South Park, Valentine’s Day is Fake (But We Aren’t)

Title: Valentine’s Day is Fake (But We Aren’t) [Craig/Tweek]
Rating/Warnings: R
Summary: Tweek thinks Valentine’s Day is a fake marketing scheme. Craig figures out that he doesn’t care even if it is.
AN: Written for shiritori. I was trying to write something quick and cute and it spiraled a little out of control. Tweek baking and Craig working patiently to figure out how he and Tweek work are two of my favorite character notes for them. Aside from Craig’s persistent terrible acting, which is amazingly great.

Valentine’s Day is Fake (But We Aren’t)

Craig knew it was a dick move to sneak up behind Tweek, but it was just so fun.

“Hey, babe,” Craig said, leaning in close, making Tweek shriek and almost bang his head on the top of his locker. Tweek threw a panicked glance over his shoulder, but it downgraded to just annoyed when he saw it was Craig. Even though he was amused at himself for startling his boyfriend, Craig kept his face neutral until Tweek stuck his head back in his locker. “I’ve been thinking about Valentine’s Day.”

“Eeeeurgh,” was Tweek’s response, echoing hollowly inside his locker.

Craig tended to agree. Somehow they’d made it through the minefield of Christmas without too much attention, but they were on school break during that so they’d just agreed to split a video game they both wanted and spent the day on Craig’s couch ignoring their twitter feeds lighting up with fanart. But that had been before they’d had the fight and patched it up during Civil War, before Tweek had answered Craig’s apology with the information that their thing kinda sorta wasn’t fake for him anymore and Craig had been forced to admit to both Tweek and himself that he was pretty ok with that.

But Valentine’s Day was a directly romantic holiday, was happening on a school day, and having a real boyfriend meant figuring out how to do something real for him. Craig knew if he said he didn’t care about it and they should ignore it, Tweek would agree, but somehow Craig had realized that he didn’t want to ignore it, after an entire week of opening his mouth to say the words and then closing it again without saying anything.

“Did you plan or buy anything for it yet?” Craig asked. He thought the answer would be no, simply because Tweek had been chewing his thumbnail down to a nub all week, which was the same thing he did when he couldn’t figure out the math homework but was still working on it.

Sure enough, Tweek dragged himself and his science binder out of his locker and turned to face Craig, clutching his binder in front of his lap. “Ugh, no.”

“Good, because I know what I want,” Craig announced, making Tweek’s gaze snap up from the floor to his face. Craig gave him a small smile. “Cupcakes.”

“Cup…cakes?” Tweek echoed, tilting his head. When Craig nodded Tweek squinted at him harder. “That’s NGH such a shitty, like what even…I made cupcakes LAST WEEK!”

“Yeah, babe, and they were great.” Craig nodded.

“For NOREASON,” Tweek continued his thought, exasperation creeping into his voice. “Shit, dude, that’s not a Valentine’s gift, Jesus, that’s fucking TUESDAY! Everybody’ll ask WHAT’D YOU GIVE HIM TWEEK and it’ll be UGH fucking CUPCAKES. Aaaagh, they’ll think I’m such a shitty, like, just the worst, god—”

“I like cupcakes,” Craig interrupted bluntly. He reached out to snag Tweek’s hand as it lifted, no doubt to chew his thumbnail some more, and twined their fingers together. “I like your cupcakes, and I want to make them together. Baking together is totally a good date, right?”

“Ehhhh,” Tweek grumbled, squeezing Craig’s hand tight.

“They can be chocolate,” Craig coaxed. “Neither of us like flowers and I don’t want you buying jewelry neither of us needs. All I really want is for you not to spend the next week worrying about what to get me and then worrying about giving it to me.”

“That’s what she said,” Tweek muttered, making Craig snort a laugh.

“I just want to do something together.” Craig shrugged. He tugged Tweek’s hand to make sure he was paying attention. “Is there anything you want?”

