Chapter Text
The house was a wreck. Some maniac feather duster had preached about spring cleaning (what season was it even?) only to leave the house in a terrible state as well as the customary 2 tonnes of trauma which just solidified that it was a normal morning.
After processing the wreck of their house duck, red guy and yellow carefully stood up to assess the damage, (and make sure that feather duster had well and truly left.) All three stood in silence before yellows voice interrupted it,
“Well I guess we should tidy up then” yellow stated while haphazardly gathering books in his arms trying to place them back onto the shelves in a way that made the two others cringe knowing that they would fall back down but neither of them thinking to warn yellow of this.
So the three began to clean from the wordless books that had adorned the shelves to picture frames of blurred faces. Something deep down told Red that it wasn’t needed, that this wouldn’t amount to anything, it would be fixed and tied neatly in a bow before the sunrise the next day, yet all of them continued to work sifting through the rubble and hoards of things they forgot they owned. They worked in silence, something which was usually so familiar seemed uncomfortable the only break from this being the clatter when something was eventually dropped.
It was strange. None of them had remembered buying this stuff or how it got there or how they got there, maybe it had been a package deal? Either way, it was hard to place things where they belonged when you didn’t remember having them to begin with, leading to Red forming piles of stuff: keep or throw out. This system worked rather well with minimal items being kept; he was never very sentimental to begin with and before long he had accumulated a large pile of bits and bobs to throw out.
“Hey,” his own voice broke the silence, “what’s this?”
“What, what?” Yellow asked,
“This,” he said as he dusted off a small but rather heavy box.
“My business. PRIVATE business,” he read the inscription voice as monotone as always despite being mildly curious about what this box could hold. There was no clue on the outside about what secrets it could hold, just plain brown wood the words in black marker scrawl.
“Oh that.” After a pause yellow continued “I don't know,”
“Shall I open it?” Red questioned to no one in particular fiddling with the latch,
“No,” so he did have something to say Duck had wandered from his own pile of stuff to keep (which was much larger than his own, Duck was quite the hoarder it seemed)
“Why not?”
“I can't remember what I put in it, it could be anything” the green puppet reasoned,
“Anything?”
“Well, not anything-” Duck tried to explain but Yellow had already continued,
“So it could be a dead bird?”
“Well yes but-”
“Or a dead cat?”
“Why do you think that i'm harboring a corpse do I strike you as that sort of guy?”
Yes actually Red internally thought not having the energy to start another petty argument around here, beginning to open up the lid
“Or a dead-”
“It’s rocks” He interrupted before it could escalate any further.
“Huh?” the other two puppets watched on in confusion.
"Its a box of rocks" Red repeated,
“What are you going on about why on earth would I keep a box of ro-” only to be cut of by his own realisation that it was in fact just a box of rocks.
“I guess that's what you did with the rock then,” Red said a blurred memory rushing back to him like it was yesterday only to receive blank stares in response, “You know that one time with the submarine and the old dude?" he was met with blank stares "No?” Well that's the last time he would try referencing something. “So the rock,” he continued in a poorly disguised attempt to change the subject.
“What about it?” Duck asked, seemingly offended by this.
“Well there's more than one,”
“I know that” Duck snapped
“Does it do anything?” asked Yellow picking up one of the smaller ones for him to look at.
“Not that I know of,” Duck answered while they all peered into it moving closer, they were quite boring just being rocks “I guess it just sits there.” Prodding it with a feathered finger.
“What about this one?” Yellow pointed to another one of the dozen or so that filled it,
“It just sits there too.”
“Oh.” the three were rather disappointed with all the shenanigans that go around rocks were the tamest thing to happen since, well the beginning.
“Where did they all come from?” red questioned, were they from the outside? How were there so many varieties?
“Well that's simple-” Duck started, before his voice faded to silence and the others were left waiting for an answer. “I- I don’t know?” even that sounded unsure a complete opposite to the confident bravado that the bird usually displayed.
“It will come back eventually its in there somewhere,” Yellow tried to reassure
“Yes, yes" waving the other away "but it's like there but something's blocking it”
“Shall we just throw it away then?" Red suggested before a screech cut through the strange atmosphere like glass “Okay, okay I get the message” he said removing his hands from his ears
“They're important.” Duck reminded.
“But if they were that important you would remember wouldn't you?” Yellow said in a voice not quiet his own.
The three sat in silence for some time after that.
“Let's just keep them in the maybe pile for now,” Red tentatively suggested wanting to finish this as quickly as possible, so he could get back to doing nothing.
With a nod of either acknowledgment or approval from Duck he placed the box in it’s own area in between both of the larger piles
“Well, let's go back to work then.” and the three did.
“But there just rocks?” Yellow questioned, couldn’t they just leave this alone? Apparently not.
“They're more than that,” Duck tried to explain, uncharacteristically fumbling on his words as red listened to the conversation silently sorting while doing so.
“So there not rocks?”
“Yes? No? They mean something, I think they were supposed to anyway,”
“So are they rocks?” Yellow continued,
“I’m confused now” Red mumbled shaking his head slightly,
Before Duck could justify or explain his own muddled thoughts that hell-sent feather duster materialized in front of them,
“What a mess this is,” here we go again.
“You caused it!” pointed out Duck, standing up as he did so.
“You must be confused, I help clean you silly” trying to tickle him as she said the last word
“Stop patronizing us-” Duck continued pushing the object away, which in response caused something strange.(although no less than normal) A distortion of sorts,
“Big words for such meaningless people” the voice was older less squeaky
Wait that seems familiar. Yellow though but for some reason couldn’t say.
“I'll be sure to make sure that's all gone tomorrow! There’s so much clutter here, and we can’t have that, we better clean, clean, clean!” her voice going up an octave with each word until the glass seemed to fracture and there ears bled. One click and like that the Rocks were gone as was the duster. All that was left was three figures in a pile of rubbish
“What about the rest of this?” Red stated with a sigh to no one in particular, he would have to start all over again, before noticing the half look of horror and shock that was on the bird's face,
“We can always get more you know”
“Yeah” Yellow joined in trying to comfort
“But those were special,” Duck pouted almost like a child,
“We can make new ones,” Red suggested “special-er ones,”
“That's not a real word” he was really making this difficult, wasn’t he?
“Well it is now,” Exasperated and slumped against a wall along with Duck.
There was another pause, it was more comfortable than the others had been.
“Apparently there are supposed to be more rocks” He started fiddling with strands of his hair (?)
“Obviously” Duck scoffed
“Really big ones” Red continued now grinding his teeth in frustrated attempts to be civil.
“Bigger than you?” Yellow asked,
“He isn't that big-” and after a pause he continued, “Bigger than you?”
“Much bigger supposedly,”
“How do you know about this?” Duck questioned already sceptical.
“I don't really know,“ he replied with a shrug, eyes closed as he tried to focus on remembering the little he could sopping to collect his thoughts
“Well don't stop now tell me more.” Duck said already bored or maybe just impatient either way he was making himself a nest of sorts from the rubbish dumped across the room before resting his head on Red's arm, a movement that caused something that had been slowly building up to reached the tips of his fingers-
“Go on then, haven’t got all day” he squawked
And it was gone.