Archive of Our Own

It was the single worst thing that happened in his life.

Except it wasn't just one thing, but a series of events that contributed to months of heartbreak and pain that he still felt so keenly. He wanted to drink himself into a stupor, until he felt so numb and empty that he blacked out. But he didn't, he couldn't, because as much as the pain hurt, he needed it. Because he didn't want to forget, didn't want to stop feeling miserable.

As he sat alone in his apartment, accompanied by nothing but the ticking of the clock, the creeping darkness that came as the sun set, he still didn't bother to turn on the lamp that was within an arm's length. He was hardly even aware of it, too caught up in his thoughts he couldn't escape.

Could things have been different, if only he'd been there sooner? Could he have gotten his husband to the hospital on time? Were there warning signs that he missed… or worse, ignored? Was there a reason that any of this happened at all? They were all questions to which there were no answer, and Craig wasn't sure if he wanted them even if they existed.

This had been his life for months now. The first days, weeks, he wasn't sure how long, that wasn't the case. Friends visited, his mother brought over casseroles, there was always someone there. Checking in on him, making sure he was eating, showering, making sure he was okay. Of course he wasn't okay.

He wasn't sure he was ever going to be okay again.

These days, there was only one person who came around with any sort of frequency. Craig wasn't even sure when it started. He just started coming around, inserting himself into his life, and Craig didn't give a shit enough to stop it from happening.

He didn't mind it, not really. Kyle didn't ask him if he was okay, because Kyle wasn't okay either. At first, they didn't talk at all. They'd sit on opposite ends of the couch in silence. Sometimes just that, sometimes with something on the television. Sometimes he'd bring food. Sometimes he'd spend his entire time cleaning Craig's apartment.

Craig didn't care. He didn't care about the state of his apartment enough.

Over time, they did talk. Kyle talked about Christophe, about how a relationship of eight years fell apart. "He got hired onto a team working on an excavation at the Valley of the Kings. Of course he had to take it. But Egypt? I'm established here." In true Kyle-like fashion, it was a straight-forward explanation, logical, and completely devoid of the heartache that Craig knew was there.

Craig talked about Tweek. About how after fifteen years, his entire adult life—truly, his entire life since he was sixteen—was defined by his relationship with Tweek. The way he lived, his routine, the things he cooked, how he stored things and ran his household, all developed from having this other person in his life, living with him. Now, nearly a year later, all that was left was a void that he wasn't sure how to fill.

When he finally broke down and sobbed, not for the first time since Tweek's death, but the first time in front of Kyle, the redhead pulled him into his arms and held him. He didn't say anything, didn't try to tell him it would get better. He just rubbed his back, deciding then that if Kyle couldn't be a rock and champion for himself right now, he'd try to be that for Craig.

In the living room, a coffee cup sat on the table in front of their sofa. His. Craig's sofa. Theirs didn't exist anymore. Craig had only allowed to Kyle to touch it when it began growing mold, and refused to let him throw it away. Craig tried to line it up exactly with the ring it left on the glass top, but something was different about it. The angle of the handle, or that it was just a few millimeters off its original position, or that the droplets on the front where Tweek's lips sucked out the liquid and dribbled it over the side were gone.

Some days were better. Some days he came home and turned on the television and thought about something funny Jeff told him at work, or how annoying Pam's voice was when she answered the phone, swear to god you could hear it across the entire office building. Tweek would've made a joke about that, and some days Craig would smile, thinking about what Tweek would say, and he'd reply, to the empty air of their — his — house, I know, babe! That was a really good impression. I love you, and he'd be able to fall asleep, and maybe he'd be able to stay asleep, unless the realization that the space next to him was occupied with stacks of pillows and nests of blankets rather than his husband, grunting and laughing in his sleep like he always did, woke him up.

Today wasn't one of those days. All he could look at was the cup.

"You should eat something."

Craig wasn't sure how long Kyle had been there. He'd come over sometime after work, that much he knew, but he hadn't paid attention to the time then. Hadn't paid attention to the time now. Hell, they'd scarcely said a word to one another until just then.

He'd heard Kyle moving around. Starting laundry, washing his dishes. He heard sizzling from the kitchen. Had Kyle said something about the state of his pantry again? It didn't matter. He didn't care. Craig didn't understand why he kept coming around. No one else did. Not even Clyde, but Clyde hadn't lived within driving distance in how many years now?

At some point—he wasn't sure when—he was no longer staring at the coffee cup, but instead a plate of food. Some kind of noodles, some kind of vegetables. It didn't smell like anything. It tasted like ash in his mouth. One bite was all he could manage, and even then it was swallowing down chalk and bitterness and regret.

Kyle sat beside him, not saying anything. If it was someone else, anyone else, Craig knew they'd be judging him. Criticize him for still being like this. But Kyle understood, at least more than the others did. Because he was broken too.

"It'll be in the fridge if you decide you want it." There was Kyle's hand on his shoulder, squeezing gently, and then he was on his feet again, taking the plate with him.

Leaning forward, Craig turned his attention to the cup again. He was so certain it was off. Maybe if he just turned it just a few degrees, it'd be right. It'd be how it was supposed to be. But as soon as he did just that, Craig knew nothing would ever be how it was meant to be again.

Kyle always sat next to him. He’d wait for Craig to turn on the television, and if Craig didn’t, couldn’t, Kyle would just sit and listen to the faucet’s drip, the clock’s tick.

Some days it was fine. Others, it wasn’t, because that was Tweek’s spot. That was where Craig would stretch out to prop his feet on Tweek’s thighs, and Tweek would always giggle, scrunch up his freckled, button nose and tell Craig to get his stinky feet away from him, so Craig would flip around and rest his head on Tweek, then Tweek would lean down and peck him on the forehead. And Tweek would grin at him in that way that made those gorgeous green eyes that Craig would never fucking get to see again crinkle at the corners, and then Tweek would grab his chin and kiss him.

It was Tweek’s fucking spot.

“Don’t sit there.” His voice was hollow.

“Okay.” When Craig told him not to sit there, on days like this, Kyle would move to their recliner, without question. He and Tweek bought the recliner just to flesh out their living room. It was nobody’s spot.

They bought it on a Saturday, a snowy Saturday, and when it was delivered the following weekend, he and Tweek were in bed, sweaty-slick and moaning and they had to scramble to get dressed, and their hair was still all fucked up and Craig hadn’t buttoned his shirt, so the delivery man saw the hickeys all over his chest.

He and Tweek laughed about it for months after.

“Don’t sit there either.” Craig stared at the cup. “You know what?” His voice rose. Craig barely yelled anymore. It felt powerful to do so. “You know what, Kyle, just fucking leave.”

Kyle did, patting Craig’s shoulder on the way out.

The following afternoon, just an hour or so after arriving home, a knock roused him from his spot on the couch. One day he'd fuse with it, become so close that the threads from his shirts and pants would bind with the couch, that it would happen with his skin as well. If Kyle would just leave him alone, it would happen.

It was tempting to ignore the door, as it periodically was, but Craig knew it was Kyle. Knew not answering would just mean more knocking, with the redhead calling out to him through the door, concern and worry leaking through his voice. Craig didn't want that more than he didn't want to move.

So he got up, took the few paces from his couch to the door. Unhooked the chain, slid the sliding bolt, unlocked the bolt within the door, the knob on the doorknob. He'd once told Tweek that it was excessive, but he found himself continuing it anyway. It was just a habit.

When he opened the door, as expected he found Kyle on the other side, holding a paper bag of groceries to his chest. For a moment, he saw relief in Kyle's expression, in those green eyes that were different from Tweek's. Darker, duller. There'd been fire in them once, Craig recalled that vaguely, but in many ways Kyle was just a shell of a person now too.

He opened the door more, allowing Kyle to come inside. Kyle said something about laundry, something about the state of his kitchen, but he merely grunted in response. Idly he wondered if he shouldn't just give Kyle a key. He had a spare— no, he didn't. It was Tweek's. It was unused, on a hook in clear view, but couldn't give Tweek's key to someone else.

He shuffled back to the couch, this time laying down on it, arms tucked under a throw pillow. Craig didn't sleep, not in any real sense of the word, but something close to rest came easier with the sounds of the dryer running, the random clacking in the kitchen.

"What's that?" The smell of something, of something that actually smelled good caught his attention. Sitting up, he draped his arm over the back of the couch to peer into the kitchen.

Kyle didn't answer right away, not until he was came into the living room with a small plate. "Brownie." He sat down beside him, like he always did, and this time Craig didn't feel the need to protest.

His mouth watered, accepting the plate. It was still warm, but not so much that he couldn't enjoy food for the first time in months. He almost felt something close to happy for a moment, until he didn't.

The levee was breaking, he could feel it, feel himself crumbling over a fucking brownie, but it wasn't just that. It was that he'd been harsh, that he'd kicked Kyle from his apartment yesterday and the man was still here for him. That he knew that Craig needed the companionship even when they only existed around each other. That Tweek used to bake treats like this for him all the time, and he'd never taste them again, never taste him again.

The plate left his hands, and in his blurred vision, his disconnect to the present, Craig didn't realize that Kyle was setting it aside, drawing him in until his arms were wrapped around the other man, until Craig was soaking Kyle's sweater in tears and snot.

Kyle came over. Kyle did his laundry, his dishes. He fed him. He sat by him, he listened, he comforted, and it was killing Craig not knowing why, not knowing how another person could put up with this. With him.

How could anybody handle it, when Craig could hardly handle himself? He was fucking pathetic, like some invalid that didn't, couldn't care for himself and couldn't get past anything, and couldn't, would never get over it, would never be normal ever again. How could somebody really, truly want to be around him?

But Kyle was there, on a November night, and flurries of snow swirled outside of Craig's windows as Kyle sat, in Tweek's spot, but Craig didn't stop him this time. The television was tuned to some news program, something about conflict in the Middle East and former President Garrison fucking things up even when no longer in office, which made Kyle tut something under his breath like of course, and Craig wondered how and why this felt normal.

And when the momentary flit of a thought crossed Craig's mind, about what Kyle would do if he stretched out his feet and put them on his lap, Craig felt more guilty than he ever had in his entire life. He reached out and stroked the rim of the coffee cup and it still wasn't fucking right.

The news program ended, and after glancing at his phone, Kyle announced as he always did: "Well, I need to go home." It was the same phrase, same reluctant tone. Every day for months now. He was like clockwork. Without needing to watch Kyle, Craig knew he'd get up, get his shoes, and now that it was colder, his coat.

But he did watch, chewing on the inside of his cheek. The sun set long ago, and this time of year, there'd been no direct sunlight to begin with. But it'd been snowing so much, probably was still snowing. "You can stay," Craig told him, despite the turmoil he felt sloshing around within him like a sour stomach on a rollercoaster, "So you don't have to drive in this."

Kyle gave him a smile—one that hadn't been directed at him, but one he understood keenly. It wasn't really a smile, there was no warmth behind it, but no coldness either. Just a reflex, a pretense of politeness and normalcy. "It's not white out conditions, dude. This is nothing, and it's not like I have to go that far."

The only reason Kyle didn't leave right then was because Craig got up from the couch and took a few steps toward him. They were creatures of routine, and this wasn't part of that. This was different, and that alone meant that Kyle was looking over at him with furrowed brows. "I—" Craig was never good at talking about his feelings, or communicating at all, and it was even worse now. "I want you to stay."

It was like picking at a scab. One that was nowhere close to being healed, and by fussing with it at all, blood was gushing out of it. It was how he felt, and right then he wished he hadn't said anything at all. He could've changed his mind, told Kyle to go ahead and go home. But...

"I can't remember the last time I actually really slept." Admitting this caused his voice to crack. Fuck, he really was pathetic. "I don't want to be alone."

"Oh." Craig wasn't sure what that meant at first, beyond it appearing as thought Kyle had to process it. "Okay. I don't mind." The coat returned to its designated hook, the shoes back to the mat near the front door. "I don't need to be anywhere tomorrow." Which Craig knew was true—Kyle had the same sort of unfulfilling 9 to 5 office job that he had, and he'd proven a long time ago that he no longer did anything on weekends.

It was only eight. Craig's normal Friday routine — one which extended through the weekend, more often than not — when he was alone, was to turn something on the television, and stretch out on the couch so his head was in Tweek's spot that didn't smell like Tweek anymore, but it didn't stop Craig from burying his face in the cushions, rubbing it on the back of the couch, hoping to find some trace of him, somewhere. And, when that didn't work, there were t-shirts in their dresser. There were sweaters and hoodies and button-ups in the closet. Craig rotated them. When one started to lose its smell, when the cigarette-coffee-cologne- Tweek faded, he'd carefully hang it up, exactly the way it hung before, and exchange it for another.

He dreaded when the day would come that he'd be out of options.

With Kyle here, he couldn't. He was already so fucking lame, such a sad fucking bastard that needed someone he barely even knew to stay with him so that he could fall asleep. If Kyle knew about any of that, Craig would want to die... even though, in the back of his mind, Craig was well aware that Kyle would more than understand.

"What movie do you want to watch?" Movies were their thing, a much-needed reprieve and distraction for both of them, a hopeful projection that one day all of the bullshit, all of the emptiness and loss and heart-stomping pain could, maybe, fucking maybe would one day just go away. It always seemed to, one way or another, in films.

"Bodysnatchers," Kyle said, and Craig actually smiled.

"Again?"

"Yeah, dude. It's a good movie and you know it."

Cold War allegories aside, it was relatable: waking up in the same world, staying the same, but everyone and everything was different. Craig recalled Kyle saying as much after they'd watched it together for the first time. He hadn't known what to say at the time, but upon reflecting on it, he couldn't very well disagree.