Tweek stared at Craig for a long second, then twitched in defeat, heaving a sigh. “No. Just, AGH, not to fuck it up. And, UGH, not to have a bunch of sex art taped to my locker. Can’t they just stick it INSIDE the locker?! Jesus CHRIST.”

“Hard same, honey,” Craig said. “I notice PC Principal doesn’t give a shit about our consent to THAT.” Tweek gave a startled laugh; Craig smirked, satisfied with himself. “So, is it a date? Give me a list of what we need, and I’ll bring it as my half of the present. We’ll Instagram some selfies and cupcake shots and let them blow up our notifications for a few hours, and then it’ll all blow over by school the next day.”

“Ok.” Tweek offered Craig a shaky smile. Then he frowned, opened his mouth, and closed it again. Craig waited patiently, even when the warning bell rang above them. “Just…there really isn’t anything you want?”

“Nah,” Craig assured. “I know it’ll be a big production around here no matter what since we’re surrounded by idiots, but I didn’t want some big stressful thing sitting in between us all week. And I don’t have a fucking clue what to give you either.”

“Ok, Craig,” Tweek agreed, letting himself be tugged along to class, shoulders easing up just a little bit.

Except for how Craig was a fucking liar, because in the middle of current events presentations that afternoon he suddenly sat bolt upright in his chair with the best idea ever, way too good not to do. The motion made the feet of his chair screech on the floor.

“The fuck are you so stoked on the news for?” Kenny asked from the next desk over.

“Fuck off, McCormick,” Craig retorted, flipping him off, then the teacher when she demanded to know what their problem was. Craig got sent out of class, again, flipping off a snickering Kenny one more time and ignoring the look of concern Tweek was shooting him from the other side of the class as he shouldered his backpack and shuffled out of the room.

That was fine, because the privacy of the bench outside of Mr. Mackey’s office meant he could pull out his phone and figure out if he had enough time to make Tweek’s present work.

The morning of Valentine’s Day, Craig had decided to get up the fifteen minutes earlier it took to walk to Tweek’s house instead of his own bus stop. He wasn’t trying to be romantic, it was just that he assumed everyone, including Tweek’s parents, would be insufferable all day long, and he didn’t want Tweek to put up with it alone anymore than he wanted to suffer it alone himself. Even his own parents started up about it while Craig was trying to shovel generic Cheerios into his mouth without poking himself in the face with his spoon.

“Got any special plans today, son?” his father asked, just a little too cheerfully. The slightly false note to it always came out when he was talking about Tweek as his boyfriend, but Craig knew he was trying and didn’t begrudge him it. At least not until he added, “Just remember, if you like it then you better put a ring on it.”

“Thomas!” Craig’s mother snapped, looking over her shoulder from the sink. “He’s too young for that!”

“Not what you said on our first Valentine’s,” Craig’s dad muttered into his coffee, flipping her off without looking.

“Yeah, big bro,” Tricia piped up, kicking at Craig’s legs under the table. “Tweek gonna make you an honest woman or what?”

“Jesus Christ, I’m out,” Craig announced, dropping his spoon on the table and waving both middle fingers in little circles as he slid out of his chair and made his escape.

[whole family fukkin nuts omw to u] Craig thumb-typed one-handed as he yanked on his coat and shoved his feet into his boots.

[sfkj narjkga] Tweek sent back, which Craig took to mean both that it wasn’t going better over there and also that he was banned from texting at the table again and trying to do it in his lap without looking. Sure enough, Craig had barely lifted his hand to knock on the Tweaks’ front door when it swung open, revealing Tweek’s father grinning down at him.

“Hi, Craig,” he said, voice so syrupy Craig wrinkled his nose. “Honey, it’s Craig!”

“Hiii, Craig!” Tweek’s mother called back, sticking her head out from the kitchen. Tweek barreled down the stairs just then, boots flopping half-tied on his feet, backpack coming unzipped, pushing past his father and all but shoving Craig off the stoop.

