"Dude, one gust of wind and that thing's done for," Craig said.
Clyde, Token, Craig, Tweek, and Jimmy were all sitting in the dirt around a smoking pile of twigs, a sorry excuse for a fire. After thinking they needed to do less boring stuff together, the gang had decided to go camping by Token's suggestion. Traditional camping. Which, to no one's surprise, was a bit harder than they had expected, seeing as none of them actually knew how to keep a fire going or set up a tent properly.
"Erh! I told you guys we should get firewood," Tweek complained, his head jerking to the side. "Yet you didn't listen, and now we're gonna freeze out here! Ah! We're screwed!"
Craig patted him on the back and Token sighed. "Yes Tweek, you were right. I'm sorry we didn't listen."
"So w-what are w-wuh-we gonna do?" Jimmy asked.
"Well, we are surrounded by trees." Token signaled to the forest around them. "I say we go off in pairs and collect dry leaves and sticks, then bring them back here."
"But there's five of us," Clyde said.
Token nodded. "Yes. Four of us will go find stuff and one will stay behind to make sure the fire doesn't go out fully. But who?"
Everyone turned to face Jimmy with hopeful eyes and he sighed in annoyance. "F-fine. Looks like I'm staying."
Token smiled. "Thank you. Right, Tweek and Craig, you two go that way." He pointed a finger towards the woods behind them and they nodded. "Clyde and I will go this way. We'll all meet back here in... let's say 30 minutes. Sound good?" Everyone agreed and the pairs went off their separate ways.
Clyde grabbed Token's hand and grinned up at him. He was happy that they'd be able to spend at least a little time alone together, considering the fact that all five of them had to share one single tent. The two of them walked through the trees, dry leaves crunching underneath their feet. Clyde was so caught up in the peacefulness of the moment that he almost forgot what they were looking for. Luckily, after a while, Token remembered.
"See anything that looks flammable?" Token asked, nudging the brunet's side lightly.
Clyde looked up at him with big brown eyes. "Huh? Oh, yeah. I kinda forgot what we were doing, heh." He blushed and looked around, spotting an old tree that looked like it was dying a few meters from them. "How about that? The branches look pretty old. Maybe we could break them off or something."
Token looked at the tree. "Yeah. Yeah, that'd probably work, okay." They walked over to the tree and began tugging on the branches closest to the ground, breaking them off easily. "Oh, this is perfect!" Token exclaimed. "These'll burn up nicely."
Clyde nodded his head in agreement. "And they're pretty big, too. If we use these, plus whatever Tweek and Craig have gotten, it should last us all night."
"Yep. Now let's head back the way we came."
Clyde held the large branch using both arms and turned around. He frowned when he realized he didn't recognize what he was looking at and went back to facing Token with a worried look on his face. "Uh... Token? Which way is the way we came?"
Token raised an eyebrow. "Uh, that- no, wait, that way. No, wait... Oh shit."
Clyde gasped. "Oh my God, we're lost!" He said, tears pooling in his eyes.
Token tried to keep a calm exterior, but Clyde could tell he was internally panicking as well. "C-calm down, honey. We'll find our way back. Let's just turn around."
"That isn't gonna work! We stopped walking in a straight line when we went to the tree, remember?"
Token gulped. He was right, they had made a turn to get to the tree, but he couldn't remember which direction they had turned from. They were lost. He tried to think of the most logical thing to do in their situation, but he just couldn't. Should they stay put and wait for the others to find them? Should they take a wild guess and start walking, with the risk of getting even more lost? How long had they been walking? Would Jimmy hear them yelling for help from where the camp was set up? How far had they wandered? So many questions, yet he couldn't come up with a single answer.
He glanced down at Clyde, who was silently crying, tears streaming down his cheeks. Normally Token would've rolled his eyes at this, but for once Clyde had a good reason to be crying. Neither of them knew how they would make it back. I'm sure we're just overthinking, Token thought. We probably aren't even that far away. Maybe Tweek has rubbed off on us with all the stressing he does. He chuckled softly as he pictured what Tweek would be doing in their situation. Clyde glared at him.
"This isn't fucking funny, Token." He snapped. "The sun is going down, and I can already feel it getting colder!"
Token shivered. Clyde was right, the sun was beginning to set and the temperature was quickly dropping. He took a deep breath. "Clyde," He began softly. "I don't mean to alarm you, but I think we're going to be spending the night right here."