As Kyle settled back on the couch, Craig set the movie up, dimming the lights in the living room. It took no time at all for Craig to get lost in the movie, to let himself have this escape, and when he glanced over to Kyle periodically, he could tell it was the same for him. Those green eyes were trained on the television, and he was still—perhaps too still, in the way someone was when they were intentionally trying not to move—but by this point, Craig didn't try to figure out what was going on in Kyle's head.

The following hour and twenty minutes passed quickly, and at that point, Craig just didn't want to be awake anymore. He didn't want to be awake much of the time—it was a sign of his grief as much as it was age. Or at least, he felt much older than being in his early thirties, with so much less to live for.

He'd asked Kyle to stay, but it was still strange to have another person here in the way of his nighttime routine. Someone who wasn't Tweek. Someone who needed the spare, unused toothbrush to be fetched out of the hall closet. Someone who was far too quick to turn down borrowing pajamas even though he was clearly uncomfortable with the idea of sleeping in the jeans and t-shirt he came over in.

Craig lacked the patience and the emotional fortitude to ask Kyle a second time if he was sure. He was too drained, cared too little. He just wanted to sleep for once. Wanted to either sleep dreamlessly or dream about the happy memories he shared with Tweek. Wanted not to have nightmares about how he found him, just once.

Kyle was in Tweek's spot—sort of. Tweek never laid so close to the edge, never stared up at the ceiling so intensely with his hands folded over his chest like that. He was always close enough to touch, close enough to feel his warmth, even when they weren't tangled in each other. But at least, as soon as the light was off, he didn't have to see Kyle there instead, didn't have to think about the guilt that was bubbling up in him more and more.

What would Tweek even think of him, if he knew how poorly he was handling this?

They laid there for fifteen minutes, half an hour, an hour maybe, and Craig listened to the rise and fall of Kyle's breaths, which were far too shallow, far too steady to indicate that he'd succumbed to sleep. It was force of habit for Craig to toss and turn, trying to find a comfortable position that never came, and when he turned on his side, to face Kyle, he studied the other man's profile. His pale skin that practically glowed in the darkness to which Craig's eyes had long adjusted, the lines on the side of his mouth and between his eyebrows which were evidence of a near-perpetual frown, the long eyelashes, such a light-red that they were practically clear, which brushed against Kyle's cheeks every time those lifeless green eyes blinked.

It didn't mean anything, that Craig was noticing these things. It was normal, natural to notice little details of someone who he saw nearly every single day. But something about the fact that he was noticing in the first place made his stomach twist, guilt bubbling into his throat like bile.

"You can't sleep," Craig observed, not for lack of anything else to say, but for need to fill the silence.

"Neither can you." It was an observation, not a comeback. That much was clear.

Craig didn't know why he said it. Or maybe he did. Maybe it was because the phrase had been sitting at the front of his mouth and making his tongue itch since the worst day of his life, but he said it, and the moment he did, it felt like something major, like a weight was lifted, like any of those tired sayings about closure and getting over things and important steps, and all the rest of that cliche, stupid bullshit people like Bebe posted to his Facebook wall. And, somehow, he felt at least twice as worse as soon as the words left his mouth. But the important part was that he finally said it.

"I knew he was using again," he whispered. "I knew, and I didn't do anything to stop it because I kept telling myself it wasn't true."

That was when Kyle turned onto his side to face him, one of his arms tucked under the pillow, blankets resting over the curve of his shoulder. Craig couldn't begin to know what Kyle was actually thinking, but it was easy to project his guilt, easy to assume knitted brows meant silently condemning him. And he deserved it.

"It's not your fault."

The words were loud and clear and hit Craig like a ton of bricks. His heart seized and he felt like he couldn't breathe. Was that obvious? He didn't know, but when he felt Kyle's fingers wrap around his own, Craig felt like he was shattering into a million pieces.

"It is," he said, filling with sorrow as he sink deeper and deeper into an abyss of his guilt. "I didn't want to go through it again. I didn't want him to be going through it again. I convinced myself he was just stressed, that I was just looking for things to be wrong while he wasn't feeling well. And I could only think, my suspicion was wrong, it had to be—and if I said anything, he'd never trust me again."

"It's not," Kyle repeated, "Not your fault, none of it is."

Anyone would have said the same thing. It was the proper response, it was something that anybody would say to another person because who would want to agree that someone was responsible for the death of the only person they'd ever loved in their entire life? But, by the way Kyle's thumb slowly circled against Craig's upon their entwined hands, by the way Kyle looked at Craig — not with the outright concern of the people who came and went from Craig's life and house in the months following Tweek's death, but with acceptance, and understanding — he knew that Kyle was not simply placating him.

Part of Craig wanted to close his eyes, to shut out the view of their — his — room, the crooked lampshade on Tweek's bedside table that Kyle once dusted, but did not adjust, the abstract painting hanging on Tweek's side of the room (one he painted in college, one of the paintings that didn't sell, and Tweek was happy when it never did because it was his favorite and even though Craig never understood art like that, it quickly became his favorite too), and the familiar-yet- not person laying on his side, stroking Craig's hand, and then his hair. But, Craig knew that if he did, it would make it worse, somehow. There would be mind-recorded memories, and he never knew if they would be happy or not and he wasn't willing to take that chance, not right now.

So, he trained his eyes on a loose thread on the hem of Kyle's shirtsleeve. "It was," he repeated, hoarsely, "Because I never helped him."

"You did help him."

Kyle sounded so certain, so sure of himself. It was the sort of tone that, right now, made Craig want to believe him. But the heart of the matter was so obvious, so insurmountable: he didn't help him enough. If he had, they wouldn't have been having this conversation. If he had, it would've been Tweek beside him still.

"I obviously didn't. " He dragged his hands down his face. Craig wasn't surprised when he felt the mattress shift, when he noticed Kyle scooting closer with a frown and determined expression. He just didn't get it. In many ways, Kyle was so different, so broken in comparison to the boy he'd known in school. But right now, Kyle sounded more like himself than he had in a long time.

"You helped him. You helped him through so much, you were there for him when he needed you, when most people would've given up." Kyle paused then. Whether he was letting that sink in or what, Craig didn't know. "I don't mean to be callous, but... he was an addict, Craig. Addicts struggle and relapses happen, and they often think they can handle the amounts they used to. With him being clean for as long as he had, there was just no way his body could handle that. But it's not your fault. It's a tragedy. It is, it absolutely is, but you are not to blame."

"You're not being callous." This, Craig could do. Before everything went all fucked, before more emotions than he'd ever felt, or perhaps just ever allowed himself to feel, took over his life, Craig dealt in logic. And, logically, if it happened to someone else, Craig would have said the exact same thing.

The thing was, it didn't happen to someone else.

"You're right, of course, objectively," Craig said, trying to speak slowly enough that all of the panic and guilt he carried with him wouldn't rise to the surface and break him, again, just like it did almost every single fucking day, "But I don't see how I couldn't have at least played a part. You know? I even made excuses, called his work, told them he didn't feel good, and I knew why he didn't, but..." His eyes stung, and he swallowed, dryly. "You know?"

"Sometimes we do things that don't make sense for the people we love." Kyle's words were softer this time, full of the understanding and acceptance that Craig had come to expect and appreciate from him. He was the person from whom Craig least expected to receive zero judgement—

But life was full of too many unexpected things.

"I guess so," Craig admitted finally. But it didn't lessen his guilt. It didn't make him feel any better. That was the shitty thing about being able to experience emotions at all. "I still see him. When I try to sleep. Laying on the cold bathroom tile like that, in his own vomit." The seal had been broken the moment he started talking earlier, and once he'd begun, he couldn't stop. He felt the need to get it out there, for better or worse. "His official cause of death was aspiration, you know. Not overdose. Aspiration. He fucking... choked on his own vomit, because I wasn't there."

Kyle simply continued stroking Craig’s hair. He wanted him to talk. He wanted to listen, god, someone actually wanted to listen rather than try and cover up the grief with food and outings and distractions, and Craig didn’t know how to process that. Didn’t know how to handle it. He shuddered, crying without tears.

Sometimes he felt like his body would eventually run out of tears. Physiologically, it didn’t make sense, but one day they had to run dry because there was only so much crying a person could do, right?

“You know what I did?” Craig flicked his eyes up, glancing, for but a moment, at the other man’s face. His expression hadn’t changed. “I went to the pharmacy. I bought Narcan, because I knew it was coming, but I thought I’d be there when it happened. And I wasn’t.”

"You did everything you could. You're only human, Craig."

He did everything he could, but it wasn't enough. It was never going to be enough, he was never going to be able to forgive himself, and it was somehow so much worse with Kyle being so kind and understanding.

Craig was at a loss of what to say, and only managed to uselessly shrug his shoulders. His breath caught in his throat as he felt the press of Kyle's lips against his forehead, but he didn't say anything. Kyle didn't say anything about, either.

The other man rolled back to his original spot, facing away from him. "You can wake me up if you need to, okay?"

But he didn't need to. For the first time in a long time, he wasn't plagued with nightmares.

Craig used to go out on New Year's Eve, because Tweek always wanted to go out. He never enjoyed himself, not particularly, at least not until he was drunk enough that he'd allow Tweek to drag him onto the dance floor. What they did wasn't so much dancing as it was rubbing against each other in some semblance of a rhythm and trying to hold off on kissing until midnight. Usually they failed, their lips locked somewhere around 11:50, but they always said it counted because the point is that you are kissing, not that you start kissing the very moment the ball drops.

It still counted as one year of good luck, they always said.

Craig would come home covered in glitter and smelling of alcohol and he'd vow that he'd never do it again, and grumble in protest when he inevitably did end up getting gussied up and going to the club the next year. It's stupid, Tweek. We're not in college anymore; do you really think it's worth the hangover? he’d ask, and Tweek would just kiss him and say something about tradition.

He wished he were covered in glitter and kissing and having to deal with bodies, and thumping bass, and sticky dance floors because it meant that Tweek would still be there.

Instead, he was sitting on the couch with Kyle. He never asked whether Kyle had his own New Year's plan that he was flaking on. Like always, he was just there. He'd probably stay the night. It wasn't safe to needlessly travel on New Year’s Eve, and really just… Craig hoped he would stay.

Kyle stayed over sometimes. Several times a week over the past couple months. Sometimes Craig asked, sometimes Kyle just knew that Craig needed the company. More often than not, they laid beside each other, not talking, and by the time sleep claimed them, they were facing opposite directions.

Tonight would be no different. It was a rather sad affair between them, anyway. No alcohol, just a table full of snacks that both of them were ignoring. SNL 's New Year's special was on, the skits were objectively funny, apparently the best of the year's. But neither of them were laughing.

Periodically, Craig glanced over at Kyle. He was sleeping more, but the bags around his eyes were still there. He still looked just as pallid and awful as Craig did, but— there was something about him. Something that made him want to lean over—

Craig didn't let himself finish the thought, but his fingers tapped on the cushion between them. It was just that he missed Tweek, was all. And yet, when he made eye contact with Kyle, he was so sure his own desires were reflected in the look he gave him.

And then, Kyle's attention was back on the television, and Craig forced himself to do the same.

Craig was hyper-aware of Kyle's phone vibrating against the glass top of the coffee table, going off every hour or so with a text message. Kyle ignored it, but Craig just couldn't, because every vibration called his attention to what he'd done earlier that day.

They needed room for the food, was his rationale. Although the food remained relatively untouched, they’d originally made plans to gorge themselves silly — pizza, chips and dip, cookies, all things that were objectively terrible for you, things that Kyle never fed him on his nights over, but it was a holiday, it was allowed — and a bottle of sparkling grape juice with two plastic wine glasses, the kind without stems that you'd take to the pool, were all laid on his coffee table. The grape juice because, Craig figured, what the fuck was the point in getting drunk when you were already sad?

Kyle had agreed. Kyle had looked him in the eyes when he agreed, and his expression was something unreadable, but still something that made Craig wonder if not wanting to be sad was the only reason they were skipping out on booze. He didn't want to think about what further reasons they may, or may not have.

But, four hours before Kyle's arrival — Craig had timed it, because Craig knew that it was going to kill him, that he would curl up in Tweek-or-Kyle's spot and his body would heave with cries and he didn't want anybody to see him like that, not today, not on a fucking day of celebration — he'd moved the cup. There had been an empty space in the cupboard since that day, a space Craig never bothered to fill with anything else because he knew what belonged there. His hands shook when he did it, and then he stood at the cupboard, with everything in place for a good five minutes with his hand on the cabinet door before sliding to his knees, right in the fucking kitchen, right where Tweek used to stand to make coffee and pastries, and curling up, and sobbing.

Kyle hadn't said anything about the mug, just as he hadn't said anything about the red around his eyes when he saw Craig. But Craig knew he noticed, had caught Kyle glancing at the spot where the mug had been for months. It was just how things were. There was an undercurrent of understanding. Some things just didn't need to be discussed.

Especially not now. Just a couple hours from midnight, a couple hours from cracking open the same sort of sparkling juice they'd had as children.

But it never came to that.

Tweek had once described the couch as something that swallowed everything whole, including people. It was obscenely deep, the sort of expensive couch that felt more like a bed. With the right sort of exhaustion, it was difficult to stay awake. Spacious and easy to sink into. The description was an apt one.

At some point, Kyle started fighting off sleep, his head slumping down against his palm, abruptly snapping to alertness. He didn't bother getting up. Craig stretched his legs out, his shins resting over Kyle's lap, and it appeared to just be instinct when Kyle rested his hand on top of Craig's legs.

The television was still on when Craig's bleary eyes strained to look in that direction. Kyle's fucking phone buzzed again, and it was only when he noticed that he was seeing it from a different vantage point that he realized his head was in Kyle's lap. He could feel those long fingers combing through his hair, and while he hadn't a clue when this happened, he didn't question it.

