This is pretty old, but I still really like it.

Pairings: One-Sided Cryde, Creek

Disclaimer: I don't own South Park.

I am not smart. Or, at least, no one thinks I am... But I don't really give a damn.

Sure, I can be gullible and naive. I tend to say the wrong things at the wrong times, blurting out words that people really don't need (or want) to hear. But what they call stupidity, I call humanity. Simple error. The mistakes that everyone tends to make.

If people could see into my mind, they'd know I'm not as dumb as they think. I guess no one'll ever know how wrong they are about me, but I don't really care. That's the one thing I have in common with my friend Craig Tucker: neither of us care what the outside world has to say about us. Aside from that fact, we're the definition of 'opposites attract'.

"There's no real difference," Craig always says, "between stupidity and humanity."

"Not everyone's dumb," is my response, always willing to stick up for mankind for whatever reason. Guess it's my naivety, in his eyes. "I mean, you're pretty smart."

He doesn't even crack half of a smile. "Ninety-nine percent of people are either stupid, insane, or evil at their core."

I blink. "So... which are you?"

"Evil." He says it without missing a beat.

"You can't be. If you're evil, then how did we become friends?"

He stares up at the sky for a while. Then, like he's reciting an old quote, he tells me: "The idiotic and the insane are drawn to the malevolent."

And I look at him blankly, pretending that I'm not intelligent enough to grasp what he's saying. He rolls his eyes and walks away, his regular cynical self, unaware of everything he's just revealed to me.

I am not quiet. At least, people don't think I am. I have a history of over-reacting to most things, and while most kids I know are 'quick to anger', I'm the one who's 'quick to cry'. In reality, it's only in comparison to the seemingly emotionless Craig Tucker that I am loud— because I look fucking bipolar next to this guy.

He reacts to everything with the same kind of neutrality, only smiling or laughing if he's causing someone pain. Some of us joke that he could be on fire and not make a big deal out of it, but I've always thought of it more like: Craig could watch someone burn to death and not make a big deal out of it.

What do they call that? So-cio-path-ic. Yeah, I think that's the word the school counselor used. Uncaring of anyone's rights. No empathy. No emotion. I really don't know why I care about him so much when I know he's most likely so-cio-path-ic— in other words, unlikely to feel for me what I feel for him.

I think that's part of why I fell for him. Because he's stoic, no matter what's going on, in a way that calms me down when the tears threaten to spill (which is more often than I'd like to admit). When he's pleased, the only real indication is a sort of half-smile that speaks so much louder than anything he could say. But it's that silence that makes him Craig. It'd be weird any other way.

He has a sarcastic way of insulting people that I just can't duplicate, a sort of snarky attitude so damn hilarious that you can't help but want be around him. He has this way of looking at you and saying exactly what he's thinking, so bluntly that you can't tell if he's being serious or sarcastic. It's the snark that fuels his charisma— that's why Craig has so many friends, even though he's apathetic to most of the class and most of the city of South Park and most of humanity itself.

I've always kind of hoped I'd be the exception to "most of humanity itself".

I think I always suspected he'd come around. That eventually, finally, he'd see that I've been waiting for him all this time. I always felt that 'so-cio-path-ic' was nothing but a word on a piece of paper, unable to really affect me from where it sat all inky and black on the stark white sheet. Just a word I can barely pronounce and nothing more.

Or maybe I thought that word would melt away, clean itself from Craig's vision, to reveal the way I really am. Not the idiotic drama queen that everyone sees, but the real me. And he'd look at me through new eyes, a clearer vision, and finally realize why I've stuck by his side all this time. He'd give that small half-smile that makes me shiver and maybe even say, "Clyde Donovan, you're not so bad after all."

I guess I just wasn't in the right place at the right time. Because the next time I look at him, he's clasping another boy's pale hand in his. Looking at the small, shaking blond boy next to him with that same half-smile that he rarely bothers to share with me.

Craig Tucker, showing affection for another human being. It doesn't look right. And maybe that's why the counselor said he's so-cio-path-ic, because he knows as well as everyone else that Craig caring for someone is just... weird.

I've asked Craig before exactly what he likes about Tweek, and he always tells me the same fucking thing. "I like crazy people."

I am seeing Tweek Tweak look up at Craig with scared, hopeful, confused, mismatched-coloured eyes. That's what snaps inside me and makes me burst into tears right in front of him, bawling like the dramatic moron I'm supposed to be. Reacting the way everyone figured I would. Feeding more into a perception of me that I've never agreed with. Dance, monkey, dance.

And yet I don't give a damn if people see it; I only care that Craig is seeing it.

I can't help but remember what Craig said all those weeks ago, that we're all insane or evil or stupid beneath our masks. I find myself wondering, what if Craig could see me for what I am all this time? What if he never looked twice at me because he never liked what he saw the first time around? That could be all the proof that I'm just as dumb as everyone's always said...

Maybe it's that unpronounceable word that drives a wedge between us, like a jail cell separating the convict from the average person. Maybe he's right about the stupid and the insane being drawn to the cruel, but wouldn't that make us all insane deep down? Wouldn't that make us all just a bunch of so-cio-path-ic fucks?

Even when he gives Tweek the half smile I adore, I stay by Craig's side. No matter how many times people call me dumb—even when they seem right—I've kept the tears from my eyes and the screams from my throat, always willing to suffer in silence for Craig Tucker. I guess it's because...

Well, because Craig is Craig. Something about him just makes me want to be his everything. Something makes me want to wait for him. And even if that something is his being evil, I still don't give a damn.

And I guess that's proof of my stupidity. So maybe Craig is right after all.