
Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/12818895.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Graphic_Depictions_Of_Violence, Major_Character_Death, Rape/Non-Con,
      Underage
  Category:
      F/M, M/M, Multi
  Fandom:
      South_Park
  Relationship:
      Craig_Tucker/Tweek_Tweak, Kyle_Broflovski/Stan_Marsh, Kyle_Broflovski/
      Kenny_McCormick, Kyle_Broflovski/Stan_Marsh/Kenny_McCormick, OMCs/Tweek
      Tweak, OMCs/Kenny_McCormick, Token_Black/Clyde_Donovan/Craig_Tucker/Tweek
      Tweak, Clyde_Donovan/Kenny_McCormick
  Character:
      Tweek_Tweak, Kenny_McCormick, Craig_Tucker, Stan_Marsh, Kyle_Broflovski,
      Clyde_Donovan, Ensemble, Damien_Thorn
  Additional Tags:
      Dark, OOC_for_a_Reason, Suicide_Kenny_Style, Angst, Alpha/Beta/Omega
      Dynamics, Aged-Up_Character(s), actual_wolves, Forced_Prostitution, creek
      -_Freeform, Deals_With_The_Devil, Dubious_Consent, Kenny_is_a_main
      character
  Stats:
      Published: 2017-11-25 Updated: 2018-02-03 Chapters: 8/? Words: 37977
****** The Fevers of Wolves ******
by WingGuardian
Summary
     In a sleepy town of oddities swept under the run, families of Betas
     gathered to raise their children, seemingly unconcerned with the
     challenging, dangerous lives of the Alphas and Omegas in the city.
     They forget their children may have to face those challenges, fight
     those dangers.
     It begins as a tsunami, thrashing the shores of ignorace and naivety,
     as Tweek's First Heat overwhelms him at school. The undertown drags
     him, Craig, Kenny and everyone they know and love into a whirlpool of
     hurt and Heat, hidden agendas and viscous plans.
     If biology conspires to break wolves apart, then perhaps the unatural
     can step in to help.
Notes
     Hello!
     Please skim this quickly as it will help explain the way I fucked
     with A/B/O conventions
     Mind the tags.
***** The Rules: A Foreword of Sorts *****
The Rules of the World:
Beneath their human disguises all people are wolves. Nobody knows anymore why
they wear human disguises at all, but they do--it makes for an easier time
baking birthday cakes, at least.
Wolf features may appear unbidden in times of duress or when trying to
communicate something wordless, something wolfish.
Alphas and Omegas have two stages of presentation:
Pre-Heat, where it’s understood they will actually fall into either an Alpha
Spectrum or be an Omega. Usually around fourteen. At sixteen or older they’re
going to go into a real Heat and their status is determined.
The Alpha Spectrum: it is rare to be a pure Alpha, often referred to as a
“Classic Alpha”, one who may demonstrate many violent tendencies, whose
dominating personality is unquestioned. They’re almost as rare as Omegas.
But not every Alpha is a Classic, and most Beta’s are somewhere inbetween Alpha
and true Beta, some so close to Alpha they too can knot Omegas and breed,
others nearly asexual.
There is no Beta-Omega spectrum; if a male is not an Omega then they are a Beta
at least, as they can't get pregnant. All women can have children, but males
can only become pregnant if they're also Omegas.
An Omega’s Heat comes around every three months and lasts one week unless the
Omega is knotted, then it will end almost immediately. If they sleep with a
Beta-Alpha that doesn’t have a knot it helps relieve the ache over that week
but won’t stop it day one. Everyone's Heat smells different.
There are several different medications to induce a Heat, force a Heat to stop,
or simply lessen the effects--say until a couple gets home from the airport.
Omega Heats are coveted things and if one knows the right search terms one
could bid on participating in a stranger’s Heat.
 
Important Terms:
Heat: When an Alpha or Omega go into their breeding cycle
Presenting: A wolf giving a fully matured sign of being and A/B or O
Pre-Presentation: A more human-like puberty, where it's learned the child will
be expected to present as an Alpha or Omega in the future. Beta's don't have
these unless they're high on the Alpha spectrum
Induction: When an Alpha or Omega goes into Heat
Full Induction: Heat beyond what normal Medication can do to stop it; needs a
doctor's intervention 
Persuasion: A frowned upon tactic where an Alpha can use their voice and body
language to command an Omega (and some Betas) to obey them, even against their
will
Fixation: When an Alpha chooses an Omega, not necesarrily to be confused with
anything nice, but can be 
Mating: When a Classic Alpha and an Omega get married
Marriage: The contractual, loving bond between a Beta and anyone else--Alpha
(Classic or not), another Beta or an Omega
South Park has always had a very small Alpha/Omega population, leaving Beta
parents complacent to teaching their children what to expect.
--
Author Intro and Important notes in chapter 1.
***** Hallways and Nurses *****
Chapter Summary
     Tweek is ill, but he doesn't know what's wrong with him. The nurse is
     quite alarmed.
Chapter Notes
     Greetings. While working on the new Hogwarts chapter, this became an
     obsession that wouldn't let me go.
     Please understand this is self-indulgent darkness, sinister and
     wicked and cruel and I do not condone any of the terrible things
     which take place. There will be light and fluff too, as I cannot
     resist <3
     I am not holding back in this story, please take care of yourself.
     Tweek is the only character I’ve ever written that truly deserves to
     use “?!” as grammar.
     Prone to edits; this is a very hard fic so far to seperate into
     chapters (being almost X0 pages long from different parts of the
     story at a large text size).
     And remember, sex education is very important.
Chapter 1:
===============================================================================

“It's just a FEVER,” Tweek hisses to himself, rocking back and forth on his
bench in the lunchroom, oblivious to the other students around him. He shakes
his head, no. “O-oh God, what if I do have a fever?”
Tweek’s worried eyes shut, tight, his anxious lips bitten between stressed
canines. “I can't have a fever… if I have a fever then…wah!” His voice hiccups
over a cry, “Nonono, it’s not going to be… I'm okay... Coffee...”
Slowly he releases the hair trapped around his fingers, trembling hands
tugging, claimed by distress. He reached for his silver thermos, the metal is
warm enough yet to help relax his fingers and loosen wound tendons. It’s
scalding, but not too badly that he wants to put it down.
He couldn't bring himself to get lunch, not with is stomach in knots like this;
he would surely have lost the food shortly after eating it.
The collar of his green button up is dampened with sweat. Beneath the table
jitters his foot. He’s never felt so hot inside, stomach twisting and bunching
together painfully, rolling with nausea and cramping over itself like a snake.
He moans, dropping his head onto the table, and doesn’t hear his boyfriend
approach.
“Tweek?” Craig asks quietly, “You okay?” Tweek turns his head to look up at
Craig blearily, soft whimper in his throat.
Wide eyes blurry with fever, sweat on the forehead and a pale complexion--not
okay. Craig catalogs his boyfriend’s appearance to try and deduce how to handle
him, confused, as Tweek had been fine that morning. He sits down next to the
blond with his own tray, looking up briefly to see the rest of the guys on the
way back from the lunch line to sit with them.
Tweek’s muscles jolt, grunting and whining lowly between huffs for breath.
Craig scoots a little closer, pressed to Tweek’s side and places one hand over
his own forehead and the other onto Tweek’s. The boy shudders, and it rolls
like a wave through his constant tremors.
“Tweek you’re burning up.” He says quietly. “You should go to the nurse.”
“N-nurse!” Tweek gasps, hands in his hair again, eyes wide at Craig,
interrupting Kyle and Stan’s agitated conversation about something Cartman said
as they approach the table with their food with Clyde, Token and Kenny behind
them. “I can’t go to the nurse! What if she wants to do horrible experiments on
me?!”
“She doesn’t babe.” He insists calmly, helping to disentangle his boyfriend's
fingers from his hair again. “I’ll go with you and it’ll be okay.”  
Tweek doesn’t move for a moment, making strained noises while Craig waits for
the words to compute past the anxiety.
“Nn--okay!”
Craig gets back off the bench and stands up, offering Tweek a hand to help him
up too. Tweek’s obvious discomfort, the way he clutches his stomach and shakes,
the clammy heat of his skin is enough to prove to Craig this isn’t a normal
panic attack. He quickly shoulders both his backpack and his boyfriend’s.
“You guys alright?” Kyle asks, assessing the situation now he and Stan are
setting their food down as well. Craig can see Cartman lumbering over from the
line with two trays out of the corner of his eye. Clyde, Token, Kenny take
spots as well, but make no move to eat yet with concern for Tweek and Craig.
“Yeah, just taking Tweek to the nurse.” Craig shrugs when Tweek fails to offer
any explanation.
“Oh, uh, feel better Tweek,” Clyde murmurs, fiddling with his chocolate milk
carton. He pauses to hand Tweek his thermos of coffee.
“T-Tha--ow!” Tweek hisses, his posture curling protectively over his middle.
“Thanks Clyde,” He forces, and Craig drapes an arm around him to usher his
Tweek from the cafeteria.
“Oh, hey Craig, going to make out with your boyfriend, eh?” Cartman teases,
finally arriving at the table just to see them leaving. “Mind if I eat your
lunch? Can’t be wasting food you know cuz there’s starving kids in Africa or
some bullshit.”
Craig offers him a finger.
On the way out Tweek shakes against him, thin body tensing and snapping like
dozens of taut rubber bands all firing off at once. Craig keeps a firm hand on
Tweek's shoulder, aptly steering him when distraction dogged his steps.
“M-my locker,” The blond grinds out after a few minutes, knowing he needs some
of his books before going home--assuming the nurse will even let him go--doubly
assuming he wouldn’t be expelled forever for going home. “Can we stop there
first?”
“Sure,” Easy enough to curve, turn down the next hall towards the blue lockers
lined against the wall. Tweek breaks away to drag his fingers over the dangling
combo locks until he reaches his own, where he rests his forehead against the
chilly metal. It feels so good on his heated skin, and chills roll down his
body. Hazel eyes close as Tweek absorbs the cool, relaxing even with the loud
clattering of his locker’s door from his own shaking.
He’s groping blindly at his own lock, dizzy brain struggling to connect numbers
with purpose when he feels it, a hot spurt from between his legs, thin and
slippery trickling down towards his ankles. In Tweek's fear he believes it to
be blood, draining his life away.
“Nooo,” Tweek moans, shocked and frozen and having trouble breathing with the
horrible thoughts of falling apart in front of his boyfriend while those deep
blue eyes study him. There isn't time to do more than lament allowing Craig to
walk him to the nurse, for pain shrieks through Tweek’s belly and chest and
throat all the way up into the crown of his head; choking him, ripping the
breath from his lungs. It’s a wonder he doesn’t fall.
Craig sets the thermos and both their backpacks onto the floor. “Tweek? Honey?
What’s going on?” Craig’s inflection changes none from calm and quiet, but
Tweek can smell the worry on him. Twin ears, tipped white and scraggly at the
edges unfurl several shades lighter from under Tweek’s bright blond hair.
A thickly furred tail pushes out from beneath his dark green button up.
“What are you feeling?” Craig tries again, his voice gone tight with worry at
this unusual event. Over the years he’d perfected helping Tweek pick his actual
feelings out from the tangled threads in webs slowly constricting his body to
bloated black pieces.
“S-scarED.” Tweek whimpers in his high-pitched strain. “I f-feel scared!”
Craig dares to rest a hand lightly on Tweek’s back, worry blossoming into a low
fear of his own as Tweek cringes from his touch as if he’d been clawed. Craig
retracts his hand, working on his words and only vaguely noticing the voices in
the background.
“That’s horrible. I don’t want you to feel scared. What’s scaring you, Tweek?”
Tweek can hear what Craig has tuned out, for his wolf ears are tender to every
noise; a predator with the disposition of a meerkat. Kenny McCormick has found
them, has already leaned into the nearest classroom and asked the teacher
inside to call for the nurse and moved to the other side of the boys, warily
eyeing them, cautiously sniffing.
“Because it hurts!” Snaps Tweek, when his senses return from Kenny, fighting
back tears while trying to keep whatever it was from leaking from him again as
he feels it wanting to. “Be-because I’m--urgh!--embarrassed!”
Craig intentionally gasps, forcing his voice to raise in concern, though barely
louder than his common drone. He pets Tweek's side gently. “It must be very
scary to feel those things,” Coaxing at Tweek’s vague ability to calm.While
reaching a hand to move Tweek’s from uselessly spinning the dial of his lock;
he’s had his boyfriend’s combination memorized for months now, and it clicks
open for him a moment later. “What else are you feeling?”
“S-s-sick, Craig! I feel so sick!” Craig shifts closer, crowding into Tweek’s
space, urging the blond into his arms. The thin blond’s tail curls between his
legs, ears flattened low. He leans into Craig’s chest, shaking fit to shatter.
“No wonder you’re so worried.” Craig soothes automatically. “It'll be okay--
the nurse is coming to us.”
“I think my guts are falling out,” Tweek cries, the volume of his voice
fluctuating in pain.
Craig’s reply is overwritten by Kenny’s muffled voice beckoning the nurse. She
joins them at a brisk walk, her low heels clacking loudly on the linoleum.
Kenny trots up as well, visibly concerned and curious.
“Thank you Mr. Tucker for keeping him calm,” Nurse Simmons urges Tweek back out
of Craig’s embrace to get him to lean against the locker again. “Mr. Tweak, can
you hear me?”
Tweek nods, though his gaze has caught Craig’s and seems reluctant to let go,
even for the flash of time it takes to blink.
“Very good. Can you describe what you’re feeling right now?” She asks, already
beginning her examination with a long inhale through her nose at the juncture
of Tweek’s neck and shoulder. A deep frown mars her young face, and she opens
the bag she’d brought with her.
“My-my stomach hurts so much!” Tweek grinds out. “Like I’m being stabbed! Or-or
like someone’s ripping out my guts!”
“You’ll be okay soon, sweetie.” Craig resists taking Tweek’s hand in his,
instead offering words that could be or could not be true. Tweek’s anxious,
pain-laden grunts grow louder; body tightening and curling over another flaming
lance.
A thick smell begins to fill the hall, rich and warm, mocha and coffee beans
and sugar. It radiates like fog, seeping out of the blond wolf like an aura.
Unexpectedly the nurse curses, too loud to be intentional and under her breath,
not meant to be really heard by the students, but a curse of shit.
“Tweek?” Craig asks, nose wrinkling at the unfamiliar odor; it’s not what his
boyfriend normally smells like, even if he normally carries the aroma of coffee
around with him, and for the black wolf it’s like suddenly seeing a stranger
where his longtime Tweek used to be.
Next to Craig the snooping McCormick has gone still as well, trapped by the
scent coming off his sort-of-friend. Similarly tensed is the nurse herself,
pausing too long over the spread of her toolbag.
She purses her lips and breathes out long through her nose. “Tweek, are you
feeling unusually warm? As if you have a fever before the chills set in?”
“A--ah-uh--yes! Exa-CTLY!” His wide eyes are wild, increasingly desperate for
answers. “What’s wrong with me?!”
“I’m sorry, I don’t have time for discretion,” She apologizes, coming back into
action by quickly pulling two empty syringes from her unfolded tool spread and
a small vial from which she draws a large dose of a swirling, creamy liquid in
one of the medicine chambers.
“Is your penis erect?” She asks seriously. “Are you feeling irrationally
angry?” Simmons flicks the glass with her fingernail and depresses the plunger
briefly to release any bubbles in the liquid.
Tweek groans, eyes clenched shut, horrified. “Jesus! N-NO!”
Simmons pauses, bites her lip and flips to another section of her toolkit.
“Do you feel a viscous discharge or a thin discharge from your rectum?”
“Oh dear God, oh sweet Jesus save me! I--” Tweek’s cheeks flare red, and Craig
shoots a glare at the nurse and then at Kenny, hoping to prevent Tweek’s
mortification over being teased by this all later.
“Mr. Tweak,” The nurse urges firmly. “Thick like jelly or thin like sweat?”
“Ack! I’m sorry! Yes! Like--like-- it was sweat but--Oh God--it keeps coming!
Now it’s like jelly! Is it blood?! Am I dying?! Shit, I’m dying!”
“You are not dying, but you need to try and calm down. You will be fine.” Her
voice is a block of ice.
The syringe with the white liquid is discarded and a new one with blue liquid
is quickly filled. Craig’s alarmed to see her hands shaking, just a little and
he can only tell from years of watching Tweek go from stone still to nearly
seizing.
“Mr. Tucker, would you kindly hold him in place for me? Mr. Tweak, I am going
to give you a shot which should lessen some of the pain so we can get you out
of here and to a doctor, do you understand?”
“Ngh!” Tweek’s fingers bury deep into his hair, twisting and yanking.
“Pressure!”
“It’ll be okay,” Craig soothes, pushing Tweek forward a step and getting behind
him with his back to the lockers warmed and wet from Tweek’s body heat and
sweat. First he removes his boyfriend’s fingers from his blond hair and then
straightens his thin arms. Tweek finds the hem of Craig’s blue sweatshirt and
squeezes it with both hands.
Unfortunately Tweek never gave up on wearing longsleeved shirts that must be
buttoned up, forcing Craig to undo the three poorly matched buttons and pull
the shirt off Tweek’s bony shoulders.  
Then he wraps both arms around Tweek over his arms to trap them at the blond’s
side. He tries to use his greater height and strength to quell the surging
quakes spasming through Tweek’s body in an unending, self powering current.
Pressed so close to Tweek Craig can feel the “discharge” that’s soaking down
the back of the blond’s pants now dampening the front of his jeans.
Definitely going to skip the rest of his classes and go home for a shower, but
only after he knows Tweek will actually be going to the doctors and not just go
back to an empty house.
That rich smell coming from Tweek is starting to make him feel lightheaded.
Offhandedly Craig notices that Kenny has vanished, as he will, while the nurse
looms beside them with the shot.
“Oh Jesus,” Tweek mumbles, eyes snapping shut and squeezing. Craig’s fingertips
find Tweek’s trembling stomach and press very lightly. He barely notices doing
it.
Simmons stabs Tweek’s shoulder quickly and with little finesse after a quick,
insincere swipe of a sterilizing tissue. She depresses the liquid as if there’s
truly a race against something and withdraws it immediately after it empties.
She doesn’t bother with a bandaid and fits a hand around Tweek’s upper arm to
lead him away.
“Thank you Mr. Tucker, now please let go so I can take Mr. Tweak to my office
and call his parents.”
Craig lets go of Tweek and separates his fingers from Craig’s sweatshirt, but
when the nurse draws him away from Craig the brunette suddenly doesn’t want to
lose that scent and warmth of quivering body.
He trails behind the nurse, who grows visibly agitated as they get further down
the hall. Tweek keeps grunting and looking back at him between spasms of pain
and abdomen clutching. One of his wolf ears swivels to face Craig.
“Yes, Mr Tucker?” Simmons finally growls after they’ve passed a classroom door
jammed full of peering, curious wolf-humans sniffing the air and talking to
each other, all eyes trained on the nurse and Tweek.
“Uh,” He double steps to catch up. “Can you call my parents instead? They help
with Tweek a lot and his parents are--” Incompetent. Dismissive; useless. Above
all--absent.
“Out of town!” Tweek inserts in the last millisecond of an exhale. “I-I’m
staying with Craig for the week!”
The nurse freezes, and curses again, much louder than the first time. “Fine!
There are sticky notes on the desk--go write your home number down and then
pick a seat in the lobby and stay there!” She pushes Tweek inside and ushers
him past her reception desk in the lobby--a lone student is looking up from his
cell phone as she rushes in, the display window showing the pause screen of
candy crush; he’d heard and smelled them coming and his eyes train on Tweek--
and into the resting rooms.
Craig glares at the student--recognizing him as a senior--and goes over to the
well organized desk. As told, Craig finds a pad of half-sized orange post its
in the center of the desk and a cup of pens within easy reach. He jots down his
home number and then picks a seat opposite the other student that gives him an
angle to see a bit of the back room where Tweek is. The boy isn’t visible but
he can hear his verbal tics and uncomfortable moans and the nurse bustling
around.
A few minutes later she charges out of the room, turns, and closes the door
before locking it with a key drawn from her scrub pants pocket. She then
shuffles quickly to the desk, scans the post it quickly and picks up her coded
phone, pressing the numbers quickly.
The other side connects after six rings. “Hello?”
“Hello, this is nurse Aubrey Simmons at South Park High School. I have Tweek
Tweak here sick and Craig, who tagged along to insist I call you because the
Tweaks are out of town?” She curves the end of the sentence into a question,
her hard eyes finding and holding Craig’s while she awaits confirmation.
The reply is slow to come, but confident when it does.
“Yes, that is correct. Tweek is staying with us for a few days.”
“I see.” The nurses glare slides away from Craig and she sits at the desk to
pull up Tweek’s file on her computer. “Well, I’m calling because I need you to
come pick up Tweek right away. He’s not doing well and--” Her voice drops as if
she could speak too quietly for other wolves to hear. “It’s a very specific
kind of fever.”
The response on the other end takes a moment again. “...Oh, I see. I’ll be
there as soon as I can and I’ll have my husband call the clinic while I’m on
the way.”
“Very good, we’ll be in my office. Oh, and please bring Craig a change of
pants--some of it got on him when he was hugging Tweek.”
Craig jolts, ready to protest letting Tweek go without him; letting that--that
smell--go without him. He’s already starting to feel antsy because of being cut
off from Tweek and the invading scent of the annoying audience and the nurse.
“...Yes,” The nurse sighs. “He’s visibly affected. It's affecting everyone, I
guarantee it. No doubt there’ll be an emergency PTA meeting this week.”
Simmons hangs up shortly after that, assured Laura Tucker is on her way and
aware of the situation’s severity. and unlocks the resting room. “Mr. Tucker
please knock on the door when your mother arrives.” She locks the door from the
inside before Craig works up a response. The door being open for less than a
minute was still enough to leak that dark aroma into the room with renewed
pungency. He can hear Tweek groaning and whining inside.
It stirs something angry inside him, a possessive spark that resent being on
this side of the door. The clock ticks loudly in the corner, the slow march of
time waiting for something--and, answers, answers would be nice.
***** A Day of Needles *****
Chapter Summary
     Craig and Tweek are trapped behind separate doors. Time is marked by
     the pacing of wolves.
Chapter Notes
     Hello!
     Thank you all so kindly for the comments and kudos, I sincerely
     appreciate knowing that you're enjoying what I'm writing.
     I assume some of the content may be confusing for now, with
     intertangled relationships and a discord between who knows what when
     some seniors might be having Heats and many freshman never heard of
     them before.
     This is intentional--and hopefully it'll be fluidly resolved in the
     future :>
     A little extra: Because these are human wolves and thus are in a
     society where 1st packs (immediate family) mix with 2nd tiers (close
     friends), and 3rd tiers (one's social network such as co-workers and
     peers at school), everyone being in everyone elses business is common
     and an extra social challenge. There are more tiers depending on age
     and social activity.
     Chapter lengths aren't standard, I'm just having a hard time breaking
     up the prose X3
     As always, I may polish some grammar and formatting over time<3
===============================================================================
 
Craig’s legs bounce restlessly so he pulls out his phone to distract him. He
can feel the other guy’s eyes on him, but if he asks why he might end up
growling and snapping and he doesn’t feel like losing control of his emotions
yet.
The damp on his jeans radiates that smell, though it grows fainter as the
minutes pass. The denim stiffer where it dried.
He texts his mom that he wants to come home with her and Tweek; then texts
Clyde and Token to let them know Tweek is sick and they’re both going home.
He opens facebook and scrolls mindlessly. A text message interrupts eventually.
FROM: Mom
TO: Craig; 1:28PM
Dont text me when u know im driving Talk 2 u there
TO: Mom
 FROM: Craig; 1:29PM
#Putitdown
Craig closes the messages app, only for another text to auto-open before
facebook reloads
FROM: Clyde
TO: Craig;  1:31PM
Fuck man Tell Tweek I say feel better!! u get to go home  too ??
Craig decides not to text back until he convinced his mom to let him go with
her and Tweek. Another buzz alerts him that Token decided to carry his phone
today too.
FROM: Token
TO: Craig; 1:33PM
Ok. Hope Tweek feels better. Text me what happened later.
“What’s wrong with him?” The senior taps his temple, smirking.
Craig was sure the other student would give up on seeing the nurse and just
leave--if he were smarter, he might've. Maybe he just wanted to hang around the
lobby all day long.
“Nothing.” Craig replies simply.
“Why'd he come to school if he was going to have it today?” The boy goes on,
sniffing the air, chin tilted up. “Oh shit, it’s not his first is it?”
“What are you talking about?”
The senior scoffs. “What the fuck--you dont know?”
“Know what? How the fuck do you--”
“Craig!”
Immediately Craig is on his feet, phone clenched in a hand at his hip. Tweek’s
shrill voice passes through the heavy locked door desperately. He knows the
door is locked, but Craig twists the knob anyways, his hackles raised. Tweek’s
howl draws him on pure instinct. He jerks a the doorknob irritatedly.
“Craig!”Tweek yowls again, and it’s as if the walls rattled. Everything goes
black and white before Craig’s slit eyes, and he growls low. Behind the the
senior has finally gotten up, cackling to himself though he leaves quickly.
“Tweek!” He calls back, voice betraying none of his inner agitation. “Calm
down, I'm right out here!”
“Like being told to calm down would actually work on that boy.”
Laura Tucker’s voice, finely aged with a lifetime of eye-rolls and sarcasm has
an instantly settling effect on her son, and he greets her with a middle finger
that is returned in kind. He knocks on the door, which is unlocked shortly
after.
“Move, Craig.” Laura commands, stepping up when Craig reluctantly gets out of
the doorway. Laura gives him a motherly smile before closing and once again
locking the door behind her with the flip-bolt.
Inside the room the smell is overpowering. It saturates the small space in
thick humidity. Like fresh grounds and sugar and nutmeg caramelizing all at
once. Rich enough to be sickly. Laura lifts an orange bandana she brought from
home to her nose and mouth to filter some of the scent.