Kyle mumbled something about there being a little over an hour left.

The sounds of fireworks, of car horns, and metal pans roused him. This time his head was tucked against Kyle's arm, could feel his chest pressed against his back, could feel the tightening of his arm around his chest as Kyle groaned, in his obviously sleeping state bothered by the noise. But he didn't wake up entirely, just pressing closer, his face pressing into Craig's hair.

When the noise quieted down, Craig drifted back to sleep as well, arm resting over Kyle's.

The phone woke him up. His television turned itself off sometime after midnight, and it was a cloudy day, no streams of sunlight pouring in from his balcony door to wake them. Just the phone, which seemed loud as a cement drill in the silence of his apartment, and then Kyle clumsily stepping over him, collecting the offending phone, and padding past the living room and behind the half-wall of the kitchen.

Craig shut his eyes. He feigned sleep, and he listened.

“Hey dude — no, just decided to stay in, wasn’t feeling it this year, y’know?”

Kyle never talked like that. The only reference point Craig had for his voice were those salespeople at the expensive department stores he and Tweek used to visit, to look but not buy anything. People who were feeding others the lines they wanted to hear, were feigning interest and enthusiasm in order to just survive until the end of the day, when they could go home and drop the act.

“No, no, yeah, I — yeah. Is he? Tell him I said hi. How’s Cynthia?”

Craig felt a twinge of guilt as he listened in. For eavesdropping, and the sinking suspicion that Kyle flaked on seeing his friends to hang around him. And for what? Falling asleep in front of a television?

"Oh, they did? I'll stop by sometime soon, promise—"

The faux voice carried, and Craig could hear Kyle's end of the conversation clearly, down to every filler sound, every mhm and uh-huh.

"That sounds great! But not today. I have plans to see my grandmother. Uh-huh, yeah. Give them my best. Later, dude."

He heard Kyle walk back into the living room, and his footsteps stopped somewhere nearby. Craig slowly opened his eyes at that point, to see Kyle puzzling over the couch, holding onto one of his elbows. The façade he'd put on for the call was gone, and he just looked uncertain.

Rather than saying anything, Craig reached out, gesturing for him to join him. Kyle picked up the cue immediately, laying down on the couch. This time, it was his back against Craig's chest. Neither said anything.

Kyle's body was stiff against Craig's, taut tension in every muscle, and Craig did what he knew Kyle would, what Kyle had done so often during those nights over, when Craig stared up at the ceiling or into the closet at the shadows of Tweek's shirt rather than allow sleep to come. He buried his face in Kyle's sleep-tousled, curly hair and he kissed him, softly, chastely on the back of the head —

It was purely for the sake of comfort. It didn't mean anything

— and he covered Kyle's hand with his own, and circled his thumb on his palm, and breathed deeply, slowly, rhythmically until Kyle's breaths matched his own. He waited until he knew Kyle was asleep to drift off again.

This time, nothing in particular woke them. The clock on Craig's cable box said 12:30, but that was fine. Neither had plans. They rose to seated, and Craig stiffly moved to the kitchen and made a pot of coffee that he wouldn't touch, as he had every day before and after that day, as was routine. He would typically leave it there, let it sit and scald until it was thick and dark, and then pour the entire pot down the sink while his chest felt like it was going to burst. That was, until somewhere along the line, during their nights and subsequent mornings together, Craig discovered that Kyle was a coffee drinker.

At least it wouldn't go to waste, anymore.

He brought Kyle a mug. One of the new ones, out of this pack he bought after it happened because the first time Kyle pulled out one of his coffee cups, it was the one with the now-fading drawing of a raccoon on it that Craig bought him when they were seventeen. And Craig had snatched it out of Kyle's hand, and spilled hot coffee over the plaid pajama bottoms Kyle finally allowed Craig to lend him.

Kyle hadn't done anything. Kyle understood.

Kyle sat cross-legged on his-or-Tweek's spot, elbows resting on his knees and head resting in his hand and he was staring at the black screen of the television when Craig brought him the coffee.

“I heard your conversation."

Craig didn’t have to admit it, but really he did, because why wouldn't he when he was the reason that someone missed out on something that could have been fun? Much more fun than sitting in front of a television with Craig and a sparkling bottle of grape juice nobody touched, at any rate.

"Oh." It was the most loaded oh that Craig had heard from him. There were layers to it, some of which Craig could decipher, some of which he couldn't. Kyle shifted, his grip on the coffee mug tightening, relaxing. A measured movement. "What about it?"

He watched Kyle sip the coffee, then hold the mug close to his face for the warmth, for the aroma. "You had a party to go to and you didn't." It was an observation, not an accusation, but Kyle pointedly wasn't looking at him.

"It was Stan's, but he has one every year." It was another loaded statement, but in the same factual tone he used to simplify matters that concerned him. The one where he could mention something in passing without sharing at all how he felt.

When it was Christophe, Craig never pushed it. In this case, he wouldn't have either, except he'd heard that charade and it wasn't sitting easily with him. "He was the one texting you all night?"

"No, some of it was Kenny."

Craig resisted the urge to shake him. "Doesn't Kenny live all the way in Seattle? Why the hell were you here when you could've been having fun with your friends?"

Silence hung between them, the heavy sort that Craig insisted upon until Kyle finally cracked. Green eyes flitted in his direction, something he couldn't read. "I had fun." Eye contact lasted too long, too intensely before Kyle finally added, "I don't have to fake it with you. I can be here, enjoy whatever, and I don't have to put on a chipper tone, I don't get bombarded with how're ya really doin', buddy constantly."

"Maybe they actually want to know how you're doing." It was a hypocritical thing to say, perhaps, because Craig couldn't lie to himself that he didn't feel the same about most people, other than Kyle. "Stan probably does. He's your best friend, or whatever." Nevermind the fact that Clyde was Craig's best friend and, when they talked on the phone, or Clyde Skyped Craig from his office in Tucson, Craig was sure that any outsider would accuse him of doing the same thing — of faking it.

Kyle laughed, a humorless snicker huffed through his nose. "Stan has his own life. He's got a wife, and kids, and all of that. I'd just be bringing everybody down. No one wants that." He took a long sip of coffee, and the glance he shot Craig from the corner of his eye was questioning. As if he was asking, Do I bring you down? Am I making things worse? "Stan wouldn't give a shit."

Craig had to laugh at this. "No offense, dude, but I always remember Stan being kind of..." A pussy, is what Craig wanted to say, but who was he to talk about that, given his recent state? "Kind of overly sensitive, and caring, and stuff. I'm sure he'd give a shit."

Kyle nodded, saying nothing, and Craig took the initiative to turn on the television, flipping through a few channels before deciding on a rerun of Family Guy, which he never cared for, but Kyle always seemed to enjoy.

"I give a shit, too, for the record," Craig said, softly, after a few moments.

Kyle gave him another one of those looks. Craig could only describe it as a mix of morose and grateful. There was the slightest twitch of the corner of Kyle's lips, a failed attempt as smiling, before he stared down at his coffee. It made Craig's chest ache, which was strange. To feel something like that so keenly when it was already something he felt consistently.

"Thanks."

It was all Kyle said, and it was probably all he would say about it. Over the months since they started to spend time together, Craig had only been able to get the most minimal information out of him. Then again, that didn't say much. Kyle's concern was always focused on Craig, if they talked at all.

"Tell me about him. About what happened." Because right then, Craig realized he actually did want to know. He wanted Kyle to have the opportunity to talk. Wanted to be able to help.

Kyle's hands twisted along the curve of the mug. "There's not much to say. We got on well, but I loved him more than he loved me. I gave him eight years. I would've given him the rest of my life."

"Eight years is a long time," Craig said, threading his hands together. He cast his eyes on the television for a few moments, looking but not really watching, before he shifted on the couch. folding his legs underneath him and turning his body so he could fully look at Kyle. The temptation to stretch out his legs, or to crawl to the other side of the couch was certainly there, but thinking about why those impulses existed was a thought that caused an empty, panicked pang in Craig's stomach. He folded his arms together, willing himself to stay right there, when all he wanted to do was just reach out.

"Yeah," Kyle said, taking a long sip, then setting his mug on the table. He leaned back, into the corner of the sofa, one arm stretched across the back. "It was, but. Who am I to complain, really? It's nothing compared to...." He let himself trail off, eyebrows threading together, forehead wrinkling. "I wanted to get married, he didn't, so. That was that."

"That doesn't mean that you can't feel what you do." It wasn't articulated the best way. Tweek was always the one who could navigate through feelings, who could express himself more easily than Craig ever could. But if he had learned even just one thing from Tweek, it was this.

Kyle frowned, the sort of frown he got when he didn't necessarily disagree with something but opted to refrain in voicing his dissent. "He just—he freaked out so much because of me bringing it up at all." Craig hadn't expected him to continue this line of dialogue, but he gave him his full attention all the same. "It wasn't like it was our first fight ever. But it was bad, and punishing me by lighting up in the living room after wasn't enough. I had to scrub the walls to get the nicotine out of them, but he still had to move halfway across the world to spite me anyway."

There were two sides, or more, to everything, and Craig was more than certain that it was the case here as well. But he didn't say that, didn't want Kyle to shut him out after he was finally opening up.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Craig said, slowly, echoing something he’d been told by the man next to him countless times in the past couple months, since the night he finally opened up about the full extent of his guilt. “Sometimes things don’t go like you expect them to go.”

It felt disingenuous, saying something so cliche, but Craig knew that fact more than anyone else. “And, you know,” he continued, looking at the empty cushion between them, “I’m here for you, and everything. And I bet your other friends would be, too.”

He heard Kyle take a deep breath, felt the shift on the couch as he picked up his mug, drank, and set it back down. “Yeah.” Kyle’s voice was uncertain. “The thing is. I mean. It’s stupid of me to be so broken up about it, because...”

It was then that their eyes met. Kyle’s hand drifted toward the center cushion, Craig could see it through the corner of his eyes, and he took it, threading their fingers together, somehow knowing full well what Kyle was thinking. “Because nobody died?”

"Yeah."

Craig tried not to think about how it felt to have their fingers linked together like this. If it was just comfort and reassurance, and nothing more, it wasn't anything to worry about, and yet— "You can't compare your circumstances to mine. It's not a misery competition."

The comment drew another one of those humorless almost-laughs from Kyle. "You're right. Even so... I'm just at that point where I can't go through this again. If there ever is another person in my life, they've got to be the last or just not be there at all. I don't want my heart broken again."

Craig felt his stomach flip. “I understand.”

The prospect of another wasn’t one he thought about often. There was no replacing Tweek. Nobody else would wake him up, singing those horrible musical theatre songs in the shower the way Tweek had. Nobody would drag him along to new, out-of-his-comfort-zone things like art galleries and clubs and plays and get-togethers full of people Craig would never of his own volition go out of his way to meet, and hold his hand through the entire thing and stick with him like Tweek always had. Nobody else would smell the same, feel the same. Nobody would kiss him, touch him, love him, not like Tweek, and he would never, never fucking get it back.

Craig had a momentary thought that, even if nothing would be the same, at least there was someone who understood. He didn’t allow himself to dwell on it.

“I know you do,” Kyle replied, giving his hand a squeeze.

Winter fully set in with average temperatures staying below freezing, snow piling up along the sides of the roads. It wasn't anything that pulled Craig out of his element; he grew up with this, expected it, and only had to remote in to work a few times.

He found himself grateful for the nights that Kyle stayed over more than ever before. He slept more easily, not only because of the proximity of another person, but because of the warmth. They wound up huddled close, not quite cuddling, not quite spooning—just close, just enough that cold air was bearable.

Maybe things were getting slightly better, slightly less painful in the monotony of day-to-day life. But there were still things that reminded him of his loss, things that made his heart seize, made him feel like he forgot how to breathe that resulted in a rising panic.

Perhaps Kyle felt it too, for entirely different reasons. He'd had that deep frown after an onslaught of Valentine's Day commercials played on the television. It was after that Kyle suggested they actually go out soon. Just see a movie. It was leaving Craig's apartment, but only required limited interaction with other people.

The suggestion was one that was mutually understood: it wasn't a date, and it sure as hell wasn't going to be a romcom. After picking through trailers of upcoming films, they'd settled on a slasher, a middle of the week evening showing.

It was one of the few times Craig had planned to leave his home outside of obligation in a long time, but of course it'd be now that he was already off to a great start. He'd been ready to go, knew Kyle would be arriving any time now. But he had time to walk to check the mail first. Which he did.

But somehow he managed to forget that there wasn't someone on the other side of his apartment door to let him back in when he locked the knob out of habit, with his keys resting on the counter inside. His shoulders hunched, fists shoved in his pockets. He'd just have to wait until Kyle showed up—and if Kyle couldn't help him get into his apartment, he'd at least be able to borrow his phone to call his landlord.

As he waited, he almost wished he'd had a cigarette. It would've taken the edge off, the stress, and the jitters. But he'd quit years ago, because Tweek didn't like it. What would he have thought if Craig picked it back up again? There was no way Tweek would ever know, but the thought made him feel guilty all the same.

It was all the more reason to feel relieved when Kyle walked up. At least the temptation wasn't so present as it was when he was left to his own devices.

"Dude, it's cold as fuck out. Why are you waiting out here?"

"Locked myself out," Craig hissed through his teeth, words turning into clouds of steam in the cold, winter air. "Went to check my mail, and..." He shrugged, gesturing vaguely to the relatively empty parking lot of his complex.

