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When Craig’s fingers wrap around the side of Tweek’s face, softly brushing against his warm cheek, there’s an awkward quiet in the boy’s bathroom. They’ve never been this close before, not since the big fight that kickstarted their friendship, but the feelings Tweek has to wrestle with now are far trickier to defeat.
Being the only gay kid at school — as far as he knows, at least — has made the recent “metrosexuality” craze strange for him. Navigating what his secret identity means to him is like treading through uncharted seas all on his own, and watching it get treated so flippantly might drown him under all the pressure.
It’s not fair that someone like Craig Tucker, a boy who seems so secure in his own masculinity it makes Tweek ache with envy, can participate in these fads without consequences. He can try on the lifestyle that Tweek is so terrified of embracing, and then he can take it right back off as soon as he’s done with it.
Tweek, meanwhile, isn’t as lucky. The stupid campy personas his classmates have been putting on dig deep into his skin like a twisted knife. It’s like they’re mocking him without even knowing it. Being queer isn’t a removable costume for him, but life sure would be much easier if it was. He’s tried to rid himself of that burden too many times to count.
“Your jacket’s not too tight, right?” Craig asks, snapping Tweek out of his daze. His voice makes Tweek tense. “I had to get these custom-made super last minute, so I hope I didn’t fuck up anyone’s sizes.”
The fabric of their matching jackets is soft and fluffy under Tweek’s pink nails. He twists his hands together and sweat sticks to his sleeves. He’s not used to wearing bulky clothing; his thin shirts, buttoned haphazardly and covered in coffee stains, tend to earn him some weird looks in snowy Colorado.
“It’s fine,” he says. He grits his teeth as he speaks, biting back any chance of taboo thoughts escaping his grasp. “Thanks for helping with our outfits. I seriously don’t understand stuff like this.”
The makeup brush Craig presses against Tweek’s face feels like light kisses, and it’s soothing to the skin. Craig’s focused stare, however, is icy cold in a scarily unreadable way — as usual.
“I didn’t either, not until I started looking a bunch of stuff up. I did a lot of research so our outfits would be accurate,” Craig admits. “Hey, did you know the rainbow flag wasn’t a thing until the 70s? I guess I just figured it’s always been around, but lots of this crap is super modern.”
He gestures towards the matching symbols pinned to their jackets, and Tweek stares at Craig’s chest to avoid his powerful gaze. If he dares to let himself indulge in the depths of Craig’s brown eyes, even just for one selfish moment, he might get lost in them.
Although most of the girls wouldn’t agree, Tweek realized that Craig is the prettiest boy in their class the day they decided to fight against each other. Hours upon hours with the punching bag in his bedroom typically solves any problem, but that night, his knuckles were raw and bloody and they still hurt less than his heart. He returned to school the next morning with bandages squeezed around the new truth he hid in his shaky hands: Craig was clearly going to become a long-term problem for Tweek.
Being responsible for roughing up that enchanting face was a shame, but Craig deserved it for torturing Tweek — even though he still remains utterly clueless about his crimes.
“I’ve never really had a reason to read about that stuff,” Tweek lies. The sleepless nights he’s spent desperately scrolling through a private browsing window, searching for answers about himself and constantly checking over his shoulder to hide the computer from his parents, are an embarrassment he’ll take to his grave. “But being metrosexual is different from being gay, isn’t it? It is, right?”
The question doesn’t even make Craig flinch. He tilts Tweek’s head to the side a bit with one hand, a gentle touch that burns like fire, and examines the work-in-progress makeup job. Tweek twitches with explosive energy; Craig’s presence is like caffeine for the soul.
“Well, duh. I wouldn’t be doing this shit if it was actually gay,” Craig says quite matter-of-factly. He shrugs off his own rambling as easily as he puts it into words; his conciseness is another thing Tweek envies about him. “But anyways, I also found out that each stripe of the flag has its own meaning. I didn’t know about that either. Kinda cool, I guess. There’s more to all this gay shit than I thought there was.”
