Chapter Text
Something Craig Tucker didn’t mind?
Retail.
Something Craig Tucker didn’t mind?
Working on weekends.
Something Craig Tucker hated?
Christmas time.
fUCKING CHRISTMAS.
THERE’S GLITTER EVERY-FUCKING-WHERE.
..
Working at Pier 1 imports wasn’t that bad.
The extremely blue-blue apron was stupid looking, but at least it was blue. Blue was Craig’s Colour.
Discount on all the cute coffee mugs he wanted, as well as pillows; getting paid above minimum wage for standing around for 6-12 hours straight; cute customers; etc.
But being covered in glitter for 3 months out of the year made Craig want to commit mass homicide.
Working there was the difference between living on the street, hungry, and having a place to sleep and eat.
His parents, as well as money he’d been saving, were the sole reason he was able to go to college. Denver University wasn’t the best college, but it was good enough.
Craig was double majoring astro-science and film.
This meant double the work, but it was worth it.
He did film on the side of astro-science because he enjoyed it. It was also something that could get him some extra money, and was his backup for if astro-science doesn’t work out.
It was his safety-net.
And at this point, it was his only safety-net.
…
Craig was a very intimidating person. He didn’t really intend to come off that way, but that’s what happened. He’s very honest and straight-to-the-point. He’s a down-to-earth, no-bullshit kind of person. Sure, he was an asshole, but an asshole in a friendly way. He was determined, stubborn, strong, tall, handsome, and a huge cuddly nerd.
He was so socially awkward, and got nervous around huge crowds. He spends most of his time in his apartment he shares with 2 friends, studying, working hard, trying his best, and hopefully not failing.
Craig Tucker was also a useless homosexual.
It took him forever to come to terms with that, of course. He was still in denial to a decent extent, actually. His dad was never /homophobic/ per se*, he just unintentionally threw an agenda that being gay was not his favourite.
Of course, Craig Tucker didn’t actually care that much about what his father supported or didn’t support, it was just so subconsciously hammered into his head that he felt bad about being gay.
However, unlike a lot of people in denial of their sexuality, he didn’t try to hide it, or try to get himself to like girls, or even go so far as to fuck and date girls just to see if he’s maybe possibly just super picky (which is a lie he keeps telling himself).
He’s fucked and dated 2 girls. Both back in highschool.
Since college, he has, with the help of Wikipedia and his friends, come to the conclusion that liking dick is gay.
Craig has dated and even fucked multiple guys before, so he isn’t in /that/ much denial..
It’s just..
Uncomfortable.
He hasn’t found someone who makes him feel comfortable in his sexuality, or himself in general.
So after fucking guys all through first year, he came to the conclusion that date-fucking isn’t his forte.
I mean, he’s fucked people, and has romantic (and on rare occasions) sexual attraction to a human being, which is something his friend, Clyde, never thought was possible.
Craig had, of course, flipped Clyde off at that remark, but laughed at the fact that Craig never thought he’d have romantic (or sexual) attraction to anything, as he had never had a crush, or lust, before.
..
This year, second year, was different.
Craig wasn’t in it for understanding his sexuality. He was in it for his degrees. He majored in things he actually really liked.
So as Craig found himself wandering into a small coffee shop to study, he was there to study. Not fuck off watching youtube, or to doodle aliens in his book for half an hour, or to hit on people, or to have deep conversations with strangers.
He entered, the warmth, and smell of coffee, hitting him like a dump truck. It was calming, and much more comfortable than outside. Computer bag and text books in tow.
The place was rather empty. An older man here, a woman in her 30s there, you know, the usual stuff.
Craig walked up to order, standing behind an ordering college dweller. She had long golden-blonde almost red hair, and was talking to one of the baristas as if they’d known each other since they were in utero.
“Bye, Stan!” she started for the door.
“Bye!” replied the boy, ‘Stan’, rather sheepishly.
Craig turned his attention to the person in front of him.
“Hey! U-uh what can I g-get you?” The barista asks, smiling. He’s short, and thin. He looks to be around 18, maybe a little older. Definitely a college student. You can see the “aaaaaa I’m failing science history because I got drunk instead of studying” in his stance, as well as the dark circles under his eyes. His messy blonde hair receives a twitchy tug from its owner. Craig reads the nametag. ‘Tweek’
Is that his actual name? I hope that’s not his actual name. That should be considered child abuse to name your kid that.
Craig looks to the barista’s sparkly eyes. They’re a sea-green. It matches his hair and pale completion well, but clashes with the purple apron he’s wearing.
Craig forces himself to tear his gaze away from the absolute dream-boat to look at the menu.
“I’ll have a,” he scans the menu as quickly as possible, as to not agitate this ‘Tweek’ kid. “Caramel mocha, please,” his emotionless voice matched his emotionless face.
“What size?”
“Uh, medium?”
