My Offering.

----------------------------------------------

Never gonna regret,
Watching every sunset,
Listen to your heart beat,
All the love that we felt.

Rooftops by Lost prophets.

----------------------------------------------

If Tweek did not like the idea of Craig leaving his parents house, he certainly did not enjoy the thought of doing so himself.

Not just because of leaving the only people (aside from Craig, but that was different) who had ever taken the time to make him feel safe from all the dangers out there in the real world (his mother, at any rate, always had for all the good it did...), but because of all those other things that just added to what he thought was an already over-stressed life-style.

Oh, how little he knew~

The place Craig had found was predictably small, but Tweek kinda liked that – felt cosy and safe – with two bedrooms, one bathroom and a combined kitchen/dining/living area at the end of a long narrow hallway. It had come part-furnished (he had seen a sofa, two beds, a few chairs, a main table and a wardrobe in each bedroom) and the kitchen was fitted and not too old. The apartment block itself was pretty small and well maintained, as far as Craig could gather; their apartment was clean, bare wood floors in the hallway and main room with off-white wallpaper, green tiled and papered bathroom and grey carpeting in the bedrooms the double room with bluish paper, the single yellow.

Craig had worked all the hours he could leading up to and over the summer break before he was due to start at University, saving as much as he could, selling his bike and buying a way past second hand truck (although that had happened when the Cramer’s had first left the Tweak house in favour of a very crappy and incredibly small trailer, the elder sibling needing the money more than the bike) which, and although he dearly loved that bike, did make more sense and Tweek was marginally less scared of the truck.

Only marginally. though.

It had also been a good hour, hour and a half’s, drive away in Fort Collins.

They had talked about leaving South Park, many times, even more so after Craig had come to stay at the Tweak’s house with his little sister, Ruby. Craig refused to stay there longer than he deemed necessary, even while he finished high-school (although Tweek thought if he could have the same choice again knowing what he did now, he would probably be far easier to persuade to stay) and so the blonde was not surprised to hear his boyfriend talk about leaving the town as soon as he could – but only if said blonde was willing to go.

Tweek had been torn.

He hated South Park just as much as Craig did. Well, maybe not as much, but he did, all the same, and so he decided it came down to three options; He could be miserable, let them break up and let Craig go, he could be selfish and ask Craig to stay even though he knew how much he hated the place, or he could be brave, suck it up and go with him, like part of him truly wanted to, even if the very thought petrified him...

In the end, the third option had been the only one he could choose, and after weeks of meticulous planning on the dark-haired teen’s part, and many trips taken by the siblings to find a job and enrol in their two schools, everything seemed set.

Of course, Craig had refused to move in without Tweek (despite having the keys for over a week before he was ready to go), the blonde both appreciative and not for that. He understood the sentiment and liked what Craig was trying to say just fine (‘It’s our place, not mine) but in practice?

Not so much.

Still, he had done the best he could to not think about it, had packed up his stuff as best he could while not thinking about it, since the two really did not seem to go as hand-in-hand as he would have liked, managing to stay sane largely thanks to his mother bringing him fresh coffee every hour even as he worked through the night to get everything ready (he supposed he should not have left it all to the last minute, but there was that same problem again – planning would have meant thinking about it). She told him she did not mind, that she was going to miss him even though she was so proud of what he was trying to do.

‘Trying’ certainly seemed like an accurate term to Tweek. His mother seemed to pick up on that too, reassuring him while he took a break to drink the coffee she had bought, that he was welcome to come back anytime he needed to. That she understood he was afraid and that it was normal to feel that way but that, above all things, she was so proud that he was even trying.

That word again.

Tweek sometimes wondered what point there was in trying. Trying only bred hope for better things, after all, and sometimes the things that were already there were not all that bad. Not bad at all when compared to the prospect of trying your absolute best and failing miserably.

By some miracle, he did indeed manage to have all his things packed away and ready to go by the time Craig arrived to pick him up, the blonde heard his truck pull up outside and watched through the window as his boyfriend practically skipped up the path, grinning from ear-to-ear and why not? This was supposed to be a happy, exciting day for everyone!

Only it really was not working out that way.

Again the blonde tried, forcing at least a small smile to his face as he greeted the other at the door, Craig’s grin only seeming to grow as he lifted the blonde of his feet with an exceptionally tight hug, that actually getting a moment of real happiness from the nervous teen, Craig had that effect on him and God! Did he love it! Did he love him and that alone should make this whole ‘leap of faith’ worth it, right?

...Right?

Craig and his father carried his boxes out to the truck while Tweek stood by, half watching out the window again, half trying (there was that word again...) not to, fingers worrying the hem of his shirt and breathing shakily through the building panic at actually having to leave. His mother coming out of the kitchen and hugging him to herself, recognising the nervous worry etched across her only son’s face and wishing, as she had so many time before, she could take it away from him, give him some magic words to make it all so much easier to simply sit back and enjoy.

“You are going to have so much fun, Pumpkin.” She told him, hugging him a little more tightly as she spoke, “I know it’s hard for you, but try not to worry too much. We’ll be right here if you need us and you’ll have Craig there with you, alright?” Tweek only hugged her back, as much as he knew her words to be true, his abused mind refused to believe them with any real certainty. Still, he felt a little better to hear someone say out-loud at least part of what he had been thinking; ‘We’ll be right here if you need us and you’ll have Craig there with you’.

