As the days turn into weeks, everything changes. It’s a series of little changes, though. Craig’s life seems to rearrange itself organically as the days go by. Nights that were once spent pretending to review his school work alone in the dark are now spent sitting side by side with Tweek as they watch shitty movies in the soft glow of his laptop. Moments that would have been spent unsatisfactorily scrolling social media on his phone with no particular purpose in mind are now spent scrutinizing various images of handwritten schedules and cross-referencing his own obligations in order to maximize opportunities to invite Tweek over to spend time together. He’s even tried a variety of new foods and restaurants he never thought about before– it’s been easy to open his mind to new things with his omega by his side chattering about various cravings for specific flavors and food items. Even when Craig hasn’t particularly enjoyed a meal, he still finds himself happily eating it anyway. After all, there’s something uniquely satisfying about sharing dinner with someone who so clearly and genuinely experiences comfort and gratitude from the itch of a craving having been scratched.
It’s strangely addicting, spending all his free time with Tweek. There are scheduling conflicts here and there, seeing as his parents are less than reliable with a regular schedule at the coffee shop. Sometimes it seems as though there will be full weeks in which they won’t be afforded a chance to spend even one evening together. Craig spends time in his classes bored out of his mind and generally unable to focus on whatever flippant subject matter his professors drone about. It seems unfair that he’s stuck in a room taking notes on things he sincerely has no interest in while Tweek is left alone and probably lonely in his own dorm room. And so, Craig begins to strategically plan when he will ditch his classes. He reasons this isn’t such a bad thing in the end, considering that now that he’s paired with a mate, he won’t be missing any classes due to being in a rut. While in a rut, he could be missing out on important content or imperative exams. With his mind clear and plan in place, he figures he can get away with only missing out on days in class that aren’t of the utmost priority. It’s worth it, he decides, because he rationalizes shit he can simply google or content he can catch up on later should definitely be taking a back seat to providing an adequate level of emotional support to his pregnant omega. Even though his plan in action seems perfectly logical in his mind, he keeps it a secret from Tweek. He doesn’t want to worry him. So he lets him believe that the scheduling, despite the many odd and random changes that his parents implement, continues to work out in their favor miraculously.
The only trouble is, as the weeks turn into months, nothing changes at all. Craig feels like he’s in a rut, and not at all in the hormonal sense. The fact of the matter is that although Craig feels happier and more complacent these days than he ever has before in his life, the elephant in the room has still largely gone unaddressed. As the minutes and hours and days progress ever forward, it becomes all the more challenging to face that impending discussion. Tweek’s belly has started to protrude a bit, too, and it’s pretty clear that it isn’t the result of too many nights of take-out food. There’s no denying it– the result of the fateful night they met in the showers continues to grow and develop inside Tweek’s omega womb and there is no going back. And yet… the pair continue to exist inside their tenuous, self-imposed bubble of feigned ignorance. Not only does Craig not know what to do about it, he is not even sure if he could find someone to confide in for help.
The nagging truth gnaws at him even now, as he sits next to Tweek on the old, battered couch in his single-dwelling dormitory. It’s getting late, and the remaining bits of food in their discarded to-go boxes have long gone cold. Tweek looks exhausted. Granted, the ever-present bags under his eyes lead to a perpetual look of tiredness, but Craig has learned how to read the signs a bit better over time. He’s sluggish and a bit curled in on himself, and the usual string of garbled yelps and rambling stories that Tweek perpetually emits have slowed down drastically. It’s clear to Craig that he’s legitimately sleepy. As their usual routine dictates, Craig will read into the cues and then offer to walk Tweek across the courtyard and drop him off at his own dorm. Once offered, Tweek will politely decline each and every time and insist he is perfectly capable of walking himself the short distance back to his own bed. Then the pair will quietly tidy up whatever mess they’ve made, and Craig will walk Tweek to the door. They’ll share an awkward glance, never certain and never willing to establish where the boundaries lie between them, and err on the side of caution and make no physical contact. After a bit of nervous hemming and hawing, Tweek will promise to text Craig his updated schedule, and Craig will agree to let Tweek know when he can come over again. And that is where the night will end. Craig knows this because it’s what happens each and every time without fail. Still, Tweek does seem like he’s at a good point for this evening to come to an end, so Craig starts up with the script.