“UGHBACKOFFDADBYE!” he exclaimed, slamming the door, leaving the two of them alone, staring at each other. Tweek was panting lightly, little white clouds steaming up the air between them. “Shit, ugh.”

“Good morning,” Craig said.

“Hi,” Tweek answered, quieter, cheeks dusting pink. Then, even quieter, “Craig I can’tfuckingdothis, GOD, it’s too much!”

“What did your parents even say to you, dude?” Craig asked, shoving an escaping book back into Tweek’s backpack before zipping it the rest of the way.

“Just normal shit,” Tweek answered evasively. Craig didn’t push it, but he did drop to one knee to fix Tweek’s bootlaces so Tweek wouldn’t take a header right into a snowdrift as soon as they stepped off the stoop. There was five seconds of silence before Tweek started filling it. “They were like ‘bring Craig to the store,’ UGH, like they wanna take date pictures for the website and it’s fucking creepy. Like we’re a MARKETING SCHEME.”

“Mmhmm,” Craig mumbled, mouth muffled by the gloves he’d stripped off so he could tie Tweek’s laces. Yanking one tight, he switched to the second boot, rethreading half the holes.

“God, fuck, this whole day is gonna be…” Tweek reached up to yank his hair. “EEEARGH. This holiday is FUCKING FAKE, all marketing bullshit JUSTLIKEMYDAD I CAN FUCKING SEE YOU IN THE WINDOW. Aaaaagh.” Tweek drew a long, shuddering breath. “Craig, just, nngh, stop it. Mr. Marsh is giving us a big thumbs up, ugh.”

“I don’t care,” Craig said, and he didn’t, even though his fingers were already numb and slush was soaking through the knee of his jeans. “They’ll be staring a lot more when you trip over your laces and go face first into the sidewalk. There.” Craig stood up, dusting off his knee. Tweek stared at him, shirt misbuttoned as usual and starting to shiver. “Babe, go back inside and get your coat.”

“NO.” Tweek glared. “Let’s just, erk, let’s go.”

Tweek’s stubbornness was one of the things Craig found cute about him, but he didn’t comment on it at the moment. He put one glove back on, shoved the other in his pocket, and held his bare hand for Tweek to take.

“Bus stop or just walk?” Craig asked, since they were early enough to do either.

“Walk,” Tweek answered heartily. “The longer it takes to get there, the better.”

South Park Elementary was buzzing with Valentine’s excitement when they did get there, and both of their lockers as predicted were covered in some intense art, but on the other hand a lot of other students were involved in their own Valentine’s drama. Craig privately thought it could be a lot worse than the repeated suggestive calls of “Happy Valentine’s Day to you two!” He kept a close eye on Tweek’s reactions as they untaped the art from his locker, and a hand on the small of his back as they steered through the sea of students.

“Hey,” Tweek said suddenly when they were almost at the door. Craig was mildly surprised when Tweek veered from their classroom, tugging him by their joined hands into the gap just before the next bank of lockers started. “I didn’t say this morning.”

“Say what?” Craig asked, confused.

“You know. Happy…grrr.” Tweek butted his forehead up hard against Craig’s chest, wrapping arms around his back. His voice muffled against Craig’s shoulder, he muttered, “Happy Valentine’s Day.”

“You too, dude,” Craig agreed, glad Tweek’s hair stuck up enough to hide his smile in as he hugged Tweek back. “This boyfriend thing is nice sometimes.”

“Nngh,” Tweek replied into Craig’s sweatshirt, but he didn’t pull away. They stayed like that another few minutes, until Craig noticed two of the Asian girls turning gradually into a group of three, then four, and that the one holding her phone wasn’t moving her thumbs, so they were probably being filmed.

“Let’s go to class, babe,” Craig urged, provoking a deep sigh from Tweek.