“Thanks mom.” He said quietly, reluctantly pulling out of the hug, noting, some-what distractedly, that the last of his boxes were gone from their pile by the door. “I’ll be f-fine.” He added, once again forcing a small smile, trying to reassure her that he knew he would be, he just did not believe it – not really, not yet, at any rate. She nodded down to him, smiling back, even more so when Craig once more came bounding up the path and in through the door to what they all knew had become his second home. Moving straight over to his boyfriend’s side, his hand finding that of the blonde’s and squeezing it tightly as he continued to grin.

“And how are you doing?” He asked, excitement still present in his voice as he spoke, but there was concern there too, a concern that made Tweek feel a little better despite how selfish he knew it was, forcing him to squeeze the other’s hand back as tightly as he could manage.

“Good.” He answered, smile more real at the simple presence of the other teen, he might worry about anything and everything but with that smile looking down to him and those deep, sapphire eyes... “Never better, actually.” He added, a slight lie, perhaps? He was not even sure anymore. Sure he was nervous. Nervous, anxious, tense, worried, edgy, a little panicky and a lot uneasy, but a little excited too, he supposed. He was not used to that feeling, excitement of any kind was rare for him and when it did come along it was normally obliterated by far less enjoyable felling such as the ones currently swirling around in his body and mind. Somehow though, when Craig was close by, those other feelings seemed to dull and let the excitement show itself a little better. (Yet another reason to want to be with him as much as possible – as if I needed more) Craig’s grin relaxed to one of his brilliant smiles at that, something in his eyes, very distant, but Tweek saw, saying that maybe he did not believe his boyfriend quite like he should, but Tweek only took that as Craig being Craig – he worried as much as the blonde did sometimes and they both knew it.

“Glad to hear it!” He exclaimed instead of dwelling on such things, Tweek’s smile still small but a little more real now, he was willing to go with that – better than nothing, after all. “Thanks for everything, Mrs. T,” Craig addressed Mrs. Tweak, “I’ll look after him, promise.” The older woman smiling as she nodded to the dark-haired teen.

“You better had dear, he’s the only son I have, after all.” Craig chuckled at that, Mrs. Tweak joining him while Tweek frowned at them both, used to such little ‘jokes’ by now and he supposed that was a good thing, that Craig and his parents got on so well, even after a rather rocky start with his father but now...

“All loaded up and ready to go.” Mr. Tweak asked, making his own way into the house now, smile on his face as he tossed the keys to the truck over to Craig who caught them easily and with a grin. “Tweek? You ready to go?” He asked, smiling to his son in a way Tweek thought at one time he would never see again, that thought alone causing his own smile to return as he nodded.

“As I’ll ever be, dad.” He replied, feeling Craig’s hand squeeze his own at that small admittance of worry, a small act of reassurance that Tweek was more than grateful for, squeezing his boyfriend’s back in return with that still rare, shy smile on his face and yes, maybe this was going to be okay. Scary? Probably. Nerve-wracking? Sure. But okay? Yeah, maybe that too.

“Don’t worry, I’ll not let him out of my sight, right Tweek?” The blonde rolled his eyes, feeling his colour rise just a little at the attention gained from all three people in the room now – far from helping as he was sure the words were supposed to, he just wanted to get out of there.

Now.

“S-sure.” He managed, faltering a little as he spoke, now the thought having registered in his mind, he found that the need to get out and away simply out-weighed everything else, hand that held Craig’s tugging slightly, pulling the other’s attention to how he felt before speaking. “W-we should go. I-if we wanna g-get there before i-it gets dark.” Craig nodded, then smiled at the Tweak’s, two adults that had been more like parents to him than his own had ever even tried.

“Looks like we’re off,” he began, holding out a hand to Tweek’s dad, the older man shaking it with a smile, before moving to hug Tweek’s mom, and finally returning his hand to where it belonged – tightly held in Tweek’s own. “Again, thanks for everything, we’ll call you when we get there.” He told them both, Tweek smiling at his side, for a moment before leaving his house for the last time as an actual occupant, his own goodbyes said and God! He did not want to do that again way too much pressure...



Later on, sitting on his sofa in his house watching his TV (with Ruby’s cat padding at his lap – why do these creatures seem to like me so much?!) he would wonder if maybe Craig had done that on purpose, drawn their attention to him like that, given him that extra push he needed to get him out of that house and into his home.

He would turn to his boyfriend, a smile on his face, and reach out his free hand (his right hand been commandeered by said cat, now purring and almost asleep on the blonde’s lap) to tug at Craig’s sleeve, pulling his attention away from the TV and to his boyfriend, the dark-haired teen smiling when he caught to look on the blonde’s face, moving to take the hand Tweek had been pulling at him with his own, squeezing it tightly for a second.

“You okay, Blondie?” The dark-haired teen would ask, and said blonde would smile even more brilliantly, moving over to the other, letting go of his hand in favour of snuggling up as close as he could to Craig, my Craig, leaning up for a gentle, drawn-out kiss before pulling away with soft, contented sigh, again nuzzling back at the other again, letting his eye flutter shut, that smile still there.

And ‘thank you’ would be all he needed to say.