“Do you want me to walk you home?”
“Ack!” Tweek shoots straight up in his seat, suddenly startled and alert.
It’s not the exact response Craig expected, but a largely unprompted shriek is a fairly typical contender in the realm of Tweek reactions so Craig hardly bats an eye at this. He does, however, assume this is a stand-in reply for the usual, so he starts to stand up and proceed with the formulaic series of events.
“Wait…” Tweek says meekly, talking a bit towards his chest. “Actually, argh, oh god… Can… Can I stay a bit longer…?”
That was not the response Craig was expecting at all. He slowly sits back down on his end of the couch and raises an eyebrow in Tweek’s direction.
“Sure,” he agrees casually. “You just seem tired.”
“Ah, I am,” Tweek chortles nervously and wrings his hands together. “It’s just, ahh… Hmm. Well, I know Kenny is still awake…”
“Okay…?”
Craig leans forward and studies him. At face value, these should be two entirely separate thoughts. But since they’re not, Craig has grown instantly suspicious. He waits for Tweek to elaborate, but when nothing comes, he picks at the statement a bit deeper.
“Isn’t that a good thing?” Craig asks slowly. “So you won’t wake up your roommate when you walk in?”
“Ah, well…” Tweek hesitates and attempts to deflect. “It’s just… I don’t really have a big coat or anything. Do you, mmph, have one I could borrow?”
“You never wear a coat,” Craig states plainly. “And it’s not that cold out. Are you cold?”
Craig looks him up and down skeptically. He doesn’t look cold. In fact, he actually looks like he might be on the verge of breaking a sweat.
“N…No…” Tweek admits.
They stare at each other for a moment and then Tweek makes a strained, garbled sound.
“I don’t want to walk in and let Kenny see me like this!”
“...what do you mean?”
“You know…” Tweek moans and vaguely gestures to his midsection.
“Wait…” Craig squints and pieces it together. “You don’t want him to see your… bump?”
Tweek can only wail and clutch at big clumps of his hair in response.
“Tweek, have you seriously not told your roommate that you’re pregnant?!” Craig spits out, incredulously. “I understood at first, but dude, you literally can’t hide it forever! How long do you think you can get away with ignoring it?!”
“I don’t know, Craig!” Tweek shoots back in a frantic rapid fire of words.
“Dude,” Craig splutters emphatically, trying to formulate some thoughts while remaining as calm as he can. “Have you told anyone? Tell me you’ve at least told your parents.”
“I can’t tell my parents!” Tweek shrieks at a volume much too loud for this time of the evening.
“Dude!”
“You don’t understand, Craig!” Tweek’s hands and eyes suddenly can’t seem to remain still as the panic starts to grip him. “They’ll send me away! They can’t know I’m an omega, Craig! They’ll… graghragh… they’ll figure out how to exploit me, man… They’ll use the baby for some marketing scheme and then they’ll send me away to some underground sex labor institution to keep me in heat and sell my body to weird alphas! WAAUUGHH! I can’t live like that, man! And they’ll do it! They’ve been trying to think of ways to afford renovations! They’ll sell my body like a piece of meat!!”
“Okay, Tweek, I think that’s maybe a little drastic-”
“They’ll do it, Craig!” Tweek interjects, adamant and shrill.
“Okay, but that doesn’t explain why you haven’t told the guy you live with,” Craig tries to veer the conversation back on track.
“Nobody can know!”
“Well, they’re gonna know soon enough, Tweek!” Craig exclaims incredulously and gestures at his belly. “You’re fucking pregnant, dude, you can’t really keep that a secret!”
Tweek gasps at this and the fear written on his face quickly morphs into sorrow. His arms wrap around himself, giving the appearance that he’s giving himself a tight hug.
“I’m scared, Craig,” he whispers into his chest, either refusing or unable to look up. “I don’t know what to do.”