Class was class, in other words annoying, but their teacher exerted enough control to try to get some math and reading done before the afternoon’s interruption of the class Valentine’s Day party. Sometimes Craig missed how they’d gotten to do so much nothing when Mr. and/or Ms. Garrison was their teacher, but he had to admit today enduring division problems was better than hearing their teacher’s hookup history in graphic detail. Plus it was totally satisfying every time she scolded the girls to stop whispering to each other.

“You too, Mr. Stotch!” she added, turning a sharp eye to the other half the room.

“Aw, hamburgers,” Butters sighed.

But Valentine’s Day was back on full force at lunch when Tweek discovered he’d forgotten his lunch in his escape from home that morning and was forced to share half of Craig’s. Craig had a suspicious amount of extra food, as if his mother had somehow been on a con with Mrs. Tweak, but there was no choice but to shrug it off and share; nobody wanted another meltdown of All-Coffee-No-Food Tweak in the middle of the afternoon. If they had to put up with the new wave of fanart and fanfic they’d be generating on the school message boards, well, that’s just the way it went.

“You two are so sweet,” Bebe said as Craig handed Tweek half his peanut butter and jelly sandwich. The girls and boys weren’t as segregated as usual because of the holiday: Wendy was sitting in between Stan and Cartman at their usual table, looking a lot more invested in her heated argument with Cartman than Stan’s annoyed frown or Kyle rolling his eyes across from them, and Butters and Kenny were at a table with some of Butters’ old kissing company girls. At Craig’s usual table, Nichole was sitting next to Token with Bebe between her and Clyde since Bebe had agreed to be Clyde’s valentine on a trial basis.

Craig and Tweek exchanged a glance, Craig with his mouth already full of peanut butter, Tweak with a smear of jelly just beside his mouth. On Tweek’s other side, Jimmy started laughing.

“I mean this guy,” Bebe elbowed Clyde, “probably wouldn’t even share his pudding cup with me.”

“It’s chocolate!” Clyde protested, scandalized. Bebe eyed him, unimpressed. “I guess you could have a bite.”

“So romantic,” Bebe said dryly while the others laughed. “Oh well, he did bring me a rose this morning.”

“Token got me this,” Nichole said, holding out her wrist to show off a silver ID bracelet with her name in cursive script. Craig examined it impassively while Token and Clyde did a piss-poor job of not looking very smug about themselves.

“Ooh, that’s nice!” Bebe said. She smiled across the table. “Tweek, honey, did you get anything good this morning?”

“No!” Tweek snapped, then looked embarrassed at his vehemence. “Eergh. I mean, not yet. Craig’s giving it to me after school!”

There was a long moment of silence except for Butters yelling from the next table over, “YEAH he is!” Then Token, Clyde, and Jimmy lost it laughing, and even the girls joined in after a second.

“Oh my god, fuck, I’m leaving,” Tweek muttered, trying to squirm off the cafeteria bench, but he was squished too close in between Craig and Jimmy. “Fucking LETGO!”

“No way, babe, you have to eat,” Craig caught Tweek around the waist, anchoring him to the bench. Tweek struggled for another second, then went limp against Craig’s side with a disgusted eeeeck. Craig left his arm around Tweek’s waist, perfectly able to eat chips one handed. Nichole and Bebe exchanged a look, but Craig ignored them with practiced ease.

“I’m s-so psyched about the p-party today,” Jimmy picked the conversation. “I heard Mrs. Cartman b-brought cheesecake b-b-brownies. It should be quiet the celebra…celebraHAY…cele…quite the party.”

“What kind of Valentines did you get this year?” Clyde asked, kicking at Craig’s feet under the table to get his attention. “Dad bought me Chinpokomon again and then got mad when I said they were too lame.”

“Red Racer, duh,” Craig replied. Was there any other choice? “My mom made me make one for everyone in the class, too, that’s what’s lame.” All Craig had honestly done was sign “CRAIG” messily on the bottom of each one before folding it over, but it had taken like twenty minutes he could have spent on anything else in the universe. Craig nudged Tweek’s side. “Did you do one for everyone?”