It was a funny thing that the one time he'd want to run into one of his neighbors, there was nobody to be found, yet, for the first few months after the stretcher with the telltale black bag upon it was hauled out of his and Tweek's apartment, Craig couldn't seem to dash across the lot and to his front door fast enough, not without somebody stopping him to offer their condolences, as if any of these people had known Tweek well enough to offer condolences in the first place. As if any of them knew either he or Craig at all. It was worse when they stared, rubbernecking at Craig like he were a fucking car crash. He'd take false pleasantries over that any day.

Kyle smiled sympathetically, and reached into his back pocket. "I'll help you out, dude."

"Seriously? You don't have to pay for a locksmith. Can I just use your phone to call my landlord?"

Kyle raised an eyebrow. "We don't need a locksmith."

He made short work of getting Craig's door open, sliding a credit card into the door frame, wiggling the door back and forth until there was a click.  "Hung out with Kenny a lot as a kid," Kyle offered by way of explanation.

"Can't say I'm surprised that this was the sort of shit you guys were doing." Craig wasn't sure how Kyle pulled off the good kid façade so well, because he keenly remembered Kyle getting into just as much shit as the rest of that group.

Kyle gave a short laugh in response to that, something actually genuine. It wasn't something Craig had heard more than a handful of times, but it was a pleasant sound. One he'd like to hear more often. "Ironically, he works for a security company now. So I guess it worked out for him in the end."

Craig didn't need to grab much before they left. Keys, wallet, that sort of thing. Kyle lingered in the doorway, and when Craig was ready to go, they walked to Kyle's Camry. It was a particularly boring, inconspicuous sedan; Craig wasn't much of a car person by trade, but he knew just by glancing it over that the model was one from about ten years ago, and dull silver paint job really drove that home.

The drive to the cinema wasn't a bad one; there was typical evening traffic, but it was easily ignored. For a while Craig relaxed in the passenger's seat, content to listen to the old Depeche Mode album Kyle had playing softly. At some point, when stuck at a particularly long light at a busy intersection, Kyle started recounting a recent conversation with Stan.

It almost felt like this was something normal and functional, not two lonely broken souls blindly wading through life.

"—and then he had the gall to call me a martyr because I haven't talked to him about this one thing. Like, sorry, I didn't know I was supposed to tell you everything. "

"To be fair," Craig said, trying not to chuckle, and especially trying not to indicate his agreement about Kyle's martyr complex — anyone who had spent the last, fuck, was it a year already around someone like Craig had to have one — "He probably tells you everything, huh?"

"I mean, I guess," said Kyle with a roll of his eyes. But, on his face, there was barely a trace of the resigned, blank expression Craig was so used to seeing. Kyle was animated. Kyle was talking, not keeping everything bottled up so tightly inside, and Craig felt barely a shred of guilt for thinking that it was absolutely beautiful. "But, he's just like, this perfect family man, you know? Matching sweaters on the kids and dogs in the photos over the mantle, that kind of shit. What would he even understand about it?"

They'd pulled into the parking lot of the movie theater, and it was an obvious relief to both men that it was relatively empty. "Anyway," Kyle continued, shutting off his engine and unbuckling, "I guess he isn't that pissed off, because he asked me over to dinner with the kids and wife." Craig didn't miss the flicker of sour expression on Kyle's face, like that dinner was the last thing he'd ever want to do.

Craig couldn't blame him, not really.

They continued their conversation, mostly Kyle talking, and Craig listening, while they purchased tickets and sodas, until the lights lowered and previews began.

Like most films he'd seen in theaters over the past few years, the trailers gave away entirely far too much. Craig made a point of trying to avoid them whenever possible, especially for huge blockbusters set to be released months away. It was difficult to do in this situation, however. There wasn't a point in dicking around on his phone, and the screen was too large, the audio too loud to ignore.

It was a good twenty or thirty minutes before the film actually started. It was about ten minutes after that in which he felt the armrest lift, felt the now-familiar warmth of Kyle engulf him as the other man wrapped an arm over his shoulder, pulling him close.

Craig didn't know why Kyle chose to do this, but when he felt the way Kyle rubbed his shoulder, when he felt how comfortable it was to rest his head on Kyle's shoulder, the way his own heart skipped a beat, Craig didn't have it in him to care. His own hand settled on Kyle's thigh, thumb stroking over his slacks as they watched the movie to the end like this.

When the lights came up after the credits, and Kyle slid his hand off of Craig's shoulders, he paused, halfway, to stroke the back of his neck. It was a flattening of his palm, a drag of his fingers through the overgrown hairs on the nape, a circle of his thumb. And, when he finally pulled away, and Craig finally removed his own hand from Kyle's leg, dragging it higher and squeezing it harder up the thigh than he probably should have, Kyle's eyes, for the first time Craig could remember since what felt like eons ago, were bright.

Not the color, of course. They were the same deep green as always, but in place of the expression that was normally near-vacant, despondent, or angry at best, was something that crackled like the burning embers in a fireplace.

Neither said anything.

The car ride back was mostly silent, save for a comment or two about the music playing softly on the stereo. It felt much louder, the realization that something had changed, something had happened and Craig both didn't want to think about it, and wanted to tackle head-on, to scream what is this or what do you want or, as much as he fucking hated himself, hated himself so, so much for thinking it, let me kiss you. Let me take you to bed.

Instead, when Kyle pulled up in front of Craig's first-floor apartment, they just looked at each other, silently, for seconds, maybe a minute, and Kyle's eyes practically burned.

Craig wondered if his did, too.

"Don't leave yet. I have something for you."

Kyle raised an eyebrow, but he put the car into park and nodded. Without explaining anything else, Craig got out of the car and headed to his apartment at a brisk pace, careful to avoid obvious patches of ice. It only took but a moment, and he was back to Kyle's car. Instead of opening the passenger door, he leaned one of his arms over the frame of the car on the driver's side.

Once Kyle unrolled the window, Craig reached in, pressing a key on a coffee cup enamel keychain into Kyle's hand. "I want you to have this. In case something like earlier happens again."

Craig's heart was racing, from what he'd done, from his fingers brushing against Kyle's gloved ones. Kyle looked taken aback, but he couldn't hold that against him. It was unprompted and unexpected. "Oh. Okay, thanks." They exchanged farewells; it was far too cold to linger like this for too long.

It meant that the rest of Craig's night was spent alone. That was for the best. It meant they weren't making mistakes that they would regret, but it would be a lie to say that Craig didn't feel his absence. Hours were spent watching mindless television, pacing, before he finally gave up and attempted to rest.

He was completely unsuccessful, and when his phone buzzed on the nightstand, it was hardly a disruption at all.

Are you still awake?

Craig responded immediately. Yes.

He didn't know if sleep would come, not that night. It was just a key. It was just a key, just a piece of metal with bumps and ridges, but the least he could've done was take Tweek's keychain off of it.

I can't sleep at all, came Kyle's reply.

It was just a key, but it wasn't, because were it just a key, snatching it off of the hook and pressing it into Kyle's hand wouldn't have felt simultaneously like ripping a bandage off of a long-healed wound, and opening a new one elsewhere, a stab and a twist of an imaginary knife somewhere in his sternum.

Before he had the chance to respond, Craig's phone buzzed in his hand. Do you want to skype or something?

His eyes shut for but a second, the smallest shudder of a sigh escaping his lips, and he tapped out, Yes.

Kyle quickly responded with his username, and after Craig fetched his laptop from the coffee table and brought it back to his room and booted it up, he signed in and added Kyle to Skype.

Craig hadn't ever seen Kyle's house—and really, he didn't know anything about his living situation at all beyond alone —but he could see a limited amount of what he assumed was Kyle's bedroom in the background. Kyle had a lamp on, the walls behind him looked stark. But Kyle didn't. He looked exhausted, curls hanging loosely around his face, wearing an oversized CU Boulder sweatshirt.

"Hey," Craig said, for a lack of having anything else to say. There wasn't a point in asking why Kyle couldn't sleep. It wasn't different from his own. It didn't take long for him to decide that he didn't want the laptop on his lap at all. Instead, he set it down where Kyle usually slept—where Tweek slept—after making sure it was still plugged in. Sinking down into his bed, Craig tugged his blankets up to his shoulders, watching Kyle through the computer.

"Do you think it'll ever get easier? Sleeping." It was the first thing that Kyle said, his words soft and uncertain, a sharp contrast to the rare glimpse of him Craig had seen while they were out.

"I don't know."

"It's easier with you," Kyle said, quietly, before shifting himself. He propped himself up on his elbow, laying on his side to face Craig. The blue light Kyle's laptop cast across his face drew attention to the sharp, gaunt angles of his cheekbones, and made the dark circles under his eyes look a deep purple. Kyle's mouth turned down in a tiny, yet thoughtful frown. "I can barely sleep when I'm not there. And I don't know what that..."  Kyle bit his lip, lines forming on his forehead. "Is that something we should talk about?"

If Kyle were next to him, he likely would've been able to feel the pounding in Craig's chest without them even touching. "It's easier with you," Craig agreed, softly. "We could try to sleep, like this."

"It's worth a shot." Craig watched Kyle roll over to turn his lamp off, which darkened Craig's view of him, but he was sure Kyle wasn't able to see him that well like this either. "It'd almost be the same, just not as warm."

Not as warm, and lacking in the weight of having someone else in his bed, but this was better than nothing. Neither of them felt the need to carry on a conversation; they talked periodically, but the silences were just as comfortable, and Craig found himself content to observe Kyle. The way he ran a hand through his hair, the way he turned into his arm to stifle a yawn.

When Craig was finally able to doze off, it well after Kyle fell asleep, but it was easy to allow himself to drift off at that point, lulled by the sound of Kyle's breathing.

Do you like elk?
Because somehow, I've ended up with a surplus of elk. Among other things, was what Kyle sent him, on an early evening in mid-March, upon Craig's inquiry about his dinner with Stan and his family.

This year's spring was the kind of extended winter where, just as Craig thought blades of grass would begin to peek through the blanket of snow, just as he thought the sun would finally come out and things would burst to blooming, another deluge of snow would fall, and the landscape would reset to one of stark, chilling white.

He'd been able to do a few things around the house. He'd straightened the lamp on Tweek's bedside table, thrown away the half-finished bottle of wine that had sat in his refrigerator for over a year, the bottle that he and Tweek were going to finish the weekend that it happened, and he'd placed a few of Tweek's t-shirts in a box. That, he couldn't see through to the end, but it was a step. The night after he tried packing Tweek's clothes, Kyle was there.

He'd wrapped his arms tightly around Craig's middle, squeezing them back-to-chest and stroked his hair, and then Craig turned over. Kyle had kissed Craig's forehead, and when Craig found himself focusing not on his sobs, but on Kyle's lips, on the sharp curve of his Cupid's bow and the way his lower lip always seemed to get caught in his teeth when he was thinking, Craig had pulled away.

They had turned around, in opposite directions, as was their routine. Craig's foot had found Kyle's, and they’d tangled their legs together as they allowed sleep to take them.

Yes, Craig typed out. You are offering to share, right?

Yeah. There's more than I know what to do with.

Craig didn't think much about what that meant until Kyle came over not long after, bearing two reusable freezer bags for transporting groceries. He let him in, watched as Kyle unpacked the bags. Soon a portion of the counter space was filled with ground elk, elk steaks, elk sausage, some kind of venison, chili, lasagna.

As he opened the freezer, playing Tetris to properly fit everything in the available space, Craig leaned against the counter, passing him cold food items as he recounted the dinner in greater depth. Despite Kyle's clear reservations, it seemed to have gone okay, except—

"She insisted that I needed this more than they did, that I 'looked thinner' since the last time she saw me—" Craig almost smiled at being able to hear the air quotes, but he didn't. It wasn't like it was an unfair description. He knew Kyle made attempts at proper meals when he was over, but he was just as disinterested in them as Craig was. Maybe, if he ever got better... "—I swear, dude, she cleared out half of their deep freezer and I had to roll with it."

Craig passed a roll of ground elk, wrapped in butcher paper and clearly labelled in neat handwriting. "Hate to break this to you, but it sounds like Marsh wound up getting hitched to the girl version of you."

Kyle snorted at that, leaning back in his crouched position to take the roll from Craig. "Oh, I know. When we were in high school, he told me I was perfect, but the dick and balls were a deal breaker."

Craig could only laugh at that, the kind of body-shaking belly laugh that he once thought he would never experience again. Laughter became more frequent over the past few months, starting as a weak chuckle here and there. It was as if once Craig allowed himself to laugh again, he remembered how much better it always made him feel.

At first, he felt guilty. Or, worse, that kind of sad nostalgia that came with remembering a voice, a joke that he would never hear again because he used to laugh with Tweek, that was always Tweek’s thing — he always knew exactly how to cheer Craig up.

Then, somewhere along the line, why should I laugh when he’s not here turned into why shouldn’t I? He’d want me to laugh, and he was pretty sure it was one of the weekends that Kyle stayed over, and they watched SNL and they did laugh at the jokes.  Kyle had rested his head on Craig’s lap that time, and Craig had played with his hair — Craig thought his hair was absolutely beautiful, always had, even when he was just that easy-to-get-a-rise-from kid in school, but back then it never meant anything and now, god, now it probably did and that was terrifying — and when they spent nearly an entire commercial break looking at each other, Craig’s eyes on Kyle’s lips and vice versa, neither said anything.

Kyle had turned on his side again the second the show was back on. His face had been pink.

“Which is totally fine, because I can’t imagine that it wouldn’t be weird to, you know, do things with your childhood best friend in the first place,” Kyle continued, then, rising to his feet with a slight groan, and, with his hand on the open refrigerator door, he smiled at his handiwork of fitting everything into Craig’s fridge. “I’m pretty sure we were put in the same crib and like, shared bottles at some point, when my mom would watch us while Sharon worked. It’d be like making out with my brother. I mean that literally. Because my brother’s adopted, so we’re not related, but, you know, gross — it’d just feel that wrong.”