Remorse for the outburst hits Craig like a train. It should have been so obvious that Tweek is scared. He’s not just avoidant or careless at all. Craig scoots closer to bridge the gap between them on the couch and places a hand on Tweek’s shoulder.
“Look… I’m sorry,” he offers clumsily. “I shouldn’t have yelled just now.”
Tweek doesn’t respond– he just shivers in place, failing to hold back the impending tears. When they fall, Craig can’t help himself. His heart aches and he acts without thinking. His arms fully reach out to coil around Tweek and he pulls him close until his head rests on his shoulder. Craig cards his hands through Tweek’s wild, blonde hair and keeps him there until the quaking slows and the crying dwindles to mere shudders. Maybe it’s very selfish of him, but Craig can inwardly admit that he missed this. It’s like back when they were fresh, and before they had swept the messy details under the rug. He lets out a heavy sigh.
“You can stay as long as you want,” Craig eventually says, and Tweek replies only with a small nod against his tear-soaked hoodie. “Do you work tomorrow?”
Tweek peels himself up from in between Craig’s arms and sits a bit more properly on the couch. He takes a moment to compose himself before answering.
“No,” he says after wiping his eyes on the corners of his sleeve. “Tomorrow’s supposed to be my day off.”
“Hmm,” Craig hums, mind whirling a bit slower than his mouth and he blurts out an idea before the thoughts fully formulate. “Do you want to…stay the night?”
Tweek has never spent the night aside from that first time. He’s never asked, and Craig has never offered. But now it’s out in the open and Craig can’t take it back. Tweek looks surprised at the suggestion, and Craig can only imagine he looks a bit startled with himself, too.
“Don’t you, ngh, have class tomorrow?”
“No,” Craig blurts out the lie, perhaps a bit too quickly. “It canceled.”
“Mmm,” Tweek narrows his eyes at this but otherwise doesn’t question the statement. “Well, that’s a lucky coincidence.”
“Yeah,” Craig agrees.
He takes the simple fact that Tweek didn’t immediately decline the offer as a sign. So he doubles down on it. He can figure out whatever he misses tomorrow at a later time. The situation at hand feels more important. It feels like something he should be prioritizing.
“So, do you?” Craig puts the cards on the table again, so to speak. “You can stay the night here. If you want. I think it’ll be good for us. We should talk.”
Tweek fiddles with the hem of his shirt. A long beat passes where neither of them says anything. Craig feels like he’s disintegrating from the inside out. Part of him knows it’s not a big deal, but another part can’t stand the uncertainty and it makes him squirm uncomfortably.
“Ah,” Tweek finally makes a sound, but it’s followed by another pause before he finally answers the question with another question. “Are you… Nrgh, are you asking me to stay in your bed with you?”
Craig blinks a few times, processing that. He quickly realizes that this is indeed the reality of the situation. They’ve only shared a bed once, and it was under the exact circumstances of that arrangement that led them to the situation they are in right now. Somehow, acknowledging and returning to the same place together feels both comforting and harrowing all at once. Craig swallows thickly, though his mouth seems to have gone dry. Putting words to it feels so weird, but he does so as nonchalantly as he can. For Tweek’s sake, of course.
“I guess that’s what I’m asking, yeah,” he shrugs and can’t quite seem to make eye contact right now.
“Okay,” Tweek agrees after a moment.
It’s hard to read whatever emotion that was that he put into the word, but it was an agreement nevertheless. Craig tries not to look too eager as he finally feels courageous enough to face him again.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah,” Tweek nods this time, a bit more affirmatively. “I think… I think it’ll be nice. Might make it a little easier to talk, hanhragh… you know, about all this.”
Emboldened by the somewhat positive turn of events, Craig rises to his feet and wordlessly offers Tweek a hand. Only a fleeting moment passes before Tweek accepts and heaves himself to stand as well. Once they’re both up, Craig doesn’t let go. And, as a pleasant surprise, Tweek doesn’t either. They shuffle together, hand in hand as their shoulders bump against one another until they reach the foot of the bed. Craig holds his breath. He can only hope this will at least be comfortable.