“Yeah,” Tweek muttered, mouth full. He added, barely intelligible, “Mom’s making me give out dollar off Tweak Bros. coffee coupons, uuuugh.”

“Laaaame,” Token, Clyde, and Jimmy all agreed.

“I hope you made a better one for Craig at least,” Nichole said.

“Obviously,” Tweek said, making Craig’s stomach do something complicated, pleased and embarrassed and anxious all at once. He still hadn’t written anything on Tweek’s, although he’d saved one of the larger cards for him that read “You’re the best member of my pit crew, Valentine!”.

After lunch, they all spent a half hour decorating the big envelopes everyone would be taping to the edge of their desks for others to drop valentines in, Craig still thinking about Tweek’s card while he half-heartedly colored in the bubble letters he’d drawn spelling his name. “I like you” seemed lame and obvious, but Craig wasn’t anywhere close to writing down something more serious than that.

“Hey, can I have that blue?” Stan leaned back to ask, and Craig handed it over without a fight, not caring that he’d only colored in C, R, and A. Craig glanced down the row of desks to watch Tweek bent over his own envelope, scribbling with a brown colored pencil and an intense look of concentration.

Craig stretched up to try and see what Tweek was drawing, but he was too far away. A second later, Tweek glanced up and caught him staring. He held up his envelope to show that he’d drawn a fairly accurate picture of Stripe in the space over the E’s of his name.

Craig jerked his gaze back down to his own envelope, scowling at it fiercely. Who even allowed that guy?!

“Gimme that brown,” Craig ordered, leaning forward to grab it from Stan’s desk without waiting for an answer. He’d be goddamned if Tweek had a Stripe on his envelope while Craig didn’t. He was still working on it when their teacher called for everyone to wrap it up, and Tweek appeared at the edge of Craig’s desk to look at his work.

“Copycat,” Tweek accused, but his mouth was quirked up at the corners in amusement. He used an unevenly torn strip of masking tape to affix his envelope to the long edge of Craig’s desk, leaving plenty of space for Craig’s to be taped down next to it. “You didn’t even finish your letters.”

“So what?” Craig demanded. He didn’t argue about Tweek taping their envelopes together, or about Tweek pulling a green pencil out of his pocket and filling in the I and G. “You think this is all fake anyway.”

“It—eurgh—is,” Tweek answered. He reached over to steal the blue back from Stan and started drawing a little chullo on Craig’s C. “Doesn’t mean it has to be shitty fake.”

“Whatever,” Craig grouched, snatching up a yellow pencil to draw some ridiculous hair spikes on the green G. Tweek huffed a soft laugh, nudging Craig’s hand over to add a yellow puffball to the top of the chullo.

Suddenly Craig had a half-decent idea what to write on Tweek’s card after all, and thankfully Tweek got dragged away by Kenny for a minute so Craig had the privacy to write it. Stickering the card closed, Craig dropped it into Tweek’s envelope, irrationally smug that his card was the first one in there. He was just in time; their teacher clapped her hands and told everyone to start the awkward shuffling around to drop valentines in each other’s envelopes.

The party was fine, if a little loud and obnoxious as their classmates got sugared up on lemonade, brownies, and too much freedom.

“You don’t want one?” Tweek asked, nibbling on the corner of his own brownie. He had dragged his chair over and was swinging his feet restlessly, eyes darting when anyone laughed or shrieked too loud.

“Saving myself for cupcakes,” Craig said. He took the last bite when Tweek offered it, though; Cartman was an asshole but his mom’s brownies were fucking amazing. “Wanna come along to my house to pick up the stuff, or should I just meet you at yours?”

“Meet me,” Tweek said, dusting off his hands. “Some dumbass, ugh, let frosting harden all over the Kitchen Aid.”