She’d not been expecting this far advanced release of pheromones when she got
the call. Tweek’s voice is pitched and afraid, bubbling over a thousand little
whimpers and grunts. He’s curled around himself on the bed, eyes wide and tear-
filled. Sweat pools in his collarbones and dampens his shirt and hair. His tail
alternates between stiff and boneless.
The nurse has a cloth mask over her mouth and nose and is going to turn on a
second fan in the corner. She has a bowl with a wet cloth by the sink and next
to it are two vials of dark blue liquid and one of white.
“Nurse Simmons?” Laura alerts. Simmons turns around and nods, relieved.
“Thank you for coming so quickly. Tweek’s Heat has come on alarmingly advanced.
I was hoping the suppressant Alisiol would stymie it until he could get to the
clinic but… He went from Pre-Presentation to Full Induction in what I’m
guessing was within a few hours--I asked him exactly when he started feeling
this way but he doesn’t seem to remember; today some time no doubt.”
“I’m sorry--It’s been a long time since I--Heat means that Tweek is an--”
“An Alpha or an Omega.”
“Right--but--Both Thomas and I are Betas. Can you tell which…?”
The nurse's face is somewhat grim, displeased with her own assessment. “I’m a
Beta as well, but I believe him to be an Omega, if the symptoms I see are
accurate. I'm not allowed to diagnose it, as I'm not a doctor, but that’s my
opinion."
“Oh,” Laura doesn’t quite know what to say about this; she’s trying to remember
who she knows that’s an Alpha or an Omega. Her mind comes up blank.
“Once he’s out of here I’m going to have to have a talk with the principal.”
Nurse Simmons grouses, taking the wet washcloth to Tweek’s bed and wiping his
face. She’s not really even saying such to Laura. “Tweek? Can you sit up? Mrs.
Tucker is here to take you to the doctor.”
Tweek whimpers, and tries to push himself up on trembling arms. He manages
after a few failures, exhausted when he does.
“Good job, Tweek. Try to stand now.”
Tweek’s legs swing slowly over the edge of the cot and onto the floor. Waves of
dizziness sway his body, but with the nurses help he is up on unsteady legs. He
feels another pop of something jelly-like come out of him and it’s all he can
do not to cry.
The bed has a dark patch of it where he was laying, and to him this is the
worst, leaving a mess--being a bother. “I’m going to ruin your car!” Tweek
moans, stumbling into Laura, who wraps a supportive arm around him.
“I put a few towels down on the car seat, Tweek, don't worry, okay?” The
fearful way he looks up at her reminiscent of when Tweek was younger, when his
and Craig’s relationship was new and the blond overly timid of her and her
husband. She remembers how Craig had to teach them how to be more nurturing,
and Tweek loved them more than he ever had his own parents.
“O-okay…” 
Together the women get Tweek out of the resting room despite his best efforts
to fall over. Craig is back to being just outside the door and he shifts to let
them through. He’d taken his chullo off to give space to his sleek black ears,
which rose to help track Tweek inside. He’d not been able to understand the
words, but he heard the muffled talking of quiet voices and it reassured him
that things could not be quite so dire.
As they emerge, Simmons and Laura have Tweek between them, both women leaned
sharply towards the short blond doing his best to curl over his aching stomach.
He barely seems to notice Craig.
“Mom? Tweek?” The brunette makes to follow them, gathering his and Tweek's
stuff.
“Can’t take you with me.” Laura shrugs awkwardly while supporting Tweek, not
halting the slow pace towards the door. “And I forgot to bring a pair of pants,
so you’re just going to have to tough it out.”
“What?” Craig’s voice strains just a touch, and Tweek hears it and makes an
unhappy noise.  
“Go to class. You can take the bus home or get a ride from Token if he drove.”
Laura’s voice is firm, raised brows challenging her son to defy her.
Knowing it’s useless he holds out to her Tweek’s backpack with a middle finger.
She shoulders it with a huff and flips him off right back. The nurse signs
Tweek out quickly on a clipboard hanging by the door. Craig lingers, neatly in
the way.
“Go!” Laura snaps.
Craig grabs his backpack and stomps out into the hall, out of the way to let
them. He watches Tweek be escorted out the double doors towards the parking
lot. His boyfriend too dazed to do more than send Craig a wide-eyed look of
panic.
-----
Thomas calls just after Laura and the nurse get a feverishly panting Tweek
buckled into the front seat which is cushioned by three old and ratty towels.
“Hello?” Laura answers tightly, sliding into the driver’s side.
“Hi. I got ahold of Dr. Ellen at the clinic, she said to bring Tweek straight
there,” Thomas informs, his voice stiff and uncomfortable. “Do.. you need me to
go too?” He asks, practically praying she will say no.
“YES Thomas!” Laura replies immediately. “I don’t know any more about this shit
than you do! Just meet us at the clinic, got it?”
“...Yes dear,” He concedes. “Love you.” And hangs up.
Laura heaves a sigh, turns the key, rolls down the windows, flicks on the car
fans, and pulls from her spot. South Park’s Community Health Clinic is roughly
half an hour away from the high school and Laura gives it a little extra gas as
the heavy scent coming off Tweek grows overbearing again.
“I’m s-oRRY,” Tweek rests his cheek against the window pane, soaking in the
cold glass despite the stiffness hurting his chattering jaw.
“It’s ok, Tweek,” She sighs yet again, as much a stranger to comfort as Craig
had once been. “Just try and rest till we get there.”
Tweek grimaces but closes his eyes.
-----
Laura slows into a parking spot in the clinic lot some time later, and she
quickly turns off the car and gets out, thankful to gulp in fresh air for the
time she needs to move around to help Tweek out the passenger door. He’s
quietly crying, so overwhelmed by the fever in his body and the growing need
invading his senses that he cannot help it.
“I w-want Craig,” He whimpers quietly, looking up at her with wide, hazy eyes.
Laura undoes his seatbelt and pulls him out of the car onto his feet.
“You’ll see Craig later today.” She assures him, knowing it might not be true.
Other patients and employees pulling up to the clinic or loitering outside with
coffee and smokes look up, some with alarm, some with eyes that darken and
become unreadable.
Laura curses a man who suddenly moves away from where he’s been leaning on the
handicap ramp guardrail smoking, only to crowd into her and Tweek’s space,
pushing them into the concrete side wall.
“Fucker! What the hell is your problem?” She growls, middle finger snapping up
at him.
The man--older than herself and maybe older than Thomas too, smartly dressed
and keen eyed--sneers at her finger and takes a deep pull of his cigarette,
gaze locked onto Tweek calculatingly, whose shaking is starting to resemble a
standing seizure.
“You got a ripe Omega there, lady. First Heat I’m guessing? Such
a powerful smell.” His voice takes on a growl, brown eyes bisected by slitted
pupils. “I can help him the naturalway.”
The man blocks the Beta mother and Tweek, his steps intentionally predacious.
Laura can’t detect the man in terms of “Alpha”, but she knows a fucking creep
when she meets one.
“Back off!” She yells, and it seems to wake some of the gawkers from their
stupor. Simultaneously Thomas bursts out of the clinic’s doors, sensing his
wife’s distress and hearing her voice.
Two nurses and Thomas get between the Alpha, Betas and Omega.
“What the hell is going on here? Laura? Get Tweek the fuck inside!” Thomas
would have punched the Alpha--that slitted stare still trained on Tweek--the
boy frozen by those eyes, as if he saw no one else--but for the nurses that got
between them.
“Sir,” A woman with light pink scrubs and black hair in a long swaying ponytail
says sternly. “You need to break Fixation immediately! That is notyour Omega!”
Laura flips off her husband, relieved to see him, and ushers Tweek inside,
nearly half crouched by how little effort Tweek makes as he walks.
Automatic glass doors open, and a bell attached to it which clangs metallic and
loud draws attention to the two entering. Behind a plastic window the
receptionist looks up from her desk, eyes blinking, nostrils flaring. She
beckons to Laura and Tweek and then turns quickly around to say something to a
coworker before they reach reception.
“Hi,” The woman greets jovially, forcibly calm as her job requires. “Are you
Mrs. Tucker and Tweek Tweak?”
“Yes.”
“Doctor Ellen’s expecting you. Go on through the door to your left and into
room six at the end of the hall. We’ll take care of paperwork after he’s been
seen. I'll send your husband in when he comes back inside.”
“Alright. Come on Tweek, just a little further.” Laura urges Tweek to take more
steps.
“I nEED coffee,” Tweek whines in reply. Everything’s blurry around him, where
he’s trapped in fearalphadominance and hotfeverpain. Coffee would help. Where’d
his thermos even go?
"I'll get you some coffee later." Laura can still feel the eyes of the other
people from the lobby on her back after the door closes to room six. Tweek’s
pants are soggy and cold and immediately soak the patient's chair paper cover
when she gets him up there. His tail’s fur is matted and dripping.
“What is this?” He asks through a pained gasp. “I’m dying? That must be it
right? Aren’t I?!” He makes a loud sound, one of his tics exacerbated by
stress.
Doctor Ellen knocks twice, enters and locks the door before Laura can finish
rolling her eyes.
“Hello Mrs. Tucker, Mr. Tweak. I understand you are this child’s guardian
currently?” She wastes no time, taking a seat on a rolling stool and taping a
panel on the wall by the small sink, making an inlaid tablet switch on. She
swipes screens three times and opens an app.
“Yes, the Tweak’s are out of town. Tweek is my son’s boyfriend so he's staying
with us.”
“I see. How old are you Tweek?”
“O-ow...”
“He’s fourteen.”
Dr. Ellen makes a note. “How much do you weigh?”
Tweek coughs and shifts uncomfortably.  
“I need to know what you weigh for the dose of medication.”
Laura taps Tweek’s shoulder when he doesn’t answer, instead just panting
through the cramps, curling tighter on the table.
“I don’t know! A-a hundred--and five--I think!” He finally cries, twisting onto
his other side. “J-Jesus, Make it STOP!”
Ellen stands, seemingly unaffected by Tweek’s outbursts and opens a cabinet
above the sink to retrieve a syringe, a vial of red liquid and a BPI cuff.
She takes the BPI cuff and removes Tweek’s still unbuttoned shirt before
velcroing it tight around his bicep. A few pumps of air and several heavy
breaths from Tweek and she tears the velcro and sets it aside.
The doctor addresses Laura, as Tweek is clearly becoming unable to process
what’s happening.“I would not normally do this, but these are extraordinary
circumstances... that are not without consequence.” Craig’s mom takes Tweek’s
hand, knowing how her son would be doing so if he were here.
Thomas quietly enters the room, looking for all the world that he'd rather be
anywhere else. His shirt is wrinkled at the collar, the corner of his lip
bloody. He closes the door and answers Laura's questioning glance with a shake
of his head--'Later,'he mouths.
“I’m going to give him a drug that will forcibly halt his Heat, for now. There
are side effects you will need to manage,” She warns. “And unfortunately it’s
going to disrupt his cycle permanently.” 
Tweek tries his best to hear what's happening, but it's so hard--the world is
spinning madly.
"Is that safe?" Laura asks quietly. 
A beat. Doctor Ellen's voice drops quietly. "The alternative is..."
But Tweek can't hear the doctor over the rushing blood in his ears. He just
knows that he isn’t safe, and right now all he wants is the familiar scent and
arms of his boyfriend.
A few tense minutes later and his pants are opened and lowered, the top of his
rear exposed. A cold swipe of antiseptic follows and then a needle slides into
the thick muscle of his backside.
-----
Back at the school, ripples of effect spread out from Tweek’s unexpected
Presenting; an Omega as young as Tweek going into Pre-Induction in the middle
of the cafeteria with all his Pre-Presenting classmates near him and then Full
Induction in the halls--unleashes a cocktail of hormonal, instinctual responses
right and left.
Gossip flies from lips--wolves who knew, wolves who’d never heard of Heats
before, wolves who have family who are Omega and Alpha. Amused and angry
seniors crowing at the younger wolves. Disdain for the human wolf who left,
distrust and disgust and curiosity abounds. Cliques huddle together like packs
drawing from a herd, plotting and planning and worrying in degrees with
narrowed eyes on anyone that draws too near.
For the coffee-rich smell of Tweek’s slick, his whimpers and moans as
everything flipped in his brain sent signals to others that it was time to
Present as well--being of an age group and part of the 3rd tier pack to the
twitchy blond wolf--his schoolmates’ bodies all shudder and prepare for change.
Teachers struggle to keep focus on lessons, lost in their own
instincts, defenseless against a bomb of horomones blowing up in the cramped
halls of a small building.
Kenny, who had been right there when Tweek’s Heat transitioned from Pre-to-Full
just like Craig was, feels it hard and it is fucking him up. He’s been dizzy
from the end of lunch on, unable to get the thick smell out of his nose. It
twisted in his stomach, making him sweat in his patch-work parka which was
seemingly holding on to the smell just to torment him.
All day he has only thought of Tweek; how vulnerable the boy is now, how scared
and pained he looked. He finds himself wanting to get to Tweek’s side and stay
there as extra eyes and claws to protect him. He doesn’t quite know why--Craig
is all the protection Tweek needs, surely.
Himself and Tweek… they aren’t even close.
Kenny passes a teacher’s lounge on his way to Study Hall, the door ajar and his
wolf ears perk curiously. There’s a reason Kenny knows everything, after all.
He plasters himself to the windowless side of the door and closes his eyes to
listen.
“--Send everyone home already!” A female’s voice grouses. It’s what’s-her-name,
from the Home Economics class he took in Elementary. “I’m sick to my stomach
from that disgusting smell. None of my girls can function!”
“I had to repeat myself a dozen times, at least. Nobody’s paying attention to
anything now. Everybody’s just screwin’ around.” Mr. Adler, shop class teacher,
again.
“I’m not going to send the children home.” PC Principal declares, halting the
arguments. “They’re just going to have to learn about these things early, bro.
We’re not going to send them home without any information so they can pick up
biases towards human wolves that experience Heats.”  
“Is… is that really our place?” A soft, feminine voice protests nervously.
Kenny places it as Ms. Ling, the art teacher. “We should leave that to the
parents… We don’t even know what the child is...”
“The nurse confirmed the Tweak boy to be an Omega.” The counselor, mister…
something, says. Craig would know. “A lot of our students’ parents have only
limited information themselves. Classic Alphas and Omegas grow more rare with
every generation, especially in a small town like South Park. We can’t rely on
them not being prejudiced or having large gaps in their knowledge or even the
wrong facts altogether.”
“Well said, bro.” Confirms PC Principal. “As you all may know, not only am I PC
but I'm a PC Alpha. It’s my job to help those lower on the Alpha Spectrum and
Omegas figure out their changing bodies without judging them. We’ll send a memo
to all parents telling them I’m hosting a PTA meeting this Thursday night. I’m
also going to call a friend of mine to get some teachers here for early sex ed
to replace all independent study classes for the semester.”
“Is that really necessary?” Someone sighs. “It’s just one freshman.”
“‘Just one freshman’?” PC Principal repeats, miffed. Kenny can picture him
posturing widely. “This shit’s important!”
Kenny moves on.
It’s all anyone can talk about in the halls. The old janitor has gone around
and set up fans in the school halls and opened the windows despite the chill
outside to try and get rid of the smell. He spends nearly two hours grumbling
to himself while mopping up and sanitizing places Tweek had been, including the
nurse's office.
Kenny is surprised to see Craig in Study Hall when he gets there, glaring at
nothing.
“What're ya still doing here?” Kenny asks him, muffled in his old
hood, taking the empty desk besides the black wolf.
“What do you want?” Craig asks after a moment, eyeing Kenny suspiciously.
“Nothing, just … y’know. I would'a thought you’da gone on home with Tweek.”
Craig’s focus detaches, going distant for a moment before he scowls. “They
wouldn’t let me. I tried.”
The hooded blond hums thoughtfully. “What the hell even happened?” How much do
you honestly know what happened? He means.
“You were there. Tweek… I dunno. Got sick, or something.”
“The teachers are sayin' he went into Heat," Kenny corrects, pushing a little.
“He fuckin’ went into Heat in school. How did he not like--know to stay home?”
“The fuck should I know?” Craig growls, getting out a textbook he’s not going
to read and a notebook he’s only going to scratch angrily in. He just wants to
go, be by Tweek's side and know his boyfriend is okay. His spazy gets
overwhelmed by a cold; it wouldn't be surprising if he couldn't tell this was
something much different until it was too late.
Not to mention his parents, who never would’ve taught him about it, leaving
Tweek ignorant of his own body. Craig’s not positive his own folks know
anything either.
“I guess you wouldn't.” Kenny concedes, pulling out some books from his ratty
old backpack. Looking around, he doesn’t think many others will be getting much
studying done either--everyone has far away expressions on their faces and
excited rumor on their lips.
Craig doesn't voluntarily talk to Kenny the rest of the period, and the second
the last bell rings he’s out and on the way to the bus circle, ready to get the
fuck out of there and be with Tweek.
Kenny is close behind, though he climbs onto a different bus, grabbing a seat
up front with Cartman, Stan, Kyle, Jimmy and Butters.
They’d barely sat down before the rumor mill chatter exploded through the bus,
waving up and down like tides with different I wonder s and what ifs on the
crests.
“B-Boy did you fellas hear about all what happened! A-ay’ve had a big ole’
headache all day long!” Butters starts in a hurry the second the door closed
and the bus kicked into gear.
“How could we miss it?” Stan comments, face blank. “It’s all anyone can talk
about and--”
“--It was the most disgusting smell,” Kyle sniffs, finishing Stan’s sentence
easily, his nose scrunched tight. “I sure as fuck hope I don't get a Heat; I’d
be fine being a Beta if I don't have to deal with that.” He’s got his phone
out, Googling articles about Heats, opening links about Omegas, Betas and
Alphas in separate tabs.
“I-I-I’ll say,” Jimmy agrees. “I’m used to w-w-weir-weir-r---bizarre shit
happening, b-but that t-t-takes the cake.”
Cartman sneers. “If Tweek was going to come to skool and fuck up everybody's
day I’d’ve liked a bit of goddamned warning!”
“Seriously, his parents should’ve kept him home if he was going to hit Heat
soon.” Stan agrees mildly. “They should’ve known he’s an Omega by now.”
Kenny doesn’t get a chance to pipe up--Kyle goes over his words to get there
first.
“Actually, an Omega shouldn’t go into Heat until they’re at least sixteen,”
Kyle informs authoritatively, scanning his phone’s display. “Alphas aren’t
supposed to until they're sixteen or so either. And it says here that there are
things that can cause a wolf to develop early and skip a Pre-Heat Presentation-
-which makes sense, right? A lot of illegal drugs but caffeine’s high on the
list too. Tweek’s been drinking coffee since he was born.” He knew the kid’s
parents were idiots. “It would make sense.”
“I bet his mom’s titty milk was just coffee.” Cartman snickers. “Jesus what the
fuck did his parents do to him?” An echo of a long-held sentiment.
“Gross,” Kenny mumbles, slouching into his foam and rubber seat, growing
distracted by his own fluttering stomach and the upcoming chaos.
“It’s true!”
“Still gross.”
Stan adjusts his hat, leg jittering. “Omegas,” The word stirs something inside
Stan, but he has no idea what. “What else does it say about them?”
“Uh,” Kyle’s green eyes fixate on his phone, dissecting the text for the most
relevant bits. “‘Omegas are really rare--usually a family tree might have just
two Omegas every other generation.’”. He scans a little further down. “‘Alphas
are much less uncommon but unlike Omegas there’s a lot of Alphas that are
closer to being Betas in the spectrum, with milder heats.
‘A Classic Alpha usually has violent tendencies or a highly domineering
personality. Classic Alphas are almost as rare as Omega’s and should not be
around them unless they’re mated because of their violent nature.’” Kyle’s eyes
flick up to Cartman, who raises an eyebrow at him above a growing smirk. Kyle
rolls his eyes back to the screen.
The bus pulls up to it’s first stop, letting out Jimmy and a few others.
“S-s-see ya guys,” Jimmy waves as he climbs off. Stan and Kenny hold up their
hands for a quick wave.
The bus starts to move again before Kyle speaks again, almost to himself.
“Dude...”
“What?”
“It says here that all Omegas can get pregnant; girls AND boys.”
“Holy moley!” Butter’s exclaims.
A few beats of silence and then Cartman breaks into obnoxious guffaws that
override the other conversations on the bus, catching attention from the other
students.
“Are you kidding me?” He demands too loudly between peals of mirth. “Tweek can
have that asshole Craig’s butt babies?”
Kyle glares, waiting for Cartman’s laughter to die down before he corrects him.
It doesn’t, so he growls over him anyways.
“No,it says here that Omegas can only get pregnant from an Alpha with something
called a 'knot'. We don't know if Craig’s going to be an Alpha and have one or
not.”
“Tweek shouldn’t be allowed to get pregnant--that baby would be seriously
fucked up!” Cartman howls, ignoring Kyle's words. “And it’ll have to be sent to
the Crack Baby orphanage!”
"Tweek's not on crack, fatass!"
“D-does that mean that everybody has a-a uterus? Just in case they're an Omega
too?” Butters asks, but is also ignored.
“Shut the fuck up Cartman, you’re literally the worst.” Kyle huffs, just done
with him. Cartman slaps his own leg and pretends to get himself under control,
pudgy cheeks billowing with restrained chortles.
“Why do I feel like I've never even heard of these things before,” Stan
grumbles. “Do we even know any Alphas or Omegas?”
None of them can think of anyone. Maybe Mr. Slave but who knows for sure?
“But we can't ALL have parents who are just Betas, right?” Kyle persists.
“A-ay don’ wanna be no Omega or nuthin’,” Butters mumbles, rubbing his fists
together. “M-my dad would probably ground me.”
“I dunno Kyle, this all sounds fake as fuck.” Stan slumps into his
seat, shrugging at Butters’ comment.
Kenny can't help but want to agree--the little bubble over South
Park’s ninth graders is bursting, and though they've been wolves their whole
lives it doesn't change how infrequently they’ve been told about anything
useful concerning it.
“And an Omega’s heat--especially their first one,” Kyle begins to summate,
unable to resist his initial research. “Is exceptionally intense and sex
driven. They used to--ah gross!” Kyle’s eyes pinch closed, the bridge of his
nose compressed between his fingers. “They used to sell Omegas Heats,” Voice
twisted bitterly. “And use them as dowries for arranged marriages.”
“Are you for serious?” Butters asks, wide-eyed.
“It’s still legal to sell an Omega’s Heat as long as they provide consent
before the Heat begins. But the law requiring written consent is less than
fifteen years old and their can still parents sign off on a sale in the Omega’s
place. What the fuck is wrong with people?” Kyle sets his phone down in his
lap, which he clicks off, tired of the topic for now.
“That’s messed up.” Stan agrees instantly. He’s relieved to see the
conversation dying, though. Tweek is going to come back to school and it’ll all
just be another singular, weird event in South Park. It’s really just Craig and
Tweek’s problem after all.
That’s his wishful thinking.
-----
Craig forced Clyde to scoot in and let him have the aisle seat across from
Token, forcing the pudgy brunette to pull his backpack into his lap with a
pout.
Both his friends share a glance behind Craig’s back.
“So, uh,” Token starts.
“No.” Craig cuts him off. “I can’t tell you anything--I have no fucking clue
what happened.” 
“Aw c’mon!” Clyde whines. “We all know Tweek came to school and hit puberty in
the hallway!”
“Clyde!” Token chides.
“What? He totally did.”
“The teacher’s sent out email or phone notices for all the parents. Hopefully
they’ll tell us something more.” Token reasons. "Drop it until then or Craig
might punch you."
Craig rolls his eyes; his parents might, because of Tweek, but he can’t count
on anyone elses’. Token’s, Wendy’s, Kyle’s probably--though he likely spent all
day googling what’s happened on his cell and knows more than they do. Speaking
of…
Craig pulls out his phone; he has no new messages.
***** Warm Attics. One Night *****
Chapter Summary
     There's a warm light in the attic trying to chase away the ghosts.
     Vibrant blue eyes meet his in the gloom and everything is alright.
     Just for one night.
Chapter Notes
     I thank every one of you for the kindest of words and clicks you've
     given me. Thank you for encouraging me to continue onward! I love
     hearing what you think at each mark <3
     Hopefully you enjoy this too
===============================================================================
 
Laura and Thomas Tucker are in the livingroom when Craig unlocks the front
door. He pauses halfway in the door, only frozen because he had been sure one
of them would have texted him when they got home, but his inbox was still
empty.
They’re also incredibly still, not moving to acknowledge Craig returning.
Thomas is in his armchair, Laura on the sofa holding a coffee mug with both
hands, staring at the floor.
“Hey, someone want to tell me what’s going on?”
Thomas’ face takes on a look Craig can recall seeing only once before--when he
and Tweek had been first paired up by the Asian girls.
“Where’s Tweek?” Craig asks, sniffing the air. He smells coffee, but it’s
coming from the kitchen and is not the cloying, heady scent of Tweek’s body. If
he was here there would be no missing it.
Craig stalks towards the stairs. “Wait, honey.” Laura halts him, her voice
tired of the day. “Come in here for a minute and I’ll tell you what we know.”
He almost wants to ignore her, go to the guest room Tweek’s staying in and see
for himself if Tweek is there. But he doesn’t, he wants answers first so he can
help Tweek with whatever he’s feeling. He doesn’t want to sit next to his
mother so he  folds his legs on the carpet with her opposite him over the
coffee table.
She doesn’t begin immediately and Craig rolls his eyes. “Well?”
“Tweek is here.” Laura starts. “We came back about an hour ago and let him have
a bath. I think he’s sleeping.”
“Okay.” He accepts. Waits.
“W-well you obviously don’t need me to fill in our son--” Thomas hedges
nervously, making to stand.
“You get up now and you’ll be sleeping where my ass is for a week.” Laura
threatens calmly. Thomas gulps, sits. “Listen, Craig, I don’t know what the
kids at your school do or don’t already know, but I’m sure a few of them have
guessed right. Doctor Ellen at the community clinic examined Tweek--he is an
Omega, and what happened to him today is because of that.”
“His Heat.” Craig answers.