“Okay! Anything e-else? We have homemade pastries, Kyle’s actually making some right now,” He motions to an averaged height boy (which makes him look a lot taller compared to ‘Tweek’) , who looks to be the same age as the noiret, and who has extremely curly red hair. ‘His hair is curly enough to have its own gravitational pull’ would probably be what Clyde would deduct. Craig, knowing that’s impossible, and stupid, did not think that. The boy’s hair looked like it had just had a hat pulled off, and that probably was the case. The boy was, indeed, putting some mixed-berry looking sauce onto pieces of pastry dough.
Craig looked at the menu once more to see if any of the pastries were to his liking. He bit the inside of his cheek, swallowing a nervous “ahaha sorry I-I’m taking up too much of your time,”. Craig didn’t want to come off as weak. His stance showed he was fairly confident, as did his voice. His mind was screaming, though. He took a deep breath.
“Can I have a blueberry muffin,” his nasally voice made the word ‘muffin’ sound so weird. Just a small influx in his voice, which forced Tweek to use all his willpower not to gush.
“U-uh sure!” He looked to the ‘Stan’ guy from earlier, and exchanged nods. “That will be $7.75,”
Tweek walked to the coffee machine and Stan worked on getting the muffin.
Craig fumbled with his wallet and pulled out a 5 dollar bill, two 1 dollar bills, and 3 quarters. He placed them on the counter rather stiffly.
‘Tweek’ handed him the coffee and bagged pastry.
“Thanks,” Craig said, trying not to sound too much like an asshole, and found a table in a corner, setting down his computer and books.
He opened the computer and absentmindedly opened word, and opened one of his textbooks as he thought about the barista.
He was cute. Kinda twitchy, but Craig had seen worse. The way the boy behind the counter had smiled so genuinely and Craig had made his heart do a backflip. ‘Tweek’ must really like his job.
Craig hears ‘Stan’, ‘Tweek’ and ‘Kyle’ chattering. They call each other by those names, which causes the now typing boy to make a mental note to think of them as those names factually.
Stan helps Kyle with the pastries and Tweek starts cleaning tables.
Tweek starts at the other side of the room, which Craig does not notice. Tweek had done this on purpose, as to not seem like he totally wanted to start a conversation, and to give him more time to think about what he’d say. Craig stops typing once in a while to look at the open textbook, before continuing to type.
Once Tweek reaches the monotone boy’s table, he takes a deep breath as does something he never does, start an actual conversation with a stranger. He talks to customers all the time, but that’s just second nature, the “hey, how may I help you?” spiel was nothing he was afraid of. But this raven-haired stranger, who already seemed like a pretty tough guy, made him fear he’d be snapped at for engaging in conversation.
“What are y-you working on?”
“My thesis statement on super novas,” The stranger says, not looking away from his computer.
“Oh cool, you majoring in space stuff?”
“Yup. Film, too,”
“Oh cool. That’s hard work. A sciency thing on its own is tough, but to do film on top of that? Sheesh, I’d probably die from stress in the first week,” Tweek said sheepishly, sparing a small smile.
This made Craig laugh. Laugh.
He never laughs.
Never.
But that made him chuckle. How could it not? The was Tweek had said everything with an obvious tone of not truly understanding what he was really talking about. He made it sound so childish. It was adorable.
Tweek’s face heated up. The stranger’s laugh made his stomach all fluttery.
“Haha, yea, it’s tough, but it’s what makes me happy,” the boy pulled his focus from his computer and took a sip of his coffee. He looked at Tweek and smiled wholeheartedly.
Craig’s brain was screaming about how cute the blonde was, but he kept that to his brain. “What are you majoring?” He prodded.
“Uh, Music theory,” he stated before adding on “well, that’s a major thing but uh, technically business,”
“Oh cool,”
“Yea, I want to take over this place as soon as possible,”
“Oh wow, dude, nice,” Craig smiled at the now blushing Tweek.
“Uh, wow, I didn’t even uhm, catch your name,”
“Craig. Craig ‘Space Man’ Tucker,” He said rather enthusiastically.
Tweek snorted lightly, “Well alright, ‘Space Man’, what’s your favourite colour?” Tweek had completely forgotten about cleaning the table, and Craig had forgotten about his thesis statement.
“Blue, duh,” he points to his attire. His blue hat, his blue wind breaker, his blue sneakers, “But green is a close second,” he winks at Tweek.
It takes Tweek a few moments to realize the taller male was talking about Tweek’s eyes. He blushed furiously and laughed.
A moment of awkward silence before “So is your name actually ‘Tweek’?”
“Y-yea, and it gets even worse,”
“Uh oh,” Craig whispered,
“My last name is Tweak,”
Craig smiles and giggles confusedly,
“Yea, I know, right?” Tweek comments off of Craig’s visual response. “Tweek with 2 E’s and then Tweak with an E and an A,” he giggles lightheartedly.
“That should be borderline child abuse,” Craig jokes.
“Yea for real,”
“But it’s super cute, it’s like,,, your Quirk,”
“My Quirk?”
“Yea, yea,” it dawns on him, “oh uh, I’m weird in this way where I categorize things weird and think of things weird,”
Tweek nods, listening.