Kyle chuckled, and Craig just laughed along with him, lighter this time, and realized that, while Kyle loaded up his fridge, he had barely been thinking about the food, but studying Kyle. There was the way he did everything so methodically and carefully, like stuffing Craig’s fridge and freezer with food was the same as laying the cornerstone to some important monument; and then there was the way the shadows under his eyes seemed to have lightened, and the way his hair fell over his eyes and bounced when he moved, and the way that, ever since that night Craig gave him the key, there was a passion that had returned to the man. Not fully, but it was there. It was there now. It was in his eyes, and his eyes were beautiful, and so were his lips, so was Kyle altogether, and Craig felt a tingling in his fingertips, a tightness in his chest, and a somersault in his stomach as he walked merely one, two paces, and placed his hand on the refrigerator door, right on top of Kyle’s.

“What?” Kyle asked, faintly, as his eyes burned and his lips parted with a tiny sigh, or laugh, or just one of those undefinable, under-the-breath noises that Kyle made on occasion.

“You know,” Craig said, as he slid his hand across Kyle’s neck, into those soft, beautiful, curls, and pulled him in.

The moment their lips connected, Craig felt something electric sear within him, a burning need, something that he thought was dead within him. Kyle's lips were soft against his, moving gently, his hands resting against Craig's side with the sort of gingerness that seemed like Kyle was hesitant to touch too much, like he was afraid to break Craig, break this moment.

It ended, with Kyle exhaling a shaky sigh that made Craig want to pull him in closer. For a moment, neither of them moved, and Craig swallowed a thick lump in his throat as he looked into those green eyes, still leaning in so close their noses brushed together.

There was a fire within those green orbs, and Craig felt like a moth drawn into him.

How long they stayed like this, he wasn't certain. It was like poking at the integrity of a seal, a dam, and when Kyle pulled him back in for another kiss, a deeper kiss, the levee broke entirely.

Those long fingers splayed across Craig's back, holding tight and fast. Unlike the moment shared just a minute before, there was nothing gentle about this kiss. It was fiery, it was desperate and fervent and touch-starved. Craig's tongue brushed against Kyle's, grip in his hair tightening before he let go entirely, tugging him away from the fridge, out of the kitchen.

They stumbled, but when Craig's ass brushed against the back of the couch, it only felt right that they tumbled over it together.

His heart was pounding; he could feel its rhythmic thumping in his ears. It was a feeling he wanted to hold onto right then. Only that, only the present, only how it felt to have Kyle's fingers brush against him just under the hem of his sweater, how Kyle's hands traveled up the length of his torso, thumbs pressing reverently against his nipples, and then harder, pinching, almost pulling. Only Kyle's mouth, hot and wet and unfamiliar but somehow so right; only his teeth on Craig's lower lip and then on his neck, and then gone for but a moment, an agonizing moment as he peeled off Craig's sweater, and then his own.

And then it was skin-on-skin, heat and passion. It was the feeling of a string of elastic stretched so tightly until it finally, satisfyingly snapped. Craig ran his hands everywhere on his back, near-frantically, feeling the bumps and ridges of Kyle's spine, the softness of his pale skin, the small bit of muscle around his shoulder blades — perhaps he'd had more, one day, perhaps maybe someday he would again, would be built and hard and healthy — and he sucked and licked and kissed at every freckle on Kyle's shoulders, connecting him with his tongue.

The noises Kyle made, god, the mewls stuck in his throat and then the out-loud, eager, exquisite moans — Craig was doing that to him, Craig was useful, Craig was wanted when he never thought he would be wanted again. And he moaned, too, softly at first and then harder, louder, when Kyle raked his hands down Craig's chest, down his ribs and his sunken stomach to the button of his pants.

He hadn't let himself think about what it would've been like to have those long, thin fingers wrap around his cock, but the moment Craig got to feel what that felt like in real life, he was glad he hadn't. It wouldn't have compared to how fantastic this felt.

Craig hadn't been touched, hadn't touched himself in a way he actually enjoyed, not like this in a year and a half. It made it all the more overwhelming in the best ways; he was out of his mind, out of his body. Existing somewhere that only felt good, that drew out the best pleasures and no pain.

As Kyle's hand worked against him, pumping and stroking over the tip of his cock, Craig did the same for him. The otherwise quiet living room filled with the sounds of their grunts and moans. It ended far too quickly, but neither felt the need to apologize for it.

Much later, rather than bothering to relocate to Craig's bedroom, Kyle pulled an afghan over them, and held him close as he drifted off.

A floodgate had opened.

The kiss, and the resultant evening on the couch, lead to another. And another, and many, many more, until it happened nearly every night while, outside Craig’s apartment, the seasons changed and the snow melted and spring finally, truly reared its head.

It was always on the couch. Kyle in his spot, arm clutching the back of the sofa, with Craig on his knees, tasting him, lapping him up, while Kyle moaned and clutched his hair. Craig clinging desperately to an armrest while Kyle drove into him from behind, hard and heated and frantic. Kyle splayed on the cushions, red hair spreading onto the tan fabric beneath him like a sweaty, fuzzy halo, as Craig grasped his shoulders, and kissed him, and emptied himself into him.

Neither discussed it, and by the time they’d clean up and go to bed, they followed the same routine of not-quite-cuddling, rolling onto opposite sides, and wrapping their feet together until sleep finally came.

Maybe Craig needed this. In the moment, he knew he did. He needed to be able to lose himself, needed to find an outlet, an escape from everything that was unsaid between them, from everything else that he didn't want to deal with. But eventually, after that euphoric sensation faded away, he came back down to earth. Came back down to the reality of his life.

It felt like cheating. Like betrayal, and sometimes the guilt ate at him enough that when he sat alone in his apartment, he felt ill. Maybe that was why he did this to himself—put himself in a situation where he knew he'd break, crumble into a billion pieces until he was dust blowing away in the spring wind.

He didn't hear Kyle come in. His eyes were trained on the television, vision blurry. But he didn't need to see it. He knew every line in this film, every verse to every song.

Come what may, I will love you until my dying day.

And then Craig couldn't hear the audio from the film at all, couldn't hear anything over the sound of his own heaving sobs. When he felt Kyle's arms wrap around his shoulders and tuck him against him, Craig let it happen. Let him comb his fingers through his hair, stroke his tear-soaked cheeks and reassure him that everything was going to be alright.

But was it? It wasn't the first time Kyle had told him this, held him like this. It wasn't even the first time he'd come here to see Craig like this, watching what was once Tweek's favorite film.

It was, however, the first time Craig kissed Kyle like this, tears and snot streaming down his face, lips puffy in their blubbering, and eyes so swollen with tears they were nearly sealed shut. Whether Craig was driven by some desire to be distracted, or whether it was just because he knew Kyle helped, for whatever fucking reason Kyle always helped didn’t matter. All he knew is that he wanted it to go away, wanted the pain to stop for just one goddamn second and this was the only thing that ever fucking worked.

Kyle’s lips moved against his for but a moment, absently, automatically, until he was pulling away. Not entirely, their chests were still flush together and Kyle was still stroking Craig’s back and pressing his lips against his forehead, but then he was whispering, “No, no, not now,” and then “Let’s go to bed” and then “I’m here, everything is going to be okay.”

And Craig was in his pajamas, somehow, and he was tucked into bed, somehow, and Kyle was bringing him a mug of tea, one of the new mugs, and he was sitting next to Craig, rubbing his back with those long, beautiful hands... and all Craig could bring himself to ask was, “Why are you doing this?”

Why are we doing this?

Kyle was looking at him in a way he hadn't before. Maybe he had. Right now it felt different, but Craig was hardly in a state to even begin deciphering what it meant. Kyle's expression softened, his eyes shimmered—or it was Craig's own tears. What mattered was that Kyle was sincere.

He always was. It was something he could always count on.

"Because I care about you," he said, stroking a thumb over Craig's cheekbone, a sensation that he couldn't help but lean into. "And when you care about someone, it's hard to see them hurting like this and not do whatever it takes to help."

He could feel the pang in his chest, could feel himself being affected by those words. But Craig couldn't tell if it hurt more or felt better, couldn't tell if it made him feel more or less guilty. He couldn't even find the words to say, but Kyle didn't seem to be looking for any.

Holding the mug in his hands until the tea was too cold to be palatable, he sipped at it, drank most of it, before setting it aside on his nightstand. The entire time, Kyle sat beside him on the edge of bed, until Craig finally sank down, allowing himself to be consumed by the his blankets and pillows.

Kyle turned off the lights at that point, slipped under the blankets. Craig watched him in the dark, neither of them saying anything. The light from the streetlamp leaked into the room, partially illuminating Kyle's face.

When Craig leaned over, pressing his lips against Kyle's once more, still desperate from some kind of reprieve, Kyle didn't stop him.

As their tongues slicked against each other, as Kyle allowed Craig to peel off his shirt, and then Craig shifted to remove his own, as their teeth clacked together, and Craig cupped Kyle's skinny ass in his hands, and reached down his pants, and slid them off and as they came together, hips colliding and lengths aligning, all Craig could think about was that they were in his — their — bed. His and Tweek's bed, and he'd never had anyone else in that bed, not like this...

And, then, all he could think of was Tweek.

Tweek. His light green eyes with more spark behind them than Craig would ever be able to find in another. His nose, his cute little mouth, both of which would wrinkle up when he was about to laugh. His hair, which he'd been growing out when it happened, which he'd sweep up into a little half-bun as he worked, or painted, or cleaned, and how it exposed his throat, and then there was how Tweek would tilt his head back when he wanted Craig to kiss it, how he'd make these little grunting growls in the back of his throat when Craig would nip him in that spot between neck and shoulder. How he tasted. How he felt.

What they'd do, right here, together in their bed.

Craig let out a sobbing moan, eyes stinging, as he bucked his hips into Kyle's hand. And his hand wasn't strong and calloused from work and art, it was soft and long and thin and good, so good, but it wasn't the fucking same.

Whether for better or worse, Kyle pulled him out of the moment, out of his sorrow for just a moment. "Are you sure you want this?" Those red brows furrowed, Craig knew from just the tone.

He didn't answer right away, instead burying his face in the crook of his neck. Inhaling the scent of Kyle's shampoo, the faint traces of his cologne. It was so familiar, and in its own way comforting, but it wasn't the same. He wasn't Tweek. He didn't smell like the clouds, the rain, all of his hopes and dreams, of warm sand slipping between his fingers. Kyle was the forests, the trees, the earth, of being grounded.

"Wanna be in you," Craig murmured, pressing a kiss to the crook of Kyle's neck. It always made him squirm, made him press into him, but right now all Craig could think about were the differences. Kyle murmured something in approval, and Craig dug around in his nightstand for the bottle of lube he kept in there.

It wasn't the bottle he ever used with Kyle.

After he'd slicked down his fingers, after he spread Kyle open as he had countless times on his couch, it hit like an avalanche. For a moment, he even felt like he was suffocating. "I need to think of him."

Kyle's hands had been sliding over his shoulders, through his hair, his face turned into Craig, kissing his jaw. He stopped immediately after Craig said those words, and almost imperceptibly in the limited lighting of the room, he gave a faint half-nod. "Oh. Okay. That's— that's alright."

He entered Kyle slowly, and he thought about how Tweek would always kiss him in this moment, as he buried himself deep inside of his husband. How, when they were like this, all slow and sensual and dragging out every touch, every stroke of skin, every pull and push. And how it was a connection they said would never, ever be severed, come what fucking may, how it was love and softness and right, right so right and Craig tried, so goddamn hard, to visualize Tweek’s face.

He tried to remember every mark and smudge and freckle. He tried to remember the placement of every hair, how it spread like silk on the pillows, on the same fucking sheets they were on now, god, why hadn’t he thrown out these sheets; he tried to remember how Tweek’s mouth would open and how he’d tilt up his head and how he’d say kiss me and fuck me and make love to me and I love you.

The memory was like looking at a photograph frozen deep in a block of ice. Wavy and distorted and untouchable.

There was some insane part of that hoped that if could remember enough, he could feel him again. That he just tried enough he could relive one of those moments. But he couldn't. The cold was creeping in, seeping down into his bones, along with the realization that this was wasn't something he could obtain.

He couldn't get there, and even as deeply as he was burying himself within Kyle-who-wasn't-Tweek, this wasn't nearly as satisfying as he hoped. It didn't make him hurt less, he didn't feel any better. Just as Craig wasn't in the present, Kyle wasn't there either. Was he thinking about Christophe? Or was it because of what he'd said?

Craig didn't ask.

He just felt the thumb stroking over his shoulder, a distant sort of gesture that was so different from anything he'd come to anticipate with Kyle. His legs weren't wrapped around him, he wasn't moving with him, or clutching tightly and digging his nails into him like any other time Craig bore into him.

It was even harder to try to think of Tweek, to hold onto those memories of being tangled up with him, when Kyle wasn't giving him anything.

It was fucked up. I'm fucked up, he realized. Even if right now was different, it wouldn't have been anything like Tweek because Kyle was nothing like Tweek. And Tweek wouldn't have wanted him holding on his memory like this. Craig wouldn't ever forget him, would always carry him with him. There was no denying that.

But this wasn't how Tweek would've wanted him to exist.

"Kyle." Craig said it in a whisper, and then louder, in a whine, "Kyle." He opened his eyes, and he reached up, stroking the side of Kyle's face and burying his fingers in that hair, that gorgeous, thick hair that he couldn't, didn't ever want to stop touching, and Kyle's eyes opened, too.