“Nice job, dumbass,” Craig teased, voice flat. Tweek stuck his tongue out. He was picking at the corners of the tape holding their envelopes to Craig’s desk, curling it up. “Ready?”

“No,” Tweek spat. Craig batted his hand away and ripped their envelopes up from the tape, then dumped the contents in a heap over his desk. Tweek muttered, “Shit, ugh, too fucking much,” at the size of it. Craig had honestly been braced for worse, after what had been taped to their lockers that morning. There was the usual meaningless obligation valentines from most of their classmates, a few addressed to the two of them jointly, and another handful who at least had the decency to tape their cheap, shitty cards to some kind of fun-sized chocolate. Then there were the drawings.

“Wendy’s getting better,” Craig said with the air of a charitable art critic. The sketch in his hand actually bore a passing resemblance to the two of them instead of turning them into generic anime characters, and he kind of liked the way she’d only highlighted a few details with color, like red of Craig’s T-shirt and the pink across Tweek’s cheeks. He glanced over at Tweek staring at another drawing, expression pinched. “What’s that one? More porn?”

“Eck, worse,” Tweek said. Craig pushed it flat to the desk and saw it was a sketch of them next to a bank of lockers. Immediately he recognized their position from that morning, their hug captured in shaded pencil strokes, and Craig’s smile had not been buried as deeply in Tweek’s hair as he’d thought.

“Embarrassing,” Craig said, Tweek groaning in wholehearted agreement. He shoved it back into his envelope, along with most of the others they’d already read. Craig’s card was still on the desk, and he pushed it towards Tweek. “Read mine already.”

“Why?” Tweek demanded suspiciously. “Is it gonna make me freak out?”

“I hope not,” Craig muttered, shrugging. Or maybe he hoped so? Craig had no idea what was going on with himself most of the time anymore. He was sick of waiting either way. “Hurry up.”

“Don’t fucking pressure me,” Tweek said, sliding his thumb through the sticker like he was trying to qualify in the papercut olympics, making Craig wince. Tweek held the flimsy card stock valentine close to read it, but Craig already knew what it said.

Valentine’s Day is fake, but we aren’t.

Tweek stared at the message for long enough to read it at least five times, and Craig was just starting to feel panic tight in his chest when Tweek leaned over to kiss his cheek quickly. Not quickly enough, given the chorus of girly “Awwwww” that broke out around them. Craig shouldered Tweek back gently, scrubbing at his cheek. “Dude.”

“Mine just says ‘heart Tweek,'” Tweek confessed, eyes downcast, fingers twisting in the hem of his shirt. “Stop, shit, being better than me at fucking everything.”

“Make it up to me in cupcakes,” Craig muttered, feeling just as flustered by the backhanded praise.

They took the bus home after peeling yet another round of art off their lockers. Their joined hands swung comfortably in between them on the way out of school, but once on the bus Tweek slid in closer as the bus pulled away, under Craig’s arm to fit in against his side.

“Ok?” Craig asked, mildly surprised. Tweek answered a vague mmnn and reached across to drag fingers across the steamed-up bus window, leaving a pattern of shaky contrails behind. He slipped out from Craig’s arm without comment when they reached his bus stop, glancing back over his shoulder just before going down the stairs.

Craig watched out the window, and Tweek stopped just under it to order a sharp, “Hurry it up!” before turning to trudge towards his house. Craig bit his lip to keep from smiling, then realized nobody could see him on the bus anyway and let himself smile after all.

“Luckyyyyy,” Kenny’s voice drawled above him, and when Craig leaned his head back, Kenny was draped over the back of his seat, leering at him. “So I hear you’re gonna give it to Tweek after school, right? Niiice.”

“Fuck OFF, McCormick!” Craig snapped, smile evaporating.

“Ken, don’t pick!” Butters’ muffled voice came from behind the seat. “And sit your butt down, mister, do you wanna go flying through the windshield?”