Re: Tweek/Craig, ABO, overstimulation
As the days turn into weeks, everything changes. It’s a series of little changes, though. Craig’s life seems to rearrange itself organically as the days go by. Nights that were once spent pretending to review his school work alone in the dark are now spent sitting side by side with Tweek as they watch shitty movies in the soft glow of his laptop. Moments that would have been spent unsatisfactorily scrolling social media on his phone with no particular purpose in mind are now spent scrutinizing various images of handwritten schedules and cross-referencing his own obligations in order to maximize opportunities to invite Tweek over to spend time together. He’s even tried a variety of new foods and restaurants he never thought about before– it’s been easy to open his mind to new things with his omega by his side chattering about various cravings for specific flavors and food items. Even when Craig hasn’t particularly enjoyed a meal, he still finds himself happily eating it anyway. After all, there’s something uniquely satisfying about sharing dinner with someone who so clearly and genuinely experiences comfort and gratitude from the itch of a craving having been scratched.
It’s strangely addicting, spending all his free time with Tweek. There are scheduling conflicts here and there, seeing as his parents are less than reliable with a regular schedule at the coffee shop. Sometimes it seems as though there will be full weeks in which they won’t be afforded a chance to spend even one evening together. Craig spends time in his classes bored out of his mind and generally unable to focus on whatever flippant subject matter his professors drone about. It seems unfair that he’s stuck in a room taking notes on things he sincerely has no interest in while Tweek is left alone and probably lonely in his own dorm room. And so, Craig begins to strategically plan when he will ditch his classes. He reasons this isn’t such a bad thing in the end, considering that now that he’s paired with a mate, he won’t be missing any classes due to being in a rut. While in a rut, he could be missing out on important content or imperative exams. With his mind clear and plan in place, he figures he can get away with only missing out on days in class that aren’t of the utmost priority. It’s worth it, he decides, because he rationalizes shit he can simply google or content he can catch up on later should definitely be taking a back seat to providing an adequate level of emotional support to his pregnant omega. Even though his plan in action seems perfectly logical in his mind, he keeps it a secret from Tweek. He doesn’t want to worry him. So he lets him believe that the scheduling, despite the many odd and random changes that his parents implement, continues to work out in their favor miraculously.
The only trouble is, as the weeks turn into months, nothing changes at all. Craig feels like he’s in a rut, and not at all in the hormonal sense. The fact of the matter is that although Craig feels happier and more complacent these days than he ever has before in his life, the elephant in the room has still largely gone unaddressed. As the minutes and hours and days progress ever forward, it becomes all the more challenging to face that impending discussion. Tweek’s belly has started to protrude a bit, too, and it’s pretty clear that it isn’t the result of too many nights of take-out food. There’s no denying it– the result of the fateful night they met in the showers continues to grow and develop inside Tweek’s omega womb and there is no going back. And yet… the pair continue to exist inside their tenuous, self-imposed bubble of feigned ignorance. Not only does Craig not know what to do about it, he is not even sure if he could find someone to confide in for help.
The nagging truth gnaws at him even now, as he sits next to Tweek on the old, battered couch in his single-dwelling dormitory. It’s getting late, and the remaining bits of food in their discarded to-go boxes have long gone cold. Tweek looks exhausted. Granted, the ever-present bags under his eyes lead to a perpetual look of tiredness, but Craig has learned how to read the signs a bit better over time. He’s sluggish and a bit curled in on himself, and the usual string of garbled yelps and rambling stories that Tweek perpetually emits have slowed down drastically. It’s clear to Craig that he’s legitimately sleepy. As their usual routine dictates, Craig will read into the cues and then offer to walk Tweek across the courtyard and drop him off at his own dorm. Once offered, Tweek will politely decline each and every time and insist he is perfectly capable of walking himself the short distance back to his own bed. Then the pair will quietly tidy up whatever mess they’ve made, and Craig will walk Tweek to the door. They’ll share an awkward glance, never certain and never willing to establish where the boundaries lie between them, and err on the side of caution and make no physical contact. After a bit of nervous hemming and hawing, Tweek will promise to text Craig his updated schedule, and Craig will agree to let Tweek know when he can come over again. And that is where the night will end. Craig knows this because it’s what happens each and every time without fail. Still, Tweek does seem like he’s at a good point for this evening to come to an end, so Craig starts up with the script.
