Affectionately he squeezed it as Tweek continued to hold him. “I’m so glad I don’t have to work Saturday mornings anymore.”
Tweek paused. Craig couldn’t see his face, but he could feel the slight deflation in his body.
“I want to be honest with you, Craig. I’m really embarrassed to admit this, but I hadn’t actually realised. I just hadn’t been home enough to notice.”
A twinge of hurt grabbed Craig’s chest at this.
You know what’s going on, now. You have all the time with him to work through it. But right now you need to figure out how you’re going to fix the problem. Together.
“Craig? I’m really sorry.”
“It’s – it’s ok.”
“I mean, you’re kind to say so, but it’s really not.”
Craig found Tweek’s hand and laced their fingers together without saying anything.
Still standing beside him where he sat, Tweek hesitantly leaned forward and gently kissed his cheek. ‘It’s ok, honey. You go to bed. I’ll keep on it.’
Craig slowly nodded. Tweek let go of him and stepped back as he stood. Craig padded through the kitchen and the hallway and into their bedroom. Tweek hesitated for a moment before following him. He unlatched the window to let some breeze into the hot bedroom, opened the sheets for Craig, and looked over his shoulder to observe as Craig pulled his shirt over his head. Tweek smirked as Craig caught his eye.
“Still got it, I see” Craig muttered with a chuckle.
Tweek shot him a cheeky a smile which Craig returned. “Yeah, boy.” Suddenly he looked guilty and abruptly turned to politely look at the wall. “Sorry.”
Craig grinned and shook his head. “Don’t be. Perve away. I like it.”
Tweek watched shyly as Craig took the rest of his clothes off and climbed into bed naked, kicking off the duvet and wrapping the single sheet around himself in the summer heat.
After months of holding his breath, of focusing on nothing but work, Tweek suddenly, intensely wanted nothing more than to snuggle up in bed with Craig and sleep in his arms for years and years. His brain was so wired but beneath it he could feel decades of exhaustion that made him feel centuries old. It felt like a millennia of pain.
But he knew he needed to figure out how to beat this. Craig had been so understanding, so much more so than he deserved. But he needed to do the right thing, and he knew he needed to give Craig space.
Craig met his eyes and his smile was genuine.
Tweek forced another smile as he gave a little nod. “I’ll leave you to it.”
Craig watched as he turned and softly walked out of the room, gently closing the bedroom door behind him. He rolled over and, somehow, was fast asleep in seconds.

Craig awoke alone in their bed, his mind suddenly racing. Despite everything, before he had consciously remembered the events of the past day, he felt an intuitive deep sense of calm along with his dark resolve, knowing that while things were about to get really difficult, they wouldn’t stay that way forever. He grabbed his satin summer dressing gown from where he had left it on the floor and pulled it around himself before leaving the bedroom.
He walked into the kitchen to find Tweek sitting at the table, the laptop open, surrounded by scraps of paper. He recognised something of the erraticness in his movements, but it was as if Tweek had been slowed down somehow, like a windup toy staggering towards the end of its cycle.
Still, Tweek looked up as Craig stumbled into the room and as their eyes met his smile was quick and genuine.
‘Hey, honey. Can I make you a cup of tea?’
‘Oh – that would be lovely. Thank you.’
‘Of course. I’ll just reboil the jug.’
Tweek stood up and walked over to the kettle. He flicked the button and it started to rumble. Tweek turned around to face Craig, his hands behind him on the counter as he leaned forward.
“Are you ready to talk about this?”
Craig nodded. “Yes.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“Ok. Whew. Where do I begin. So, I know we have no money, but I started out by looking into whether it actually was feasible to get any kind of professional help, even talking to the GP. But it’s the criminality that’s the clincher, even if we weren’t broke. Never mind that I’m an addict because I got given it when I was a kid, even if they technically can’t breach doctor patient confidentiality a lot of people have been stung anyway. I was reading all about it, it’s a very real threat.”
“Oh, Tweek.”
The kettle flicked off. Tweek turned his face away to busy himself with the tea bags as he spoke, his tone matter of fact, but Craig could tell he was fighting to keep his composure.
“Basically, this is going to be really hard. I’ll take you through what we can expect over time, but, for example, it’s nothing short of miraculous that I haven’t experienced psychosis yet. We need to fully expect me to hallucinate while I’m recovering. This is super grim, but it’s probably because I was so young when I first started regularly ingesting meth. Basically, I’ve built up a tolerance, and a dependence, that will make rehabbing my brain and my body really difficult’.
He turned to hand Craig his preferred mug of black tea with two sugars.
‘Ok. So. What to expect when you’re de-mething. Much less popular than What to Expect When You’re Expecting.’
‘What’s going to happen, Tweek?’