“That’s right. Normally an Omega going into Heat, even the first time, isn’t so
dramatic. But Tweek is only fourteen, and we both know he doesn’t eat enough.
At this age he would’ve just been starting a Pre-Presentation, so he’d be ready
when it happened in a couple years.”
Craig listens closely, face as blank as his father’s is uncomfortable.
“Is he okay?” He asks. “Why can’t I smell him anymore?”
Laura answers slowly. “He’ll be fine. The doctor gave him a shot to end his
Heat and some pills to take for a week. Its killed his scent glands for a few
days.”
“Then why do you look like someone died?” He glares suspiciously. “Stripe is
okay, right?”
“He’s--what? Your guinea pig? Stripe is fine.” She gives him such a look.
“Today’s just been very long, Craig. The parent’s school message board is going
crazy and...” She nips her lower lip. “Tweek’s mother texted me to say they’re
coming back early because of what happened. To be here in time for the PTA
meeting." She falters, agitated. "They want Tweek to go open the coffee shop in
the morning since he's not going to school.”
Craig tenses, looking down. “I thought it was being renovated.”
“I guess it’s done already.” Is her cagey reply. Tweek Bros being closed is the
only reason the Tweak parents were out of town, and the building being updated
kept them from making their fourteen year old run the place completely alone in
the mornings and evenings.
Craig stays where he is, inwardly horrified at the thought of Tweek being at
the coffee shop when he just went into first Heat. He's got to be sick or...
needing recovery. Or just a day off. It’s not something he wants to think
about, so he waits for his mother to dismiss him.
“They’ll be here around noon. Why don’t you go see Tweek now?”
------
Craig took the stairs briskly, his backpack slapping against this side. He
tosses it into his room, ducks inside just to confirm Stripe number seven is
okay--which he is--and moves quickly down the hall to the dropped ladder to the
attic. Up there is the makeshift guest room--all the crap stored up there
shoved to one end and a portion under the window well swept with a made up air
bed and small nightstand hosting a lamp on it. There’s also a small television
sitting atop a four-drawer dresser.
Tweek is on the bed, one arm flung over his eyes, other hand spasming in his
hair. He’s got one of Craig’s large tee shirts on an a pair of boxers.
“Hey Tweek,” Craig alerts quietly. “How are you feeling?”
Tweek’s response is a predictable yelp in his raspy strain, jackknifing up to
sitting. His wild eyes find Craig slowly, first sweeping through the attic for
ghosts and monsters.
“Craig,” Tweek smiles crookedly, left eye squeezing sharply closed. He flaps a
hand at the brunette, beckoning him closer. “I thought I’d never see you
again!”
Craig can’t help but snort fondly, lips edging upwards. He finishes climbing up
and takes a side of the bed, flopping onto his back. He tugs the back of the
shirt Tweek borrowed until the boy lies down beside him.
"As if."
He’s cold, Craig observes, rolling onto his side facing Tweek. He was burning
up earlier. He lifts an arm and Tweek wiggles close until his nose brushes
Craigś neck and the other wolf’s arm falls over his waist.
It’s like having his arm over a vibrating plushie, the kind with a pull string.
Something he could’ve won at a carnival. The feeling is pleasant, and holding
Tweek is his favorite thing to do.
He buries his nose in Tweek’s clean hair, still damp from his bath, and takes a
deep breath. Even this close to him Tweek doesn’t have a scent that stands out-
-whatever he had been given must have been strong enough to completely undo
everything the boy’d gone through that day.
“Tell me how you’re feeling?” Craig asks again quietly, adjusting the pillow to
support both their necks better. He’s all about taking a nap with Tweek, get
rid of this dumb fuck day. Whether Tweek would sleep or not is another thing.
Tweek makes a gurgling noise in the base of his throat and twitches closer to
Craig, resentful of the small spaces between them.
“I feel floaty, and tired. N-need coffee, but your mom said not til dinner.”
There’s a stress on that last bit, an anxiety there. Being without his comfort
drink always put him on edge, without his thermos or mug it was like something
was missing, a pen when he had to write, or a homework for class.
Craig soothes a hand through Tweek’s soft hair, gentling through a few tangles.
“Might be a good idea. Maybe you can sleep some.” He adds when he feels Tweek’s
sharp inhale and muscles tense. “For now it’s nap time.”
“But Craig--”
“Nope, nap time.” He loses the fight with a tender smile that Tweek can’t see.
The relief that his precious spaz seems okay is really all he wants to think
about.
Tweeks attempts to relax enough to sleep are adorable, the noises he makes less
wolf and more guinea pig in need of lettuce and yogurt drops. Warm darkness
creeps over Craig’s senses and he falls into it readily. He doesn’t know if
Tweek falls asleep with him, but he’s there all the same.
------
Tricia gets sent upstairs to wake them up for dinner. She climbs the attic
ladder and through the open hatch with bored trepidation. After a ridiculous
day of kids and adults freaking out she’s not sure what to expect when she gets
up there.
Ah, thankfully her brother and Tweek have all their clothes on, and the lamp is
glowing quietly beside the bed. Craig is still asleep, one arm draped over
Tweek’s stomach and his face mostly hidden. Tweek’s eyes are open, staring at
the ceiling. A faint tremor shakes him now and then, but it no longer even
disturbs Craig’s light snores.
Tweek’s eyes roll towards Tricia, though he can’t quite see her until she’s
fully in the room, holding back a snicker at her clingy big brother.
“W-what do you want?” Tweek asks nervously in a fluctuating voice. He’s not
quite capable of whispering, but he tries.
“Mom said to get you two for dinner.”
Tweek’s neck jerks, maybe a nod. His eyes flit around the dark room and onto
Craig.
“Okay--okay. I’ll wake him up.” He doesn’t see Tricia nod, but hears her leave.
Tweek lies there for a cycle of breaths, steeling his tender stomach, listening
to Craig sleeping, grateful for the comfort of it. 
When he starts growing anxious that they're making Craig’s family wait too long
Tweek shifts his body, moves his arms, pats Craig's cheek gently, controlling
himself sternly so he doesn't accidentally poke Craig in the eye and make him
blind forever.
“MMmmm,” Craig groans, putting weight in the arm covering Tweek. “What time is
it?”
“D--DINNER TIME!” Tweek’s soft voice cracks, jumps, and hiccoughs off into a
trail of unfinished sounds. His stomach gives a lurch, sharp and warning. He
wiggles under Craig’s arm as if to get out of the bed.
Craig barely winces, blue eyes half-lidded at the nervous boy. “Fiiiiine,” He
rolls over, on top of Tweek, dropping his body and squishing Tweek into the
mattress and enjoying how he squeaks over it.
“Noooo--Craig! What if my lungs collapse?! We’ll be late and Tricia will eat
all the food and we’ll both starve to death!”
“You won’t have to starve to death if your lungs have collapsed, babe.” Craig
reasons, snorting with amusement into Tweek’s collarbone.
“Ngh--She--we need to--” His stomach wants out. Craig doesn’t know. He won’t
say.
Craig sighs loudly, rolling again until he’s mostly off Tweek. They meet eyes
and there’s a jest that Tweek sees in Craig’s expression, and Tweek grunts,
smiles a little and pushes on his boyfriend’s shoulder.
“Agh,Craig! Okay, I get it! Up!” He swallows, again, thrice. He stays smiling--
Craig doesn’t know.
It’s always good to win. Craig slides off the bed and onto the floor head
first, and Tweek’s fearful gasp turned giggles is worth the awkward way his
neck is compressed. The blond wobbles his way out of the bed, unsteady on his
feet but reaching down to help Craig up.
“I-I’m gunna wash my hands,” Tweek pauses when they’re at the bottom of the
ladder to say. “Germs, man,”
“Okay.” Craig heads on down, and Tweek waits until he’s turned the corner to
close the bathroom door behind him. He hits the water and breathes heavily at
the sink, waiting for the nausea to pass. Instead the ache in his backside
where the needle halted his Heat throbs and Tweek pushes from the sink,
kneeling in front of the toilet.  
He feels weaker, but better when he flushes, and his mouth is cleaned with the
toothbrush he brought from home. He walks downstairs carefully, trailing a hand
on the wall. By the time he’s down he’s hidden the weakness.
Everyone is in the living room where the table is set up in a corner. Tweek
moves quickly to help Laura finish setting the table. He does it to be polite,
because he feels he owes them, and they let him, despite the risk to their
dishware from his spasming.
Tricia, hands engulfed in giant oven mitts sewn like baby chicks, carries out a
glass dish with green bean casserole steaming inside from the kitchen. Tweek
circles around the table, dropping silverware haphazardly on placemats, making
no eye contact. Thomas has the plates in his hands and deposits one for each of
them.
It’s chaotic for a few minutes, voices over each other as five people navigate
the spaces around each other to get everything set out as fast as possible.
When they do relax into their seats, with Tweek and Craig in the corner so
nothing can sneak up on them, the din dissipates into a quiet meal.
Tweek manages a few bites of casserole, ignoring his not-coffee, sharing quiet
glances with Craig. About halfway through, when it seems everyone is slowing
down Thomas clears his throat loudly and obviously. Tricia, Craig and Tweek--
with an aborted shout--pause and look up.
“Yes, thank you Thomas.” Laura huffs, inwardly grateful he’s pushing it; she
really doesn’t want to break the delicate relief Tweek must be
feeling. “Tweek?”
His wide hazel eyes meet hers only to dart back to his food, pushed and poked
and toyed with.
“Craig told you that your parents are cutting their trip early and will be home
tomorrow, right?”
Tweek’s right eye twitches open and closed, right ear connecting to his
shoulder. “No ma’am,” He glances at Craig, who shrugs, staring into the beans
like they can somehow help.
“Well they are.” She’s none too pleased about it either. “Your dad wants you to
open the shop in the morning as well. I guess they’ll be going right to it when
they’re back in town.”
“Oh God,” Tweek sets down his fork and knife, grabbing his shirt in both hands,
wringing it anxiously. “Do.. do they--oh Jesus--do they know about today?”
That’s just what he needs, his parents who can’t fathom anxiety having to deal
with him being an Omega.
“Yes, Tweek,” Thomas confirms when Laura suddenly gets up to fetch the coffee
pot and a mug instead of answering. She decides he needs the comfort. “They got
a call from the doctor’s office. And the school--who called all the parents in
your class.”
“Meaningeveryone knows.” Tricia summates, stabbing at her food.
“Oh man! This is waytoomuchpressure ! ” Tweek abandons the idea of eating any
more, releasing his shirt to go for his hair, yanking harshly against the
rapidly growing panic and humiliation within. His stomach rebels, clenching
around his few bites. “Everyone’s going to be so mad at me! Or laughing!
They’re going to laugh at me and beat me up! I’m going to die!”
“You won’t die honey,” Craig soothes quickly. “You just tell me if anyone
laughs or tries to bully you and I’ll kick their ass. Or I’ll stand watch while
you do.” He gets out of his chair to help free that tortured mane of wild hair.
“Agh! I don’t want to beat anybody up!”
“You don’t have to. I’m just saying you could--you have a killer uppercut,
babe.” Tweek croaks something that could’ve been his name if it weren’t so
distorted, holding as still as he can while Craig removes his fingers and takes
his hands for Tweek to focus on instead.
Thomas tries not to gawk, though he swells with pride. He’s aware of Tricia
pretending to ignore them but for her little grin and Laura hovering in the
doorway with a mug of steaming coffee.
Thomas' family has never been closer, and he’s never regretted encouraging
Craig to be happy with Tweek less; it feels like he’s seeing his son blossom
into a good man and an able pack leader right before his eyes. These revelatory
moments have grown more frequent over the years, and he prays for them to
continue.
Once Tweek is calm enough that Craig can have his own chair again--which he
scoots closer to Tweek's--Thomas decides it’s safe to go on.
“Obviously you’ll stay here tonight. I’ll drive you to the shop in the
morning.”
“Nng--agh…  thank you, sir.” Tweek stares down at his plate, his fork stilling,
stricken by a thousand thoughts. “Did… did my parents say anything to you
about... it?”
Tweek’s looking down, so he does not see the look that passes from Thomas to
Laura. Craig does, Tricia does, and nobody is smiling.
“Your dad seemed… excited.” Thomas eventually says.
Tweek’s body shivers, fork clanging and scraping the plate gratingly. “Oh man,
what am I gunna do?”
“Eat some more Tweek,” Craig pushes carefully. “Worry about it later.”
“I-I don't think I can!” He holds up his hands, shaking too hard to hold
utensils anymore. “I think I’m gunna be sick!”
Craig stands quickly, again, moving his chair out of the way and helping Tweek
up. The rest of the Tuckers stare after them as Craig gets a hand on his lower
back and pushes to get Tweek up the stairs fast enough. There’s a slam to the
bathroom door and then silence.
“Great,” Thomas sighs, also getting up from the table. He doesn’t know how to
deal with this and it’s frustrating. After these last few years of seeing his
son so happy and Tweek relaxing more around them he’d been hoping for better.
From whom… he’s not sure. Everyone, maybe.
He and Laura clear most of the dishes, leaving the boys’ plates in case they
manage to eat more. His wife glances at him meaningfully when they crowd space
around the sink.
“I really don’t want Tweek or you up at five tomorrow,” She sniffs, voice
stiff. “It’s supposed to ice bad tonight and he’s in no condition--” Nails
scrape the underside of the dish she clutches. “He’s been throwing up all day--
”
“I know dear--”
“--How could his parents demand he go to work tomorrow, after such a difficult
day and that medicine--”
“I don’t know--”
“I don’t like this!” She snaps, as if it were Thomas’ fault. “How can they
think it’s safe for him?”
The tall man raises his hands as if to fend her off. “I don’t have those
answers!”
Laura sets the dish down, glaring into the dirty sink. “It’s not right. He
should be resting, not working.”
Thomas lays a hand on her back, sweeping it in soft circles to comfort her.
“Tweek will be okay, Laura. Betcha anything Craig’ll insist on going with us in
the morning. Nothing bad will happen.”
-------
Craig leans against the wall left of the bathroom door, locked out because
Tweek can’t stand showing Craig his stress and his sick at the same time. But
the brunette can hear Tweek coughing and hacking inside, muffled exclamations
and imagine the way he must be shaking.
He raps his knuckles against the door, reminding Tweek he’s not alone.
“Jesus!”
“Not Jesus at the door, just Craig. We can go visit him at the church later if
you want though.”
Tweek makes some odd bouncing noises that pass for laughter and it allows Craig
to smile, just a tiny bit. He hears the toilet flush and the water come on,
time passing in clicks of a hall clock and the door opens, Tweek stepping out
shyly, looking up and then away. There’s a pungent scent of aerosol air
freshener hovering around him like he aimed the thing at his face and shot.
He makes some helpless gestures when Craig lifts an eyebrow at him. A snort, a
shrug, and Tweek is in his arms, a kiss on his damp brow.
“Do you want to eat anything else? We should get you something to drink, too.”
Tweek’s eyes light up. He remembers the pot Laura made that needs drinking.
"Coffee?”
“Sure babe, if you want.” 
-------
“Craig?” Laura catches the boys in the hallway, after coffee, after their cold
food is discarded, when Craig is getting ready to lead Tweek back into the
attic, popping her head out of the master bedroom. Tweek looks around nervously
and then rushes into the bathroom with a barked, “I’m gunna brush my teeth!”.
Craig blinks at the door. “Yeah?”
“I wouldn’t normally allow this, but Tweek’s had a very hard day and I know
you’re worried,” Not that Craig is alone in that. “I’ll allow him to sleep in
your room tonight, but you have to promise me to leave your door open all night
long.”  
He turns his steady gaze on her, unreadable but relaxing into something less
stiff and restrained.
“Really?”
“Yes, dear. Thomas is going to be waking Tweek up around four thirty though, to
take him to work.”
“Right. That’s fine. Tweek will probably be awake.”
Laura shakes her head, displeased that Craig is likely right about that.
“Either way, we’ll try not to wake you up.” Craig shrugs--like he wouldn’t go
help Tweek open the shop at five A.M..
She smiles knowingly at him, leaning out of the doorway to press a kiss to his
forehead. “You’re a good boy, Craig. Try to get some sleep, okay? Both of you.”
“Okay. Goodnight mom.”
“Goodnight sweetie.”
Tweek opens the bathroom door seconds after Laura closes hers. He looks
nervous, still, but when he breathes out there’s a strong waft of mint and
cinnamon and Craig snorts, taking Tweek’s hand to lead him the few feet down
the hall back to his room.
“Nck--ahh--Craig the attic is that way!”
“You’re staying in my room tonight.”
“WHAT?! But your parents--”
“Mom said it was okay.” Craig cuts off Tweek’s alarm, pulling him until he’s
inside the room, pivoting, and pushing Tweek onto the bed. He goes for the
dresser, finding a large Red Racer tee shirt and old red flannel pants for
himself with the light from the hall.
Tweek clicks on the bedside lamp. It's soft glow is warm, and by it he goes to
Stripe's cage, dropping a few shreds of lettuce and carrot from a covered
tupperware by the cage and into a small dish cradled by woodschips. Stripe woop
woops at him and circles around his hollow log, scampering for the dish.
The blond smiles a little before going back to the bed, sitting there while
Craig changes. Craig joins him on the bed by nudging Tweek towards the wall and
climbing in. They shift and shuffle and settle together. Tweek’s fingers laced
with Craigs but still apart, for the fear that his frequent shaking and
insomnia will disturb Craig.
Craig’s eyes are so very blue in the yellow light of the room. They’re focused
on him, quiet and deep; Tweek loves him more than anything.
***** The Morning of Ice. Something's Not Right *****
Chapter Summary
     The morning comes quick and cold, ice and snow beating the dawn.
     Tweek Bros. is open, but something's not right about it--and it's not
     just the lack of pastries.
     Then someone comes to Tweek for advice.
Chapter Notes
     Super special important author’s note \(º¬º)/
     I re-wrote this note 5 or so times, and it sounded harsh despite my
     not wanting it to--as I'm not angry, just slightly discouraged--and
     the note was too long each time.
     Instead I’ll keep it shorter: **Why u no read tags?!** x_X it worries
     me that there'll be people upset with me for what's labled and what
     strange things I may come up with as the story progresses.... eek!
     The themes of this story are coming into play **quickly**--and I
     don’t want anyone to be surprised when things suddenly go dark,
     because they will... and not JUST for Tweek.
     I know these subjects can be upsetting, and I aim to write them with
     compassion to the characters and not to write painful things just for
     the sake of it.
     I’ve already written roughly 180+ pages (including what's posted) of
     sweet things and terrible things, mostly ideas and excerpts with the
     chapters coming to life around them. I'm in too deep to change too
     much, haha...
     Anyways, **This chapter is the last one before things start turning
     “real” for everyone.** I split some of it away to make sure I
     properly warned before it started.
     …
     I’m sorry happy sexy times haven’t happened yet--the good, the bad,
     the loving is coming :D
     …
     ...
     Additionally: I apologize but I fuckin’ LOVE gratuitous
     redneckspeak!Kenny, here's hoping I don't go overboard with it.
     As always, thank you to all the lovelies who have so far encouraged
     me and liked the fic. May it continue to be enjoyable!
===============================================================================
Tweek has been watching the stick-on glow-in-the-dark stars and planets fading
above Craig’s bed for hours. It happens in pixilated minutes, engorged,
pulsating chunks of decaying time. Of swirling dark shapes momentarily blinding
him and then sweeping away like clouds of stardust. If he closes his eyes his
whole body rocks on imagined waves, a stormy sea of painful cramps and nausea.
He slept for a while, Tweek thinks, based on the red letters of a digital clock
on Craig’s desk. It’s three-fifty-three A.M., and he’d been staring for a
while, surely. There’s a ringing in his ears from the silence barely touched by
the soft breaths of his bed companion.
Craig’s been sleeping peacefully, and Tweek is relieved, glad one of them is
resting well. Nausea has plagued the boy’s every twitch, threatening to tear
him from the warm bed. He doesn’t want to bother Craig--that’s why he holds as
still as possible, staring upward.
Maybe sleep will come back for him in this gloom. There’s still a little time
before Craig’s father will be in to wake him up and the day promises to be as
stressful as any--sleep would do him good, yet there he lays, shivering but not
quite cold and focused on the plastic stars.
Outside the wind howls, ice clatters quietly against the windowpane like ghosts
clicking morse code messages to him with their dead claws. A rustling tree
plays host to ghouls and rabid bats, staring through the sliver of opened
curtains at the young human wolves, just waiting to feast.
Tweek barely restrains his vocal tics, determined not to wake Craig up,
determined not to wake Craig up; don’t wake Craig up, don’t wake Craig up,
don’t wake Craig up…
A short series of pops of air come from the back of his sinuses, notes of
strain. In his cage Stripe woops in alarm, before taking to the exercise wheel,
going for a nice, noisy run.
Don’t wake Craig up
Don’t wake Craig up
The clattering of the wheel is too common a sound to disturb Craig, but Tweek’s
raw senses hear it akin to the blare of a fire truck siren. The sleeping wolf
barely stirs, only mumbling unintelligibly and shifting against his pillow.
'Oh God,' Tweek’s mind screeches. ' I can’t do this. Have to do this! Hold
still, hold still, don’t wake up Craig! God, I'm going to be sick again!'
He’s fatigued by every tense muscle, every dark thought. Nausea rolls through
his stomach, he swallows it back visciously. This isn't the first time sleeping
besides Craig so why is it so hard tonight?
Tweek grips his hair, drags his hands down his face and screams inside his
head: 'Enough!'
Slowly and carefully he sits up. Craig shifts, exhaling into a snort and
turning over, away from Tweek. His movements are watched carefully for any
signs it’s over and he’s awake--but it’s not so, and Tweek shifts the curtains
carefully, looks out the window.
In the halos of streetlamps Tweek can see snow and ice raining to Earth fast as
falling stars.
Out there somewhere are rowdy adults, lured into lawns by beer and music,
hurling snowballs at each other laced with shards of glass. They lean on each
other, bloody but smiling and taunt the night freeze with reckless fingers.
Surely--Tweek can see him in his mind as easily as he saw them when he was
nine, chasing villains after bedtime.
Tweek wonders if he’s the only one sitting up tonight, watching the world
outside like this--not a part of it, but behind glass holding vigil for the
dark things. He breathes deeply through his nose, thinking it is probably not
so.
In the numbing silence of a house asleep, Tweek can hear exactly when that
changes. With sprung pale ears that twitch and swivel, when from the master
bedroom comes the rustling of blankets and the very quiet grumblings of Craig’s
father lumbering to the closet, slowly waking up.
Tweek shivers where he is for a moment before so slowly, so carefully, hand and
kneeing his way over the expanse of bed.
‘Why did I let him take the outside?!’
Tweek’s feet hit the floor, cold air swirling around the carpet. He pads softly
out the open door, which he closes carefully behind him, then heads towards the
bathroom and the descended ladder up.
He doesn’t know if Craig’s father will wake him up by accident thinking Tweek
is still in the room, so he intentionally steps hard onto the lowest rung,
which creaks ominously loud in the still of morning.
That’s all the sound he will risk; the rest is getting up into the attic and
changing as fast as can be, before anyone disturbs anyone, and getting out of
the house.
His clothes are haphazardly placed, with some on the bed, others on the floor
and for some reason only his socks making it into the dresser.
Precious seconds are wasted with the Omega uselessly spinning in circles,
trying to force his brain to connect shirt--why are there always buttons?!--
pants--socks--boots--fuck laces!-- into an assembled outfit of sorts. It takes
years, it has to, and no--the buttons don’t go like that! But there’s no time--
years have already passed--so he descends with whatever he has on and a coat.
Thomas is just coming out of the bathroom when Tweek drops down the ladder and
the nervous boy is startled right off of it. He crashes into the floor with a,
“Jesus Christ!” Which somehow manages to be a whisper-shriek. His heart throbs
painfully in his chest. He fights the urge to vomit.
Thomas still has a toothbrush in his mouth, and he blinks slowly at the human
wolf half curled on the floor in front of him.
“...D’you need helpff upff?” He asks around the plastic.
Tweek shakes his head quickly and clambers to his feet. He glances towards
Craig’s room, hoping he’s not awake, but he can’t see through the door.
“Craig’s making coffee downstairs.” Thomas supplies, guessing what this boy was
worried about now.  Tweek’s eyes whip over to him and then he’s up and running
down the stairs, his stomach in turmoil forgotten.
Sure enough, Craig is in the kitchen standing by their lone coffee pot. He’s
pulled a pair of jeans over his sleep pants, and stuffed them in poorly, Red
Racer’s famous car sticking out in wrinkles over the top of his waistband.
“Agh!Craig!”
The brunette turns around, sleep laden eyes half lidded under sleep ruffled
black bangs. His chullo is shoved into the front pocket of his pants, yellow
poofball sticking out.
“Hey, Tweek,” A big yawn, and Craig’s pulling down two tall travel mugs with
plastic lids and Tweek’s silver thermos.  
“You weren’t supposed to wake up!” Tweek rushes over, looking Craig up and
down, hands hovering as if he expected waking up early to have visibly,
physically harmed the black wolf. Craig’s sleepy expression faces off against
Tweek’s distraught one.
“As if I would let you open a the shop alone, now...” Craig trails off.
“I’ve opened the shop alone a thousand times!”
“Well, yeah… but now you’re…” Craig’s eyes cant over to Tweek, then drop at the
disbelieving look he’s getting.
“I’m what?!”
Craig shrugs helplessly.
He’d woken up to Tweek leaving the bed, bony knees and hands trying not to have
weight as he crawled. He didn’t realize that he’d bumped Craig’s knee as he was
climbing out.
Craig had waited to hear Tweek--who is never as quiet as he tries to be--
scampering up the ladder to get out of bed.
Once dressed, the brunette had opened the door to find his dad just outside it,
poised to knock.
“I don’t know.”
His dad had sufficiently infused a new worry into him.
“I’m glad you’re up, son. ...Look… I don’t want Tweek out there by himself--ah,
neither does your mom …
...
It’s just not safe for… for an Omega.”
Tweek’s staring at him, the fight and incredulity plain on his face. He finally
just scoffs, and looks away.