There are many things Tweek silently finds charming about Craig, but the cutest thing about him has to be the way he practically glows with subtle excitement whenever something catches his interest. It’s an almost unnoticeable communication of passion with his monotone voice and a straight face. Only someone as observant — and captivated by him — as Tweek would pick up on the sparkle in his eyes.
“Really?”
Then, the chilly air hits Tweek’s glitter-covered face, and he shivers when Craig slides his hand down to the rainbow pin on Tweek’s jacket. Craig adjusting it presses the accessory closer to Tweek’s chest, and its owner’s heart thuds under his hand.
“This one means ‘life,’ and I think the purple one is ‘spirit,’” Craig explains. His steady voice fades into a hazy pile of something dreamlike while he lists off trivia Tweek pretends not to know. He points at each color on the pin as he goes, and they all melt into a messy blur under his touch. The moment is a painting Tweek wishes he could self-indulgently frame in his memory.
As Craig finishes his little speech, Tweek’s head jerks to the side a few times. He picks at his fingers, digging his painted nails into his rough palms, and bites his lip so hard it stings him back into reality. He can’t afford to daydream about sweet impossibilities that’ll only hurt him. Not now. Not around the cause of them.
“You’re taking this kinda seriously, huh?” Tweek points out. It’s a hesitant question, one he’s using to test the waters, and Craig eyes him with slight suspicion. “Ugh, I mean, not that you shouldn’t! But I didn’t know you were so into fashion, dude.”
Tweek nearly jumps out of his skin when Craig puts a hand in his hair. He runs his fingers through the tangled blonde locks, and Tweek’s disheveled appearance makes him frown. His unkempt golden hair shines like a broken halo around a sinner’s head.
“I don’t give a shit about fashion, but there’s no way in hell I’m gonna lose to Stan Marsh of all people,” Craig insists. “If we’re doing this, we’re gonna commit to it. We’re gonna be the baddest bitches in this school even if it kills me.”
The hairbrush Craig uses to tame Tweek’s wild mane is small and pink. Its handle is dotted with little hearts. Their gazes meet for just a fleeting moment in the bathroom mirror, but Tweek doesn’t dare to let it linger.
“Where’d you get — ACK!” Tweek clenches his trembling hands into fists when Craig yanks too harshly on a knot. “All this hair stuff is so…girly. Shit, are we supposed to be using this?”
His outburst makes Craig brush a bit more cautiously. Slowly, his touches become more and more gentle. A smug little smirk exposes a few of his uneven teeth.
“I stole half this shit from my sister and the other half from my mom. They won’t even notice it’s gone…probably.”
Aside from Craig, the rest of the Tuckers are a bit of an enigma to Tweek. They’ve exchanged small talk once or twice, but never anything of substance. He’s only ever visited their home with a full group of friends, so it’s been easy to blend into the background. Drawing too much attention to himself would clearly be a mistake; the last thing he wants is to be the focus of Craig’s terrifying father.
The patriarch of the Tucker family may as well be a direct manifestation of Tweek’s worst fears. He’s the reason his son is the tallest boy in their class, and he’s why Craig came to school with everything pink buried at the bottom of his backpack to hide it. Sometimes, he makes offhand remarks that crawl under Tweek’s skin like bugs he can’t rip out, and he spends his time with the most conventionally masculine men in town. The worst parts of Craig’s personality, the pieces of him that remind Tweek of the walls dividing their devastatingly distant lives, can probably all be blamed on his father.
Craig’s mother, on the other hand, seems nice enough. Tweek is the only one who ever notices the tiny smile her affectionate notes put on Craig’s face during lunch. She always finds a way to embarrass her son around his friends, but she means well. Her mushy nicknames and protective instincts are a foreign sight to behold for someone as isolated from his own family as Tweek.
Tweek is less familiar with Craig’s younger sister. The siblings bicker more than they play together, and they both seem to be confined to restrictive boxes of opposite expectations. Tricia carries around magazines with covers that include men who are so handsome it makes Tweek blush. Her world is painted in shades of pink, while everything her brother owns is stuck in blue. It’s no surprise that she’s one of Craig’s muses for fashion, but she’d surely tease him if she knew what he was doing.
