#ver :: vegas lights ( tweek )

[troublcmakcrs]

     @howdyneighborr  〢 cont from here .

   The worst part was that Tweek knew the answer to his question before he asked it.  There was going to be a whole plethora of ‘next times;’ they stretched out infinitely ahead of him in his mind, making him staggeringly dizzy as he paced a rut across the dull, rust-colored carpet.  He hated that carpet and found it way too dark, even though its warm color made it seem so cozy when they first moved into the place together.  It had looked good under a small yellow lamp that lit the evenings the three of them spent squished against each other on the living room couch, but now Tweek could claw it up with his bare hands.

   The outstretched, twisted path of ‘next times’ was bringing his pacing to an end, though.  His head swam and pounded with stress, and he couldn’t keep doing this; he couldn’t carry on.  If you wanted to end a journey, all you had to do was stop walking, so he did.  He didn’t want to join Kenny on the couch, so he twisted on his heel and fell into a recliner Clyde had gotten them for free, picked up off a curb three or four streets down on garbage day.

   He grimaced at himself because no matter what he touched in this stupid apartment, it was connected with some memory of the other two.  He ached, running fingers over the brown covering of his selected seat, softened by age and whatever dust it had gathered before Clyde threw it on the top of his car.  Tweek could just imagine him sweating in the sun as he labored over it with a big smile on his face because he couldn’t believe his own luck.

   Jesus, fuck, he didn’t want to have to leave.  This was home; they were home—but he didn’t know how many more grand betrayals he could take.  He would adjust to life without them somehow; he’d take what little he had and go on the road again and find somewhere else, just like he did before, back when he alone was what he had to rely on.  But he didn’t want it to come to that.

   He was trying so hard not to let it, but then there were bottles shoved in the corners of cupboards and the sweetly sweaty stench of sex on both of them.  And good God, he didn’t even care if they fucked other people as long as they included him and asked him about it first.  Even though it shouldn’t have been so easy for them because he hadn’t had a single other sexual partner since he got with the two of them.  Undoubtedly, they would let him if he asked, but he hadn’t found anyone else he liked well enough to consider it.

   Maybe that was it, though.  Maybe they didn’t like him.  Maybe he was stupid and got played for a fool, just like when he was a kid.

   “Why can’t I be mad about all of it?” he snapped, turning a glare on Kenneth.  His voice cracked, and he hated that.  It was bad enough to get choked up during important conversations on better days, but it was even worse knowing that they would indulge in more wallowing, self-pitying bullshit.  Perhaps, they should have felt guilty, but neither one of them did anything productive with their guilt, instead dealing with it in all the wrong ways.  Kenny drank, and Clyde tended to storm off and act like he was above it all.

   “Why do I have to pick a single fuck-up to be upset about?”  Tweek swept a hand through his hair and threw himself back against the recliner with a huff.  “I just don’t know what to do with you guys.”  Yes, ‘you guys;’ Clyde wasn’t getting out of this, either.  He was just as culpable in Tweek’s present agonies as Kenny was, even if he wanted to get all snotty and pretend like he’d never done anything.

   “What would you suggest?” he snarled at Kenny, with a quick sidelong glance at the other one, who had to have some inkling about his own involvement if he was going to linger on the threshold of the room like that.  “That I keep you both on one of those rope leads and never let you out of my sight, like you’re k-kind—kindergarteners on a field trip?”

   He swiped at his eyes, dropped his hands into his lap, and blinked furiously down at them to clear his vision.  “We’re a-adults,” he continued, wavering.  “I should be able to trust you on your own, I—”  He paused, but there was an electric charge in the air of their modest living-dining room combination, thickly blanketed over them like a shroud, indicative of his desire to say something else.

   Tweek could feel himself hurtling headlong toward a life where he had to fight desperately for survival, and some old habits from the last time to ease the transition.  He pinched the skin on the back of his left hand between two fingernails, which he had been letting grow out, and tugged on it.  Another one was his propensity for requiring the details of bad news, even though he might have been better off not knowing.  He couldn’t help himself.  Hunching slightly over the work on his hand, he found a small voice to ask, “…Who was it?”