Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Tweek groaned, star dusk sticking on his eyelids making it impossible to open his eyes. The pain in his ass and back brings him to his senses. A reminder of the mistakes of the night before.

He sits up and looks at the man laying in bed beside him. Tweek has no clue what his name is. He doesn’t care.

He grabs a cigarette from the night stand next to him and lays in bed, configuring shapes in the clouds of smoke above him and tries to resist the urge to open the nightstand.

He hears a knock at the door and with a flinch he reluctantly gets up to open it before quickly realizing he’s stark ass naked. He lazily looks around the room, failing to locate his clothes before he eyes a pair of jeans that aren’t his.

The knocking quickly turns into pounding and Tweek immediately figures out who it is. He smirks humorously as he grabs the jeans and slides them on. They are a couple sizes too big and they ride very low on his hips, very obviously not his.

There’s incoherent shouting at the door now and he opens it just as Craig is about to kick it down.

It’s times like these when Tweek wonders if he’s actually meant to be happy. Because here he is, standing in pants that are slipping off his hips, with last night's mistake still sticking to his thighs, and all in front of the man he thought he would love forever.

Tweek was sure there was a time where he thought he saw enchantment in this man’s eyes whenever he looked at Tweek. Like he was something beautiful. He now wonders if those looks were all in his head.

All he sees now is disgust.

“What are you doing here?” He asks.

He hugs his arms to his chest feeling the chill of August and the shame creeping in his stomach. He takes a puff of his cigarette trying to take in the warmth.

There is none.

Craig doesn’t answer right away, he looks at him with a blank look and glances inside the apartment. Obviously in chaos.

“It’s noon. The guys were wondering where you were.” He said. Craig was gritting his teeth, making his words come out harsh.

Tweek twitched, scratching his arm, “Well, I’m busy.”

“Obviously.” Craig said.

For a moment the two just stared at each other. Taking in the bitter resentment that fills the air around them.

Craig looks angrier by each passing moment, perhaps it’s due to the new things his senses pick up from the unbreakable display of Tweek’s doings.

Obviously he knows of the sex with strangers: Tweek’s new habit. But the more he looks at the smaller man the more he realizes he’s facing a relapsed addict.

“You stink.” Craig says.

Tweek should be embarrassed by this. But he is far past pride at this point.

“Like sweat and cum.”

This makes Tweek chuckle humorlessly, “Did you come all the way here to tell me that?”

“The guys want you at the compound” Craig says “Now.”

Tweek twitches at the tone of the last word. When Tweek was younger he used to fear everything. He scowls at Craig and reminds himself that isn’t the case anymore.

He grabs the door handle, “And I said, I’m busy.” He slams the door cringing to himself and turns around to see the stranger in his bed stir. He takes the breath to say something when he hears a bang and Craig comes pounding into his apartment.

“What the fuck!” Tweek says and backs away into the kitchen.

Craig steadily coming toward him, “You don’t get to act like this and expect me to do nothing, Tweek.”

“Get out of my apartment!”

“First give me the drugs you’ve been snorting all night!” He yells and Tweek briefly wonders if the neighbors will call the cops.

Not that they could do anything.

The stranger groans from his bed and Craig scowls at Tweek. “Didn’t realize you had company.”

Tweek’s teeth clench and he shoves Craig before making his way to the bed, “I said I was busy.” He nudges the stranger. “Hey, it’s time to get up man.”

The stranger groans again and squints his eyes, “Oh…good morning.” He says in his raspy voice and Tweek rubs his arm anxiously knowing that Craig is staring daggers into his head.

“Uh…it’s time to go dude I gotta get to work.” Tweek says. He scrambles around the room looking for the rest of the strangers' discarded clothes before taking off the man’s pants from his own legs and replacing them with his own boxers. “…You really have to go.”

The man gets up from the bed painfully slow and very naked. Tweek adverts his eyes blushing and hears the man chuckle.

“A little late for modesty don’t you think, sweetheart?” The man says.

Craig stomps up to the man and grabs his arm, yanking him out of the room and toward the front door, “Okay, time to go asshole.”

“Hey!” The man yells, “Who the hell is this guy!?”

Craig grabs the man’s clothes and tosses them, flipping him off before slamming the door shut.

“Who the hell do you think you are!” Tweek says.

Craig turns back around, stomping toward Tweek who doesn’t waver and holds up his arms ready to shove him again.