“Do you want me to walk you home?”
“Ack!” Tweek shoots straight up in his seat, suddenly startled and alert.
It’s not the exact response Craig expected, but a largely unprompted shriek is a fairly typical contender in the realm of Tweek reactions so Craig hardly bats an eye at this. He does, however, assume this is a stand-in reply for the usual, so he starts to stand up and proceed with the formulaic series of events.
“Wait…” Tweek says meekly, talking a bit towards his chest. “Actually, argh, oh god… Can… Can I stay a bit longer…?”
That was not the response Craig was expecting at all. He slowly sits back down on his end of the couch and raises an eyebrow in Tweek’s direction.
“Sure,” he agrees casually. “You just seem tired.”
“Ah, I am,” Tweek chortles nervously and wrings his hands together. “It’s just, ahh… Hmm. Well, I know Kenny is still awake…”
“Okay…?”
Craig leans forward and studies him. At face value, these should be two entirely separate thoughts. But since they’re not, Craig has grown instantly suspicious. He waits for Tweek to elaborate, but when nothing comes, he picks at the statement a bit deeper.
“Isn’t that a good thing?” Craig asks slowly. “So you won’t wake up your roommate when you walk in?”
“Ah, well…” Tweek hesitates and attempts to deflect. “It’s just… I don’t really have a big coat or anything. Do you, mmph, have one I could borrow?”
“You never wear a coat,” Craig states plainly. “And it’s not that cold out. Are you cold?”
Craig looks him up and down skeptically. He doesn’t look cold. In fact, he actually looks like he might be on the verge of breaking a sweat.
“N…No…” Tweek admits.
They stare at each other for a moment and then Tweek makes a strained, garbled sound.
“I don’t want to walk in and let Kenny see me like this!”
“...what do you mean?”
“You know…” Tweek moans and vaguely gestures to his midsection.
“Wait…” Craig squints and pieces it together. “You don’t want him to see your… bump?”
Tweek can only wail and clutch at big clumps of his hair in response.
“Tweek, have you seriously not told your roommate that you’re pregnant?!” Craig spits out, incredulously. “I understood at first, but dude, you literally can’t hide it forever! How long do you think you can get away with ignoring it?!”
“I don’t know, Craig!” Tweek shoots back in a frantic rapid fire of words.
“Dude,” Craig splutters emphatically, trying to formulate some thoughts while remaining as calm as he can. “Have you told anyone? Tell me you’ve at least told your parents.”
“I can’t tell my parents!” Tweek shrieks at a volume much too loud for this time of the evening.
“Dude!”
“You don’t understand, Craig!” Tweek’s hands and eyes suddenly can’t seem to remain still as the panic starts to grip him. “They’ll send me away! They can’t know I’m an omega, Craig! They’ll… graghragh… they’ll figure out how to exploit me, man… They’ll use the baby for some marketing scheme and then they’ll send me away to some underground sex labor institution to keep me in heat and sell my body to weird alphas! WAAUUGHH! I can’t live like that, man! And they’ll do it! They’ve been trying to think of ways to afford renovations! They’ll sell my body like a piece of meat!!”
“Okay, Tweek, I think that’s maybe a little drastic-”
“They’ll do it, Craig!” Tweek interjects, adamant and shrill.
“Okay, but that doesn’t explain why you haven’t told the guy you live with,” Craig tries to veer the conversation back on track.
“Nobody can know!”
“Well, they’re gonna know soon enough, Tweek!” Craig exclaims incredulously and gestures at his belly. “You’re fucking pregnant, dude, you can’t really keep that a secret!”
Tweek gasps at this and the fear written on his face quickly morphs into sorrow. His arms wrap around himself, giving the appearance that he’s giving himself a tight hug.
“I’m scared, Craig,” he whispers into his chest, either refusing or unable to look up. “I don’t know what to do.”