“Won’t your dad get mad at you?” Tweek can’t help but ask. “Most adults don’t really — AGH! — get the whole metrosexual thing.”
When he puts down the hairbrush, Craig shrugs. He backs up and, with narrowed eyes, he rests his hands on Tweek’s shoulders.
“Right now, my only problem is you. Something’s missing, but I can’t figure out what. You’ve got a way prettier face than the other guys, so I don’t know why this is so hard.”
In the blink of a mascara-decorated eye, the fragile structure of Tweek’s world crumbles. He twitches uncontrollably under Craig’s touch and, with a heartbeat so fast that it hurts, realizes just how much power this boy holds over him.
“P-pretty?!” he blurts out. “Guys aren’t supposed to be pretty! Augh, what the hell, man? Stop making fun of me!”
If he’s not supposed to fall for a boy, why is Craig making it so damn easy?
“It’s not my fault that you look like you were born for this shit,” Craig tells him. “But I wasn’t calling that a bad thing. Honestly, I don’t really think it is.”
Craig is totally oblivious to the weight of his words, but he might be seeing through to the core of Tweek’s soul without even understanding the truths he’s discovering.
“Thanks…?” Tweek replies. It’s often impossible to determine what he’s meant to do in a town with such inconsistent values. The tiny school bathroom suffocates him with the burden of his unspoken secrets. “Listen, can we be done with this already? It’s almost time for class, and I’ll be so fucked if I’m late again! Oh, Jesus!”
While he talks, Craig keeps his piercing gaze locked on Tweek’s lips — and for one ephemeral moment, in a private world dyed in pink and rainbow hues, both of them are struck by the same terrifying warmth in their chests.
“I figured it out. You need lipstick,” Craig decides. “Try not to move for once, spaz.”
They’re both silent while Craig puts the finishing touch on Tweek’s transformation, but the lingering thumb he rubs against Tweek’s lip for just a second too long speaks louder than his conscious mind. His hand wanders over to the side of Tweek’s face with no purpose, other than a mutual starvation for the forbidden contact, and neither of them can bring themselves to break their shared trance when he cups Tweek’s soft cheek. The idea of leaning into Craig’s tender touch tempts Tweek like an addictive craving, but he resists his most humiliating urges and freezes up under Craig’s hand like prey that’s meeting its killer.
Doing the “wrong” thing feels surprisingly right if they’re doing it together.
Then, before either of them can find the courage to be honest with themselves, the school bell rings and shoves reality back through the spell they’re under. Any magic fizzles out and gets buried back in its proper place: the shameful depths of both of their hearts. The separated universes they return to grow colder after briefly facing each other’s light, but neither of them want to acknowledge it. Neither of them can acknowledge it, because that would require accepting things they aren’t ready for.
“…Uhm, by the way, thanks for the help,” Tweek finally says when Craig approaches the door. “Is it weird to say that we’ll look good together?”
Craig grins back at him, and his smile takes Tweek’s breath away. Shit. This boy is too much to handle.
“You’re damn right we will. Let’s go find Tolkien and Jason. If they haven’t finished getting ready yet, you’ve gotta help me kick their asses.”
Tweek is certain he’s been making a fool of himself, but if it makes his definitely-not-a-crush look at him with that much fondness, opening up must be worth it.
“Alright, dude. Whatever you say.”
After Craig affectionately elbows Tweek’s side and opens the bathroom door, their world created for two fades into a memory they’ll never discuss. If they were braver, their friendship could become so much more — but instead of reaching out, Tweek just silently watches Craig’s back while he leaves.
When the door shuts and he’s alone, Tweek clutches the rainbow pin that sits over his flustered heart. His tingling lips melt into a gooey smile, and he trembles with excitement. Maybe, just maybe, the distance between his fantasies and his reality is starting to shrink into something he’ll be able to call his true self.