‘Well, I’ve got ten weeks before I have to go back to college. That’s really helpful, because I’m going to be a fucking mess, especially at first.’
Craig frowned slightly. ‘Hang on. Aren’t you meant to do summer school.’
Tweek met his eyes and nonchalantly shrugged. ‘Fuck summer school. I’m going to pull out of the papers.’
He poked out his tongue, though Craig knew him too well not to see through the false bravado. ‘I don’t know if you’ve heard yet, honey, but I’ve got a pretty serious meth problem.’
Tweek’s smile became genuine as Craig softly laughed.
However, as he next spoke he stared past Craig at the wall behind him, his expression haunted.
‘The first 24 hours are the first phase of withdrawal. I’ll be utterly exhausted and probably just sleep, which I’m probably actually going to appreciate. I could experience psychosis that starts in this period, and it could last up to two weeks.’
Tweek took a deep breath.
‘I’m going to feel horrendous. Like, obviously I’ll be craving meth, but that’s not the kicker. It’s not even the physical so much, but I’ll have migraine-like headaches and probably throw up a lot and have sore itchy eyes and no appetite and just want to sleep constantly and have body aches and pains and hella muscle weakness, and be sweaty as fuck and horrendously thirsty and cold even though it’s so hot.’
Craig softly posed him a question.
‘You mean like after your parents’ funeral?’
‘Yeah. But so much worse. I’m honestly shitting myself. And, y’know. I’ll be happy if I can get through this without shitting myself, ha. And, yes, I do mean that literally. Fucking hell, man.’
He laughed shakily but Craig could see the tears pricking his eyes. He cast around for something to break the tension.
‘Hey, Biscotti and Piccolo shit where they stand all the damn time and nobody thinks any less of them for it.’
In response to hearing his name, Piccolo suddenly squeaked loudly in the silence, making them both jump.
Tweek stared at Craig for a second, his eyes wild. Suddenly they both burst out laughing. Even more suddenly Tweek was sobbing, shaking his head as he choked out his words, the odd bubble of laughter still erupting at the dark absurdity.
“But, fuck, like, even being so physically fucked that I’ll probably shit my pants at least once is still the easy part. With the total lack of dopamine I’m probably going to want to kill myself. I’m really dreading that, to be honest. I don’t – I don’t – I don’t know if I’m going to be able to pull myself out of it. I’m going to be horrendously low and depressed and hopeless and sad and fatigued, but also really agitated. I’m going to be horribly anxious and paranoid and probably get aggressive, the mood swings are going to be intense. I’m going to suffer from psychosis and hallucinate, we talked about that.’
Tweek fixed Craig with an intense stare, his eyes bright, his pupils enormous, tears tracking down his thin pale cheeks. Craig tried to meet it, his heart thumping in his ears, but eventually he had to look down into his mug of steaming tea as Tweek leaned against the counter.
‘Shit. This is – this is a lot.’
‘Yeah.’
‘At least we know, I guess.’
‘I’m a damn good researcher, remember?’
Tweek smiled as he swiftly crossed the stained tiles in their narrow kitchen. He loudly pulled up the rickety chair next to Craig and sat beside him, gently resting his head on Craig’s shoulder for a moment, Craig still clutching his tea with both hands as Tweek spoke.
‘Yes, I did prepare for this like an exam. It was the only way I could really approach it. I’m great at school. The rest of life? Not so much.’
Craig gently shook his head as he pressed it against Tweek’s.
‘That’s not true. You’re such an adorable, funny, kind, clever, caring, motivated, loving, gentle man. You’re the best friend I’ve ever had. You’re going to have such a great life when you get through this, Tweek. And you will.’
Despite his sudden bravado that inspired Craig so deeply, he could see his boyfriend still roughly wiping his eyes as he laughed. Craig went on. Keep it productive. You’ve got this.
‘Look, I’ll set up the camp bed over by the wall there. I want you to have the whole bed but I should be nearby to supervise. Or do you want me to set it up in the hall and give you some privacy?’
‘Nearby, if you don’t mind. But I’ll take the camp bed, honestly.’
‘Tweek, you’re going to feel like utter balls-deep microwaved shit.’
‘Honey -’
‘No. I lived in a trailer for a year, remember?’
‘Of course I do. But -’
‘Tweek.’
‘Ok. If you insist.’
‘I insist.’
Tweek took a deep breath and let it out again. Slowly he nodded.
‘Ok. Great plan, Stan.’
‘Ha. Yes, thank you, Kyle.’
‘Ha. I can’t believe those guys ended up together too.’
‘I hope they’re still together.’
‘Me too.’
‘I mean, if we’re still together after all this then…’ Craig’s voice trailed off as he noticed how pale Tweek looked. He raised his eyebrows and Tweek posed his question.
‘Craig? Are we – are we still together?’
The silence hung between them.