They were the same sort of empty that Craig saw the first time Kyle walked into his apartment nearly two years ago. Craig tried to tell him everything he couldn't bring himself to articulate aloud, through his touches down Kyle's side, his grip against Kyle's thigh as he rocked and circled into him, his lips against Kyle's own, and then against his collarbone, his neck. And, most importantly, most difficult of all, through his eyes, through the wrinkle of his eyebrow and the arch of his lips and the way his eyes rolled back, sharply, involuntarily every time he went deeper, he tried to say what he couldn't.

I'm here. I'm here, I want you. I want you and I'm thinking of you.

Before pulling Craig down for a blazing, determined kiss, Craig watched the fire return in Kyle's deep green eyes.

He understood.

Craig’s favorite sort of tea was one he hardly ever indulged in. He'd once bought a glass teapot for it, though, which was now tucked away in the top corners of the cabinets collecting dust. Why he did that, Craig wasn't certain. He'd once enjoyed letting one of those full jasmine blossoms steep in hot water, watching intently as the bulb came undone, as each petal opened up for him.

It was not dissimilar from how Kyle was for him now. Opening up, letting him back in. Tears pricked the corners of his eyes, burning as he returned the kiss, tasting and nipping, relishing in Kyle's arms tightly wound around him. Holding him close, shifting against him to meet each movement of Craig's own.

The searing kiss ended with a nip, with Craig's lips feeling swollen. It wasn't something he lingered on, instead kissing his neck, his throat, drawing out those breathy sounds, those sensations that made Kyle dig into him more.

It was Craig's name that was on Kyle's lips when he came, white hot and slick between them as Craig rocked into him more fervently, more desperately, feeling himself go mad with the way Kyle tightened and spasmed beneath him.

When his release came, buried deep within the man under him, it was the scene beneath him that he committed to memory, that he used as fodder to push himself along. " Kyle, " he breathed, and immediately Kyle pulled him back into his arms, holding him close.

He stayed inside of Kyle until he softened, collapsed onto his chest and heaving, sobbing, but somehow, miraculously, not crying. Everything was sticky-slick and sweaty and hot, but neither moved, save for Kyle smoothing back the choppy hairs plastered to Craig's forehead with perspiration, then caressing the spot between Craig's shoulder blades that always seemed to tense up, and Craig kissing Kyle's chest. They weren't so much kisses as they were impossibly soft, repeated presses of lips, upon which Kyle's name still tingled.

"Stay with me," Craig murmured, near-inaudibly, as he rolled off of, out of Kyle, paying no regard to the mess between them whilst situating himself on his side. He didn't, couldn't stop touching the other man, running his hands along his chest, his stomach, his arms.

Stay the night, or stay forever, or both? Craig didn't know which he meant, and, in that moment, he didn't care.

Kyle shifted onto his side as well, tucking an arm under his pillow as he looked over at Craig, leaning into his touches, reaching over to rest his palm on the side of his neck. He chewed on the inside of his cheek in the way he did when he was debating whether to say something.

Silence hung between them before Kyle finally exhaled loudly, propping himself up on one of his elbows. "I don't want to be a replacement." Kyle sounded hesitant, he sounded scared, and Craig could only watch him with wide-eyes while Kyle said what he needed to say. "I know he's important to you. That he's always going to be, and you're always going to love him. I don't want you to lose that, ever. I don't want—" Kyle stopped, worrying on his bottom lip as he mulled over his words. "I just want to matter to you, at least a little. As myself, not a stand-in."

Craig pulled him in. His lips ghosted against Kyle's ear, and he took a moment to inhale his scent. He couldn't pinpoint it; it wasn't an amalgamation of anything in particular, it was just Kyle. It was a smell to which Craig had become accustomed, that he would smell on his sheets and on his spot on their sofa, on the old, oversized shirts and flannel pants Craig lent him, that now occupied a corner of Craig's top dresser drawer. It was on his towels, from when they'd shower, usually separately but sometimes together. It was beautiful, and so was Kyle.

It had inserted itself into every corner of Craig's life, and it wasn't going away any time soon. And, if he had it his way, if everything, for fucking once went the way it was supposed to go, Kyle wasn’t either.

"You matter," he whispered, planting a small, closed-mouthed kiss to Kyle's cheek. “There was never any doubt you didn't."

Kyle tensed up in his arms, his breath hitching in his throat. Craig's hold on him tightened, fingers combing through his hair as Kyle pressed his face into the nape of his neck, as he trembled, as his tears dampened Craig's shoulder, as finally—

Finally, the remainder of the icy walls that Kyle had around him crumbled. Craig had seen him weepy, had seen him cry, but nothing like this, not like he was finally allowing himself to be vulnerable and exposed around him. It was important, it mattered, and as Craig pressed a kiss to his head, he assured Kyle as much as he could.

I've got you.

That night, for the first time since Craig started asking him to stay the night, they slept in each other's arms.

Kyle was always there after work. Kyle was never late because Kyle was a creature of habit and so was Craig. Kyle would let himself in, with his key, and Kyle would kiss him and they’d make dinner and they’d watch movies, and they’d make love and fall asleep, breathing each other in. They talked about Tweek, and they talked about Christophe, but they also talked about their jobs. About Kyle’s time at CU Boulder, and Craig’s at Colorado State. About their families, about movies, and books, and politics. About everything. They rarely went out, the last time being a drive onto a mountain overlook to watch the Fourth of July fireworks, holding each other on the hood of Kyle’s boring, dependable sedan.

It was routine, but it wasn’t mundane. It was the sort of stability that Craig needed, that he craved, and that he knew Kyle did also, perhaps more.

But, that evening, it was seven pm and Kyle hadn’t let himself in yet, and Craig was trying his damndest not to worry. They were adults, and things came up , but it was the weekend, and Kyle was always there. Craig watched the clock tick and flipped through channels before he finally caved, and sent Kyle a text.

Hey. Are you all right? Are you coming over?

A watched pot never boiled, and the same was true when waiting for a text. As each minute passed, he felt more and more of a spike in his anxiety. It was stupid, because Kyle was statistically just fine, but this was a sort of irrational line of thought that was laced with just enough reason that it was hard to let go of. Because accidents happened, and if something did happen, who'd think to inform him about it?

Relief washed over him when his phone buzzed several times, assuring him that in fact, all was well.

Shit, I didn't even notice the time.
I've been building this bookcase. It didn't come with its own tools, but I thought, whatever. I have them here.
But I've spent the last three hours looking everywhere. I guess Christophe took them when he left.

He knew Kyle well enough to understand where he was at: so fixated on this one particular aspect of this problem that he'd probably not be able to even consider setting it aside to work on later. When a follow up text came, inquiring whether Craig owned the particular wrenches and screwdrivers he needed, whether he could borrow them if so, Craig knew he assumption was on point.

I can bring them over if you want.

He hadn't been to Kyle's at all, and wasn't entirely sure where he even lived. Kyle always said it was right around the corner, it wasn't far, so it was understandable to assume that he was looking at a five or ten minute drive.

Sure! The response came, quickly followed by, You can stay the night over here too.

Kyle sent his address while Craig pulled his toolbox out of the hallway closet, packed an overnight bag with the essentials he needed. It was only after he tossed it all in the back of his SUV that he clicked on the address, opening up Google Maps.

His place wasn't right around the corner, it wasn't 'close enough' that it didn't matter if the road conditions were less than stellar. Craig's apartment was almost city centre, convenient enough that he didn't have to drive if he didn't want to. But Kyle's place was all the way out in the suburbs.

It took a good half hour, if not a little longer, to pull into Kyle's driveway. Grabbing the stuff from the back, he made his way to the front door. Kyle greeted him with a kiss, letting him into what was a fairly empty living room, save for a television, a couch, and the mess of his attempt at building the bookcase.

"You fucker, you didn't tell me that you lived all the way out here. Or lived in an actual house, what the fuck."

Kyle just shrugged. "Didn't think it was relevant," he said, somewhat sheepishly.

"I've been letting you drive all the way out here in the fucking snow, of course it is! What if something...." What if something had happened? Because if I ever lose another person I love, I will die, and that's not an exaggeration, is what Craig wanted to say, but he let the narrowing of his eyes, and then the sharp, quick raise of his eyebrows at the realization that it was the first time he'd ever allowed himself to think that word, love, since Tweek, speak for themselves.

"But nothing did." Kyle reached out to give Craig's shoulder a comforting squeeze, and, for the next couple hours, they got to work, busying themselves with putting together a really rather generic-looking, five-shelf bookcase, and filling the shelves with business textbooks — leftovers from college that Kyle swore he'd use again someday — and fantasy novels, and a rather staggering amount of political nonfiction.

"Thank you for helping, Craig." Kyle's voice was sweet, content, as he looked over the bookcase they'd put together and filled. He looked proud, he looked happy, and Craig wished he had his camera right then so he could capture this moment before it was too late.

But he didn't. Instead he squeezed Kyle's hand, stroking his thumb over the top of his hand. "Anyway, how about a tour?" They hadn't left the living room since he arrived and now that he was here, and the bookcase was finished, he was curious and interested to use this opportunity to learn about his... Kyle.

"Oh, yeah. Don't judge, alright? It's kind of a nightmare right now." Which wasn't the case, as far as Craig could tell, as Kyle showed him the kitchen, the dining room, the nooks and crannies of the first floor. It was too clean, too empty, and it didn't seem that lived in at all.

Upstairs was something else entirely. The master bedroom and bathroom didn't even count as messy, either. There were just some dishes and snacks resting on the nightstand, the bed unkempt. With as neurotic as Kyle was about Craig's apartment, it was at least nice to see that Kyle, too, was human.

The second bedroom was a sparsely decorated home office, but the room at the far end of the hall was just filled with boxes and miscellaneous items that Kyle seemed reluctant to do anything with. Or just hadn't felt like unpacking?

"It's sad that I haven't unpacked, isn't it? He left not long after I bought this place and... I don't know, it's just me and I've got the things I regularly use out already." Kyle shifted his weight, brushing his hand through his hair as he looked up at Craig. "I know your lease is going up soon. So if you wanted, you could stay here? I mean, you don't have to, and obviously no pressure either way at all, but if you wanted ..."

"Absolutely," Craig said, before he even realized the word came out of his mouth.

He hadn't thought about moving elsewhere, at least not for the first year after Tweek's death. His landlord even called him, not long after the day he found Tweek, to extend that same generic offer of condolences that every other person who knew he and Tweek but didn't really, truly know them gave, and to let him know that, given the circumstances, he would still be happy to provide reference, in the event that Craig needed to move.

That wasn't even an option that crossed Craig's mind. Moving meant packing up, which meant packing Tweek's things, and when Craig hadn't even allowed himself to take a dirty coffee cup off a table... The thought always make him feel like he was being punched in the stomach. He'd allowed his lease to renew, without question, but hadn't yet responded to the email from his landlord regarding next year. He just wasn't sure if he could do it, but maybe if he had help, had something lined up...

He vaguely recalled mentioning something to Kyle in passing a few weeks ago, when he was washing that raccoon coffee cup which, over the last few months, became Craig's de facto tea drinking mug, about how it was going to be rough to determine what of Tweek's to keep, and what to donate once his lease ended in September and the inevitable packing began.

He wasn't expecting Kyle to ask him to move in, not exactly, but he would've been lying if he said the thought hadn't crossed his mind. He didn't factor in the possibility that Kyle was living like this, either.

It had to be lonely.

"I..." Craig shifted from foot to foot, and cleared his throat. "I mean. Of course I can give you rent, and everything, and—"

"Don't worry about it," Kyle cut him off, "Groceries? Help me out the next time I try to build something from IKEA?"

"I can do that." When he smiled at Kyle, it was one that met his eyes. There was a massive hurdle to overcome, one that he wasn't looking forward to. But...

Kyle squeezed his hand before stepping into the room. There was a path, at least. "I'll make sure to move all of this stuff out by the time you're ready, but this room would be yours."

"Oh. You don't want to—" He could feel his cheeks burn. This was entirely too presumptuous, wasn't it? Kyle was at least quick to interject, looking just as flustered.

"I mean. I do. I'd want to share my bed—my room, with you, but I thought might want your own space—"

"—I could make it an office for myself, if you don't mind, or just a guest room—"

Kyle nearly stumbled over the boxes as he made his way back to Craig, reaching up to cup his cheeks in his hands. "Whatever you'd like. You don't have to decide anything now."

Craig angled his face down, looking into those deep green eyes that had become such an important part of his life in the last year and a half that felt, simultaneously, like it'd passed in a second, and dragged on for a century. "We'll figure it out," he said, and, closing the distance that their few inches' difference in height created, he brought their lips together, softly.

They'd ended up ordering Chinese, after Craig made an offhand quip about wanting to rip out his tongue if he had to eat another elk burger, to which Kyle immediately laughed, and agreed. They ate in front of Kyle's television, on a leather sofa that wasn't quite as comfortable as Craig's, and watched some old, black-and-white movie Craig had never seen before, as Kyle rested his legs on Craig's lap.

With both of them in the living room, together, it almost didn't seem so sparse.

Kyle took him to bed the moment the end credits began, leading Craig up the stairs by his wrist in a near-sprint.

Once they crossed the threshold into Kyle's bedroom, Craig grabbed at his hips, pulling him close as Kyle wrapped his arms around his neck, kissing him fervently. Kyle had this confidence about him that Craig found addicting, and he was more then willing to let Kyle lead him back to his bed.

Kyle shoved him, and Craig was content to fall back onto the bed. His bed was much more comfortable than Craig's own, one of those California Kings that absorb vibrations from movement. He didn't even bounce as he laid back against it.

Craig's hands found Kyle's thighs, running over them as Kyle straddled him, tugging his t-shirt before leaning down to kiss him once more.