Clyde's expression went from angry to shocked. He fell to his knees and started sobbing. "Oh no! We're gonna get homophobia and die out here!" He wailed.
Token walked over to him and sat down, putting an arm around his shoulders and pulling him close. "Hypothermia, dear. You mean hypothermia. And I really hate to say it, but that is a possibility. This is Colorado, after all. I don't know how cold a person must be to get hypothermia, but if we stay huddled together like this I'm sure it'll lower our chances." Clyde sniffled and snuggled in closer.
"I'm thirsty," Clyde whined. "And I'm cold... I wanna go home..."
"I know," Token said, rubbing his back. "It's just one night, we'll be fine. Cold, but fine. And when we wake up, we'll have the whole day to find our way back. And we will. I promise." He felt Clyde nodding against his chest and sighed.
Token let go of him with one arm and swept away the sticks and leaves from the ground around them with his hand. He unzipped his jacket and took one arm out, leaning down so that the free side of the jacket lay on the ground. Using the other arm he pulled Clyde down so that he was laying on the jacket and put the arm still wearing a sleeve over Clyde, hugging him close. The sun was setting and it was almost dark out. They were both shivering, but at least like this Clyde would be warmer.
Token heard Clyde's breath hitching every so often as he choked on tears. Many minutes passed and he was sure Clyde had fallen asleep. It was now fully dark out and the ground was very uncomfortable. Token's face was freezing and he felt his fingers going numb. He was painfully cold and shivering so much that he could be considered a human vibrator at this point.
He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to picture a fire. A large, warm fire. Inside a living room. He pictured himself sitting next to Clyde in front of the fire with a blanket around his shoulders, sipping hot cocoa. So warm, so comfortable, so safe.
The woods were scary, especially at night. He kept hearing things around them. It could be an animal, or it could be wind, but he tried not to think about it. The fire... He thought. Picture the fire. Focus on the fire. I am next to a fire. I am warm. He repeated affirmations in his mind until he finally fell asleep.
----
"Agh- you stupid fucks!" Token's eyes popped open at the sound of Tweek's shrill voice. "What the hell are you two doing?!"
Clyde sat up and gasped. "Oh my God, you guys!" He jumped up and hugged Craig, who was standing in between Tweek and Jimmy, the three of them looking down at the two on the ground. Craig hugged back relentlessly.
Tweek helped Token up and hugged him. "Holy shit, you're freezing!" He said.
"You guys scared us," Craig said, letting go of Clyde. "We searched for you until dark, then we gave up and went to sleep."
"Gee, thanks," Clyde muttered.
"How d-did you m-m-manage to get lost?" Jimmy asked, stumbling a little as Clyde hugged him.
"I have no idea," Token sighed. "We kinda got distracted and just kept walking. I guess we had wandered a little too far before we remembered we were supposed to be collecting wood."
Craig looked down at the two branches that were laying on the ground next to where they had been sleeping. "Speaking of which, those would've been helpful last night. The damn fire went out after like two hours."
"Yeah, well we had no fire at all," Clyde said, letting go of Jimmy and crossing his arms. "Be grateful you actually had a tent and sleeping bags also, we had to sleep in the dirt. We probably have bugs in our hair and ears and shit now, not to mention the fact that we were freezing our asses off."
Craig rolled his eyes. "Your fault for wandering so far off."
"It doesn't matter!" Tweek squeaked. "You two are safe and we're all together now. That's -gah!- all that matters."
"Tweek is right," Token said. "Let's just not argue and go back to the camp so we can go home, I'm thirsty and need something to eat."
Clyde nodded. "Yeah, I could really go for a taco right now." He put his hands on his hips and smiled. "Right, now how do we get back?" Everyone stared at each other worriedly and Clyde's smile disappeared.
"Fuck."
Author's Note
Ay look at that, my account isn't dead after all :0
This is a one-shot I wrote back in November for a writing contest thingie (I won btw✨) and since then it's just been sitting in my docs, so I decided I might as well post it.
I know I haven't posted in a while, I'm sorry. I'm not really in the South Park fandom anymore, so it's kinda hard for me to write about something I'm not interested in. I do have a few ideas and a couple of fics in the works though, they just might take a while. Hope you understand and thank you for reading! :)