“Because I’m an Omega now, is that right?!” He grunts, coughs. “I-I’m not in
Heat anymore!”
“It’s not about that, babe--”
Tweek’s glare is withering.
“--Not just about that. Shit,” He rubs his eyes, annoyed at the light in the
kitchen and his screechy boyfriend capable of choosing the worst times to hit
the nail on the paranoid head. “Why are you upset, can you explain it?” He asks
finally, watching the final drips of coffee hit the pot.
Thankfully he’s gotten pretty good at stopping Tweek in his tracks and de-
railing him from his panic driven arguing.
“Ngh! I feel--! I don’t--” He's struggling, the words peanut butter cotton in
his mouth.
Craig holds out a hand for Tweek to take if he chooses, and eyes him quietly.
“It’s okay to slow down, Tweek, I’m listening.”
Tweek grabs his hand, closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. Center. Center…
Craig is my center.
“I’m scared. I’m scared again! I'm always scared! When we came home from the
clinic I thought it was just over, but--but then my parents--” He grabs for his
hair, then his shirt, tugging. “Everything’s about to change, man! I just know
it!”
Craig rubs Tweek’s knuckles with the pad of his thumb. His boyfriend’s tail is
out, twisted partway over one leg, and his ears are poofed up in his frizzy
hair.
“You must be worried about so many things,” Craig mumbles, half turning to
finish filling the green-vined silver thermos for Tweek with his free hand.
Craig’s insides twist--butterflies fluttering.
‘He said ‘home’... does he think of here as ‘home’?’
“Y-yeah,” Hazel eyes still dart around as if trying to find tiny bugs
scattering in every direction.
“Hey… this--this won’t change,” Craig says softly, squeezing Tweek’s hand.
“I’ll still be here. So you don’t have to worry about us, at least.” He
flushes, chin tucked. "If you were worried about it."
Tweek scrounges up a small smile, and tightens his grip on Craig’s hand. “Thank
you Craig. I don't want us to change, e-ever.”
Craig stops what he's doing, setting the pot down to turn and face Tweek fully.
He slips a hand into fluffy blond hair and pulls Tweek to him for a kiss that
Craig leans down and in to, keeping the short Omega close to him. His chapped
and bitten lips as familiar as his eyes, moving in short twitching sweeps
against Craig's own. 
Craig licks at the parted seam of Tweek's lips, suggesting and asking
permission that Tweek opens to give. 
His whimpers are low in his throat, loud in the quiet morning.
A knock on the wall startles Tweek into breaking the kiss with a squeak.
“Boys? C’mon, time to go.” Thomas leans into the kitchen, eyebrow raised and
his cell phone suspiciously still lit up in one hand.
Craig lets go of Tweek to finish filling the travel cups for himself and his
father, his face is dusted a light red. Tweek's practically hiding behind his
hands, whisper-grunting to himself about being seen. 
A hand takes Tweek's, prising it away from his face and leading him to the door
behind Thomas. With coffee in hand they go out from the front door where the
cold hits like hammers made of knives. 
None of them are dressed enough for this, and thankfully--thankfully--the car
is already unlocked and the doors aren’t iced shut. Thomas turns the engine,
the heat and the headlights on.
Tweek and Craig in the back seats huddle close. The car has taken the sub-
Arctic temperatures from outside and made them Plutonian.
It’s a short drive to the Tweek Bros. coffee shop: a left turn off the
driveway, towards the train tracks, then it will be left, then right past the
movie theater. Tweek happens to glance out the window, and he only just sees
it--a flash of orange, caught in the blinking light of the last streetlamp that
dared get so close to the poor side of town.
It almost looks like---
“What’s up?” Craig whisper-asks, leaning close. Tweek didn’t realize he’d been
straining to see what was out there, that glimpse of orange in the pre-dawn.
“I thought I--ngh--saw something!”
“Oh?” Craig twists to see if he can catch it.
The turn right is made, and whatever Tweek had seen is gone before Craig can
catch sight.
By the time the car engine has warmed up enough to blow hot air they’ve parked
and have to get out. The snow and ice fall lighter now, but no less draining to
be under at five in the morning.
Tweek’s small ring of keys includes one to the main locks of the family coffee
shop. He gets it on the fifth or sixth try, and he can muscle the glass doors
open.
Thomas stands awkwardly in the entry while Tweek disables the alarm and turns
on one of the lights. It glows far and wide in the icy night, a beacon for the
drunk and the early riser alike.
“Do you need anything from me before I go, Tweek?”
Tweek shakes his head sharply. “N-no! Thanks for driving me! I’ll pick up my
stuff later if th-that's okay?”
“No worries kiddo. Craig? You coming with me or staying here?”
“I’m staying.” Craig replies simply, pulling his chullo on. “I’ll catch a bus
to school.”
Tweek scurries into the back room. More lights flicker on and a machine in the
back starts to rumble loudly.
Thomas nods, rubs his neck. “If it gets busy...” He groans. “Just leave before
his parents get here, okay?”
“Okay.”
“...Good. Alright. Uh… call if anything… happens.”
Tweek rushes out of the back room in a white apron, hair pushed back with a
headband. His face tinted green and skin clammy, the stress and nausea driving
him to move swiftly, jerkily. He pulls down two chairs and then sprints into
the back room again.
“Why are we out of raw sugar?!”
Thomas leaves, not wanting to be a part of that freakout, and his headlights in
the snow, as he turns left past the theater, catch something orange again.
“Tweek, don’t worry about that sugar. Nobody uses it.” Craig pulls down the
rest of the chairs, sitting them at angles in front of the tables.
“Jesus we don’t have any pastries either! What am I supposed to do?!” Tweek
rushes back out of the employees only room, a hefty bag of beans in his arms
for the front room machines.
“Tell them to fuck off.”
“AGH!”
“Or just tell people you’re all out.”
Craig carries the empty metal canisters for milk and half-n-half into the back
to fill. Tweek bursts in the back door with a broom. His eyes are frantic,
bloodshot.
“Tweek, you gotta slow down.”
Tweek looks around, catches Craig’s eye and then skitters away quickly. “Craig-
-I--I can’t even tell what they were renovating! Nothing’s changed! Nothing’s
changed at all!”
Craig looks around slowly, carefully. He’s spent so much time here he would
think any changes worth closing the store down for a week to do would stand
out--but Tweek’s right, not so much as a paint job has occurred.
“...Huh,” Is his smart reply. “Maybe it’s changed outside? It’s dark out, so we
couldn’t tell.”
Tweek shakes, standing there looking around as if aliens were hiding in the
corners behind the boxes of stuff,clutching the broom to his chest.
Craig carefully pries the broom from his hand and kisses his forehead.
“I’ll look for changes while you turn on the ‘Open’ sign, okay?”
Tweek nods, stops, and looks at the open door to the room they're in out into
the main area of the shop. There’s someone in the lobby--there’s a shadow on
the floor, ominously cast from the lights too-bright for the morning.
“S-shit! Someone just came in! They ignored the ‘Closed’ sign and just walked
in! I don’t have any coffee ready for them, what do I do?!”
“Go see what they want? Or tell them you’re not open. Not your fault they
didn’t pay attention.” Craig reasons, heading for the lobby himself. He hears
Tweek mumbling anxious words to himself and prepares to offer the idiot making
his boyfriend nervous a telling middle finger.
Except it’s… Kenny.
The golden blond wolf is standing at the counter, leaning against it casually,
blowing on his hands and rubbing them. He’s got no gloves, but gold fur all
over his hands, nails elongated, facing up harmlessly.
The orange of his old parka is held barely together with large patches of
fabrics that don’t match at all and are crudely sewn with big, obvious
stitches.  
He looks up when Craig, followed by Tweek, emerge from the storeroom. Kenny
grins widely under his hood, too small to tighten over his mouth like he used
to. Blue-purple splotches lay as heavy bags under his cornflower eyes, nearly
as troubled as Tweek’s are.
“Kenny? What are you doing here?”
“Lights were on. Door unlocked.” Kenny shrugs lightly.
“Y-you shouldn’t be here! We aren’t open! Nngh--I don’t have any coffee ready!”
Kenny shrugs again, glancing at his furred hands. “No heat either?”
Tweek barks a stressed sound and disappears into the employee's only
room again. A few moments later the vents in the ceiling click-click-whirr--
with the ventilation turning on.
Craig goes behind the counter and powers on the computer and register. Kenny’s
quiet posture undisturbed. Craig’s not sure why Kenny of all people wandered
into Tweek Bros. at--five-twenty-three in the morning, but he looks… sick.
Craig eyes him warily.
“Why are you here before we open?”
“D'you work here now?” Kenny asks instead of answering. “Didn’t think his
parents would actually pay an employee.”
“Tweek works here.” Is the encompassing reply. Tweek is here, alone more often
than not; so if he has to be here then Craig will be as well. But neither of
them get paid to do so.
Kenny snorts softly, nodding. He gets it. And then Tweek is up front with them
again, twitching back and forth to try and bring up the order of operations in
his mind for getting the shop open on time--already late--with every nerve
firing commands.
“What do you want?” He demands of Kenny, finally settling on taking a coffee
order.
“...I was actually… hopin' to talk to you, Tweek. Alone.” He fishes into his
parka and pulls out a small handful of quarters. ”Small black coffee? Room for
cream?”
Craig ignores Kenny’s furry hand held out with change to pay for it and goes
off to prepare the drink. He wonders if the Tweaks even have any cream that’s
not spoiled. Kenny pockets the change with a small smile and meets Tweek’s
eyes, watches him do an impression of a confused squirrel for a few seconds and
then head to a table in the corner.
Tweek slowly follows and they sit across from each other under a vent dropping
clouds of warm air that hover just above their heads.
“W-what did you want to talk about?”
Kenny rubs the cold stains of melted snow and falling ice on his pants and
slowly looks up at the other boy. “I wanted t'ask you about it--being an
Omega.” He reads the budding panic on Tweek’s face and moves quick to stop him.
“I mean--... When you were feeling sick… what did it…
Tweek stares at Kenny with eyes so wide he might as well have asked Tweek to
swallow knives, or stop drinking coffee forever. “I don’t--remember well.” He
grinds out. “I-I was dizzy, and my stomach and head hurt and--I couldn’t focus
on anything--everything was so bright and it hurt--and the--Heat--” He cuts
off, not wanting to share the sensation of something slippery dripping out of
him, and everyone knew of the smell.
Kenny nods slowly, eyes trained on Tweek so intently the Omega worries Kenny
wants to eat him alive.
“W-why...?”
A shrug, the quiet blond just looks away. “I haven’t been feelin’ well,” Is
what he comes up with. “Had a headache since yesterday, small fever--I think,
th’thermometer is broken--kinda wanna throw up.” He casts his eyes back to
Tweek, toying with a drawstring from his parka’s hood. “I thought you’d end up
in the hospital yesterday, but y'seem okay.”
Tweek fishes for words and memories, grunting out sounds until he does. “They--
they gave me a shot, but I can’t remember much of yesterday, man. J-just that
whatever they did--I--I’m not in Heat anymore.”
Kenny makes a thoughtful noise. “It hit me yesterday after y'left school.”
“WHATdid?”
“All this not feelin’ well stuff. Just don’t feel much like coincidence.”
Craig sets Kenny’s black coffee, Tweek’s thermos, and a metal pitcher of
somehow-not-spoiled-creamer on the table. Then he fetches some sugar before
taking the seat adjacent to Tweek’s, not at all concerned that Kenny asked to
speak to the Omega specifically. He gets a look for it from the golden-blond
wolf that is easily ignored.
“So--what--are you saying, Kenny?” Tweek demands, glancing between the main
entrance and Kenny rapidly, worried customers might wander in and interrupt.
“I guess I’m wonderin' if I’m Presentin' or somethin’.” Kenny pours a long
portion of cream into his coffee, then seven shakes of sugar before tilting the
mug this way and that to try and mix it.
“As-as an Omega?”
“Yeah,” The coffee is bitter, the sugar lumping up at the bottom and the cream
barely sweet on its own. He takes a good drink anyways, appreciating the
warmth.
“Shit!Is it because of me?! I didn’t mean to turn you into an Omega!”
“Calm down Tweek. You can’t turn someone into anything.” Not that he knows, of
course. Craig touches Tweek’s shoulder softly, before adding more sugar to his
own coffee. “Could you be an Alpha?”
Kenny pauses, but shakes his head. “I asked Kyle t'look up th'signs, n’Alphas
Present real different than Omegas do.”
“H-how so?”
Kenny takes a drink. “Well… Lots o'Alphas don’t feel much at all, but Alphas
higher up get real angry, then horny, break shit n’start fights--act real
possessive--that kinda thing. But Omegas get sick with it when Presenting. For
Omegas s’all about matin’, though. Not ‘bout sex for th’sake of sex, but sex
t’get pregnant. S’a need.” He notes Tweek’s eyes widening to what should be
their limits and then go beyond, then Craig’s mildly uncomfortable face and
can’t help but laugh.
“PREGNANT?! I can’t get pregnant! I’d be a terrible mom!” Tweek cries, digging
his fingers into his hair and yanking hard. 
“You wouldn't be a mom, babe. Besides, you’re a boy; you can’t get pregnant.”
Craig glances at Kenny, whose face holds a grin to match those
suggestively tilted eyebrows. He fishes Tweek's fingers out of his hair.
“O’course he can. Why else would boys be able t’be Omegas?”
“Oh God! That is way too much pressure! I can’t be a mom in high school--ngh--
I’d end up on MTV! I'm too young for 16 And Pregnant! People will think I’m
trailer trash!”  
“Nothin’ wrong with trailer trash.” Kenny mumbles, pouting. “I’m surprised you
don’ know all this stuff already though--you two gots internet, don’cha?”
“We weren’t really thinking about it.” Craig lies, but Tweek looks away; he’d
simply been to scared to look it up and deal with it.
“O’course,” Kenny agrees easily. “Anyways, I was jus’ curious. Gotta be careful
on my side o’town.”
A chime comes from the front door to interrupt Kenny’s vague words, starting a
curse out of Tweek, who shoots out of his chair to help the customer. It’s a
man, tall and bundled up in heavy winter coats, a red scarf and thickly soled
boots. There’s a brown paper bag shoved in one pocket, the open mouth of a
bottle sticking out the top. Craig eyes him warily, but he seems mostly sober,
just worn out.
“You two doin’ okay?” Kenny asks. “Must be a lot o’stress for him.”
“We’re okay. It’s been less than a full day.”
“Yeah.”
Something about Kenny’s nature coaxes some honesty from Craig. The poor boy has
always been the sincerest of his crew, and the way he leans on his arm, the
openly interested look to his eyes is entreating. It’s not too hard for Craig
to believe Kenny might actually care about others.
“...I think he’s pretending to be okay. He was throwing up all day yesterday.
Now his parents are coming back early.”
“That’s ominous.”
Kenny watches Tweek drop the customers change and then chase after the coins as
they roll away. Craig doesn’t answer him, also watching his boyfriend go about
his work.
A touch of light enters the building, the glass window wall open to the rising
sun. Kenny finishes his coffee, slurping up the unmelted sugar at the bottom
before standing up.
“I’m gonna head t’school. You comin’ Craig?”
“No. Why are you going?”
Two more customers come into the shop, bringing a frigid breeze in with them.
Tweek shivers at the counter, biting his lip as they approach. Craig stands to
go help.
Kenny grins, rubbing his hands as they become fur-covered again. “Nothin’ else
t'do. But you have fun at work. Thanks Tweek! See ya later!”
“Agh! B-bye Kenny!”
For such a cold morning the sun is sure pretty, just barely over the horizon as
it is. There’s a bus stop up the block by Token’s house, so Kenny heads there.
He misses the constructed pole with the squeaky horn that would summon Fastpass
or Sir Timmy's Travel Express for a “quick” ride, but a public bus would have
to do.
Behind his glass station the security guard eyes Kenny warily, as if expecting
trouble from him. He only grins toothily in reply.
After roughly ten minutes of waiting, so Kenny guesses, he hears a door open
and close, and in quick order Token is coming up his drive in a thick purple
coat, backpack slung over one shoulder. He looks surprised to see Kenny of all
people outside his house.
“Kenny? What are you doing up here?”
The blond gives a little wave. “I couldn’t sleep so I got some coffee at
Tweek’s shop." Kenny stretches lightly, scanning the road for the bus.
“I thought it was being renovated?”
“Don’t think so. Tweek n’Craig are workin’ this mornin’ and it didn’t look no
different inside or out.”
“...Huh. Weird. Craig’s skipping then?”
“Looks like.”
“Ah. How’s Tweek holding up?”
“‘Bout as good as y'think he is.”
"Figures. Least Craig is there."
The blond pulls his thin coat tighter around himself. He notices Token glancing
at him and flashes the black wolf a smie. "You're not takin' the school bus?”
Kenny asks.
Token shakes his head. "I wanted to get there before first bell so I can talk
to Mr. Emerson."
Kenny snickers. "Gotcha."
They stand in silence after that, though it’s not long before a public bus
rumbles up to them, plumes of white billowing out the exhaust. Token enters
first, pulling a card from his pocket.
“His fare too, please.” He tells the driver, motioning to Kenny waiting at the
bottom behind him.
“Aw, thanks Token! You’re such a pal.” Kenny grins at him, surprised but
definitely not complaining, bouncing up the steps.
“No problem man.”
Token takes a seat near the front and Kenny doesn’t hesitate to sit beside him.
Even so, there’s little to say as they go, and Kenny sits with his disquiet
stomach, contemplating. 
***** She's Got News *****
Chapter Summary
     Tweek's parents come home with surprises and gifts.
     Kenny's family has news.
     Clyde isn't against getting high.
Chapter Notes
     Hello~
     Happy Xmas, New Years, Yule, Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, Sosctice and every
     other reason to celebrate.
     I apologize for how slow it was to bring you this chapter; there's
     been a health crisis with my grandmother that we've had to urgently
     begin sorting, my sister came into town from across the USA, I've
     been dealing with sadness and all the rest of it.
     In return, I give you a chapter. It's the best I've got for this
     bridge-point. I promised the darkness begins here, that is true..ish.
     I'm still playing around with Kenny's and his parents' accents, how I
     want to type it out, how I want to exaggerate it. I would think
     Kenny'd grow up with a combination of accent + mumbling + no accent,
     him being so used to being muffled. Outside of certain moments and
     personas he's such a quiet kid. Once I think I got it down I'll go
     back and edit all his dialogue to match better \o/
     Thank you again for every comment and kudos. It is greatly
     appreciated! I think of them and I just have to start writing!
 
===============================================================================
Token left Kenny’s side as soon as their feet hit the snow, though it wasn’t
without a last, lingering turn of narrowed eyes at the golden blond wolf.
Kenny’d let it slide with a small grin before his hood is drawn up, covering as
much of his face as he can get it to.
Sunlight has reached the schoolyard, lighting the freshly fallen snow and ice
into glittering jewels, sparkling where students have not yet trudged. Around
him the air is bitter, viciously biting at what skin he doesn’t cover with fur.
He enters through the front doors, thankfully unlocked for students just like
Token and he who have, for whatever reason, decided to show up at school before
it technically opens.
Being South Park, there are any number of kids who just don’t want to be around
whatever adult is supposedly taking care of them--as if the collective of
parents who migrated to the small mountain town were simply looking for the
most out of the way place to be as oddly fucked up as possible. Together.
Inside the heat is blasting through the rattling old vents, maintenances
attempts to get the halls warm before the majority of students arrived. Kenny
stands under one, closing his eyes and letting the hot air flow over his skin,
his fur, and soak into his ever thinning layer of clothes.
There’s a little time to kill before everyone else would start filtering in,
and Kenny enjoys the quiet while it lasts.
-----
Cartman jogs up the hallway in his lumbering way, a grin fit to conspiracy
dimpling his pudgy cheeks. His sneer only deepens as he gets within feet of
Kenny, Kyle and Stan lingering at their cluster of lockers.
The three are fit to ignore Cartman and whatever offensive shit he plans to
expel at them, but for his leaning into Kyle’s personal space, taking a large,
obvious inhale of him.
“Well, well, well, Kyle! Is that the distinctive scent of Presentation I smell
on you?”
The cut off conversation drifts through a few bars of silence before Kyle
scoffs in his throat, folding his arms and leaning away from the large boy.
“What the hell are you talking about, fatass?”
Kenny presses closer to the lockers, tucking his chin beneath his hood’s collar
to hide the discomfited frown on his face. He surreptitiously puts another inch
or two between himself and Kyle.
“I went home last night and read all about Alphas and Omegas,” Cartman declares
proudly. “One of the Omega signs is an obvious change in scent, and hmm, and
what’s this scent wafting in the air?” He sniffs twice. “Why, you certainly do
smell different today, Kyle.”
Stan blinks, glancing at Kyle thoughtfully. He looks the redhead up and down
before shoving his face into Kyle’s personal space and taking a sniff.
“What the fuck Stan?”
Kenny takes half a step back; no one notices.
Stan shrugs, looking away sheepishly. “I dunno! I was curious. But I don’t
smell anything different from Kyle, Cartman.”
Cartman’s eyes narrow suspiciously, expression transforming into one of
scandalized disappointment, concluding that Kyle somehow planned to foil his
brilliant exposure of the surely-an-Omega boy.
“That’s because I’m not Presenting as anything!” Kyle snaps, grinding back on
the instant agitation Cartman inspires.
“Hmm,” Cartman huffs, studying Kyle with accusatory eyes. “Won’t be long.
There’s no way a ginger Jew like you won’t also be an Omega. And believe you
me, I will be the first to know! This nose never lies!”
Cartman moves back to just outside Kyle’s bubble, miffed that his morning fun
has been spoiled before it even got started, but as confident in his
assumptions as he always is.
Kenny lurches another half-turn, his stomach twisting unpleasantly.
“Whatever Cartman. Maybe it’s you that will be an Omega.”
“Nuh-uh! I’m going to be a Classic Alpha, it’s in my DRA.”
“You mean DNA?”
“In my “Damn Right I’m an Alpha”! I have what it takes. Unlike some of us.”
“Your acronym is too short,” Stan informs him, counting off words and capital
letters on a few fingers.
“Ugh, Whatever!” Cartman sighs back, impatient.
Kyle slams his locker’s door, two large textbooks pressed against his chest,
three fingers beating agitatedly against one’s red cover.
“Like I want to be an Alpha either. It all sounds stupid.” Pale lips twist
irately, and Kyle stalks off towards his first class, blowing by Kenny, who
leans against the hard metal of the lockers to be out of the way.
Kyle looks back, confused by the scent he catches as he walks away, but doesn’t
see anything alarming, and continues on.
Stan hums thoughtfully while Cartman finishes up retrieving his own books.
“I think I wouldn’t mind being an Alpha.” Stan declares as they cluster to head
onward. “Be less boring than being a Beta at least.”
Cartman eyes Stan up and down. “If you were an Alpha I’d bet ten bucks you’d
end up jacking it in San Diego again.”
Kenny chuckles into his parka, more for the scandalized look on Stan’s face
than anything.
“Whatever dude. Still be better than being an Omega.”
Stan and Cartman walk on, unawares that Kenny falls back and trails behind them
until he isn’t walking anymore at all but standing besides some unknown’s
locker with none of his school supplies. He’s not given a moment’s time to
think.
“Hey Kenny, what’cha doin’?”
Kenny startles, turns, and tucks his chin to see Clyde approaching slowly, like
he’s not sure how close he’s allowed to get to the other boy. Every now and
then Kenny has had an encounter with Clyde, who surprisingly took their days as
superheros seriously enough to slip up and give “Mysterion” a differential
look. It’s familiar enough to pick the nervously excited curiosity from the
brunette’s gaze.
“...Nothin’ much,” Kenny replies, dashing Clyde’s minute hopes. “Don’ feel much
like hurryin’ on t'class, yanno?”
“Yeah, I’m not in any rush to get to math.” Clyde smiles, and Kenny’s body
gives a peculiar shudder when approached. Clyde’s not much taller than him, but
his husky body crowds against Kenny’s own when he rests up against the locker
besides Kenny.
They stand in awkward silence, both waiting expectantly for the other to find a
reason to chat. Clyde sniffs loudly, trying to clear a stuffy nose. He does it
again--and then looks over at Kenny perplexedly.
“Huh... why do you smell so good?”
------
It’s barely nine A.M.; Tweek Bros. Coffee House is finally slowing down from
the early dawn rush. Locals happily grousing to Tweek of their displeasure that
they’d been without their coffee for several days.
He’s nearly sold out of the family Special Blend, the cloud of customers eager
for it crowding the counter until Craig flipped them all off hard enough for
them to back off.
Now but three customers remain, sitting together at a small table with their
laptops out, murmuring to each other over this or that piece of
information. Tweek is crouching beneath the counter, just below the register,
curled up tight in a convenient cubby made for a bigger CPU than sits there.
It’s overly hot, but his trembling legs won’t carry him into the backroom yet.
Craig’s kneeling in front of him, hands around Tweek’s own, carefully keeping
eye contact so Tweek can focus on him instead of the chaos ripping down his
delicately threaded nerves.
“You’re okay, Tweek. You did a good job,” Craig praises softly. ‘Your parents
are morons--you couldn’t do this all alone.’
“Je-Jesus Christ,Craig! How the hell am I supposed to do this alone?!”
That Tweek echoed his thought was really quite telling.
“You’re not alone, babe, I’m right here.”
“Right--right here,” When his breathing slows somewhat a gentle tug coaxes the
Omega out from the cubby and onto his feet again.
A nervous sweep proves that the three with their laptops are still there,
talking and chuckling to each other in a hush. No other table is occupied,
Tweek notes, and only one car is parked outside th---
“Oh--shit!--God, Craig!”
“What?”
Tweek whirls around, eyes wide to match the empty pastry dishes and just as
pale a white.
“It’s my PARENTS!” He snatches a handful of hair and yanks hard. “You’ve got
to-to HIDE!”
“...Why?”
Tweek’s grunts loudly, unable to answer--he doesn’t even know. He plants both
hands on Craig’s chest and pushes him until the brunette relents to allowing
the smaller wolf to herd him all the way into the bathroom.
