Work Text:
For as long as Craig could remember, he had the faint taste of shitty coffee in his mouth. As a small child he assumed that everyone had to deal with it, the bitterness of cacao beans mingling with whatever they happened to be eating. It wasn’t until third grade that he learned otherwise.
“Well hello there Craig!” The boy in the blue hat flipped Chef a friendly middle finger and held out his lunch tray. Today was grilled cheese and—oh yuck , tomato soup! That was going to taste awful!
“How’s it going?” Chef asked.
“Awful.”
“Why awful?”
“Because this soup doesn’t go with coffee.” Chef blinked, his ladle frozen mid-pour.
“What the dickens are you talking about boy?”
“Everything always tastes like coffee, which will ruin the soup. I don’t like tomatoes and coffee.”
“You mean you taste coffee even when you don’t drink it?”
“Yeah.”
“Aw man, that’s too bad. Your soulmate must drink a whole lot of coffee!” Now it was Craig’s turn to blink in surprise. He had a soulmate? That was news to him.
“What?” Chef went on to explain that soulmates were so attuned to each other, sometimes, what they each experienced overlapped. Senses such as touch or smell might be shared between soulmates, although taste wasn’t uncommon. Which meant that whatever Craig ate, his soulmate tasted. Which in turn meant that his soulmate must drink a shit ton of coffee.
Craig kind of pre-emptively hated his soulmate for doing this to him. Although it helped that from that day on, Chef made an effort to serve him things that wouldn’t clash with coffee. Until he died, that is. The next cafeteria worker wasn’t so considerate.
Craig’s best friend became wintergreen mouthwash. He hoped his soulmate despised it as much as he hated that coffee.
For a time, Craig worried that his soulmate might be older than him by a substantial number of years. Coffee wasn’t exactly a kid friendly beverage, after all. But then he decided that he wasn’t going to worry because fuck that. Worrying about something he had no control over was stupid.
By fourth grade, Craig had become somewhat used to the constant taste. He still didn’t like it but it wasn’t disgusting anymore. Fourth grade was also the year the Asian girls attacked, and at first Craig had to wonder how the hell they knew . He never talked about what his soulmate was drinking to anyone, not even on days when the nastiest brew lingered in his mouth. And there they were shipping him with the only kid in South Park with a caffeine addiction. Then Craig realized the question he should be asking: Was Tweek actually his soulmate? Because Tweek Tweak drank a shit ton of coffee.
He never did find out if or how the Asian girls knew. Maybe they didn’t know. Maybe it had been a lucky guess.
Upon further reflection, it seemed kind of obvious. Once he stopped excluding guys from the picture Tweek was the only available candidate. He not only drank coffee but swallowed bitter pills that never worked before bed, ate honeyed oatmeal for breakfast—Craig confirmed this the day Clyde asked everyone in their group what their favorite cereal was and Tweek explained that he didn’t eat cereal. He was scared he couldn’t chew cereal properly in the morning due to exhaustion and he’d be less likely to choke on oatmeal.
They must have both tasted blood that wasn’t their own during their fight last year, and at random intervals after school Craig might be pleasantly surprised with what he now realized were pilfered Tweak Bro.’s pastries.
Craig closely examined Tweek’s lunch one day at the start of their relationship. It matched every foreign flavor that toured his mouth bite for bite. For Craig’s lunch, his mother made him the exact same sandwich on whole wheat bread every day. He liked the stability. Tweek hadn’t mentioned anything, but Craig felt a little guilty at forcing him to taste the same thing every single day so he asked his mom to switch it up a bit.
Tweek immediately noticed. The next time they ate lunch his whole body stilled at Craig's first bite, and then he let out a piercing shriek.
“OH MY GOD, PEANUT BUTTER!!!” Everyone at their table stared at him like he was a lunatic. Which was a bit unfair, all he’d done was scream ‘peanut butter.’ It wasn't that unusual. “Right around this time I usually taste swiss and baloney on whole wheat and now I’m tasting PEANUT BUTTER—GAH!!! What the hell is this man!?!”
“Woah, that’s neat, I love peanut butter!” Clyde said, missing the point entirely. But Tolkien and Jimmy stole sideways glances at Craig’s lunch and discretely observed that he was eating a peanut butter sandwich. Craig glared at them, making it clear no one was to talk to Tweek about this yet. Tolkien nodded and Jimmy smiled. They both went back to their food and Tweek settled down.
Craig shouldn’t feel this happy. But it was nice, knowing for certain that Tweek was his soulmate. Truthfully, he was feeling more than happy. Something closer to happy to the hundredth power. Giddy? Yeah. Giddy was a dumb word, in his opinion, but it seemed appropriate.