Snorting, Kenny gave Craig a wink and slid back out of sight. A second later Butters gave a startled shriek that dissolved into laughter, and Craig rolled his eyes. Fucking weirdos.

He hurried it up as ordered, dumping his school books and binder out of his backpack in a messy heap on the floor. He replaced all that stuff with the baking supplies Tweek had asked for, and then jogged up to his room to get Tweek’s present. For a second he just stood with it in his hands, squashing it lightly and making the paper crinkle, wondering if Tweek was going to be happy or cute mad for Craig being a dork or mad mad for Craig breaking their agreement. His phone buzzed in his back pocket, no doubt Tweek wanting to know where he was, and Craig shoved the package into his bag on top of the other things and zipped it up.

[omw back 2 u babe] he texted as he hustled down the stairs.

“Don’t be too late, honey!” his mother stuck her head out of the kitchen to holler as Craig flung the front door back open. “Use protection!”

“CHRIST, Mom, we’re BAKING!” Craig shouted, slamming the door behind him as hard as he could. His cheeks were still burning by the time he finished his stomped walk to Tweek’s house, but hopefully he could blame that on the wind. He went around to the Tweaks’ kitchen door even though it meant trudging through snow and rapped on the glass of the back door’s window. His mild bad mood evaporated at the familiar sound of Tweek yelping and dropping something.

“You,” Tweek grumbled as he yanked the door open, letting in Craig and a gust of window and snow. “Augh! Get in here, it’s freezing!”

“Hi to you, too. Here,” Craig said, handing over his backpack while he undid his wet boots by the door and stripped off his coat to hang over a kitchen chair.

“Get everything?” Tweek asked, unzipping the backpack. He paused, Craig’s wrapped present still sitting on top in plain view.

“Yup,” Craig answered. He smirked as Tweek glared. “Plus something extra.”

“Craiiiiig,” Tweek groaned in exasperation, thumping the backpack down on the counter and yanking the present out to wave it in annoyance. “We agreed no presents! Now I, GAH, look like an asshole! Fuck you, man!”

“Calm down, babe,” Craig soothed, folding his arms. “I said I’d bring everything for baking cupcakes, and that’s for baking cupcakes. It’s for both of us. Just open it.”

“Eeeeurgh…” Tweek tore the wrapping paper right down the front, frowning as dark blue fabric fell out into his hands. When he shook it out, it was a pair of aprons marked with their superhero logos, S for Supercraig and WT for Wonder Tweek. Craig had done it himself with fabric paint and masking tape, and he was pretty proud of his effort. His own S had some irregular spots, but the straight edges of Tweek’s letters had come out nice and sharp.

“Now you can quit wearing your mom’s, since you have your own,” Craig pointed out. Tweek was staring at him with wide eyes, biting down hard on his lower lip. “And I’ll stop getting tagged on creepy art of you wearing your mom’s apron. I was starting to develop a complex, man.”

Tweek sagged against Craig like he had that morning, only speaking once Craig wrapped arms around him in a tight hug. “You’re the worst. Nnneergh.”

“Right back at you, honey.” Craig slapped Tweek’s back and pushed him back by the shoulders. “Cupcakes. Oh wait, picture first, before we get crap all over ourselves.”

They both tugged on their aprons, Craig biting down hard on a smile at how Tweek rubbed gently at the letters of his logo with shaking fingers. Craig held out his arm for Tweek to tuck himself in against Craig’s side, holding his phone out as far as he could to get both of them and their aprons clearly. He posted it to Coonstagram with the caption ready for action, which made Tweek roll his eyes, and then tucked his phone in his back pocket. It buzzed gently with a flood of notifications the entire time they were baking.