Richard Tweek opens the door to the family shop, his arms laden with grocery
bags. He hips the door open, sliding inside with a faint smile. His shoulders
and curly auburn hair are dusted with fresh snow.
“Tweek--son? Are you there?” Richard calls, voice as liltingly pleasant as an
inquisitive note of music.
Tweek grips the bathroom door handle, as if that could stop Craig from opening
it if he really wanted to, and scurries over to greet his father with a
thudthudthud in his chest fit to crack ribs.
“H-hi dad! You're here early! Did something happen?! Is mom okay?!”
Richard chuckles, side-stepping his wide-eyed pup as if he doesn’t see the
chill of terror on his face.
“Nothing's wrong, Tweek. We made good time is all, so excited we were to come
home and see you again.”
Tweek is quiet for a moment, waiting for his spinning, racing thoughts to slow
enough for him to grab one. He can feel strands of hair snapping around his
fingers.
“S-see me? A--ghh--oh GOD!-there’s nothing to see!”
“Of course there is.” His father sets the bags onto the meagre counter space
and begins pulling out boxes of store bought pastries to put in the display.
The little neon green stickers with their prices and expirations dates
displayed catch Tweek’s eyes painfully. “I heard the good news, you know,” His
voice is sly, eyes casting a sideways at him, that easy smile
Tweek flinches hard, stepping away from the glass display so the glass may be
swung up, leaving the empty case to be filled. His very skin spasms, his mind
tumbles. Craig is still in the bathroom. It’s difficult to swallow; a dry
throat, no coffee in hand.
“Good… news?” He prompts carefully, when his father’s train of thought wanders
into a soft whistle while layering croissants.
“Oh yes, yes. I heard that you’re--”
“JESUSCHRIST don’tsayitHERE!” Tweek hisses urgently. “It’s too much--”
“--An Omega. And I think that’s just wonderful, son.” Richard’s voice, while
never particularly loud, carries like a tune nobody wants playing--an old car
commercial jingle, the initial notes of a creepy radio show; melodious but
abrupt--disruptive. “Your mother is at the house beginning to prepare a special
meal for dinner to celebrate.”
Three people staring at Tweek over their laptops, eyes judging him, swallowing
him, tracking his body through blank-faced masks. The Omega looks away,
embarrassed and twitching, his soft grunts going unnoticed by his father and
himself; an alarm ringing somewhere that neither were equipped to quell.
Tweek’s eyes fish for Craig, momentarily forgetting he banished his boyfriend
to the bathroom until he could sneak him out.
“And of course there’s the PTA meeting tomorrow night to attend. But anyways,”
Richard continues serenely. “Thank you for opening the shop today--what with
school being closed I’m sure you wanted to sleep in, yes? Lying under the
covers, safe, sound, like a happy pea in a pod or a growing bean in its shell.”
“C-closed?” Tweek shivers, tight sounds lost behind his tongue. The school
wasn’t closed--was it?!
“Mhm, yes. Closed, thankfully, so you aren’t missing anything important.” The
man’s face twists with pride. “I’m so pleased with how quickly you’re becoming
accustomed to the bright and early mornings of a coffee shop owner--it will be
so much easier when it’s time for you to take over.”
Craig tires of the stale and acrid air in the public bathroom and steps on out,
walking past the employees only door, the three with their laptops half-staring
at Tweek to his boyfriend’s side by the counter.
“Of course it can’t go to you directly,” The man adds absently.
“W-what?!” Tweek yelps, unable to make sense of that statement, looking between
the two in a frantic confusion.
Richard doesn't answer, he has the pastry display case halfway closed, his gaze
drifting serenely, before sweeping over and latching onto Craig and holding him
there in his brown-eyed concern. A smile grows on the man’s tan-tinted face,
and he sets the glass all the way down, collecting and consolidating the
emptied grocery bags with a loud shuffling of plastics.
“Why if it isn’t Craig!” He belatedly cheers, ignoring his son’s question, that
dripping indulgence pushed through the words as molasses, sticky and thick.
“Ditching school for a cup of fine Tweak coffee, or…?” The man makes an
obnoxiously obvious gesture towards Tweek, winking.
Craig’s brows fold in, Tweek’s eyes widen.
“Sch--school--” The Omega begins, falters; his father had just claimed the
school was closed--right? Tweek looks to Craig for confirmation, but Craig had
neither heard the original comment nor seems to catch the cause of Tweek’s
distress.
No, he is staring at Tweek’s father in a way Tweek has seen a few times only,
what with how they avoid his parents; he studies the older man, looking for
information not being given; is it madness, or is it trickery? An answer never
appeared before, nor landed somewhere benign such as simply being too free-
floating a man at times to hold any truths still. Richard Tweak may not be the
smartest, cleverest of men, but behind his haze is a shrewd mind, careless and
manipulative.
“I’m helping Tweek with the shop.” Craig answers honestly, after taking his
time to decide to do so. It’s not the first time he’s volunteered and the Tweak
parents know this, but he senses something amiss, and he’s not disappointed,
for the man’s expression darkens, a quiet storm turning rain on his son.
“Now Tweek, what have we told you? It’s not right to make young Tucker do your
work for you, especially when we can’t pay him. This is going to be your
famile's business one day soon.”
Tweek cowers back, muscles gone tense and wolf ears out, folded, chastised,
confused.
“You’ve never once said that!” He shrieks, eyes darting to Craig, to their
audience, vulnerable and embarrassed. The mere suggestion that he could no
longer permit Craig to help him might as well have been a carnival mallet, his
nerves slammed into a skyrocket. Panic is the only prize, and every player is a
grand winner. “I can’t do it all this alone!”
Richard makes a shushing noise and pats the top of his son’s head with that
serene smile battering away at Tweek’s sanity. “Calm down, Tweek. You won’t
have to do it alone for much longer, I’m quite sure, but Craig’s parents must
be awfully sore that he humors you so, instead of attending to his studies.”
His smile is placating. It feels insincere. He breezes past the boys to
disappear into the back room.
Tweek makes a noise that frequently preludes a full on scream, but Craig stops
it with a hand on Tweek’s cheek. Instead of full on screaming the blonds head
jerks to reciprocate, cheek to palm assuring Craig he’s welcomed to touch him.
 
“It’s okay, babe. Like I’d listen to him.”
Tweek’s jaw works, his ears twitch and tremble. He turns abruptly and shuffles
into Craig’s space. The hand on his cheek moves to his hip, the other hand
joining on opposite sides, drawing the tiny blond into him. Craig places a
light kiss to Tweek’s forehead, listening to his breath stutter and hitch, ebb
in panic and dip closer to normal.
“Tweek? Won’t you come help me with something?” Richard interrupts coolly from
where he’s peeked from behind the employees only door. “Craig, kindly wait out
there, if you would.”
Craig almost refuses, but as his boyfriend’s anxiety rises again he just sighs,
backing off. Tweek glances at him before rushing over to join his father, eager
to get this over with, whatever it is. Richard allows Tweek past him, but does
not leave the door frame immediately.
“On second thought, you might as well head along back to school, Craig, I’m
afraid I will need much of my son’s attention today.”
The door closes before Craig lifts his middle finger in answer.
-----
“I haven’t skipped in so long,” Clyde murmurs, a bit of self-awe mixed with
mischievous delight. To Kenny’s eyes, Clyde is obviously worried about getting
in trouble, but the way he kicks his legs is energy, curiosity building.
“Yeah, sorry ‘bout this,” Kenny mumbles back, pulling his threadbare parka
closer to his body, not that it helped with the cold out behind the school,
more a supplement to the fine layer of fur on his body. “Nice t’have the
company anyways.”
Clyde peers at him, obviously lost behind his contemplative look, trying to
figure out the most mysterious of his classmates yet again. It doesn’t go too
well, so he simply asks instead:
“Why are we hanging out here instead of going to the nurse?”
Kenny runs a hand over his stomach, feeling the unsettled bubbles moving
inside, promising sharp cramps. “I didn’ mean ta yak on your shoes,” Is what he
comes up with. A puddle of filthy snow is not too far away, where Clyde’d
cursed and hopped, desperately scraping the remains of Kenny’s empty stomach
into the snow and off his new vans. 
“It’s okay,” Clyde reassures him. “I hate having math first thing anyways.” He
nibbles at the corner of his bottom lip. “You feeling better?”
Kenny shrugs. “Mouth tastes like shitty Friday nights,” It’s not much of an
answer, and Clyde’s too genuine to grasp onto vagueness--he won’t get it. “But
no, not really. I’m fixin’ ta head on out.”
“Oh, uh… Okay.” Clyde stands up, shaking the legs of his cargo pants to rid
himself of some clinging snow. He looks at the doors back into the warm school
and waiting lessons, looks over to the blond. Something aching coils between
his ribs, something he doesn’t understand. “What if I… went to your place too?”
“Why would ya want t’do that?” Kenny asks, giving away some of his surprise. He
and Clyde aren’t close, and neither are their houses, comparatively. “It’s not
even third period yet, you can still catch th’majority of th’day.”
“I guess. If you don’t want me to--”
“Nah, s’fine.” Kenny interrupts. “I was surprised is all; t’aint nuthin’
interestin’ ta do at home.”
Clyde’s smile is mixed with a heavy dose of giddy approval. A faint chill
shudders pleasantly up Kenny’s spine to see it.
------
They’re just passing the bright red house where some kid they played with years
ago used to live, Clyde’s easy chatter making up the entirety of the
conversation. Kenny was used to endless one-sided rants from Cartman or Kyle,
coated in the selfish desire to be heard over others.  Clyde, he babbled
awkwardly, filling the space with talk of food, football and how he worried
over classes and friends and, of course, the current events.
“I dunno bout you,” The brunette interrupted his own thought on how weird some
of the seniors have started acting. “But I’m hungry.”
“Y’won’t find nothin’ t’eat at my place,” Kenny points out, slowing down as
they’re approaching Cartman’s house. “Couldn’t spare ya a poptart even.”
“Hmm,” Clyde looks quite disappointed for a moment, before an easy smile warms
his face. “That’s fine. Let’s get you home safe first.”
There’s a sharp twist in Kenny’s gut, like a magnet tangled between his
intestines, drawn to something and trying to force its way out through his
skin. It hurts, shockingly cold through to the base of his spine. His wince is
pronounced enough for Clyde to look alarmed, concerned, and to hover closer.
“Kenny?”
He loops a thick arm around Kenny’s shoulders, hoping to keep the golden blond
wolf standing up and out of the snow when he wavers.
“W-we’re not far--can you make it?”
Kenny’s eyes close against the pain, so sudden it took the breath from him,
knocked his knees down. When finally it recedes enough to leave weak trembles
behind he nods the affirmative. Clyde heaves him up again, and they trudge
together through the thick snow.
“Shouldn’ta bothered goin’ t’school,” Kenny mumbles, grunting with some effort.
The train tracks are within sight, not long or far now, and the streets still
empty of anyone who would question the delinquents.
Remnants of Historic SoDoSoPa sit as the ribs of a massive carcass around the
small house they’re approaching. Sprawling dreams broken in pieces. Garbage
litters the snow and ice, turning it sickly blacks and browns from leaching dye
and dirt. Beer bottles, a broken and overturned shopping cart, plastic bags and
glass are strewn everywhere. A broken down red car sits on display in a brick
circle like a monument to the failure of gentrification.
Kenny’s house, broken in more places than it’s repaired, cracked in the
foundation, stands as the last stop before the forest. Planks of wood where a
window was broken last year and couldn’t be repaired. A garage door which
couldn’t be lowered anymore, displaying a cracked door hiding the off-again-on-
again meth lab--currently on-again.
The murmuring voices of the tent city that moved in behind the house carries on
the wind with a foul scent.
The front door is unlocked, having more to do with South Park and rarely a
house being locked than there being nothing worth breaking into the McCormick
household to steal.
Clyde expects it to be awkward, going into someone else's house without
invitation when he should be in school, but he overestimates the McCormick
parents’ investment in their son’s education.
“Kenny? That you?” Carol’s twangy voice calls from the kitchen. The door is
barely closed behind them. Clyde goes stiff with nerves.
“Yeah, ma! Got a friend with me!” Kenny calls back, pulling himself from
Clyde’s hold. “My room’s the one in that hall there,” He points to a hard angle
at the end of the living room’s dingy wall, cracked wall haphazardly painted
mud green. A neon “BEER” sign flickers blue light with a low buzz. “’S’got
pretty girls on the door.”
Clyde nods and heads that way, noting the carpet with its ripping shag that
looks more like animal fur than carpeting. Black bags full of garbage lean
against the walls in inconvenient places. Everything smells of rot and dirt. He
closes himself in Kenny’s room while the blond straightens and walks into the
kitchen.
“Why aren’t’cha at school, boy?” Stuart grunts, sipping on a beer from where he
leans against the counter.
Kenny shrugs. “Don’t feel right t’day.”
“Hmph.” Stuart lifts his beer for a deeper gulp.
Carol is at the table, looking troubled. Her lime green shirt has a gaping hole
at one armpit, and small moth bites along the bottom hem. She’s got a cup of
hot water in her hands. The cup says, “Mom of the Year”, and a dripdripdrip of
water from a hairline crack in the bottom hits the already water ruined table
rhythmically. A small object sits in front of her as well--it looks like a
thermometer.
“Ma?” Kenny takes the chair to the right of her. “You okay? Whut’s goin’ on?”
Her rich blue eyes, so much like his own, flicker up to him. It’s the defeat in
her features that prompts her youngest son to rest a comforting hand on her
left arm. Her skin is cold, her voice dejected.
“Aw, Kenny, s’nuthin’ fer yew t’worry bout none.”
“Th’hell it is, woman.” Stuart growls. “Boy’s gunna hav’ta grow up n’help out.”
Kenny glances between them, then to the item he took for  a thermometer on the
table, a heated dread growing behind his human ears. Two little display
windows, pink lines.
“Ma… you aren’t--”
Carol gives a great sigh. “But I is--I’m pregnant again.” Her eyes thicken with
tears that don't shed; a proud woman despite her circumstances. “I dunno whut
we’re gunna do with another baby!”
“Damn right woman! We don’t got no room for another mouth!”
Carol stands up, whirling quickly on her husband. “This is jus’ as much yer
fault as it is mine!” She snaps. “Don’t yew think I’m gunna be blamed y’hear?
Yer the one who forgot t’buy condoms again!”
“We don’t have money for condoms!”
“Then go to the clinic! They’re givin’ ‘em away!”  
“Why don’t you go? I’m not walkin’ into no women’s center!”
“Yer jus’ being irresponsible again!”
Kenny gets up, knowing there’ll be no logical discussion of what to do about
this until they’ve yelled themselves out. He goes to join Clyde in his room,
happy he’s got some weed left from the last time he dared sneak some from his
folks.
The brunette is standing in the middle of his room still, looking unsure where
to sit. He clearly also heard the yelling in the kitchen.
“Uh,”
Kenny shakes his head, kneels by the bed and fishes a small bag from under the
bottom mattress. Inside is a glass pipe, a lighter with the Playboy bunny logo
and an orange prescription bottle. He sits heavily on the floor, leaning
against his old bed, motioning for Clyde to sit next to him.
“I hope y’smoke, Clyde; t’day’s gunna need it.”
------
Craig had reluctantly left Tweek Bros. as requested, but he texted Tweek
frequently to check in on him. Replies had been sporadic and worrisome;
ignoring most of his own texts as sometimes happened when Tweek couldn’t stand
the pressure of a full day alone with his father.
FROM: Tweek; 1:38P.M:
TO: Craig; Read 1:39P.M:
My dads gone nuts man! He keeps talking about giving me taking over the coffee
shop
FROM: Tweek; 3:11P.M:
TO: Craig; Read 3:15P.M:
Hes called me an Omega 26 times already! WHY DOES HE CARE SO MUCH?!?!?
FROM: Tweek; 5:47P.M:
TO: Craig; Read 5:51P.M:
Dads sending me home for dinner mom making something special
FROM: Tweek; 5:48P.M:
TO: Craig; Read 5:51P.M:
Dad invited a family friend for dinner from denver i didnt know we had family
friends outside southpark!!
FROM: Tweek; 6:00P.M:
TO: Craig; Read 6:03P.M:
Dads closingg the shop craig im scared what the fuck is going on?!
Craig had tried in vain to be reassuring, asking if Tweek wanted him to come to
dinner as well, but apparently his dad said no to the idea.
Uncharacteristically antsy, Craig busies himself with his old VHS tapes of Red
Racer and building small structures for Stripe the 7th in his room, waiting for
every chime of his phone.
FROM: Craig; 6:05P.M:
TO: Tweek; Read 6:07P.M
Hang in there babe. Want me to come over tonight
FROM: Tweek; 6:10P.M:
TO: Craig; Read 6:11P.M:
YESS
Tweek walks home, alone, as the sun sets around him. People shuffling about,
some with groceries, some with their kids, everyone ignoring the short blond
hurrying towards his house. His mother is waiting for him, so he can’t dawdle
or stop at Craig’s house for a reassuring hug. His steps falter, tics made
worse by the multitude of thoughts in his head, each clamoring to be worse and
more dire than the other, too loud to be easily picked apart.
Up ahead the dark brown house fits in well with its neighbors, unassuming with
bright lights in the windows, invitingly warm in appearance. Tweek knows the
cold inside is worse than outside, where nests of Gnomes and shadows lurk with
glinting teeth waiting to feast on his delicate skin.
He goes in through the front door, bracing himself for his mother’s melodious
voice.
“Tweek, honey?"
“H-Hi mom!”  
Susan Tweak breezes out of the kitchen, drying her hands on her apron, a soft
brown with little orange steaming coffee cups on it. She smiles easily at her
son, her gaze somewhere over his shoulder.
“Welcome home pumpkin. I missed you.” She opens one arm to the side, and Tweek
obeys to move into her, receiving a soft hug.
“Missed you too,” He replies as expected. Her approving kiss on his head is
familiar.
“I’m making something very special for dinner, darling, all of your favorites
too. Why don’t you go on upstairs and wash up? Put on something nice, too.”
Tweek’s shivers take over, and he glances around. “I-is your--your friend here
already?” He asks, sure that’s the only reason he has to dress nice for a
Wednesday dinner.
“Not quite yet, but he should be soon, and you’ll want to make a good
impression. Perhaps we can put your hair into a ponytail?”
“What? Why?!”
She chuckles. “It will look quite cute on you, I think. Hurry along now, Tweek,
I need your help in the kitchen when you’re ready.”
He nods sharply, turning to dart up the stairs, already pulling out his phone
to text Craig again. In his room the boy finds himself spinning in circles,
having a screaming debate with himself as to what counts as nice enough.
Eventually he settles on a black long sleeved cotton shirt, the only one he has
which has no buttons, and a pair of dark jeans. That done he goes for a hot
shower, scrubbing himself up and down until everywhere is red from heat and
friction, lathering his hair twice in shampoo and conditioner.
He’s not in for long, but when he leaves the steam-fogged bathroom wrapped in a
towel he can hear a voice at the door he doesn’t find familiar.
“Greetings, Richard, Susan. I’m so pleased you called me.”
“We’re happy you could visit on such short notice.” Richard’s voice carries
quietly. “We thought it prudent to move quickly on this. Tweek will be
delighted to meet you.”
“Ah, yes, your Omega son? I’m looking forward to getting to know him.”
Tweek’s spine straightens, tightens, and he sprints into his room to dry off
any get dressed. He’s got a terrible feeling about this--paranoia strangles
logical thought.
He fires off another text to Craig, not even reading the one his boyfriend sent
to him first, typing quickly while barely looking.
FROM: Tweek; 6:58P.M:
TO: Craig; Read 7:03P.M:
My pare nts friend knows im  nomega y would they tell him that?! What if theyre
going to send me tio some omega boarding shcool or something?!
He throws his phone onto the bed and changes quickly, the water dripping from
his hair soaking the collar of the black shirt. The thick of it is pulled
behind his head, trying to gather enough of the uneven layers together for a
short ponytail.  
“Tweek, honey?” His mother calls from the bottom of the stairs. “Please come
downstairs and help me in the kitchen and greet our guest.”
“O-Okay mom!” He yells back. A pause has to be made at the door, a shaking hand
on the knob, eyes closed and forehead against the wood. “Y-you’ll be okay,
think happy thoughts… kissing Craig… puppies… S-Stripe eating lettuce…”
The guest, as he were, is a very tall man in a brown business suit. His black
hair is cut neatly and styled flat, plain and non-threatening. A shade of
stubble darkens his skin. His eyes are sharper than both Tweeks’ parents,
keenly aware and calculating. When locked onto Tweek’s own it is as if he were
dismantling an argument the blond hasn’t even made yet.
His smile, when Tweek forces himself to shake the man’s hand, is wide and
toothy. Still holding Tweek’s hand tightly, he leans in and takes a great
whiff in the crook of the boy’s neck.
“Jesus Christ!” Tweek jerks back, unable to free his hand, disgust and fear
sweeping down his back. “Let go!”
“Now, Tweek,” His father admonishes sternly. “None of that.”
The stranger laughs, deep and hearty, standing straight again. “It’s alright
Richard. It’s probably the first time he’s met an adult Alpha--of course he
won’t know proper greetings.” He turns those eyes back on Tweek. “I apologize
for startling you, Omega. My name is Carter Jones; I’ve known your folks since
college.”
‘D-don’t call me that.’He wants to say, “My n-name is Tweek.” Is what comes out
instead, fearful of his father’s reproach. Tweek eyes him suspiciously--his
parents have never once mentioned him, nor do they talk about friends in
general.
Carter still has his hand, and when he tugs to free himself the Alpha lifts
their hands, kisses the back of Tweek’s, and only then lets go. The boy
retracts his hand to himself protectively. Carter looks amused.
“Tweek darling, the kitchen?” Susan calls, no hint of impatience in her
sonorous voice. All-too-happy to retreat, Tweek scampers off into the kitchen,
leaving Carter and his father to talk quietly to each other.
Dinner that night is a veritable feast. Potatoes with ample amounts of butter,
lean steak and biscuits. Carrots, peas, corn, sauteed apples with cinnamon.
None of which are even close to Tweek's favorites. Wine glasses with coffee
mugs aside them, both full, sit in front of each place setting, including
Tweek’s, and the bottle remains sitting in a bucket of ice to keep chilled. All
on the fine china that Susan kept behind glass.
Carter’s chair is set beside Tweeks, with his parents both opposite them.
Richard’s face holds a constant smile, amused and indulgent, the way he smiles
at customers.
Tweek’s hands are too unsteady for him to hold his fork and knife without
grating the delicate plate beneath more food than he can or will eat. Instead
he nibbles on a buttered biscuit and gulps coffee. Carter keeps looking at him,
Tweek can feel it, the weight pushing him harder into his chair. He longs for
his phone, the link to Craig and his only stability, but dares not contemplate
running upstairs to fetch it. The strained noises bubbling in his throat seem
to amuse the Alpha sitting beside him, and Tweek can’t figure out why.
Halfway through a meal of nothing but small talk--
“How was the drive, Carter?”
“Oh, quite easy, I assure you.”
“Is the shop doing well?”
“Better than ever!”
“Tweek’s grown so much since I last saw him,”
“He’s really coming into his own. We’re so proud of him.” --and lies Susan
begins collecting plates. Tweek’s meal has gone untouched, aside the biscuit,
yet his mother makes no sign she notices, whisking it away from him.
“We have a gift for you, son.” Richard says, pulling Tweek from his racing
thoughts, just itching for dinner to be over so he can go back to his room and
call Craig.
“W-WHAT?”
Susan comes back from the kitchen with a small brown package under her arm, a
coffee pot in one hand and a chocolate cake in the other. She places the
package in front of him and returns to the kitchen for new plates.
“What is it?” He asks cautiously, knowing there's no good reason for a surprise
gift.
“Go ahead and open it.” Richard encourages as Susan returns with a large knife
and four plates. Tweek's jittering hands fidget with the glued edges while cake
is dished out.
By the time his mother is sitting again he’s ripped into it, pulling a thick
fabric from within. Unfolding it reveals a long apron with a front and a back
that ties around the neck and clasps in the back. There's a panel that would
fall over his hips and rear down his legs, a split on both sides for movement,
but it would cover his chest and front down to the floor in front as well.
On the peach fabric is an embroidered symbol in green on the chest and on the
back panel, where it would rest on his rump.
He doesn’t know what to make of it--and he’s never seen that symbol before.
“Go on, son, try it on!” Richard urges, beaming. Tweek stands to the side of
his chair and slips the thick pre-tied neckband over his head, smoothing the
fabric over himself. He reaches behind himself to do up the clasp in back. It
fits incredibly well without any adjusting, and when he’s wearing shoes it
should just be short enough not to trip on.
“It’s perfect!” His mother gasps with a delighted smile.
“Yes, yes this will work nicely.” Her husband agrees.
Carter’s eyes sweep the boy up and down. “Excellent choice, Richard. You’re
going to have him wear that at the shop?”
“Why yes,” Richard assures, sipping his coffee. “It will be perfect
advertising.”
Carter cocks an eyebrow at him, and Tweek watches his father tilt his head in a
shallow nod to him. “Until our arrangement comes to fruition, of course. You
may decide you want him to wear it as well, in time. If it all works out.”
“I’ll consider it. Assuming the shop doesn’t supply the kind of revenue I’m
expecting, it might be necessary.”
“Of course. There’s nothing wrong with supplementary income, however.”
“As you say. Until it is official, of course, you’re free to do with him as you
like, since he’s your Omega.”
Tweek’s sure his heart will burst--there’s so much to unpack from this
conversation, but his mind can’t process it. It’s not unusual for his parents
to talk as if he weren’t there--even to his face--but this--the pressure of it.
“Jesus! What are you talking about?!” He demands, unable to take it. “What’s
going on?!”
“You’ve not told him?” Carter asks, raising an eyebrow.
“We were going to tell him tonight, and thankfully he can meet you at the same
time.”
“Tell me WHAT?!”
“Tweek, son, calm down. It’s very simple, we have arranged for Carter to become
your mate, should he decide he likes you.”