Remorse for the outburst hits Craig like a train. It should have been so obvious that Tweek is scared. He’s not just avoidant or careless at all. Craig scoots closer to bridge the gap between them on the couch and places a hand on Tweek’s shoulder.
“Look… I’m sorry,” he offers clumsily. “I shouldn’t have yelled just now.”
Tweek doesn’t respond– he just shivers in place, failing to hold back the impending tears. When they fall, Craig can’t help himself. His heart aches and he acts without thinking. His arms fully reach out to coil around Tweek and he pulls him close until his head rests on his shoulder. Craig cards his hands through Tweek’s wild, blonde hair and keeps him there until the quaking slows and the crying dwindles to mere shudders. Maybe it’s very selfish of him, but Craig can inwardly admit that he missed this. It’s like back when they were fresh, and before they had swept the messy details under the rug. He lets out a heavy sigh.
“You can stay as long as you want,” Craig eventually says, and Tweek replies only with a small nod against his tear-soaked hoodie. “Do you work tomorrow?”
Tweek peels himself up from in between Craig’s arms and sits a bit more properly on the couch. He takes a moment to compose himself before answering.
“No,” he says after wiping his eyes on the corners of his sleeve. “Tomorrow’s supposed to be my day off.”
“Hmm,” Craig hums, mind whirling a bit slower than his mouth and he blurts out an idea before the thoughts fully formulate. “Do you want to…stay the night?”
Tweek has never spent the night aside from that first time. He’s never asked, and Craig has never offered. But now it’s out in the open and Craig can’t take it back. Tweek looks surprised at the suggestion, and Craig can only imagine he looks a bit startled with himself, too.
“Don’t you, ngh, have class tomorrow?”
“No,” Craig blurts out the lie, perhaps a bit too quickly. “It canceled.”
“Mmm,” Tweek narrows his eyes at this but otherwise doesn’t question the statement. “Well, that’s a lucky coincidence.”
“Yeah,” Craig agrees.
He takes the simple fact that Tweek didn’t immediately decline the offer as a sign. So he doubles down on it. He can figure out whatever he misses tomorrow at a later time. The situation at hand feels more important. It feels like something he should be prioritizing.
“So, do you?” Craig puts the cards on the table again, so to speak. “You can stay the night here. If you want. I think it’ll be good for us. We should talk.”
Tweek fiddles with the hem of his shirt. A long beat passes where neither of them says anything. Craig feels like he’s disintegrating from the inside out. Part of him knows it’s not a big deal, but another part can’t stand the uncertainty and it makes him squirm uncomfortably.
“Ah,” Tweek finally makes a sound, but it’s followed by another pause before he finally answers the question with another question. “Are you… Nrgh, are you asking me to stay in your bed with you?”
Craig blinks a few times, processing that. He quickly realizes that this is indeed the reality of the situation. They’ve only shared a bed once, and it was under the exact circumstances of that arrangement that led them to the situation they are in right now. Somehow, acknowledging and returning to the same place together feels both comforting and harrowing all at once. Craig swallows thickly, though his mouth seems to have gone dry. Putting words to it feels so weird, but he does so as nonchalantly as he can. For Tweek’s sake, of course.
“I guess that’s what I’m asking, yeah,” he shrugs and can’t quite seem to make eye contact right now.
“Okay,” Tweek agrees after a moment.
It’s hard to read whatever emotion that was that he put into the word, but it was an agreement nevertheless. Craig tries not to look too eager as he finally feels courageous enough to face him again.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah,” Tweek nods this time, a bit more affirmatively. “I think… I think it’ll be nice. Might make it a little easier to talk, hanhragh… you know, about all this.”
Emboldened by the somewhat positive turn of events, Craig rises to his feet and wordlessly offers Tweek a hand. Only a fleeting moment passes before Tweek accepts and heaves himself to stand as well. Once they’re both up, Craig doesn’t let go. And, as a pleasant surprise, Tweek doesn’t either. They shuffle together, hand in hand as their shoulders bump against one another until they reach the foot of the bed. Craig holds his breath. He can only hope this will at least be comfortable.