Tweek was a good but messy baker, spilling sugar on the counter, exploding the bag of chocolate chips, stirring too fast so flour poofed up all over both of them. Craig felt like he was mostly in the way instead of helping but refused to get out from underfoot, content to be part of the process even if that process was Tweek repeating directions and measurements to him two and three times over. Tweek handled Craig’s ineptitude with sarcasm but surprising patience, even when Craig got cocoa all over everything and discovered you couldn’t brush it off nearly as easily as flour. The only thing Tweek wouldn’t let him touch at all was the buttercream icing, ordering Craig just to lean against the counter and not to touch anything.

“Buttercream’s a fickle bitch,” Tweek said, half to Craig and half to the icing itself, peering into the Kitchen Aid’s bowl as it whirred. For a tense minute, it seemed like the icing wasn’t going to turn out, Tweek cursing under his breath. Craig snapped a few stealthy pictures of Tweek just that way, dusted in flour and cocoa, expression intense with concentration.

Then all at once some alchemy happened and it went from lumpy butter and powered sugar to actual icing, smoothing into thick peaks. Tweek’s shoulders relaxed as he stuck the edge of his spatular into the icing and tasted it; nodding in satisfaction he offered the spatula to Craig.

“Mm.” Craig approved of the result, so sweet it set his teeth on edge. He licked the last of it off his lower lip. “Nice job.” Tweek told him to shut up, but he was clearly biting down on a smile as he turned away to check on the baking cupcakes.

Tweek split the white icing in half and dyed one bowl bright yellow, the other the same blue as their aprons. Craig didn’t get it until the cupcakes were cool enough to ice and Tweek sat a pair of them in front of himself to decorate, scowling at his shaking hands. He gave the fist cupcake a healthy swirl of blue and one dot of yellow on top, the other he used a different piping nozzle to give little spikes of yellow all over.

“It’s us!” Craig started laughing when he got it, too hard to hold his phone steady for a good picture. Tweek ended up pulling out his own phone to take a picture himself, the shot charmingly off-center. He was smirking as he posted it, glancing over his phone at Craig. Craig refreshed his feed curiously until it appeared, revealing Tweek’s cutesy caption of a super match. “Jesus, babe, stop encouraging them.”

“Me?!” Tweek said indignantly, gesturing at his apron. He gave a surprised wheeze when Craig leaned in to kiss his cheek suddenly, revenge for Tweek’s PDA attack earlier. Tweek flushed cutely pink and shoved at Craig’s chest. He dragged a hand through his hair, streaking it with icing. “Get bent, you. Eat your stupid cupcake already, god, then we’ll ice the rest of them.”

Craig was perfectly happy to do just that, picking up the Tweek cupcake and devouring it in three huge bites while Tweek wrinkled his nose at him. It was sweet and rich and still a little warm in the center, in other words perfect, and Craig told Tweek so bluntly. He expected Tweek to argue or tell him to fuck off, but Tweek only murmured a thank you, leaning against the counter and nibbling more slowly at the edge of the blue cupcake. He looked so quietly pleased with himself, unusually relaxed and absorbed in tasting the result of their work, that Craig couldn’t resist sneaking a picture of him.

He cropped the shot to emphasize the cupcake and Tweek’s expression, filtered it to soften everything, and then posted it with the caption help he’s eating me.

Tweek was going to kill him when he saw it, Craig knew, and the fan artists were going to have a field day drawing implausible and unhygienic baking porn scenarios for weeks. But warm in Tweek’s kitchen, everything smelling like baking, Craig felt like that was a trade-off he could live with. For a fake holiday, this one had turned out pretty nice.

Catching Craig looking, Tweek held up the last piece of his cupcake. “Want the last bite?”

“That’s really gay, babe,” Craig answered, making Tweek snort as Craig took the offered cupcake piece and popped it in his mouth. Tweek opened his mouth to say something, but was interrupted by the chime of his phone going off several times in a row, rapid-fire. He turned to scoop his phone off the counter to see what the fuss was about, raising an eyebrow at Craig’s innocent expression.

Tweek was going to kill him and it was soooo worth it.