***** Even When He Leaves *****
Chapter Summary
     Tweek trembles against plans and secrets.
     Clyde wakes from a nap.
     Kenny just wants to sleep off his stomach.
     Craig is beautiful in the darkness.
Chapter Notes
     Hello and thank you to everyone who commented and kudos'd the last
     chapter! I sincerely appreciate every word and click given. You drive
     me, make me giggle in joy and other happy responses!
     That being said, this may be more of a "Two-parter" chapter, with
     many things left for the PTA meeting and some key events ;3
     ***SPECIAL NOTE***
     There are a couple uncomfortable scenes in this chapter, though I'd
     say "very mild" for this fic.
     As well as a reference to my favorite Clyde x Kenny fic:
     https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6516351/1/Liebe-Und-Krankheit
     I hope you enjoy this chapter n_n
===============================================================================
 
Dinner is over.
And Carter won’t leave.
He won’t leave
He won’t leave
He won’t leave
He won’t leave
Hewon’t leave
Eight P.M., nine, nine-thirty; still at the dinner table, dessert gone, wine
bottle empty, a second bottle half-gone. A hand heavy and unmoving on his inner
thigh. Creeping higher, skimming down, nails when he trembles digging into his
jeans under the apron.
“P-please can I be excused?”
A panic attack carefully ignored, coffee plied endlessly--”Whyever for? This is
a delightful. Now be quiet, son, we’re talking.”--Pleasant conversations about
nothing. That uncomfortably large hand squeezes his thigh, shifting, sliding,
threatening to touch him between his legs. It burns. Strained noises grow
louder.
“B-but I--”
“Silence, Omega.” An order he can’t disobey. Voice blocked, as if by magic, a
rubber band around his throat, choking, panting, sweating. “Be good.”
“I apologize for him.” All too sincere, flashes of disappointmented eyes on
him.
“Be obedient. Relax. He’s our guest.”
Craig--Craig can fix this--
Laughing, the man is laughing at him.“It is no trouble, they’re all like this
at first. He will just need to be trained.”
Relieved chuckles--Plans--words--Only swirls of noise under an ocean of panic.
Ten P.M.; “Are you sure we can’t offer you a bed?”
“...No. ...No, I must be going. I’ll return at another time. You said he’s had
his First Heat already, correct?”
“Yes, though regrettably we weren’t here to handle it properly; he should be
due for another soon.” Placating voices dripping arsenic honey. 
“Call me when it comes on, and I’ll try him out. Oh, that reminds me--has he
fully shifted yet?”
Heats? Trying him out? Shifting? Understanding fails--focus on breath--don’t
cry in front of them.
“Not yet, but we’ll teach him before you make the trip here again, if he's able
to do it. Of course, we’ll also be in touch as soon as the Heat starts. Tweek,
aren’t you going to say goodbye to our guest?”
Anything to make him leave. Stand, offer hand, don’t vomit.
“G-good--”
“Not like that.” A firm grip in his hair, yanking his head, bearing his neck.
It hurts. His face flushes, his sight pinholes. It’s a sharp correction. “Like
this. Good Omega. Don’t make eye contact.”
The door closes. There’s no food to throw up, but plenty of coffee; finding the
powder room...
Mother and Father discussing in excited whispers together. He’s on the sofa,
curling up, can’t handle the stairs yet. A world whirling by like asteroids
hurtling through space, every thought and feeling too fast and brutal to do
more than crash into him and speed away after breaking shards from his body.
A soft hand on his shoulder, disturbing the fog.
“Now pumpkin, don’t fret so much,” His mother sits besides him, attempting to
halt his rocking with fingers like clamps digging into shoulder and knee. “We
know this is a lot to handle for an Omega, that’s why we’re taking care of it
for you; so you don’t have to worry about a thing! And on Friday we’ll be
taking you to the clinic and we’ll have this Heat business all sorted out.
You'll see, it's going to be alright.”
“Yes,” His father sits on the other side of him, a fresh cup of coffee in his
hands. The aroma is thick and familiar, a special family blend brewed with
cinnamon. “When we got the call from that doctor that she’d forcibly stopped
your first Heat, well, we were quite concerned; we wish to support your natural
instincts.”
Tweek’s eyes are wet, face ruddy with tears that won’t stop falling, even
though he tries. He doesn’t know what any of this means, or what to do. Why are
stairs so hard?
“I want Craig,” He croaks, the first thing he’s been able to say clearly in
hours. “I can’t be that guy’s--I have a--I have a Craig!”
There’s a pause, he sees them looking at each other, communicating, deciding
without him. He twitches, fights a scream of frustration and cornered fear. His
body wants him to move, release the kinetic build up, but he’s trapped.
“Yes, that’s right, about Craig…”
------
To: Tweek; 9:34P.M.
From: Craig; Read 10:41P.M.:
Tweek text or call me back Do you still want me to come over?
 
To: Craig; 10:42P.M.
From: Tweek; Read 10:45P.M.:
Cmethru window craig need u
 
Craig only lives down the street; it will take no time to get to Tweek’s house.
He stuffs his feet into thick socks and boots, pulling jeans over his night
pants. He’s got a coat, his backpack, a fluffy purple blanket which he stuffs
inside the bag, and is down the stairs in heavy steps.
“Craig? Where are you going?” Laura pokes her head out of the kitchen, a cup of
tea steaming in her hand.
“Tweek’s. Something’s wrong.” He says flatly. Her face creases in concern, and
she nods.
“If he needs to stay here tonight bring him over. Wake your father and I if
we’re asleep when you come back and you need us.”
“‘Okay. Thanks mom.”
“Of course.”
It’s frigid outside, pitch black but for the sparse streetlights that came with
the new bus routes. He crosses the empty road, walking swiftly down the
sidewalk to his boyfriend’s house. It’s been hell, being so close and not
knowing what’s been happening inside; all he knows for sure is there was an
extra car parked out front for hours and that it’s gone now.
He crosses around to the side of the house, finding Mrs. Tweak’s wooden lattice
for some viney weed she never bothered planting resting against the wall as
always. He scales up it with practiced ease.
Thankfully his Tweek’s room has a window on the side of the house, and it’s
opened for Craig and the wind, who clambors inside with his bag, navigating his
long limbs through the small opening. His doing so is hidden by a large and
sprawling tree planted when they were twelve, with great branches that scrape
at Tweek’s window and walls at night like the creaking nails of giants.
“Craig!” The blond tackles him once he’s barely inside, knocking them both to
the bed directly beneath the window, Craig’s back hitting the wall. His low
grunt at the impact makes Tweek hug him tighter, burying his nose under Craig’s
chin.
“What happened?” The brunette asks, when Tweek’s breaths hitch into rasping
sobs. “What did they do to you?” He places his hands on Tweek’s thin back,
rubbing under one shoulder blade and the other along his pronounced spine.
Tweek shakes his head in jerks and stinging muscles, moving against Craig until
the taller shifts, allowing Tweek to climb into his lap.
“Babe?” Craig prompts. “Breathe with me.” He hugs Tweek to him tighter, chest
to chest, and begins to take deep, measured breaths counted in
1..2.…3…...4….....5…...… With each breath in and out longer than the last. By
ten Tweek’s shuddering is all that remains, punctuated with a few sharp
sniffles.
“Better?”
Tweek nods, sitting back so he can stare at Craig’s chin. His eyes are bright
red, face splotchy where he’s not panic-pale and his hair is slipping from a
sloppy ponytail. Craig works the rubberband from the soft blond tangles,
careful of pulling on already fragile strands and breaking them, brushing both
hands through the kinks and knots once done.
Craig then presses his coat’s sleeve against Tweek’s face and rubs off tears
and snot until Tweek sniffles and pushes it away.
“There. Want to tell me what happened?”
------
At twelve-o-five P.M. Clyde is lying with his head on the dirtiest bed he’s
ever been on--and he’s slept on dirt--with the now-and-then Mysterion lying
next to him, watching smoke drift and swirl up to the filthy ceiling above
them.
“That stain looks like a hamburger,” Clyde declares with a lazy blink, pointing
a weak hand and crooked finger towards a brown spot above them. He groans. “I
want a hamburger.”
Kenny snaps the lighter until the small flame flickers up, releasing it. He
sighs, taking a hit from the pipe. “Gots no hamburger, buns; ketchup, mustard.
No pickles. No money fer it neither.”
“I’d buy you a hamburger,” Clyde replies quickly, wiggling against the fourteen
year old sheets. They might’ve been all blue, once, but whether that blue was
also yellow, red, green, white, brown and black from the start was less likely
“Thanks, Clyde, but it’d probably jus’ end up on yer shoes too.” Kenny passes
the pipe and lighter. 
“That would suck,” Clyde hums, feeling his heavy eyes trying to close after a
deep pull of smoke, coughing it out. “Then I’d hafta get new shoes--they can’t
survive being thrown up on two times in one day.”
“Sorry,” Kenny mumbles after a quiet moment, turning over onto his side facing
the brown wolf. His hood falls away, spilling shaggy gold hair over cornflower
eyes and freckled cheeks. Two long and tapered ears shift within the strands.
“Can’t buy ya new shoes either.”
Clyde flushes, which happens all-too-easily, and looks away. His heartbeat
spikes. “No worries, I can get ‘em for free if I want.”
“Oh yeh?” Kenny asks, his lazy voice rising curiously. “It’s cuz yer dad owns
th’shoe store, that right?”
“Mhm,” Clyde wiggles his toes inside his mostly-cleaned off vans. Despite there
being no heating in the McCormick house his body feels overly warm, toes
sweltering and swimming in his sweat damp socks. He wants to take them and his
coat off, but it’s hard to move, everything laden under a hundred pounds of
comforting numbness.
“I’d blow Howard Stern again fer new shoes,” Kenny declares with a wistful
giggle.
Clyde vaguely remembers hearing about that, Kenny spent three months in jail
back when he was only eight. His shoes cost more than the ten dollars Kenny’d
sold himself off for. It sparks a thought, and it sounds excellent amidst the
giggling smoke.
“Don’t give Howard Stern a b-j,” Clyde advises. “S’my dad that owns the shoe
store--you should blow him.” To Clyde it’s very logical when everything’s
floating the way it is. “Actually, you don’t even have to blow my dad--I’d get
you free shoes for a b-j.”
Kenny laughs, rolling onto his back. He looks for the stain Clyde spoke of, but
there are many to choose from.
“Sounds fair. When yer not high as balls I’ll blow ya well nuff fer two pairs
o’shoes.”
Clyde watches a shadow turn the hamburger into a splatter of brown and black
shades and snickers. Morphing shapes are all the rage.
“Okay.”
Time stretches. Kenny takes back the pipe and smoke fills his lungs in
pleasant, sleepy clouds. 
Clyde thinks muddy thoughts, pleased about their arrangement, and consciousness
becomes a fickle thing.
------
Clyde knows he’s not high anymore when he wakes up, eyes opening for the first
time in a few hours. There’s orange light discoloring the already ruined
ceiling, and the temperature has dropped with the retreating sun. His mouth
tastes funny and there’s a crick in his neck that comes from being too asleep
to move for stiff muscles. There’s a car horn beeping somewhere in the
distance, and close by are soft voices. It takes a moment for him to sit up,
only to see Kenny and his little sister with flashlights aimed at a binder and
notebook, papers spread out around them.
“...Then you insert A and B into the equation,” Kenny continues quietly. “Once
y'have that y'can start solvin' the pieces.”
He glances up, catching Clyde’s eyes, the popped up fluffy brown ears raised in
a mop of brown curls, and offers a wan smile. He looks exhausted, and flushed
with fever, too sick to be teaching algebra by flashlight. Kenny looks away,
back to the paper at hand and makes a mark with their shared pen.
“See? All…--all it takes is this,” Kenny’s voice wavers, a signal slipping in
and out of focus. “Y'got it.” He ruffles Karen’s hair until she giggles,
smacking at his hands and pushing away.
“Kenny!” She squeals when he starts laughing too, wiggling his fingers like he
might start tickling her at any moment. “I get it, I get it!” He sits back,
breathing heavily through his nose, but smiling easily.
“Good job kiddo. Think ya could finish up in Kevin’s room?”
Kenny’s eyes dart up to Clyde’s again, but the brunette simply shrugs back,
yawning broadly. Karen whirls around to see him, and smiles brightly, her own
wolf ears flicking up, tipped in white and sandy brown to base.
“Okay Kenny!” She gathers the strewn papers, her own flashlight and departs the
room. As soon as the door closes behind her Kenny drops to the floor, lying
flat on his stomach.
Clyde slides off the bed, feeling awkwardly like he should be making his own
exit.
“Uh, Kenny? You… alright?”
“This carpet smells like shit,”
“Maybe get your nose out of it?” Clyde squats beside him, too unsure of his
right to touch the blond to lay even a friendly hand on his shoulder. “I’m not
taking up the bed anymore.”
Kenny turns his head, feverish blues blearily finding Clyde’s concerned gaze.
“Help a bro up?”
“Sure.”
Kenny’s hand fits nicely in Clyde’s own. They’re not much different in height
but Clyde has pounds on Kenny, and the golden wolf’s fingers are long and as
slender as he is, and with Clyde’s thicker fingers twined with them he feels
almost as if he were safeguarding Kenny.
He’s holding the poor wolf’s hand much longer than needed to help him up,
without doing so, and Kenny’s eyes go wide, staring up at him over cheeks
tinting rose.
Clyde coughs, stands and tugs. Kenny gets his other hand and knees under him
and Clyde more or less drags him to the bed on the tips of toes that never
quite get their weight under them.
“Oof,” Face-first in the old sheets, Kenny wriggles until he’s fully on the
mattress. Now he’s up there, Kenny doesn’t want to move; an ache throbs at the
base of his spine, spreading down through his hips in buzzing electricity. Fire
rings his eyes in fever. He can hear his parents screaming in the back of his
head, echoing in the way only a migraine can.
Clyde’s still holding his hand, staring at him with a growing intensity
completely alien to the friendly brunette. The longer he meets Kenny’s distant
gaze the less he recognizes he boy as one of his more aloof friends or someone
he has admired and looked up to; instead Kenny seems to transform, the bony
articulations of his wrists and shoulder blades pop out delicately, his spine
extends in a sinuous wave under that manky coat which has hiked up just above
waistline. There the visible crest of his right hip bone stands in such relief
Clyde can pick out every spot a fingertip should rest to achieve the perfect
hold on him.
For as scrawny as he his, Kenny’s ass is round, pushing against the band of
pants that are starting to be too small for him. Clyde forces himself to look
away, seek out Kenny’s face, but finds himself enamored by cracked lips and
curious blue eyes.
“...Clyde?”
-------
A bruise rallies to form across Tweek’s back, where Craig unintentionally slams
him into the door when he gets between it and the growling brunette. Tweek has
never experienced the ferociousness that’s overtaken Craig before--a snarling
wolf in his room, slit eyed and clawed, ready to rip through Tweek and the door
to get at his boyfriend’s parents.
“NO!” Tweek yelps, arms coming up defensively. “Craig! You can’t!” Tails and
ears, fangs and claws exposed; wolves squaring against each other, viciously
challenging each other to a fight. “I w-WON’t letyou!”
“Move, Tweek!”
“I can’t! AGH! Don’tkillmeCraig!”  
“I’m not going to kill you,” To Tweek’s eyes Craig’s fangs glint in the
moonlight, the rest of him a blackened shadow.
“Ba-CK off! I fucking mean it Craig!”
“Tweek--”
“Please--ngk--please, Craig--it won’t help, oh God, Jesus, please back off!”
Craig’s face in the dark room is unreadable, his stare long and deep. After too
long for the frayed Omega, Craig gives a sharp nod and stands straighter, no
longer dangerously crowding Tweek.
“We’re leaving.” Craig declares. Tweek flinches from him, shuddering. Craig is
furious, and it colors the monotone of his voice in black ash and bubbling lava
capped by thin ice. “Grab what you need for the night.”
Tweek darts from the door around Craig, keeping half an eye on him in case he
tries to go confront his parents while Tweek’s distracted, but he only goes and
stands by the bed and the window.
Craig barely waits for Tweek to grab clothes to sleep in, his backpack, the
gift he'd shucked and crumpled the second he got upstairs,and his thermos
before he’s helping Tweek--all but pushing him--out the window, following him
immediately, only pausing to close the window again, and down the lattice,
getting them out of that house together.
Outside the cold is punishing, and neither are well prepared to face it.
Standing in the snow Craig pulls the purple blanket from his pack and drapes it
around Tweek’s shoulders. They share a look, nervous teeth tugging at bitten
lips and cold blue eyes saying nothing.
It’s time to go. Craig’s grip on Tweek’s hand when he pulls him away is fierce,
painful, squeezing through his every paranoid glance around, every stumble in
his breath. Craig’s leading him along the street as fast as they can shuffle
through the snow. In less than an hour the winds have picked up and they whip
at the two boys mercilessly like chiding parents. The plush purple blanket
flares and flaps behind Tweek like a cape, like wings, growing cold and wet and
heavy.
Craig gets them to his house with no incident and no words, opening the
unlocked front door and all-but throwing Tweek inside. He shuts them in,
flicking the lock. Tweek’s thin body is wracked with shivers, from fear, from
cold, from being overwhelmed by the events of the day. It’s with a tremulous
sigh that Craig ushers Tweek upstairs to his room, taking the icy purple
blanket from his boyfriend to throw over his desk chair to warm.
“Get changed.”
“Craig--”
“No. Just put on your pjs, Tweek.”
“I…”
Craig yanks off his own jeans, leaving the uncomfortably stuffed pajama pants
on. Tweek looks away and strips off his clothes. His shirt, his pants, socks
and shoes, all under Craig’s watch. He’s pulling sleep clothes from his bag,
and in the pile of crumpled fabric is the apron his father gave him. The color
is unusual for Tweek, and the symbols embroidered on it catch Craig’s
attention.
“What is this?” He holds it up so the length of it dangles in view.
Tweek grunts anxiously, paling at the sight of it. “M-my new--nng--work apron!”
He tugs at the hair brushing the top of his shoulder. “Dad got it for me. I-
I think it’s some kind of message!”
Craig stares at the symbol on the chest--what he sees is a winged upside down
“U”, the font squat and wide, a letter of some kind that doesn’t really look
English. It’s vaguely familiar--maybe a logo from a movie or a product he’s
glimpsed before but never needed--but he doesn’t recognize it. That Tweek has
to wear it--with one on the front and one on the back--right on the ass of the
fabric--alludes to the apron hosting a sinister meaning.
“I’ll ask my parents in the morning.” Craig decides, throwing it onto his desk
so he may return to staring down his quivering boyfriend who stands awkwardly,
stripped to his boxers. “What else do you have to tell me?”
Tweek backs up into the bed and curls up on the edge of it. He’s not dressed
yet, so he wraps thin arms around his bare knees, hiding his ribs and concave
stomach behind them. “I-I, God, I told you--”
“You didn’t tell me everything.” Craig interrupts, pointing at the apron,
folding his arms. “Your parents want us to break up because I’m not an Alpha.
They want you to wear some weird apron instead of the white one you always
wear,”
Tweeks hands curl into his hair, and he stares at Craig with wide eyes that
blink and flinch with his grunts and whimpers.
“They invited an Alpha friend over because they’re hoping you’ll like him
instead of me,” Tweek’s eyes drops briefly, looking away.
Craig reaches over Tweek to work his fingers from his hair before squeezing
becomes tugging. “They’re happy you’re an Omega but you don’t know why, and
they’re unhappy your first Heat was stopped so you have to go back to the
clinic on Friday. What else?”
Tweek’s unable to stop himself from spasming, eyes jumping to other corners of
the room. He can’t tell Craig everything now, no, he’s probably heard it all
wrong--and it won’t matter--he can’t do anything about it anyways.
“Craig…”
“C’mon Tweek!” Craig places both hands on Tweek’s shoulders, nails threatening
to become claws digging into pale skin. “I’m not fucking around--I need to know
what’s going on! Or do you actually want to break up?”
Tweek’s eyes snap up to Craig’s, blatant horror written all over his face.
“NO! Jesus Christ, no, Craig!”
Craig pushes Tweek hard, knocking him off balance and onto his back on the bed,
looming over him. He’s standing, uncomfortably bent over Tweek, feeling the
tremors in Tweek’s body under his palms.
“C-Cr--”
“I love you, Tweek.” A kiss is taken, a mere brushing over pale lips bloodless
with stress. “I know you’re scared. I can’t even imagine how horrible tonight
was for you. Trust me, I’m not going to let them break us up if you still want
to be with me, okay? But you gotta talk to me.”
Tweek nods slowly, biting into his lower lip. He reaches up to embrace the
lanky brunette, whose hands move to his hips instead. They maneuver until both
are on the bed, though Craig climbs on top of Tweek again, hands planted either
side the quaking blond’s head.
Blue eyes burn in the darkened room, and inside Tweek is an ache, like longing,
aroused and needy, seeking something he can’t describe. Hovering over him Craig
is beautiful, his tousled black hair wind-whipped into discord, eyes a storm at
sea, cold mask of a blank face only hinting at the passion inside, fixated
entirely on the wolf under him.
Swallowing heavily, Tweek tries to smile. “I love you too, Craig,” His voice
cracks, oscillates between whispers, whimpers and rasps. “I don’t want to break
up. Jesus, I don’t want a-any of this!”
Craig’s eyes soften with a hint of vulnerable affection.
“I can’t go into Heat again, Craig--you have to--It’s the end man, if I do.”
Words fail, a spasm twists his spine. “I want you to be my Alpha--no! You have
to! I don’t know what’ll happen if you don’t!”  
“I probably can’t control that, Tweek,” Craig replies quietly, taking another
kiss. “But I’ll find out if I can. They’re not taking you from me.”
There’s a second's hesitation before Craig’s lips fall on Tweek’s to end the
conversation. Mouths open with breaths and moans and tongues clashing wetly.
Arms wrap around Craig’s neck, pulling him down against the Omega’s body and
between his parted legs.
------
Clyde never made the conscious decision to grab his clearly sick friend and
throw him back off the bed and onto the floor; rather an instinctive rage
thrummed up his spine the longer he stared into Kenny’s fever-burned eyes, and
all-consuming became the inward demand to assert himself to this human
wolf with eyes so very blue.
“Ow--” Kenny hits the baseboard of the wall outward his room, left shoulder
blade taking the sharpest of the impacts. He drops onto both elbows, breathing
heavy through pain and nausea, worlds spinning into points.
Clyde climbs off the bed, unblinking at Kenny, shoulders raised. There’s a
buzzing in his head and static in front of his eyes, slitted, above a mouth of
sharp teeth and below flat laying brown ears.
“Kenny,” He stalks over to the thin boy, nearly curling over him. He can’t look
away from him. Blue eyes overtake everything. There’s a growing need, hitting
him in the gut, swelling between his legs. Kenny smells delicious, sweet and
musky all at once--something Clyde’s unable to parse. But he wants--
--His fingers graze Kenny’s lips, down his chin and neck and back up. Kneeling
over Kenny, rubbing at chapped skin, pushing at the seams of them, wanting to
feel wet tongue and teeth. This one promised him service, but was going to
sleep instead--no, not until he’s satisfied.
Clyde’s fingers break into his mouth, obtrusively worming over his tongue,
deeper, scraping nails and dry, dirty skin. Kenny’s nausea spikes, triggering
convulsions in his gut, saliva puddling under his tongue. He hears himself
whine, and Clyde breathe, goldenrod ears listening for threats.
A thick, musky smell makes the brunette sweat heady, dizzying Kenny until he
can’t see more than colors.
Clyde’s lips quirk up while Kenny’s mouth opens wider for another finger.
Breaths labored, cold inhales over Clyde's slick skin and Kenny's hot tongue.
Clyde's free hand heads towards his crotch, rubbing at his fly. He wants to
have that cold and hot on his cock, wants to be sucked by Kenny, be swallowed
down by him.
The boy would do it, too--he’s the one who offered. It only made sense;
everyone knows Kenny is sexual, perverted, open to almost anything--it wouldn’t
be weird to expect the poor wolf to deliver on a joking offer of sex. If it had
never occurred to Clyde to do this before then it is about time--that fever-red
face and glassy eyed stare is all his now.
The button at his fly is undone, and his hand is shaking in anticipations just
enough to make Clyde miss the first attempt to grasp and pull his zipper down.
Kenny’s gasp for air is covered by a knocking on the door.
“Kenny?”
Both boys freeze, one with a panic; Clyde scowls.
“Kenny, are you awake? There’s a weird smell coming from your room and mama
wants to know if you stole her weed again.”
Clyde yanks his fingers from Kenny’s mouth as the blond squirms to get away. He
throws Clyde a worried and hurt look, scrambling to get up and to the door.
“No Kare--s’not weed--”
‘What the fuck was I just doing?’Clyde stares at his hand, his fingers drying
rapidly in the cool room. Fingers he’d shoved into Kenny’s mouth without
permission, and the urge to do it again thrums through his gut; to do that and
more. Not even when he’d dated Bebe, who used to loved teasing him with that
reward, had he wanted so badly to have his cock sucked.
Kenny finishes at the door, but stands at the portal glancing over at Clyde
questioningly, warily, with fathomless eyes that probe and know things, the way
he always seems to.
“I--”
Not since he stole the Stick of Truth had anyone looked at him with such
distrust. Clyde hates it, and he thinks he could cry right there but for the
swirl of denied and angry that paralyzes. Guilt and I’m not wrong at war.
“I’m sorry,” It sounds insincere in his nasal voice, forced out over the urge
to reach out, but Kenny relaxes anyways, resting his weight on the doorframe.
“I think I should go home.”
“Yeah,” Kenny makes a move as if to pull up his hood, but doesn’t follow
through. “Clyde, when I’m feelin’ better--”
“Huh?”
“I’ll give ya a blowjob later, okay? When I don’ feel like throwin' up. If
y’still want one. F’r’shoes.”
Clyde can’t help but blink incomprehensibly until that sinks in. An arrogantly
streaked feeling of relief flows through the husky wolf; Kenny’s blushing--the
biggest pervert in their class is blushing at the thought of giving him a
blowjob.