“And so a Quirk (with a capital letter, mind you,) is one of those category things,” Craig explains.
“So my Quirk is my name?”
“W-well you can have multiple Quirks, of course,” Craig retorts sheepishly, “Like one of my friend has lots of Quirks. He pours milk before is cereal, for one. Uhm, he plays football as like, a serious thing, not just for fun,” Craig shrugs, slightly flustered.
“Oh! That makes sense! I do that sort of thing sometimes, too. Like how I ask myself dumb stuff like whether they’d probably like one scoop of ice cream or two,” He giggles, watching Craig’s eyes light up at the thought that he’s not the only weirdo.
They both smile.
“But seriously, is it like, a special thing to have multiple Quirks?”
“Uhm, kind of? It means you’re either have a super well rounded personality, or you are very eccentric,”
“Oh,”
“You have um, multiple Quirks,” Craig swallows dryly.
“Oh?”
“Y-yea, you’re very Twitchy,” the way he pronounces ‘twitchy’ makes Tweek note that it would probably be capitalized, too.
“Oh, uh yea,” he says, sort of ashamed.
“That’s not a bad thing. It’s cute. It makes you stand out. It also must make finding a partner harder, huh?”
“Y-yea actually,” Tweek says rather surprised.
“Makes sense. Lots of people don’t give people a chance just because of something dumb like that. I don’t mind the Twitch,”
“Oh,” Tweek makes an embarrassed smile, “Yea I’ve been drinking coffee basically my whole life, I addicted to it, that’s what makes me so Twitchy,” Tweek admits. “My dad runs a coffee house back in my home town. He, uh, made me work there constantly. I almost flunked school because of it,”
“Woah, dude,”
“haha, yea, we actually sell some of his coffee here. Mostly because it was part of the deal of him letting me run this place here. I lowered the price of all of his homemade blends, though. They taste like shit,”
“Wow,” Craig giggles, “That’s… interesting,” Craig can’t find a word to use other than interesting.
“Yea,,”
“So what’s your favourite band?”
“Uhh, it’s embarrassing!” Tweek panics.
“That’s okay,” Craig replies calmly, soothing Tweek, “Mine is probably Gorillaz, or maybe Fall Out Boy,”
Tweek lights up at hearing ‘Fall Out Boy’ escape the raven haired boy’s lips.
“… My Chemical Romance,” Tweek admits.
“Oh, I love them. What’s your favourite album?” Craig asks as if it isn’t super embarrassing to unironically like emo bands when they’re in college and should be done with their ‘emo phase’. This makes Tweek feel oddly calm.
“Uh,,, Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge, or Conventional Weapons,”
“oooO, you’re no fake fan,” Craig giggles, “I’m a basic bitch, The Black Parade, ooooor Danger Days,” Craig winks.
“What’s your favourite song by them?”
“Shit. Don’t make me choose, you glorious bastard,” Tweek giggles at Craig, “Maybe,, uhmmm,, Party Poison, Destroya, I Don’t Love You, aaand Boy Division,” Craig blushes a bit at his very poor taste in music.
“Duuudddeee, Mine are Teenagers, Kill All Your Friends, Sleep, and Helena,”
They gushed about My Chemical Romance’s music, how it saved their lives, how upset they were when MCR broke up, and then Tweek said something very specific.
“aaaa yea, I was so upset,” Craig admits.
“I was hysterical. I yelled at my friend something along the lines of,” he uses air quotes, “I’ll never get to see Gerard’s cute ass again!!” He quietly feigns the hysteria which had originally gone with that sentence, way back when.
This makes Craig very curious. He had never taken Tweek to be interested in boy butts. And of course, it could have been a completely straight thing, but he was so unsure. He decides he wants to try to milk more info by saying “yea, his butt was too cute,”
“I used to watch videos of their concerts on youtube and,,” Tweek pauses to blush, “The way they got /so into the music/, was so hot??”
Now it was Craig’s turn to blush. “Y-yea, hahaha,”
“Like that sounds super dumb, but seriously, they got so in the moment, it was so fucking cute. They could be talking about how they want to rape children or shoot up a school and I’d still-,” he was cut off my a very memorized Craig,
“Suck their dicks?”
“No- argh- kind of? Ack- Yes?”
They laughed, thoroughly embarrassed. Craig still didn’t get exactly what he wanted to hear, so he said it himself.
“I’m so gay for Gerard- well I’m gay just in general, but like,,,, G E R A R D,” he puts his hand on Tweek’s face while saying ‘Gerard’ in a very specific manor.
“That’s gay,” Tweek responded, breathily.
This made Craig laugh.
Stan and Kyle giggle at the two flustered losers.
“I bet they’ll be together by December,” Kyle prods.
“No way, not until May, they’ll both just sit there stuck in this weird situation where they are both in love with each other, but it takes them forever to tell each other,”
“I’ll bet you 30 bucks,”
“Deal,” Stan and Kyle shake hands maliciously.