Craig willed himself to seated, Kyle still on top of him, and peeled both of their t-shirts off. Pressing their chests, their entire upper bodies together while Kyle moved his hips against Craig’s was an action they’d done many times prior, but something about this particular time, something about being in Kyle’s bed, made this feel hotter, more impassioned, more important than the others.

And, Craig supposed it was more important. Perhaps not more, exactly,  because every time was important... this, however, felt like jumping an insurmountable hurdle right before a finish line because this meant that Kyle was letting him in. Into his bed, into his life, and the realization made Craig pull Kyle closer, moaning contentedly against his mouth before trying to let his lips against Kyle’s skin say everything he was too afraid to say aloud.

I would gladly spend every night right here, for the rest of my fucking life. Here, or anywhere, as long as it’s with you.

But... Just because he couldn’t say that didn’t mean he couldn’t give Kyle a hard time about spending so many nights on Craig (and Tweek’s, it would always be Tweek’s, too) queen with the springs that poked you in the back.

“Your bed is really nice,” Craig said, between kisses in the crook of Kyle’s neck, and his shoulders, on all of those clusters of freckles. “Can’t believe you’ve been sleeping at my house when this is right here, what the actual fuck is wrong with you.” He said it jokingly, which Kyle picked up on, judging from that scolding, slightly threatening -sounding laugh in the back of his throat — a noise that caused what felt like all the blood in Craig’s body to rush downward, all at once. Craig punctuated this with what was supposed to be a quick kiss to Kyle’s lips, but Kyle drew him in, sucking Craig’s lower lip between his own, and reaching around his own body to grasp Craig’s wrists, one in each hand.

“Got you here now,” Kyle said breathlessly, the moment their mouths parted.

Craig allowed himself to be pushed on his back again, his wrists to be pinned, and Kyle to suck what would probably turn into a hickey upon his neck. More than allowed it, really. Craig loved when this happened.

Kyle rocked his hips against Craig's and as he reached for the tube resting on the nightstand, he held Craig's wrists in one hand. He didn't mind; right now he wanted to surrender himself to Kyle, wanted Kyle to sink into him, lose himself in this. He wanted them to lose themselves in each other.

He got exactly that; Kyle was in him, pumping and stretching with his long slicked fingers. It wasn't enough, Craig wanted more, told him as much as he rocked back against him. Kyle gave it to him, the look Kyle gave him illustrating what neither of them were willing or able to say: I'd give you everything.

Craig's wrists were freed as Kyle pushed into him, his hands running over those freckled shoulders, thighs wrapping around Kyle, holding fast as Kyle angled his hips, driving into him just the way he liked, brushing against the spots that made him see stars.

Once they’d finished, once they’d dealt with the necessary clean-up, scrubbing and kissing and touching each other in Kyle’s really rather spacious shower — Craig could absolutely get used to that shower, in a bathroom that wouldn’t be a grim reminder of what he’d once had, and what he’d lost every time he stepped into it, like at home — they laid in that soft, spacious bed, naked, and they held each other, and they talked.

They talked about how Kyle kept planning to get around to hanging up all the old family pictures that were packed away in those boxes. About all of the things he’d kept, and didn’t keep, from high school, and then they talked about their classmates. Who went where, who was doing what, who they fell out of touch with, and with whom they were still friends. They talked about Christophe, a little bit, and Tweek, even less.

When Kyle told Craig it was fine with him if Craig put his wedding pictures on the mantle, or wherever he wanted, and that Tweek’s paintings could go wherever Craig wanted them to go, too, Craig choked back a sob, and kissed him, deeply.

And, as had become the theme of the evening, they talked about Kyle’s bed.

“You know, you’re the first person I’ve. You know.” Kyle pushed back the curls which fell over his eyes, chuckling nervously. “Since he left. I haven’t had anyone else over, or... yeah.”

Haven’t been with anyone else, was what Craig knew he was saying.

“Really? You never went online, or...” Craig laughed then, too, more at himself than anything else, because he understood more than anybody why someone wouldn’t do that.

“No. I don’t sleep with anyone unless I know I...” Kyle trailed off with a thick swallow and a nervous, almost strangled sound, and then he brushed his thumb over Craig’s cheek. “Unless I care about that person.”

"Oh." Craig felt a lump in his throat, a quivering feeling deep within his core. For once it didn't feel like spiders bursting from sacks. Rather, it was that cheesy, stereotypical sensation of butterflies fluttering in his stomach.

It hit him just then, that Kyle had spent so much time around him for more than just a distraction, or a need to make himself feel better. Craig more than knew that it hadn't been the case for an extremely long time now—but. But it was touching to know that when Kyle had first kissed him, had first slid flush against him, it meant something.

Even if Craig himself hadn't been in a state to recognize that at the time. "I care about you too." Craig laced their fingers, bringing Kyle's hand up to his lips.

The art supplies and paintings in their extra room did him in. He thought he’d start packing, start with going through Tweek’s things in there first. Same principle as ripping off a band-aid, of saving the best for last and all that but... god, was it ever a mistake to try.

It was a room that Craig had mostly avoided since the day he watched the paramedics load his husband’s lifeless body onto a stretcher, before they handed him a card with the number of a grief counselor he knew he’d never call, and offered their condolences. He’d shut the door with pounding heart and tears running down his face, and the one time Kyle had opened the door while cleaning, Craig had screamed at him to never do that again.

Kyle had understood. Kyle had always understood, would always understand.

Still, fuck condolences. Condolences meant nothing when you were sitting in a room covered in two years’ worth of dust, trying to sort through the canvases containing the very soul of your dead husband.

He wanted to power through it. But he couldn't. All it took was dusting off a sketchbook that was resting on a table in that room. It was still opened, an unfinished drawing on the thick paper. Craig could see the outline of his own face, eyes closed, resting against a pillow.

Craig could imagine this scene clearly: Tweek on their bed beside him one early morning, legs tucked under himself as he watched Craig sleep. Then Craig would stir, and Tweek would lean over and kiss his forehead, and eventually they'd make their way to the kitchen for breakfast.

Fuck.

He missed him. He missed him so much. And all he could do was look down at this sheet of paper, study this unfinished piece, study what was not so much himself, but Craig as Tweek saw him.

He couldn't do this, not alone. His retreat was a swift one, the door closing behind him. But he couldn't bring himself to contact his sister, or his parents. He didn't want to subject Kyle to this. Really—as soon as he acknowledged to himself that he needed someone there, he knew who to call.

"If it isn't C-Dog! What's the haps, bro!"

Sometimes, Craig wished he was capable of being as chipper as Clyde was, but he couldn't even begin to understand how to be like that. Instead, he cut to the chase. Told Clyde his lease was up, that he needed to pack —

It was a loaded statement, one that Clyde understood immediately. Understood what Craig needed from him, what sort of emotional taxing few days he was signing up for.

"I'm gonna stop you right there. I booked a red-eye to Denver. I'll be there tonight. I've got plenty of vacation, I can be there as long as you need, bro. Thanks for reaching out, dude, I miss you."

Even if Craig hadn't already been expecting Clyde to arrive at his doorstep just before midnight, he would've known that knock anywhere. He didn't know quite how to explain it, but it was like Clyde's cheerfulness, his earnestness, translated to the smallest actions, like knocking on a door, and as soon as Craig heard it, he smiled.

"Better be awake, C-Money!" Clyde's voice was muffled behind the door, and a little tired.

"Shut the fuck up, you're going to wake up my neighbors," Craig shouted, grinning, at a volume that certainly would've woken up the neighbors itself. He unlocked the deadbolt, and the chain, having left all other inside locks open, and Clyde immediately pulled him into a warm, crushing embrace.

Craig didn't notice the twelve-pack Clyde brought in until it bumped against his back. Some things hadn't changed, no matter how many years had gone by. He returned the hug, squeezing Clyde, but he was still the one who needed to give that nudge to end it.

"Hope you don't mind, I brought us some brewskis for tonight." Clyde set the beers on the coffee table, flopping down on the couch in Kyle's spot. It'd been a while since they'd seen each other properly, in person, not since the funeral.

So despite the circumstances that brought Clyde up here, Craig was glad to see him. He took his spot on the couch, and as the night progressed the two demolished the beers. Clyde wound up insisting on bro-cuddles—to no one's surprise—and they talked. And talked. About their lives, about television shows.

Everything except for one thing, but Craig knew that was inevitably coming the following day. He tried not to dwell on it.

"So," Clyde said, upending a beer. "You and Broflovski, huh? Y'all a thing now?"

"I never said that." Craig felt cagey about it, didn't want Clyde to judge him. Was it too soon? Suddenly it felt like it was. "He's just got a spare room, is all."

"But are you bangin'?"

Craig's tell was an easy one, the way he held the lip of the bottle against his mouth for too long, scowling at the muted television. "Still fucking your secretary?"

It drew a hearty, deep laugh from Clyde. "Yeah. It's a different one this time. You should see the ass on this chick—but seriously dude, tell me."

"Clyde..."

Clyde bounced on the couch, shifting so he could look at his best friend properly. "It's important. I've got like a grand on the line, bro."

" What. " Craig hadn't wanted to talk about this at all, but now he needed Clyde to explain himself. Fortunately, Clyde wouldn't keep a secret worth a damn.

He even looked like he didn't want to divulge the information, but he caved immediately. "About six months ago, me and Stan were playing Madden and it just came up. About how he was pretty sure you and Kyle were a thing, but Kyle wasn't giving him the tea, yanno? And then Kenny was like—oh yeah, he was playing too—was like there's no way, so we made a bet." 

"Jesus fucking Christ." Craig took a swig of beer — too long a swig, as he’d downed the remainder — and exhaled, deeply, setting the empty bottle on his coffee table. "You guys are really.... considerate, aren't you?"

Clyde didn't miss the way Craig's mouth twitched upwards at the corners. If he had, if he thought that Craig was in any way actually offended, actually upset, he imagined Clyde would be on the phone right then with Stan, waking him and his entire family up in the middle of the night to call off the bet. Instead, Clyde simply patted Craig too hard on the back, laughed clearly, and cracked open another beer, handing it to Craig.

"Nice," Clyde said, grinning, almost in a whistle.

Craig hadn't drank much since Tweek's death. He knew it would've been an easy way to deal with things, but it would've been like trying to patch up a gash with Scotch tape — a short-term, emergency solution, but ineffective in the long run. He'd forgotten, somewhere down the line, how easily his inhibitions were lowered after just a couple beers.

If he hadn't drank, maybe he could've kept his mouth shut.

"I dunno, dude, I guess we're...." Craig chewed on his lip, for a moment. He and Kyle never had discussed it. They just always let things progress between them, and neither seemed in a rush to put a label on things.... or, maybe, and Craig figured this was probably the case, maybe they felt that putting a label on it, making it official would be sealing some kind of fate. Maybe it was that saying he's my boyfriend or, fuck, at this point in whatever was going on, he's my partner would, due to everything that happened, would jinx things. Would make something bad happen.

"I guess we are. I mean. We haven't talked about it, and if you really wanna know the truth, it's sort of terrifying." Clyde's hand stroked Craig's back, all warm and friendly, when Craig's shoulders slumped. "I just can't quit thinking like, is it too soon? Shouldn't I give myself more time?"

"Craig. C-Dizzle. My Man. Lemme give you some brovice." Craig couldn't help but roll his eyes at that, but he didn't say anything, more than willing to let Clyde say what he needed to. Clyde was two tacos short of a combination plate, but when inspiration hit, he actually had insightful things to say.

Clyde squeezed Craig's shoulders. "Does he make you happy? Give you that gooey feeling, like the middle part of pan of brownies? Because if he does, you gotta follow that feeling, man. You gotta trust that love-thumpin' thing right there, " he said, poking Craig's chest, right over his heart. "Tweek would want you to be happy. Trust me, he was my bro just as much as you are."

The source of the heart-skipping sensation that followed in Craig's chest, and the way his stomach felt like it dropped out was difficult to pinpoint.

It was the same lurch of loss he felt when he thought about Tweek. It was how he felt when he opened the room, Tweek's makeshift studio, and tried to sort through all of his art. It was the feeling he had whenever those nights still came that he would dream about finding him, about sinking to his knees on that cold bathroom floor and holding Tweek's body, shaking him, telling him to wake up, wake up, you're okay, come on, and then of making the call — I think my husband overdosed. He isn't breathing, said all emotionlessly and calmly because he just couldn't think of any other way to say it, because he didn't allow himself to cry until the professionals tried to find a pulse - - all of the police officers, the paramedics, and then the months of cold, cold loneliness in his apartment.

But, it was also the feeling that he got when Kyle would wrap his arms around him, and kiss him back to sleep. When he and Kyle would laugh at stupid television shows, or about absurd things that happened at work. When he and Kyle would make dinner, when they'd fall into bed together, when they'd talk, when they'd just sit there, in silence, during those moments they just needed that quiet, together.

It was the feeling he got when he watched Tweek's favorite movie, but never to the en. He could never make it to the end. And it was then that Craig remembered something he couldn't ever fucking believe he forgot in the first place.

"Clyde," Craig said, slowly, shifting his posture to face the other man, "Have you seen Moulin Rouge?"

Clyde just laughed, cocking an eyebrow and looking at Craig with a hint of confusion. "Of course I've seen Moulin Rouge, dude, that shit is great. Why? You wanna watch—"

"No!" Craig nearly shouted. "Um, no. It's just, it was Tweek's favorite movie."

"Oh." A couple seconds of charged silence passed. "I figured you hated musicals, or whatever, anyway."

"I do hate musicals. It was Tweek's favorite, so I watched it all the time anyway, even after he... died, and I..." Craig wrung his hands. There was somewhere he wanted to go with it, some certain way he wanted to articulate it, but he couldn't figure out how. Taking a deep, shaky breath, he decided to just talk. "So, you know, in the end — and I haven't seen the end in over two years, because I can't make it to the end, you know? — You know in the end, when that guy, what’s his name, Ewan McGregor?”