“Alright dude,” Clyde sniffs back some off emotions, though the embarrassment
won't slip away. “I’ll catch you later then?” He doesn’t have much stuff with
him, so it’s a quick grab before he’s moving by Kenny at the door, taking in
one last sniff of that oddly enticing smell hanging like an aura around the
boy.
Kenny doesn’t see Clyde out, if he had, Clyde might not have come down from
those heightened feelings so quickly, as when the fresh air hits his nose and
clears Kenny’s scent from him, it tempers the anger and desire into confusion
and regret.
He pulls out his cell phone, ignoring the missed calls from his dad and a text
from Jimmy to send one of his own to Token.
To: Token; 5:36P.M.
From: Clyde; Read 5:39P.M.:
Hey dude u free? Need 2 talk 2 u
 
To: Clyde; 5:44P.M.
From: Token; Read 5:45P.M.:
I’m not busy. My house? 
 
To: Token; 5:46P.M.
From: Clyde; Read 5:46P.M.:
Sounds good. OMW
Kenny watches Clyde finish on the phone and walk away with slumped shoulders
from the living room window. He’s glad the other boy didn’t realize he was
being watched and turn back, and now he’s gone every bone, every muscle feels
ready to collapse. He has to drag himself back to bed, mind a cloud of fever
and pheromones and a vague arousal that dogs the heels of every thought.
***** Along Through a Burning Day *****
Chapter Notes
     Hello my lovelies!
     Thank you again for the kind comments and kudos. I appreciate your
     encouragement very much. Reading your reactions makes all the
     writing, plotting, planning, timelines, notebooks and research much
     more fun.
     This chapter brought to you by, “Shit, I didn’t think it’d be this
     long, this late, and have any of you seen/played DRAMAticalMurder?
     Cuz I’m kinda obsessed with those bad endings. Which has me thinking
     about the ending...s… of this fic.
     Maybe some “not canon unless you want them to be” inserts,
     alternatives, Etc…"
     This chapter also brought to you by the words: “back”, “lean” and
     “head”, which i has a time going back and turning into other words. I
     hate repeating my words too much x.x
     I am following this: https://epicsouthparklover.deviantart.com/
     journal/all-the-south-park-characters-birthdays-304826030 persons's
     birthday list. I took what I could from the wikia, but Tweek and
     Craig's b-day's aren't on it so... this works :P
     Kenny and his families' accents are remain way too fun and awfully
     hard XD. Since Kenny doesn't seem to have any canon influence from
     his parents, Kevin does, once in a while Karen might, and their
     parents' accents are *different*... bwah. I love it <3
     ***Some risque business ahead, as well as semi-graphic descriptions
     of bloodwork***
 
===============================================================================
 
Sugary warmth slips over Tweek, a solid, living blanket heavy over him. Craig’s
weight is a comfort keeping him from floating away into the darkness of his
thoughts and the grasping, clawing unknown. Breaths mix, humid gusts over chin
and throat, a subtle warning before tongue and teeth taste and take.
They weave their mouths into a seam, holding each other together for as long as
it lasts, and when it tears, Craig rears back to strip himself of his coat, his
blue long sleeved, and shucks as well his jeans and sleep pants. He strips off
socks to a beat created in Tweek’s clicking throat, falling back onto the bed
at the second stanza.
“Tweek, you’re...” A thin smell of coffee hovers somewhere around Tweek’s neck,
behind his ears, in the sharp dips of his bold, hollow collar.
“Nng---what, Craig?” Muddled hazel opens from a long blink, as stomachs meet in
bare skin, firm hands with long fingers slide over arms to push trembling mates
into the softness of the bed.
“...Nothing,” Craig takes another kiss, eating down the noises of protesting
curiosity Tweek draws from his lungs.  “It doesn’t matter right now, Tweek.”
Hips roll down, building fires between them while anxious, pleasured noises get
gobbled up as well, straining hands are freed to paw and claw human nails over
the skin of Craig’s shoulders, already strong, growing stronger the more he
carries time and worldly weight with him.
A newly empty hand finds new purpose beneath their bellies, inelegantly
stroking and sweeping and gripping at the bulging cotton of their boxers,
farming gasps and cries to be indulged in the way one eats their favorite meal,
swallowed up by hungry teeth.
Tweek’s legs kick where they fall aside him, slipping over the edge of the bed,
finding shady purchase to thrust up against that bold hand, greedy for Craig’s
focus. A tremble rocks Craig’s seismic center, resonating from the base of his
spine, undulating into his boyfriend’s touch.
“Chk--aah--Craig--”
“Can I take them off?” Thumb and forefingers catch the waistband of Tweek’s
black cotton boxers, feeling along the edge as if examining the sharpness of a
blade, dared by the burning skin beneath to graze a knuckle on the cliff shelf
of hip bone.
Tweek hiccups an aborted squeak, clenching his teeth in vain to muffle himself.
Craig presses his quirked lips to Tweek’s again, only to be displaced by
frantic nodding. So drawing away, giving love a chance to explore where it
wishes, those hands that shiver form a searching team of wanderers, mapping
over Craig’s naked chest, discovering again where muscles steel to form and
baby fat clings like the last leaves of Fall.
Instinct within demands more, begs for fangs and scents and something unknown,
beyond sex, perhaps where forever lies eternal and out of reach, not yet found.
Craig rids them of their boxers when Tweek touches the band of Craig’s own,
quickly stuffing them away under the blankets with them. Together they entwine
hip to hip, fire to fire, sticky with pre-cum, thin dribbles of slick sliding
down Tweek’s inner thighs, the scent of mocha and coffee beans growing bolder.
Craig takes them both in one fist, quickly adjusting to cover Tweek’s mouth
with the other, hot pants and muted cries, scrabbling fingers and needs
blending into the darkness.
A growl rumbles into Craig’s throat, buckling him down into Tweek again and
again, unable to choose between stroking and where they rub together naturally,
frantic to reach a peak. A twist of his wrist, his thumb hooking under Tweek’s
balls to press on the slick-wet skin just behind.
“Craig, Craig, Craig--Please--” Tweek’s lips form the words that Craig reads
against his palm, pride and lust and this rail-thin boy a respite from the
world, his everything being right here.
Together, with Craig's hand around them both, they find the end.
-------
“Craig! Get your butt down here, mister!” Laura’s voice calls up the stairs,
climbing each step with controlled urgency and upset. She stands at an open
door, a barely lit world of gray and white beyond an immovable obstacle.
Her words don’t reach Craig behind his locked bedroom door with his head under
a blanket and left ear pressed to the shelter-warm skin of Tweek’s chest.
Tweek, long awake, hears her, and it arrests the air in his lungs, sending
ripples of worry through naturally trembling limbs.
He’s been lost somewhere in the blank, black space of not sleeping, but not
seeing either; a dark place occupied by Craig’s quiet snores and the sound of
life coming and going outside on the wind.
A shelter made of comforters and sheets can easily be broken by outside
disturbances, and now the spell is sundered, raw and gaping, an agitated
expectation demanding they who hide to appear.
“Craig--Craig, your mom is calling!”
“No,” He mumbles, refusing to even lift his head.
“Craig! Are you awake?”
“Aagh! You have to get up! What--what if she comes in here and sees us? Jesus,
fuck, Craig, if-- ngk--she’ll forbid me from ever seeing you again and then
you’ll be sent to the bi-curious camp with Butters!”
Craig rolls his visible eye up to Tweek, blinking slowly and unaffectedly at
the boy. “Tweek… mom knows we’re gay. Butters doesn’t go to bi-curious camp
anymore and she’s already walked in on us naked. ‘Sides, the door’s locked.”
Tweek yanks his hands up to cover his face. He’d almost forgotten--buried--the
memory of Mrs. Tucker opening the door on them first deciding that grabbing
each other’s dicks was an excellent iidea.
“Jesus, don’t remind me!”
Craig snorts softly, quietly amused, and nips at a collarbone trying to ruin
his comfy pillow.
“Craig!”
“Ugh, fine, relax babe,” He kisses the nipped skin, in apology for the yawning
command, pushing himself up to into the cold air of the bedroom. It hangs over
and around them, clinging like wet snow, a dazed fog creeping in from the grey
outside.
“Craig? Why is your door locked? Are you awake?”Laura calls from the other side
of it, having given up yelling up the stairs and coming to irately wake her
son.
“Yeah, I just got up,” He replies, ignoring her question.
“Tweek’s mom is here; they can’t find him. He’s not in there with you is he?”
Craig peers up at Tweek, who, with frightful wide eyes slaps both hands over
his mouth to cover his alarmed yelp.
“No, I don’t know where he is.”
-------
“You shut yer fuckin’ mouth! I am not gettin’ rid o’th’baby!”
“Dammit, woman! I only sold them tires so y’could go to the clinic and deal
w’this shit! Now you gone and changed your mind?”
“...Kenny, Kenny wake up, we have to go to school. Are you okay?”
“...M’awake Kare,” He answers, rolling over through a thousand pounds of aches,
clothes sweat damp and sticking uncomfortably to his skin and a brushing of fur
at the base of his spine, uneven patches sprouting inbetween nightmares and
fever dreams. “M’alright,”
“You don’t look it,” She points out, lips twisting in her concern. “You should
stay home and rest.”
“Fuck you bitch! I’m not paying for one more diaper!”
“Yes you will! Yer gunna git a job this time Stuart!”
Kenny chuckles, though the expanding of his lungs echos in his head in a
rhythmic throb. “I won’t  rest any ‘round here,”
Karen takes on such an apologetic appearance that Kenny musters his strength to
sit up onto his knees.
“I’ll be fine in a few days, don’cha worry none. Nuthin’ can keep yer big bro
down.” A grin as wide as his ears breaks out to reassure her. Cracks in his
lips split and bead with red, but hers are the same.
Her hard jerking nod is proof enough she accepts his words. So satisfied, Kenny
climbs off the bed, forcing himself not to stagger too much while his sister is
in the room, going for his closet, ignoring the swirling patterns in the walls.
“You smell real funny,” Karen blurts out when Kenny has his only nightshirt
halfway off. He blinks at her over his shoulder.
“What’s it smell like t’ya?”
“Um,” She sniffs the air, furrow-browed in thought. “Toffee? And rubber? No…
Burnt toast?”  
Kenny snorts, tossing his nightshirt back into the lopsided drawer for the day.
“Sounds gross,”
“Yeah… Maybe you should take a shower?” Her teasing smile is audible, and Kenny
chuckles to hear it. Never would he discourage her to say anything she wants to
him.
“I’ll take one after gym, promise. Go wait fer me at th’door n’we’ll walk t’the
bus stop t’geth’r.”
Karen scoots from the room, leaving Kenny to change into outdoor pants and his
only pair of socks. Swampwater-stained light casts shadows of bug carcasses
trapped between the screen and glass onto the floor, dirtying the age-grayed
toes of those thin socks.
A small spot of blood catches a moment of hazy distraction, drawing attention
to itself. Brown and dried to the base of the wall, one of thousands of similar
spots familiar to Kenny, though the memory of this one happens to catch the
pilot light buried beneath his stomach, somewhere of a primal ancestry,
skittering around engorging veins and tempered throb.
That is where, when Clyde shoved him, sending him flying into the wall, he hit
it and fell. Kenny couldn’t recall bleeding, but his shoulder must’ve scraped
on the crumbling plaster; simply with how everything else aches it’s gone
unnoticed.
A faint blush of no relation to the fever--except perhaps in cause--tickles
freckled cheeks red. Clyde never gave off the impression he’d grab anyone by
the arm, or throw them, or stand over them like that--Mosquito wouldn’t have
tried that with Mysterion.
Unless Mosquito were also an Alpha.
Contemplating what that means, Kenny finds the shallow cut on his left
shoulder.
-------
Craig’s using the breadth of his body, still wiry and lanky with teenagehood to
block his mother from both seeing and getting into his room. She looms over
him--in attitude, glaring at the son that has dared to reach her height at
nearly fifteen years.
“This is serious.” She hisses, keeping her voice quiet. Both of them able to
see Susan Tweak standing just inside the threshold of the Tucker house, hands
clasped demurely in front of her, staring straight ahead with nothing on her
face. “His mom’s worried, and his dad--”
“I don’t know where he is.” Craig repeats, tempering his voice into a void of
nothingness, giving away neither fear nor anger.
“Bullshit,” Laura declares, angling even closer. She knows not what Susan can
hear of their conversation, but doubtless her son is hiding something. It’s
probably whatever is making the quietest of muffled sounds in the closet, as
Stripe is asleep in her cage. “You’d be freaking out if he were missing, Craig.
If you’re going to lie then be believable.” His eyes widen by a fraction, and
there, mother wins again.
Louder in words dripping with saccharine motherhood, she proves that she too is
a better actor than Craig. “I know, darling, you’re so worried about him! I
need you to go to school today, alright? We’ll text you as soon as we find
him.”
Craig has to clear his throat and cough up some saliva before he sounds
sufficiently broken up with. He has something to prove. “Tweek wouldn’t want me
to help anyways; he told me last night that--”
“I’m so sorry to interrupt,” Susan’s mild voice cuts through Craig’s remarkable
attempt to sound like a newly ex-boyfriend. She’d ascended the stairs so
silently neither had noticed. “I really must be getting back to my husband and
the shop. If you happen to see Tweek, please send him to the coffee shop?”
Craig shifts to block more of the door, Laura mirrors him automatically, the
wolf deep within commanding to protect her cubs.
“Not to school?” Laura sharp tone probes, listening to the little warning bells
ringing, but unsure why they do so.
“Oh, no, no. We just want to know he’s okay first; Richard will drive him to
school to finish the day.”
“Oh, yes of course.” Laura switches back on her motherly voice. “Please do let
me know if you find him first or if anything changes?”
Susan smiles delicately, painted lips perfectly shaped beneath dead,
emotionless eyes. “I will. I’m sure he’s only gotten himself trapped in another
dumpster somewhere. Tweek’s so clumsy sometimes, especially with other people’s
time.”
She disregards the furrowed brows and the off-guard tensing of the two present
Tuckers and floats back down the stairs, silent but for the swish of her dress.
Susan doesn’t so much as glance back before closing the door behind her.
Laura and Craig hold a silent beat, a shared standoff that ends quickly with a
loud thump and a muffled, “JESUS CHRIST!”,coming from the room behind Craig,
who levels a bland look at his mother as if he will gladly insist right to her
face that the noise was made by Stripe.
“God dammit Craig,” Laura sighs deeply, squeezing the bridge of her nose. “Why
are we hiding Tweek? You’d better explain why I lied to his mother and you’d
better do it well.”
-------
“Hey dude,”
“‘Sup guys?”
Kenny joins an already ruffled Kyle, not-awake-yet Stan and a narrowed-eyed
Cartman at their cluster of lockers. Cartman keeps trying to use his weight to
knock Stan out of the way so he may scrutinize Kyle, but it doesn’t work.
Stan gained several inches in height early, becoming one of the taller freshman
of the year, and despite Cartman’s claims to the impossible, his vegan diet and
football practice helped him to pack on some linebacker muscle.
Kenny can’t hold back his wispy laughter--for all Cartman’s weight he never
bothered to learn how to throw it around, and Stan holds him back effortlessly.
Cartman’s attention is caught, and the poor wolf becomes a convenient excuse to
acknowledge defeat and change targets.
“What’s the matter with you, Kenny, you look like shit,” Cartman’s lower lip
drops. “And you fucking reek, poor boy. Did your water get turned off again?”
Cartman’s beady eyes calculate the oddity in front of him, picking Kenny apart
from holey hood to ratty shoes, a sneer drags condescendingly across his wide
face.
“Thanks, man, b-f-f’s forever.” Kenny laughs it off, pushing his quiet chuckles
through the sore and swollen glands paining his throat. Cartman’s mirror-blind
disdain is familiar, almost welcomed as a mark of normalcy in the ever
unpredictable South Park life.
Kyle throws him a concerned look, raking for cause to be alarmed as much as
reason to stay away--he does not want to catch whatever Kenny’s plagued with
now; the blond might recover from the most ridiculous of ailments, but Kyle
knows his own delicate constitution well.
“It’s not like you smell any better, fatass. You smell like you bathe in
chicken fat.”
“Shut the fuck up, Kyle. You’re going to eat it when I test as a Classic Alpha
and you all are bitches.”
Kyle rolls his eyes. “I can’t wait for today to be over so I can stop listening
to this shit. Right, Stan?” Kyle expectantly awaits for Stan to agree with him,
as he’s become quite used to, miffed when he doesn’t pipe up immediately.
“Hey, Stan, the fuck is wrong with you?” Grumbles Cartman, when the status quo
does not fulfill itself.
If Kenny knows anything, it’s how to read a predator sizing up the creature in
front of them; he’s seen it on the faces of many a mugger, monster, animal and
spirit shortly before the world reset itself. Stan’s body, taller and broader
than the rest of them already, angles ever-so-slightly down closer to him
despite the almost casual way he appears to be resting on the lockers waiting
for everyone to be ready to go.
There’s a slit in his pupils that most likely wasn’t there until Kenny walked
up, a spot of bloodless skin on his lips where they’re pressed tightly shut. A
curling of those shoulders showing tension under a thick brown coat.
Kenny smiles calmly at him, hiding his teeth, cocking his head in apparent
curiosity--which happens to reveal a swathe of pale skin and gold hair beneath
the loose hood.  Something seems to relax in the tall brunette, and he breaks
gaze with Kenny.
“What?”
“God dammit, if you don’t stop acting like a bunch of assholes I’m gunna ditch
you all for the Alphas.”
Kyle rolls his eyes and smacks Stan’s arm. He deliberately shares the briefest
of concerned expressions with Stan alone, gifting Cartman his scoffing
interest.
“What Alphas? You don’t know any Alphas.” Kyle snaps.
As a group they take the halls full of clamoring students and high tensions.
Tweek’s name gets passed around, mingling with the most damning of words:
‘Omega’ and ‘Heat’ echoing in gossip rings.
“Duh, once they find out who’s gunna be what everyone’s going to break into
groups.” Cartman’s eyeroll is exaggerated enough to make him stumble a step and
bump into Kenny, knocking him into Stan, who rights him slowly, touch lingering
on his upper arm. “I’ll never have to deal with you fags again.”
“If only we would be so lucky!”
------
Craig slams his locker with intentional force, using the bang as warfare
tactics to send a few lingering kids scattering. He’s got a face of murder,
hiding the dizzying worry eating him alive under a sour expression.
None of his rage will scare away his best friends, however, and they brave
middle fingers and glares until they’ve arrived at Craig’s side.
“So you look… happy,” Token comments, carefully placing in an inappropriate
word. “Did you and Tweek have a fight? He wasn’t on the bus either.”
“He’s at the shop again. His parents are making him work.”
“What? But it’s a school day.” Token points out needlessly, intentionally.
“Yep.”
Clyde and Token share a look, but don’t express that they’re afraid of why
Tweek’s parents are keeping him out of school. Their friend’s parents are
knives and swords and pots of boiling coffee dangling by fishing line inlaid
with old metaphorical poems, dangling precariously over his head, threatening
to swallow him whole into a well of paranoid psychosis and beds with belt
restraints.
“Guess they had a lot of backlog from being away. He’s their only employee
still, right?” It’s a weak offer, bleakly dripping to the floor, a question
unanswerable.
Craig’s hand freezes, only for a moment. He can’t bring himself to nod, for
they knows that’s not why, and if he shakes his head then more questions he’s
not ready to answer will come. His hand misses his boyfriend’s, his world is
too steady without Tweek shaking him up.
Without Tweek things are wrong; he’s alone at school without his boyfriend to
keep him present, and Tweek--alone with his parents, trapped in that apron with
the Omega symbol resting on his chest and ass for all to see. Tweek’s self-
conscious as it is--after what Craig’s mother revealed--it must be driving him
literally crazy to be ogled by anyone who knows.
Token wisely changes the subject before Clyde can open his well-intentioned
mouth and make it worse.
“Did you text Kyle to tell Kenny this morning, like we discussed?”
Craig glances aside and catches the color blooming over the brunette’s face
like carnations drawing on Spring sunlight. He can practically see fluffy brown
ears twitching embarrassedly. At his lips begins a small smile, crooked and a
little awkward.
“Uh, no. I thought it sounded stupid after I got home--yanno? I could walk to
his house before Kyle remembers he has more friends than just Stan and checks
his phone.” His appearance slides back and forth between sheepish and wolfish,
as if he can’t decide whether he should be ashamed of his wimping out, or
vaguely pleased about the day in whole.
“Kenny? Why?”
Craig starts leading them to homeroom, half listening to Clyde and Token and
the rest of him devoted to thinking about Tweek, missing his cold hands in his
own. What would he be up to now, at this hour…? He could only spare Clyde a
bite of his attention.
“He was really sick, man! He threw up all over my shoes! So we went to his
house and smoked.” Clyde settles on some kind of twisted confidence, even as
carnation blushes tickle his nose. “He’s uh..”
“Yeah, you skipped to hang out at McCormick’s.What else would there be to do
but smoke?”
“Listen to his folks scream, I guess. I dunno, I fell asleep.”
Token sighs fondly. “Of course you did.”
Their homeroom teacher, David Kellman, is standing just inside the doorway of
the classroom, dark eyes narrowed warily, roaming over the students with poorly
concealed suspicion. He pauses, seeing Craig.
“Craig, I see that Tweek isn't with you. Is he coming to school today?”
“No.”
The man’s stance eases, ever so slightly, though he still looks over his
students as they pass him as if they carried snakes in their backpacks and
purses, under hats and up sleeves. Craig’s heckles rise, a bloom of black fur
over his ruff, sensing Kellerman’s hostility.
“Why?”
His question catches the human wolf off-guard. David shakes his head, too tense
to deal with his student’s disrespect.
“...No reason. Tell him I hope he feels better and can come back to class
soon.” Cold dishonesty breaks the words into insincere shards, scattering at
their feet quietly.
Craig storms past him, mumbling some agreeing words and taking the seat at the
far wall by a broad, bright window. Closing his eyes until his fur melts away.
Clyde and Token sit around him, Clyde to the left and Token just behind Craig,
the two sharing concerns.
Cartman, Kyle, Stan, Kenny and Butters filter into the room, making their way
to various seats. Butters sits in front of Jimmy and strikes up a conversation
with him over this week’s School News publication. Kenny heads in Clyde’s
direction slowly, careful of fever-aching joints and a world that isn’t quite
level.
Clyde stiffens, rigid rods replacing the slouch of his spine; being on Craig’s
left puts him closest to Kenny, who finds a spot two over from his with Stan on
his other side. Their eyes meet briefly, only for such a rush to thrill up
Clyde’s spine that he can only choose to look away, before Kenny has the chance
to talk.
Token elbows him, observant enough to catch the awkward exchange. He nods in
Kenny’s direction, twice when the husky boy doesn’t respond. Clyde gulps
loudly, finally turning, only to be captivated by the friendliest of McCormick
grins, the kind no one ever used to see until age and poverty deprived the boy
of his hiding places.
‘Lovely like the first light of morning,’ is the wording Clyde would have
chosen, had he more poetic a mind, but ‘He’s pretty,’suffices.
“H-hey Kenny,”
“Morning, Clyde. Didja make it home okay?” Soft words drape themselves over
fluffy pink lips, nothing at all abnormal or special about them, though all the
same Clyde’s heart goes thump thump thump.
“I uh, I did. Thanks. Are you feeling better? You’re still really pale.” Clyde
leans over his desk as if drawn, the two next to him still empty, and
surreptitiously breathes in the air around Kenny. ‘And you smell even better
today--like pie. What kind of pie… pumpkin? Pecan? Dammit, I’m hungry.’
“Don’cha worry ‘bout it none. I’ll be fine in a jiffy.”
“Couldn’t you have stayed home today though?”
“Nah, s’a big day ‘round here, n’I wouldn’t wanna be outta th'loop.”
Two more students file conveniently in, their steps hurried as the teacher
pointedly shuts the door behind them, disrupting Clyde’s intentions to
converse. They make right for the desks between Kenny and Clyde, forcing the
brunette to return to his own space.
It sparks an irritation, the kind he feels when an opponent steals the football
from their team, or when Bebe used to steal the last of his fries. Rebellious,
Clyde tilts backwards awkwardly over the cold and hard chair so he can still
see Kenny, pale and freckled nose wrinkling in amusement.
“Attention,” David Kellman snaps, standing stiff at the blackboard, forcing
Clyde to return to his posture properly.
“As you may or may not know, today homeroom, first and second period will be
normal. Third and fourth period everyone in the Freshman class will be in the
gymnasium for PC Principal’s assembly, and then you will be tested by the
Genetics and Classification specialists that were brought in for Presentation
and Pre-Presentation.” David is decidedly unhappy about this, his disgust with
the topic obvious in his clipped tones.
“Of course the other grades will have theirs over the next week. Once you get
your results you’ll be dismissed for the day, with lunch still being offered in
the cafeteria is you choose.a
Remind your parents about the emergency PTA meeting tonight at six and we need
them all to attend. That is all. Pull out your textbooks and start studying. I
don’t want to hear any of you talking.”
David, an unremarkable two ticks over pure Beta, had moved down to South Park
before the town began its unexpected boom heralded by Whole Foods, ShiTiPa Town
and Historic SoDoSoPa. As those collapsed into ruin or--quite literally flew
away--many of the people who’d relocated seeking a quaint and quiet mountain
town of majorly Betas decided to stay regardless, finding the oddities and
charms of South Park to be one-way-in-no-way-out.
His wife Ellen and he had left the city, tired of Alpha preferentials, Beta
seating and Omega courtesy. Sick of being distinguished by their rankings
rather than accomplishments. Having put in less than two years at the brand new
South Park High School--credited to the many families moving in and the
founding families realizing they’d rather their pups attend school closer to
home--here he was being confronted by a new generation of ranks.
His glare covers the room, sweeping side to side, apparently watching to ensure
a proper application of study time, in reality his mostly Beta senses pick
individuals and try to classify them. A deep inhale reveals only the same smell
as always--sweaty, sleepy students with no intention of waking up earlier than
they must to handle something as optional as bathing.
