Hiraeth Of The Heart (Tweek X Craig)

Chapter 26, Safe Space

   There it was. The ringing of alarm bells I was anticipating finally kicked in, and what did they have to say? Oh, only that I need to get the hell out of there. So, even with my stomach still floating around aimlessly, and my head drowsy from adrenaline, I managed to pry myself away from Craig. As I looked back at him - god did I fuck up by looking - I couldn't help but carry the face of star-struck loser.

Craig's muscled arm rested under his head as he laid back relaxed. Bronze skin peeking here-and-there from under crinkled clothes, and hair shoved up in the most flattering way possible. It gave me a feeling — a feeling equivalent to shooting stars slamming into my chest; like the world was turning. I knew it was something; cause god was it something. In this moment, I felt it was something I shouldn't feel; not towards a demon, and sure as hell not towards a friend. So, with Craig's half lidded eyes burning me to degrees unheard of, I poked my finger to his chest.

"This didn't happen." I said, unsure myself if I really wanted it to be true or not.

"Oh, I think it did."

I get up from the bed, making my way towards my suitcase and gathering clothes swiftly.

"Well then, you better get you're head looked at, because as far as I'm concerned — never happened." I spoke with a shake of my head.

"Oh c'mon, Tweek." He huffed with a whine. "in Brazil they kiss as a greeting."

"Brazil is in South America, what you're thinking of is Europe."

Craig, squinting his eyes, and letting a forlorn frown sculpt his set jaw.

"Taking a shower," I huffed, putting a pen in the conversation with a slam of the bathroom door.

————

Ten minutes passed, and I still stood with my back to the shower tile, shoulders being pounded by what some might consider way too hot of water, and fingers pressed to my own lips like a censored school girl who'd had her first kiss. Well, one of those was right about me, that's for sure. Just as I was ready to reconsider drowning myself in the stream of water coming from the shower nozzle, the door squeaked open. I jumped like a spooked cat, then wiped my face of water and grabbed the curtain to peek out.

"Craig..?"

It was a bit of an alarmed tone coming from my throat. His head was tilted down at first, but what worried me was when he looked up.

His face was sickly pale, as if all the life and joy and been vacuumed out completely. His eyes a darkened blue, like the spark had been dulled.

"I remember." His voice shook, as he connected his dilated eyes to a blank space behind me.

"You remember..?" I repeated. "You- you remember."
Eyes wide and my adrenaline suddenly making me aware of everything that's happening in this moment.

Heart speeding up, I turned off the shower, wrapped a towel around my waist, and rushed over to him and fastening such a grip on Craig that not even god himself could hoist him away.

"What did you remember??"
I said as I gently pushed him from the doorway back into the bedroom, in which he obliged; never taking his shot eyes off of the damn wall.

An under tone of green suddenly was in his deathly complexion. Whatever he remembered had been forgotten for a reason, and I only hopped that reason wasn't for the sake of Craig's sanity.

"I was killed." He gasped for breath with an unsteady hand grasping for the bed sheets he now rested his weight on. Grasping for life. Finally, stutters and slurs past, he managed to look me in the eyes.
"By my father."

Shock filled my lungs with a desperate wail of pity escaping my lips. "That can't-"

I shook my head a few times — it might shake my brain into reality, because I had high hopes that this wasn't it. But it was. What had just happened was real, and as was the terror misted over Craig's wet eyes.

All I could think to do was move in closer and desperately cling to more then just Craig, but to cling to the hurt soul he embodied. Lord knows it might just be floating away in this moment. My wet hair left droplets of water on his shoulder, as if they were disguising themselves with the tears in which were also resting there. We were both restless, and his slumped shoulders in which my hands laid tightened to readjust a newly found grip he had over me, I felt my throat collapse. I moved closer onto the bed, and was in a straddled position of comfort, sheltering Craig with myself in such a sensual way.

"I saw him... the last thing I saw, he was beating me and - God, I just knew it was going to go too fucking far-"

He pulled me down closer as he sobbed into my neck — cutting himself off — nuzzling and grasping for any thing he could reach, wether it be physical or spiritual. So we stayed that way for a while; a suffocating atmosphere with muffled cries filling the air. His soft, black hair damp with the remains of the water my skin was drenched in, and he was wallowing all over me in a desperate plea for help.

We clung to each other like falling stars.

I wasn't sure why my stomach twisted so intensely in these moments, maybe it was the sickness of the situation my friend was presented with, or maybe it was the sight of a soul falling to pieces in front of me for the first time. Something in this moment broke me in a place I had never felt break before.

Craig had fallen asleep, his vicious sobs had died hours ago, and his sporadic breaths spurred into soft and even ones.

So I lied beneath the vintage ceiling, counting the grooves etched into the designs, and the amount of times Craig had flinched in his sleep.

I could only hope to fully comprehend what Craig had seen.

Craig had been missing a large divot of memories, and if they were coming back now, I'm sure there were more then just a nights worth on their way.

This was an out of body experience I would have never seen coming. Watching myself from the sky, looking down at a full frontal view just barely covered by my long forgotten towel.
A since of platonic affection lingering in the electric air as I was clung to like a life line.

So for the first time in so many damn years,

I prayed.

'whomever is listening, fucking save us.'