“Yeah,” Clyde said, nodding, his eyes clearly hanging onto Craig’s every word, “Christian. That’s the character but, yeah, dude, keep talkin’”

“You know how he’s just sitting around, in this dark, gross apartment, and he’s all drunk, and he’s got this beard and just....he’s pathetic, yeah?”

Clyde clicked his tongue. “Not necessarily, dude, just because you… I mean, someone died, so it doesn’t mean you're—”

Craig cut him off with a shake of his head. “No, I’m going somewhere with this, just listen. Okay, so, I remember, the very last time Tweek and I watched that together, it was, fuck, probably a year or so before he passed. And you know what he said?”

Clyde shook his head, wordlessly.

“He said, and these weren’t his exact words. My fucking god I wish I could remember his exact words, but he said — ‘If something ever happened to me, I wouldn’t want someone I loved to sit around, growing a fucking beard, and being all sad and shit like that.’ And it was just, you know, it was this offhand comment, like I never, he never thought something would, I’m sure, but.” Craig’s eyebrows knit in the middle of his forehead, and he let out a short, forced, almost-laugh. “But I just remember, he said that. And look what I fuckin’ ended up doing, exactly the opposite. He’s right, though. He wouldn’t want that. And I can’t keep doing it.”

"Shit," Clyde breathed, in the way he always did when someone delivered something heavy. "You should—" His voice was trembling, and Craig glanced over. It wasn't a surprise to see tears welling up in his eyes like this. He'd always been that sort of kind, empathetic. It was comforting that, after all these years, after so much changed in their lives, that this remained the same. "You should take that to heart, listen to him."

Craig gave him a half nod, looking down at his hands. He hadn't told anyone this, and it was only fitting that divulged this to Clyde. There'd been a time when he told him everything. That had stopped, at some point...

"I mean. Yeah. I know he wouldn't want me to be unhappy and everything, but... are you sure it's not too soon?" He felt a twist in his gut. "We were together fifteen years. "

Clyde pulled him more snugly against him. All this time, and he was still this warm teddy bear. "You were. But letting yourself be stag...stagnar— like still water isn't good for you, man. There's more to life than wasting away. You can hang onto the past, but you still gotta look forward, too. It's like driving."

"Yeah," Craig said, patting Clyde's shoulder. "Like driving."

By the time they decided to head to bed — after all these years, this lifetime as best friends, Craig had no qualms about allowing Clyde to crash next to him — Craig's head was buzzing with alcohol. He really didn't have a tolerance anymore, at all, and he thought that if Kyle knew about this, he'd laugh and call him a cheap date, and Craig would make some comment like, Oh no, you're totally going to take advantage of me, aren't you and they'd laugh and...

He totally had to call Kyle. Even though it was three in the morning. Even though Kyle would probably be pissed at him. He'd told his... Kyle that Clyde was coming, and he couldn't even take a second to shoot off a text? Rude, Craig, he thought to himself, or said aloud, whichever. And while he changed into shorts, and the CU Boulder sweatshirt he stole from Kyle's dresser when he wasn't looking, because it smelled like him and it was nice, and Clyde was in the bathroom, brushing his teeth, Craig decided to go for it.

Kyle answered on the third ring, voice heavy with sleep. "Are you okay?"

"I'm..." Craig laughed. Was it because he was tipsy? Or was it because, after that discussion with Clyde on the couch, he felt like a weight had finally been lifted? "I'm awesome. I miss you."

He heard Kyle laugh on the other end. It made his heart swell, made him want to fall back onto his bed and hug his pillows. It was the drunkenness that made him feel so giddy, but it was better than his emotions swing in the opposite direction. "I miss you too. Are you drunk?"

"Just... maybe a little. But I mean it. I miss you. I lo—like hearing your voice. It's nice, you've got a nice voice, Kyle."

"I like hearing from you too. But I need to sleep, hon—"

Craig's heart was racing. They'd never used pet names before, and Kyle never seemed like the type. But he'd said it and Craig felt elated. He was speaking far more loudly than he normally ever would have. " Does that mean I can call you babe? "

"Put him on speaker!" Clyde's stage whisper came from the bathroom doorway, and in the moments following, made himself comfortable on the bed.

Craig flipped him off but, as Clyde settled next to him, pulling Craig's comforter around his shoulders, Craig shot him a meaningful look that had both men struggling to hold in their laughter, and did exactly that.

"I..." Kyle's voice filled Craig's room. "I guess? If you really want to. Sure. You can." There was a rustling and a groan over Craig's phone speaker, as Kyle seemingly tossed in bed. "Are you sure you're ok? I know you're packing—" Kyle yawned, loud and long — "Packing up tomorrow, are you sure you don't want me there?"

"I'm gonna be okay," Craig said, "It's like, when you're driving, and you have to follow the heart muscle, and you don't want it to be like, you know, the still water."

There was a sound on Kyle's end, something nasally, that almost sounded derisive, but without any real heat. "Craig, you're not making any sense. Have you had any water? You should drink some water."

That wasn't happening, at least not right now. Craig was comfortable, sinking into his bed, into this euphoric buzz. His face even hurt from smiling, but he didn't have it in him to care. "Ssh, ssh. I'll be okay, really. Clyde's here too, 'member?"

"If you change your mind—"

"Hi Kyle!" Clyde leaned against Craig's back, loudly speaking into the phone.

"—do you have me on speaker? "

If he were a little more sober, Craig would've been able to maintain a straight face without snickering. But still. "No."

Kyle obviously wasn't buying that. "Clyde, get him a glass of water, and Craig, take me off speaker. "

"Fiiiine," Craig replied, and he clicked Kyle off of speaker and held the phone to his ear, smiling ear-to-ear as Kyle's voice filled his ear, close, one-on-one.

"I'm off speaker now?" Kyle sounded sleepy, he sounded mildly annoyed, but he definitely didn't sound upset. There was a fondness in his voice that made Craig's stomachs do little flips.

"Yeah." Craig listened to Kyle tut in the back of his throat, and then sigh, the same noise he made when he was getting comfortable, when he was nuzzling against Craig. "I really just wanted to hear your voice. So bad, babe. I'm so glad you answered."

"Mhm," came Kyle's response, and it was clear that staying awake was difficult for him. "It was nice hearing from you too. We can talk tomorrow, okay? Get some sleep." The two exchanged goodbyes, and after Craig ended the call, got his water and eventually slept.

The next day was rough, but it was what Craig expected. Having Clyde there helped, as they sorted through Tweek's things. It was emotionally draining; memories were tied into so many things that Craig had to sort through. It was difficult to decide what to keep, what not to.

But with Clyde's help, he got it done. The most sentimental items, Tweek's art, his papers, his photographs, the things that were absolutely irreplaceable, he kept. But the bandaid was finally ripped off entirely, he was finally giving himself a chance to actually heal, when they loaded up Craig's SUV with everything he intended to donate. In a weird, sort of philosophical sense, he hoped he could somehow keep Tweek's spirit alive through his things going to those who needed them more than Craig did.

Craig used to go out on New Year’s Eve, because Tweek always wanted to go out.

They’d go to clubs, and come home stinking of liquor and other people’s cologne, and Craig never knew how much fun he’d actually had until it was all taken away from him. He’d always avoided it. He’d slept through the last two January 1st midnights, one with Kyle by his side, and tried desperately not to think of his and Tweek’s tradition.

It was unavoidable, thinking about it, when he framed the picture he was looking at in that moment. It was next to one of his and Tweek’s wedding photos, on Kyle’s mantle — their mantle, Craig supposed — and in it, Tweek was leaning against a bar, his sweaty, blonde hair sticking to his forehead, but he was smiling so big, and so bright. Askew on his head was a crown of cheap tinsel, with a cardboard 2014 sticking out of it. Craig chuckled when he remembered how resistant he was to wearing one himself, and how Tweek had taken his own and shoved it on Craig’s head when they prematurely began kissing at 11:54.

He used to go out because Tweek wanted him to go out, and, when he thought about it, Tweek never would’ve wanted him to stop.

So he was going out. But it wasn't to one of the clubs, or loud raging parties he always went to with Tweek. The ones with no children, plenty of alcohol, and then some. But this was a good change, because as much as those parties were fun as soon as he was buzzed enough, there was something appealing about being able to go home and curl up in bed with Kyle when it wasn't terribly late.

Proof of him getting older, he supposed.

"Are you ready?"

Upon hearing Kyle's voice, he turned away from the mantle, lacing his fingers with Kyle's as he leaned in to kiss his cheek. "Yeah."

The drive to Stan's didn't take too long. Twenty minutes or so, and mostly on account of the snow and ice. They took the SUV, which was better equipped for the country roads, and after Craig parked it in front of the house, Kyle held his hand as they approached the front door.

It was so different from the parties he was used to. There wasn't the immediate onslaught of loud music and strobe lights. Instead, there were people packed in the living room chatting, ABC's New Year's Eve programming on the television. Two children were stretched out on the couch playing some kind of handheld video game. Though not long after they came inside, taking off their coats and scarves, said children noticed Kyle, one of them came over to hug him, subsequently tugging him over to the couch to show him the game he was playing.

Kyle gave Craig a shrug, a smile, and a nod for him to come over, but Craig felt rooted to the spot just from observing how fucking cute it was watching Kyle interact with who he assumed were Stan's kids — maybe, one was brunette, but the other had red hair, so maybe that kid belonged to someone else. He was nodding, studying the screen of the video game as intently as he did his computer screen on those days where he elected to telecommute to work, like they weren't children who needed to be talked down to, but equals.

The sudden thought that Kyle would be a great father was new, and totally unexpected; it made Craig's stomach leap into his throat, his face go red, and his eyes go wide. Maybe he'd revisit that line of thinking in a year or so, if everything kept going so well... but, in that moment, he laid his coat atop a women's parka on the hooks by Stan's door, and, swallowing nervously, walked to the living room. 

Once he was close enough in the room, Kyle reached out, squeezing his hand. His attention was still on the video game, but once the brunette finished talking, Kyle looked up at him, smiling again. "These are Stan's kids, Marvin and Julia." Well. That answered some questions for him, and raised others.

The kids only looked barely interested, glancing away from their games for just a moment. Craig earned a mumbled hello from them both, out of that typical obligation they must've felt in that moment, but Craig couldn't hold that against them.

"I'm going to go find your dad," Kyle said, getting to his feet after ruffling their heads. Looping his arm in Craig's, Kyle leaned against him. He chatted idly, pointing out who some of the people were at the party that he knew. They got snacks and drinks, and it was around that time that they were approached by a redheaded woman.

"Kyle!" She smiled, hugging him, then turning to Craig with a bright smile. It was awkward. Craig wasn't the most outgoing person, and sure, he knew Stan, but it was still weird to be in the guy's house with so many people he didn't know. He didn't like the moments between someone acknowledging him and introductions, where he was left wondering whether he was supposed to know someone. "Who's this?"

"Right. Craig, this is Stan's wife, Cynthia." He paused, practically beaming when he looked up at Craig, squeezing his hand. "Craig is my boyfriend."

It took everything in Craig’s power not to shove Kyle against the sideboard behind them, one of the many surfaces in Stan’s house that were laden with food and drink, and kiss him until he couldn’t see straight.

Even in the months that had passed, even with Craig regularly calling Kyle babe, and the two of them sharing a bed, a home, and, for all intents and purposes, a life, they still hadn’t taken that step. Rather than acknowledging what was happening between them, they’d continued to just let it happen, through Craig’s increasingly less-frequent nightmares, and the breakdowns he still found himself having, every once in awhile, although those were occasional at best, and through Kyle’s need to just not talk about what was ailing him, until he was ready. And the good, too — finally, when he thought it’d never happen again, there was good in Craig’s life. They’d let it happen. And they were making it work.

And,  now it was official. My boyfriend. Awesome.

Craig settled on giving Kyle a crooked smile, one that made his eyes crinkle and shine. “Nice to meet you,” he said, extending his hand to Stan’s wife.

Craig felt really, really awkward when she pulled him in for a hug, instead, but some people were just like that.

After she departed, leaving Craig and Kyle alone for a moment, Craig couldn’t help himself. Of course she’d been a redhead. “You know that thing I said to you once, about Stan marrying the chick version of you?”

“Shut up,” Kyle tossed out, a smile pulling at his lips.

There were just a few minutes after Cynthia wandered off before Stan appeared seemingly out of nowhere, puppy dog blues wide and bright. " Boyfriends? " In the following moments, between hugging Kyle and patting Craig's shoulder, Stan expressed how happy he was for them, and Craig could at least tell it was for much more than just the bet Clyde mentioned months ago.

The rest of the party went well, with Kyle sticking close, content to spend most of his time talking to him, while occasionally catching up with those he knew. By 11:50, most of those remaining at the party huddled in the living room, watching the countdown on the television. Some of the party had already cleared out, the kids had already been sent to bed after having fallen asleep on the couch.

Kyle squeezed his hand, commenting about it being almost time. But Craig didn't want to wait, instead pulling Kyle in, intent on kissing him into the New Year.

"It's 11:50," Kyle said, eyebrow quirking as he stared at Craig's lips. "Little early, there."

"Yeah, well...." Craig smiled, stroking Kyle's red curls. His heart thumped against his chest, and his stomach did a flip, but he fought the momentary panic that he was doing something wrong, something disrespectful...

It wasn't. There was never any question it would be. It was a tradition that Tweek would want him to carry, with the man he was beginning to love. "Fuck it," he said, and kissed Kyle slow and deep, only stopping when he heard the cheer of Happy New Year! echo throughout Stan's living room.

It was going to be a good year.