“Your gardien fucking angel.” Craig spits. He moves past Tweek and into the bedroom where he tears through his nightstand, then his bathroom. All the while Tweek chases him feeling cold agitation in the empty pit of his stomach.

Craig grabs everything. All the mini bags that are Tweek’s energy source and all the needles that are Tweek’s euphoria. He yells and shoves and yanks but to no avail. Like a toothpick to a rock.

Craig puts all of it in a Walmart bag he finds in the kitchen and Tweek thinks of all the ways he could get his hands on that bag.

“I don’t even know how you get the money for this shit.” Craig says as he double knots.

“None of your fucking business.” Tweek says. He could feel the agitation grow colder. The anger that turns into something too animal for his likeing, he’s scared and mad and sad all at once. He makes one more hopeless attempt to snatch the bag and this time Craig pins him to the kitchen wall, looking at Tweek with the same disgusted look.

“You’ll thank me later.” Craig says and Tweek shakes his head feeling like he’s about to cry.

“Please.” He says grabbing onto Craig like a desperate child…like an addict.

Craig is unfazed. He gives Tweek a long look and shakes his head, “Pathetic.” He says, which Tweek, deep down, knows is true. “Get showered. Get dressed. And get your shit together.” Craig says, “I’ll be waiting in the car.”

He walks away and Tweek feels colder.

Chapter Text

The drive to the compound is quiet and fucking bleak. Craig had to stop two times before Tweek vomited all over his seats. Though Craig could smell the soap from Tweek’s shower even with the bile in the air. He smells like mint with a whiff of chocolate and Craig had to wonder how he managed that.

Tweek yawns, twitching from the chills and Craig almost reaches over the seat to get him one of his jackets, but catches himself remembering that he can’t do that anymore. He had only been at The Compound for a few weeks, even before he was hired he knew Tweek was part of the “staff” if that’s what you could call it. But he has yet to figure out what Tweek actually does for the company.

For the first few days of Craig’s position, he was working alongside Kenny to get “a feel for the place”, meaning they wanted to see if he was cool with them selling drugs and basically using him as body armor. Kenny works outbound, meeting with other criminals and supplying them with their product, which from what Craig has heard, is pretty impressive stuff.

Craig’s job that week was to keep Kenny from anything fatal, which isn’t as easy as one would think. Day one on the job, as soon as they stepped outside a falling piece of glass nearly pierced Kenny’s skull if Craig hadn’t pushed him out of the way. An hour later a semi skidded from the icy roads, nearly hitting Craig’s truck by inches, before tumbling over on the side of the road. These instances didn’t seem like coincidences, and when he questioned Kenny about it all he said was that things like that happened to him everyday, which put Craig a little on edge, as much as he hates to admit.

On day eight, after various instances of near death, he finally saw Tweek. He was walking from the break room with coffee steaming from his big, green mug. He was wearing a fancy polo, dark green with too many wrinkles, his jeans baggy and his hair messy and short. Shorter than how Craig remembered last time he saw him, which surprised him a little. His body too, it was too sharp, his face sunken looking like he needed a good meal. He used to be somewhat muscular, he used to be a boxer, Craig wondered when that stopped. But what hadn’t changed was Tweek’s tired, blue eyes, which he could see even from a distance.

Craig felt an ache in his heart, seeing the man. He knew the reasons all too well for it, but he shook his head like he does now, knowing that he has a job to do. His job assigned to him this week was to manage the staff and work as protection. That includes Tweek Tweak. Stan had mentioned that he hadn't seen him in days and suspected he passed out somewhere, though he said this with an unconcerned tone that irritated Craig, though he did his best to ignore the feeling.

In the end he ended up almost breaking down his door and taking his drugs that looked like prescription, though from how defensive Tweek got, he knew he did not need those fucking pills and needles. He still wonders how he could have gotten them and starts to tally how many doctors work for The Compound. While he does this he hears Tweek groan slightly and clutch
his stomach in obvious pain. Craig narrows his eyes at the sight, knowing all too well what drug withdrawal looks like.

He relents, “There’s water and a jacket in the back.” He tells him.

Tweek’s head perks up and stares at him for a fraction too long. He complies and reaches behind him retrieving the bottle of water and a blue zip up, a waft of mint and chocolate meeting Craigs nostrils again.

“Thanks,” Tweek says, zipping up the jacket that hangs a little too loosely on him. Craig keeps his thoughts to himself, inhaling deeply as he fixes his gaze on the road. Memories of blue eyes and long blonde hair flicker in his mind. He shakes his head slightly trying to get rid of the ache each one brings.