David drops into his uncomfortable chair that leaves him an inch or so too low.
He pulls out a blank-covered book from an overstuffed drawer and opens it
somewhere near the end, where a bookmark covered in the South Park Cows logo
and mascot awaits him in glossy, laminated glory.
Clyde peeks up from his math homework as soon as the teacher is distracted.
Kenny has folded his arms on his desk and buried his face into them. His slowly
dying hoodie wrinkles where it rises and falls with deep, sleepy breaths.
Disappointed, Clyde tucks his chin, drooping in his seat.
-------
“I’m so sorry!” Tweek’s scratchy voice cracks over his plea. His arms drawn
tight into his side trying to prevent a more physically acrobatic demonstration
of his stress. “I-I didn’t mean to--oh God, don’t kill me or tell my parents!”
Tweek’s voice is not made for subtlety while entreating understanding and
bleating panic. Craig crowds against him, trying to grab Tweek’s hand and
balking when he is rebuked. Tweek immediately squawks another apology,
snatching handfuls of his hair, bringing about a reason to insist.
Thomas and Tricia, father and daughter a sleepy mirror of each other, forty
minutes from wake-up alarms going off, peer curiously from respective doorways.
Laura shakes her head and both disappear with twin yawns. She waits for Thomas
to come back out in his large blue robe, two old coffee mugs in one hand; he
appears, exactly as she expected.
“Tweek, sweetie, why don’t you two get dressed and then we get you some coffee?
And you can tell us what’s going on.”
His frantic nodding ensures only a number of seconds goes by before emerging in
dark jeans, one sock and a long sleeved shirt to complete his ensemble of
boxers and previously, lone sock.
Craig is slower still shuffling through a drawer, so Laura takes Tweek’s hands
in hers, newly freed from tangles of buttermilk blond, and urges him to walk
with her. Craig turns into his room and goes for the ‘gift’ Tweek’s parents had
given their son. He doesn’t know what the embroidered symbol means, but he has
a guess, and if he’s right it’s nothing good, and he’ll need their help.
Laura has Tweek putting in the filter and ground whilst she fills the pot with
water. His legs quake under him as if he’d slept none and run a marathon
through snow. As if, perhaps, he’d been confronted with an older suitor, his
parents seemingly trying to arrange a marriage with a friend of theirs, and
then commanding Tweek to break up with his boyfriend.
Craig isn’t about to let that happen, and goes to steady Tweek with a hand to
his lower back, stuffing the apron into the waist of his own pants. “It’ll be
okay, honey. You’re still safe. We’ll listen to you.” Tweek whines, turning
quickly and briefly to hug onto Craig, indulged only for a moment; there is
much to talk about and little time.
Thomas sits in his favorite chair, the one he builds all his models in,
comforted by its strength and rigidity, a good chair which does not groan to
hold his weight. He wishes he weren’t awake right now, that he was in bed with
his wife, warm and secure and his pack content. Supposedly this is what one
gets when one has teenagers, however.
Laura emerges from the kitchen with two tall mugs, one of which she places in
front of Thomas at the table, and the other on the coffee table by the sofa,
where she plans to sit. Craig carries his and Tweek’s drinks, his in a mug and
Tweek’s filling his silver thermos to the brim.
Tweek sits crosslegged on the floor, short snaps of air pop through the gaps of
coffee-stained teeth. Craig folds his legs to sit beside Tweek. Grating, the
rough bunched fabric of the apron makes for an uncomfortable seat. Craig
removes it, grunting until it’s free. He unfolds the rather wrinkled garment,
displaying the vivid emerald embroidery on the chest.
“Do you know what this is?” Craig asks bluntly, half lidded eyes keeping a
distance between him and the storm brewing over the sea of his calm thoughts,
stirring up frothing waves and the debris of many sunken ships.
Thomas chokes on a hot gulp, nearly spilling everything the ‘#1 Dad’ mug Tweek
bought him for the previous Christmas held. He curses, hurrying into the
kitchen for paper towels. Laura observes him with fond agitation, a sigh, and
leaves him to it.  
“Where did you get this?”
“M-m-y parents gave it to me,” Tweek stutters, chattering teeth clicking
loudly. “At dinner. I have wear it in the shop. I don’t--nnrr--know why! Dad
said--advertisement?” Memories can be as hard to grab as jello, slippery enough
to fall out of his grip and too thin to hold for long. “Advertise what?!He
wouldn’t tell me!”
Craig strokes down the side of Tweek’s leg, not expecting to stop or fix, only
to remind if his presence and strength.
“Tweek,” Laura starts heavily, slowly. “That is the Greek symbol for ‘Omega’.
You’ve never seen it before?”
He shakes his head frantically, as if she were accusing him of some crime his
brain wanted to create from scratch.
“Okay. Well… that’s what it is. Can you tell us anything else about last
night?”
Tweek hesitates, visibly holding himself back until his churning mind catches
threads of words and thoughts. “Rrr... I--I was made to sit at a table with
some Alpha my parents said they know--b-but I’ve never heard his name before!--
And we were there for hours and I wasn’t allowed to leave!”
Carter’s broad hand, hot and shameless at the table with his parents ghosts up
the thigh of Tweek’s pants, deliberately dismissing his discomfort, creeping as
a five-legged spider closer to his crotch, stopping when the phantom touch of
his fingers--so close, but not quite there--threatens Tweek into whimpering
plaintively. The spider strikes.
Tweek swipes at his eyes, dry, dry; chronic dehydration leaves him dry, for now
bereft of the tears which stab sharply under the endless black and purple bags
of sleepless nights painted on his face. He forces down a long drink, embracing
the bitter brew flipping circuits on all over him, attempting to transform the
beatline of the exhausted into taut electric synapses fired on artificial
adrenaline.
Laura may have taught Craig everything he knew about keeping his cards hidden,
a skill he proudly perfected, but she also taught him how to take what he’d
learned from Heidi and expand it into a repertoire of compassion to open spaces
just for Tweek.
She shows the Omega her sympathy, her partially-concealed horror, and Tweek
basks, opening easily to parental figures that actually care, who give him more
than metaphor and empty words.
“They want me to break up with Craig--but I don’t want to!”
“What?” Thomas shouts, jumping up from his chair, just barely avoiding knocking
his mug over. “But they’ve supported you two from day one!”
Tweek gags, flinching away, right into one of Craig’s arms. Thomas pauses,
slowing himself until he can sit down again. Craig releases the snarl that’d
begun to build in his throat, where is dissipates into a displeased huff.
“Sorry,” Thomas mumbles. “But I don’t get it.”
“It’s because I’m not an Alpha,” Craig grunts quietly. “And they want Tweek to
date the guy that came over.”
“But that’s crazy!” Laura snaps, offended on her son’s behalf. “You’re not even
fifteen! You’re not supposed to be an Alpha yet--or--an Omega!”
“If this guy’s your folks’ friend… how old is he?” Thomas asks, letting Laura
sputter angrily.
Tweek raises his knees to his chest, but holds his thermos tightly in both
hands instead of wrapping up his knees. “He said from… from college.” Desperate
bewilderment swirls, hurt and confusion bleeding through his sandpaper voice.
Without seemingly to notice, Tweek begins shaking his lidded thermos. “He’s at
least as old as my dad! I don’t know why they’re doing this! Why are they doing
this to me?!”
Laura worries she’s swallowed ice, the cold inside her is familiar only to the
times when someone she loves has been endangered, or hurt--when she got a call
many years ago that Craig and Tweek put each other in the hospital through a
viscous dogfight.  
“They can’t do that.” She states, praying she has God’s good graces to be
right. “You’re just a child!”
“Mom,” Craig sighs, he can’t imagine anyone being a child in South Park; none
of them are innocents, and they weren't even as kindergarteners, watching their
teacher burn alive. After the dark and warm nest they came together in the
night before, he hates that word even more.
“No. No that’s ridiculous to even think about. I’m going to contact someone--
there’s got to be a-a-an Omega agency, or law firm, or a Reditt thread that
will prove me right!”
“Mom,” Craig repeats. He’s got more to prod out of Tweek, or explain himself if
Tweek can’t, and she looks about ready to leap into a car without a
destination. “There’s something else.”
“Jesus, what else?”
Craig nudges Tweek encouragingly, wondering if this is one of those rare times
when Tweek’s words pull in more directions than he can turn and herd them into
coherence. It’s only gotten worse since they celebrated becoming teenagers, as
being an autonomous human wolf fails to assert against an onslaught of anti-
support.
“My parents are--I went into Heat while they were out of town a-a-and--God--
they’re taking me to the doctor tomorrow to get it fixed! I think they’re mad
a-at you--don’t be angry! Jesus, I’m sorry! Aagh!”
Laura’s shoulders stiffen indignantly, not at all entertaining a reason Tweek
should apologize. “What? What would they have had me do? You were not okay at
all--I’m amazed you’re alright now--anyone else would have done the same!”
“Calm down honey,” Thomas mutters, stained the color of a kind quiet anger
only parents and Pack Leaders seem to bother mastering. “We don’t know
everything yet,” He pulls his cell phone from the pocket of his blue and white
striped sleep-pants, unlocking it to set about a task. “But we’ll get to the
bottom of this.”
-------
“Craig,” Laura stops him at the door, a firm hand on his shoulder. Tweek is
gone, running somewhere out in the cold in inadequate clothes, without even a
house key, to the coffee shop where his parents await him. He’d not wanted to
go at all, terrified of whatever bizarrely non-aggressive confrontation awaits
him.
They’d decided to continue the lie that Tweek was never at their house, at
least until Laura and Thomas met with the Tweaks at the PTA meeting that
evening. Craig had protested letting Tweek go, fearing that he were risking
never seeing him again; alas, Richard and Susan have proved themselves to be
insincere, yes, but cunning people--concealing Tweek would not last long. Laura
remains unconvinced that Susan didn’t know her son was in Craig’s room.
“I’m going to speak to you like an adult, and I expect you to act like one now,
and I better get your full attention for it.”
She comes around in front of him, and only waits for their eyes to meet to go
on.
“If his parents have him wearing the Omega symbol at work, I fear they’re
advertising his Omega rank, rather than maybe showing support for allOmegas. It
could be as harmless as when Richard used Tweek’s sexuality as a selling point
for the shop, or it could be a lot worse than that.”
Craig’s grip on the straps of his backpack tightens til his gloved knuckles go
white. Possibilities outlandish and revolting stir rage foul and impotent,
raging snakes knotting in his gut.
“I promise to find out what I can today and during the PTA meeting tonight.
We’ll protect him as best we can.”
Craig nods once, solemnly. Laura's body collapses into itself, fond worry and
loving concern guide her hand to brush a tender hand along her son's cheek. 
"Why didn't you wake me up last night?"
Craig only looks away. Bleak deserts of sandstorms and vicious sunlight had
boasted an temporary oasis, sheltering and repleninshing them for the shortest
of times.
"We needed to talk, too."
--------
Clyde had waited in homeroom for Kenny to get himself up, wanting to help but
not knowing if he’d be accepted or how he’d do it. In the end, being so
indecisive, Clyde ran off to first period before Kenny even stood up.
Two periods later, the poor golden-blond wolf groggily drags himself into the
gymnasium. It’s cleared of the normally fixed volleyball net, and tented
stations are set up around the corners, nurses bustling about.
Kenny has no willpower to climb the bleacher stairs, push through his peers and
all their heat and smells. He does it anyways, spotting Kyle and Stan, whose
second period classroom is closer to the gym, and the seats they’ve reflexively
saved for Cartman and Kenny.
They just had to choose the row three from the top, rendering Kenny as a
panting mess by the time he arrives to their row, holding on to the middle seam
of the rim of his hood to cover his face. He only kicks a few legs,
unintentionally, dropping with relief into the empty space.
“Kenny, shit, you should go home, dude. I don’t want to get sick.” Kyle leans
away from him, indiscreetly stealing Stan’s bubble, covering his nose and mouth
quickly.
“M’not sick,” Kenny lies, mustering a small smile.
“You do look really… bad,” Stan adds. Kenny can hear the slit in his eyes. He
idly wonders just how wonderfully, magnificently, horrifyingly it’s going to
fuck up everything when he is confirmed as an Omega and Stan, at least, tests
as an Alpha.
There’s a hundred kids packed into the bleachers; each and every one in the
same boat, with a wide variance in who has even heard of the Classifications
here, in this town of misdirection and madness.
Another set of eyes seek out Kenny and hold when they find him, brown and warm
and concerned. Clyde sits between Token and Craig five rows down, Jimmy,
Butters and Kevin Foley all on the same bench. Kenny lifts a hand, tired of
smiling, dredging just one more up.
Clyde waves shortly, dropping his hand and turning around. PC Principal is
posturing his way into the room, arms askance and legs bowed like he were
expecting a bear to challenge him to a wrestling match.
Mister Mackey followed by several teachers trail behind him, along with two
women and two men wearing pristine white lab coats, unreadable expressions as
they face an assembly of Freshman, all confused and hormonal.
“Attention everybody! I need you to be quiet here. We have a lot to talk about
and not a lot of time so we’re gonna get right into it.
These are our specialist from the Colorado Department of Health’s Genetic
Classification Branch, they’ll be here this afternoon to perform some painless
exams to help you understand the sudden changes that may be affecting your
bodies.”
Cartman blusters into the gym, breathing loudly, huffing to move his thick legs
quickly enough across the squeaky gym floor. He blubbers his way up the
bleachers, uncaring that everyone stares at him. He shoves past Kenny, Kyle and
Stan to make the metal bench groan under him.
PC Principal’s right bicep twitches. Cartman wheezes loudly, the microphone
rings shrilly, Kenny wants to go home.
“Okay moving on. There’s a lot of misconceptions about what it means to be an
Alpha, Classic or otherwise, Beta variance, or Omega. You know I was really
angry when I learned that South Park’s population is ninety-six percent Beta.
That puts the other Classification minority and prevents proper education on
your biology.
I’ve hired on an Omega teacher and a Classic Alpha teacher who are a mated pair
to lead mandatory weekly seminars on the subject, which will continue for the
rest of the year.”
A ripple of protest weaves and waves around the spacious room, groans and cries
of, “That’s not fair!” issue from more than one student.
“Silence!” PC Principal snaps. “Do you have any idea how important this all is?
Even if you class as a Beta this is going to affect you your entire lives. So
listen up!” The burly man struts from one side of the gym to the other,
sunglasses blacking out his eyes.
“A lot of people think Omegas are weaker than their Beta and Alpha friends, but
this isn’t true. Omega’s contribute to society just as much as anyone else.
Anyone who says otherwise is a liar and a bigot and that will not be tolerated
at my school.
Unfortunately there are a lot of laws that haven’t caught up with the times.
Anyone who tests as an Omega this afternoon is strongly encouraged to make an
appointment with Mister Mackey and one of the specialists as soon as possible.”
Kenny shifts uncomfortably, and not just because Stan is still staring at him,
but there’s a tender moment of worry for them all. He’s quite positive he will
Present as an Omega soon--if he’s not in the middle of it right now--what is
the world going to dish at him if so?
“Beta’s are very common,” PC Principal goes on. “They make up the majority of
the populations here and many other towns and cities. Some may mistakenly say
something like, “Beta’s are normal people”, but that’s completely wrong.
We are all still wolves inside, and Beta’s are no different and no less
important to the balance of Alpha and Omega for being common. If we were to run
full wolf packs again having Betas would be necessary to provide safety and
peace to the pack.
Our last category is Alpha. Okay, Alphas are the second most common
classification, mainly because Alpha’s fall on a spectrum of their own. At one
end are Classic Alphas, alright? These are rare designations. Most Alphas fall
somewhere right of Classic all the way down to Alpha-Beta, where the line is
blurry. Alpha-Betas, right, might be able to use an Alpha skill but maybe only
one.
Okay I’m handing the mic over to Mackey now, save your questions for the end.”
Mister Mackey, as thin of body and bloated of head as ever mumbles a‘Thank
you’into the microphone before clearing his throat.
“Mmkay everyone, I know there’s a lot of fears, mmkay, a-about what being an
Alpha, Beta or Omega means. I’ll be extending my office hours to include an
hour before school, lunch period and an hour after school for the next two
weeks, mmkay?
So i-if you need help adjusting to the results you’re welcome to make an
appointment or walk on in, mmkay?”
A student raises their hand on the other side of the gym to Kenny, to Craig,
both pretending they’re not as anxious and scared as they are.
“Oh, uh, yes?”
“The Omega went into Heat at school!” A girl reminds them all, shrill voice
tightly indignant. "The hallways smelled horrid all day! And it's his fault
we're all here now!" 
She's unaware how a punch in the face would feel, if she were within Craig's
reach.
Mackey waits for a question, but she sits down, and he flounders for a
response. “Uh, mmkay, well, if-if a pupil goes into Heat during a school day,
we’ll follow protocol and take care of it, mmkay? These things happen, mmkay?
It's not that student's fault.”
PC Principal grabs the microphone again, pointing out into the crowd. “I won’t
allow bullying of Omegas in our school! Everyone is to treat each other with
respect, do you understand me?”
He waits for an answer that never comes. Someone coughs.
“Good. I’m handing the floor over to Mrs. Woodsmall, she comes from the
Department of Health’s A-B-O office and will be giving a brief introduction
before you file into lines for testing.”
-------
Kenny ends up in the line with Clyde, Token, Jimmy, Butters, and his own crew.
They must have instinctively waited and joined together to end up together,
though when Kenny’s not sure, his ability to concentrate drifts in and out like
the tide.
As soon as he gets into that tent, leaves with his results and pamphlet, he’s
going to drag himself home and put himself to sleep until it’s time to meet
Karen at the bus stop. Maybe they can give him something to make this flu-like
ache go away.
“Hey Craig,” Kenny interrupts, when the blue-capped brunette is the next in
line and lost in thought. Clyde’s joking with Butters and Jimmy abruptly
pauses. Stan, Kyle, Token and Cartman also stop what they were doing--phone, a
small textbook, another phone, bag of Cheesy Poofs--attention turned to the
wobbling boy.
“What?” Craig hardly wants to speak to Kenny when things are fine, simply out
of lacking shared interests, but right now--
“Before Tweek went inta Heat like he did, was he feelin’ sick fer a few days?”
His stark, blunt, tactless question draws even more attention from his friends,
and a boy in the line over gives Kenny an odd look.
“Tweek gets sick a lot.” Is Craig’s clipped reply. A nurse in white steps out
from the tent, looking at her clipboard and then at the line. A girl with tight
brown curls and rich brown eyes to match rushes away, a thick pamphlet crushed
between her hands.
“Next!” The nurse calls, unnecessarily, already beckoning Craig into the tent.
He follows, heart pounding painfully, the air around him thin and stale.
There’s an obvious patients chair, the kind with the wide arms for resting on
whilst blood is drawn. Craig takes his spot, wanting only to run away as fast
as possible--maybe kidnap Tweek from the coffee shop and leave South Park
forever.
“How are you feeling today?” The nurse asks distractedly. She’s young,
attractive, and already harried from the number of shocked and unprepared
students she’s broken news to already.
Craig only shrugs, instead watching her prepare a needle, cotton swabs and
three small vials of chemicals sporting tiny labels crammed with miniscule
bolded text.
“Well, are you ready? Choose an arm for me to poke.”
He unzips his blue jacket, drawing out his left arm, laying it on the armrest.
She approaches quickly, splitting open an alcohol wipe and cleaning the whole
of his inner elbow. It’s not long before he’s got a tourniquet on his upper
arm, a needle drawing blood from him easily.
She doesn’t take much, and for a moment the filled vial is set aside while she
uses one to swipe behind his ear and the other under his tongue. She pours his
blood into a petri dish from a stack. All these materials have each of the
three chemicals dribbled onto them, one at a time.
Craig waits, nerves eating him alive, needing to have one answer and one alone.
But time passes--only a minute, surely--before the drops are repeated. Again,
Craig waits, and again the nurse drips solutions and looks for a reaction.
After the third time she sighs, straightening up. “What was your name?”
“Craig Tucker.”
“Birthday?”
“January twenty-five.”
“You’ll be…?”
“Fifteen. What did my test say?” Craig snaps, hot behind the ears, the rushing
ocean crashing around him in a building crescendo.
“Unfortunately it’s currently unclear. You aren’t testing positive in any of
the three Classifications. Normally that would imply you’re mostly likely a
Beta--”
She couldn’t possibly understand the flash of devastation across his face,
squished under a tarnished and weathered mask.
“--But a Beta would have even a small reaction to these pure pheromones. All I
can say for now is that you’re not Presenting, nor is your body producing Pre-
Presentation hormones. You could be a Beta; you could be anything. I think
you’re just too young to test.”
Craig stands up and out of the chair. “But my boyfriend went into Heaton
Tuesday. We didn’t even know he Presented--he’s Omega--and he’s younger than
me.”
She gives him a look that tempts both his middle fingers, pitying and a little
sad for reasons he doesn’t care about.
“I’m sorry. You were hoping to be an Alpha, weren’t you? That’s just so--, but,
don’t give up yet, okay? You might still Present as one. Try to be around your
boyfriend as much as possible when he’s nearing or in his Heat, if he’ll let
you, it might help influence what you are. I can’t promise anything, of
course.”
Craig deflates, emptied of emotions and faith in the world and fearing for the
things he can hold in his arms slipping away. She holds out all one of all
three info-brochures for Craig to take.
They both leave the tent, and Craig says nothing to anyone, ignoring them all
who call to him, leaving the gym as fast as he wants people to see him go.
He wants to throw out the stupid glossy papers, but if anything in them could
help him and Tweek he’d have to keep it.
Everything around him feels crushed and dark, bitterly cold and hopeless. He
retrieves his cell phone--
No calls, no texts.
No Tweek.
-------
Clyde hates getting blood drawn. Alien objects under his skin sucking away his
blood. The colostomy bag attached to his lower belly is invasive enough. So
when his elbow is clean and arm in a tourniquet, she approaches with the needle
shining and sharp he looks away, braced for the inevitable prick of pain.
It doesn’t last as long as he expected, but relief is a deep sigh when the
bandaid replaces metal. She swabs his mouth and behind his ears and pours a
little bit of each chemical on each sample.
-------
Clyde practically bounces out of the tent station, looking for his friends who
were ahead in line. Kyle, Cartman, Token and Stan are in a small circle, voices
loud and competitive. Kyle is red-faced with restrained laughter; Cartman’s
face is red with rage, the pressure boiling under all that weight.
Butters lets out a little cheer that sounds something like, “Beta-Buddies!”,
but Clyde’s not paying close attention. He catches Token’s eye, and they hold
up matching pamphlets with a chuckle and a toothy grin. Moving on, he looks for
a somewhat-familiar blond, really wanting to find out what Kenny is. If he
asked himself, there's no answer Clyde would find to explain why. It doesn't
matter, this is how his body feels.
Maybe they’re both--Clyde can’t see him anywhere in the gym, and Kenny doesn’t
have a phone for Clyde to text. So with a jovial wave he sets out for the
cafeteria, thinking perhaps Kenny’d gone for lunch, but the cafeteria is
remarkable empty, most students opting to go home as soon as possible.
Next he aims for where he thinks Kenny’s locker is. Hoping to himself that he’d
luck out and find the oddly drawing wolf. Clyde rounds a hallway corner, and
there he is, leaning against his locker spinning the lock aimlessly. A wrinkled
informational pamphlet is stuffed into the shallow pocket of his hoodie, and
Clyde can’t discern it from where he stands.
“Hey Kenny,” He alerts the other boy of his presence, trotting down the row to
get to Kenny’s side. Clyde rocks on his toes, waiting for eyes of an unusual
blue to find his. As the seconds tick by, Clyde’s beaming smile fades away.
“Hey… you okay?”
Kenny finally looks at him with eyes hazy from fever, pupils dilated, ashen
skin beaded with sweat. He manages a quirking of lips at his excitable friend.
“Think y’could help me home again, Clyde?” How his name sounds on that
bizarrely Southern tongue drives shivers down Clyde's spine.
“Uh--yes! Sure! Can I---Can I carry your stuff?” Kenny nods slowly, though he’d
prefer to refuse out of pride. Today’s not the day to linger there, so he'll
let this volunteer help.
He wants to ask Clyde about his own belongings, but the energy to move air
through his larynx is lacking. Clyde grabs his backpack, stuffing the books
Kenny points to into it and shouldering the lot with ease.
“If you need to hold on to me,” Clyde mumbles awkwardly, after they leave the
school, after Kenny clutches him tightly to avoid a nasty fall on the sinister
ice waiting on the stairs out. “I-I don’t mind, um, cuz you’re really sick,”
Kenny nods, allowing his slight weight to rest against Clyde’s thick arm until
it moves, bracing around him, just in time for the cold to sap what may be the
last of his bones away.
“Damn, Kenny--this isn’t good! You should go to the hospital--”
“Can’t,” Mumbles the ill wolf, breathing shallowly, all at once too hot and too
cold. The nurse didn’t know why he was so sick. He imagines he can see the
shadowy tendrils of Death’s cloak reminding him he will always submit to his
unique karma. “No ‘nsurance. Gotta git Karen later,”
“Can I take you to my house then? I think you need a shower and some food.”
They shuffle a few more steps. A yellow school bus pulls away from the curb as
Clyde hauls them over to it. He watches it drive away, miffed--he's sure the
bus driver saw them.
“It’s closer, too.” He finally adds.
Kenny’s not sure he’ll live long enough to get to the Donovan house, but he’s
not got the ability to refuse, and if he does die, Clyde will never know. So
Kenny opens his mouth, clearing his words enough to whisper out a quiet
sentence.
Clyde plays the words over and over in his head, giddy despite each belabored
step of the pair, ignored and shunned by their schoolmates, all rushing home in
their own way.
Kenny seems to sparkle under his arm, some the roughly sewn patches holding his
only coat barely together sport fading marker--words, once. Distractedly Clyde
wonders what they said, knowing they would never be as electrifying as what
Kenny whispered to him this cold afternoon.
Please drop_by_the_archive_and_comment to let the author know if you enjoyed
their work!