He brought it up a few days later, when they were hanging out in his room with the door ajar exactly two inches to please the parents. Stripe was happily exploring various hidey-holes and he was currently under the bed. When Tweek brought out his thermos and started to twist the lid open, his boyfriend stalled him with a hand on his arm.
“Hey, honey? I was wondering if you could maybe work on not drinking so much coffee.”
“W-why!?”
“Well,” Craig tilted his head back to stare at the ceiling, trying to think of a way to explain this. “You know about how Soulmates sometimes share senses?”
“Y-yeah dude, my parents are always talking about how they smell what each other’s smelling! Mom will be cooking something and dad will ask for less pepper when he’s not even in the same room, it freaks me out!!!”
“Right. And you know that it’s not just smell, right? It applies to the other senses too.”
“It—It’s not!? Holy shit, I didn’t know that! I always thought that I just didn’t have anyone because I never smelled anything weird!” Craig felt a twinge of anger at Tweek’s parents for not properly explaining this to him, for letting him believe all this time that he was destined to be alone. Being the romantic sap he was, Craig resolved to change that. His new goal in life was to make sure Tweek knew that they were meant to be every single day from now on. “S-s-so, do you ever smell anything that’s not there?” Tweek asked, trying to hide his dread at what the answer might be. “Or like, hear stuff, or see it? Jesus Christ that would be terrifying!”
“I taste coffee,” Craig deadpanned.
“Oh. R-really?”
“Yes. Babe, please stop drinking so much coffee.” It took Tweek a few more seconds to get it. When he did, he dropped his thermos.
“AAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGHHHH!!!! OH MY GOD, YOU THINK—YOU THINK THAT WE’RE—?”
“We’re soulmates,” Craig confirmed.
“AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHGGGGGGH!!!!!” Craig hung back and let Tweek have his freak out moment. He was just screaming, not trying to tear his hair out or anything, and it was a significant piece of information to process. “But—But wait, w-what if it’s not me!?!”
“I’m pretty sure it’s you Tweek.”
“But I’m not the only person who drinks coffee in the world, it could be—GAH! It could be anyone!!!” Craig had expected this, and prepared a contingency plan. He took out a pack of gum from his pocket, unwrapped a piece, and started chewing. Tweek waited a few moments, twitching anxiously.
“I—I don’t—” And then abruptly he did. “OH MY GOD I TASTE MINT, CRAIG IS THAT MINT GUM!?!” Craig showed him the packet of gum, which was mint flavored. “HOLY SHIT, HOLY SHIT, WE’RE ACTUALLY SOULMATES, WE’RE SOULMATES CRAIG!!!” A corner of the dark-haired boy’s mouth twitched upwards. He extended his arms for a hug. Tweek immediately accepted this invitation, crawling into his lap. Craig wrapped an arm around his waist. “Holy shit,” the blond whispered, huddling into Craig's jacket. “We’re soulmates. I just went from having no soulmate to having my boyfriend as my soulmate.” He looked up at his boyfriend-now-soulmate’s amused face. “Do you really not like coffee?”
“I don’t hate it.”
“I’m sorry man, I’ll try to drink less of it! I just feel really—ngh— really shitty when I don’t have like, at least ten cups a day!”
“How about we compromise?” Craig suggested. “If you promise to make me those cupcakes you had last night for the rest of our lives, you can drink all the coffee you want and I’ll never complain.” Tweek took a deep, shuddering breath.
“T-th-AUGH! The rest of our lives?!”
“That’s kind of what being soulmates is about babe.” Tweek tried to imagine it. His limited knowledge of how domestic life was supposed to work conjured a very nuclear-family type scenario: Weeknights where Craig would come home from work and he would be waiting in a stained apron, ready to greet him with a kiss and a cupcake. Maybe there would be rings on their fingers. Maybe there would be a crib upstairs. For now, the crib was empty, because the thought of being responsible for a baby was way too much pressure even in a daydream. But it was there. It was a possibility.
“Ngh—YES! I’d—I’d like that. I’d like making cupcakes for you.” Craig grinned from ear to ear, and pulled his boyfriend closer, burying his nose in his haystack-mess of hair.
“Sweet.” He officially had the best soulmate ever. Free cupcakes for life plus Tweek Tweak? No one could beat that. Craig took a moment to silently thank mysterious forces he still wasn’t sure he believed in, forces that had so successfully fucked him over in Peru, for giving him this soulmate. Maybe the mysterious forces knew what they were doing after all.
He doubted it. Tweek was probably just a happy anomaly to how things usually went. Praise whatever for happy anomalies.