Chapter Text
For the first time, Guy was happy that he had slept in so much. Belt was still dreaming, cuddled to Guy’s midriff, arms around his stomach. It wasn’t often for his pet to be sleeping when he wasn’t. They were both so used to being awake and asleep together, needing to keep their senses aligned to the the surviving team they had become, ready for both to jump into whatever challenge came. The Betterman’s beds were too cozy for him to think of even getting up today. They deserved a day of rest after all they had survived, when they could just be still and hold onto the memories they had, with Guy holding his pet sloth like how his parents had held—
He shot up with a spike of whistled breath, tensing enough for Belt to wake up. The sloth’s angered irritation from whatever dream he’d been separated from melted into concern almost instantaneously when he looked upon the shaking boy’s face above him. He tugged on Guy’s arm, and the human tugged back, looking down to pet him on the back.
“I’m sorry, Belt.” He didn’t know why he was laughing “Did you have any good dreams?” Belt purred, rubbing his head against Guy’s hand, his eyes tearing at the sight above him as if he was the one once again attacked by a terrible memory. He probably had plenty of his own, Guy reasoned, from before they met. He had known the security and pleasure of a full stomach as well as Belt had when they had found each other in that garden as children. And they had controlled it enough to come back to it all those years later.
“What a day we had yesterday, huh?” He whispered to his sloth. The Bettermans. The house. Dawn. Privacy.
“And what days you must’ve had out there.”
Guy looked up with another start. Phil and Hope stood by the doorway, looking into the room. Something laid in the doorway, at their feet, that they seemed to be avoiding to look at. Guy had no shocks when he finally recognized the box, in spite of all of those years believing that all of the things he had before had to have been lost.
“We wanted to leave this for you,” Hope started, “because we didn’t know when you’d get up. But then, we knew you’d ask questions, so we kept checking to come to you when you were awake.”
“What is this?” He knew what it was. He had only made it a rule of survival to question anything before he tried it, even if they were things he had always known. Phil walked towards the doorway, picking up the box as he kept on to Guy’s bed.
“After…your parents passed away…and you had gone…before we fled, we went into your old house and took some of their things. To bring with us, to help us survive…and to help us remember.”
“We copied the designs and have plenty of our own tools now.” Hope followed Phil inside. “But we couldn’t bring ourselves to get rid of the first ones. And they weren’t even ours. We just held on to them. And since you’re here now…”
They both sat at the foot of his bed, placing the box next to his feet spiking under the blankets.
“You guys don’t have to—”
“You lost more than we ever could in losing them, Guy.” Phil didn’t let him finish. “You deserve more to remember them by, and I’m sure they would’ve wanted you to have these when you were grown.”
Belt had already gone to the box, but Guy picked him up and brought him back to his side. His fingers felt the dents, prickles and panes of his father’s carving around this cube.
“Is there anything else you took?” He asked them after a long pause, keeping his eyes on the box “Anything that didn’t make it, or is elsewhere in the house?”
“This is all we could find.” Guy shook his head.
“Don’t worry about losing anything. It was a long time ago.”
“And we remember that time.” Hope and Phil had fallen their gazes on the box with Guy. Ignoring how much his lip was wobbling, Guy reached out to the edges of the box, and looked inside.
He wasn’t sure why he was surprised at the contents. They all made perfect sense to take along in the circumstances they had left under. He reached in, praying that none of The Croods were up and he wouldn’t have to explain himself.
The majority of the interior was stuffed with a padded sack that clanged inside. Guy removed it and brought it to his side, unfolding the corners on the top to open it. He almost slapped his head, wondering why he didn't recognize it sooner. The sack was made up of a black blanket he remembered from his mom and dad’s bedroom. They had a giant fur on the bed, and when Guy had come in from any insecurities or bad dreams, the blanket was lying by the closet. Sometimes Guy had snuck into their room to take the blanket to the couch or to his own room.
Why hadn’t he taken it with him?
He was a kid, and dismissed the thought as soon as it accused him. It didn’t matter. He would’ve lost it and had to leave it behind like he had with his food and knapsack. Belt came to snuggle up to it, but his head hit something hard from inside. Guy kept unwrapping the blanket to find everything else buried inside it.
The oval rock plates his parents had served his dinner on, and taught him how to peel fruits and vegetables. The small, handheld shovels and rakes they had planted seeds with in the yard, to build gardens almost like The Betterman’s, especially when The Bettermans had come to visit. His father's favorite creation laid in the center: a large waterskin sewn together in land shark and girelephant hide, big enough for all three of them to drink from. More cloths were inside: napkins his mother had sewn and had him patch when they inevitably tore. Two more things laid among them, things that he couldn’t look at without speaking the question on his mind.
“Why did you take these?” He held up a smaller box, slightly bigger than his hand, that slopped within its walls and clicked from all the panels surrounding its center, painted into several shades of white and black and hints of red and blue. In his other hand he held a sharp comb, its top decorated with the broken, sparkled rocks Mom had always brought home, determined to someday find a use for.
“Entertainment.” Phil said the first thing that came to his mind, but Hope made it better.
“It helped me keep my hair out of my face. The puzzle box was for both of us when things got boring.” She paused “We THOUGHT we’d be bored, at least.”
“You thought you’d be bored at the end of the world?” It sounded more hostile than he had intended.
They were looking at him, intending to apologize, and their mouths opened when Guy began laughing again. They eventually joined in, laughing for all the different reasons they didn’t need to say for each other to know. When they were finally able to calm down, Guy picked up the comb again.
“Your girlfriend might like that.” Phil suggested. “I know that you really don’t have much use for a comb.”
Guy shook his head, pulling his fingers through his hair until it was smoothened some more to pull into a ponytail. He stuck the comb into its base, feeling it with his fingers and crown, wincing a little at all the prickles it caused him that it could no longer cause for the human who had it first. He didn’t care how ridiculous he looked. He survived from learning to accept the new. He was prepared. He looked back down at the box.
“Did you guys solve it?”
“No.”
His mother had made this too. She also said Guy had almost solved it twice. His dad had given up after pushing two planks and getting a splinter. He was sure his son would solve the Splinter Box, though. He could easily envision any one of The Croods bringing a rock upon it to smash it flat after they’d give it a try. Even Eep would likely give into it.
“How far did you get with it?”
“We had lifted up the first compartment.” Phil answered. “Your parents certainly didn’t spoil you.”
“Yes they did.” He regretted the words as soon as they came out, but Guy couldn’t think of any other way to compare his first family to the family he had now, and what he had survived with both.
“They kept you thinking.” Phil insisted. “They didn’t let you get too comfortable.” He leaned forward, reaching out to hold Guy’s arm. Belt grabbed ahold of it too. “They prepared you well, Guy. You survived because of who they taught you to be.”
“Who you became, and who you are.” Hope came in, getting off the bed to cross over to Guy’s other side. Phil pushed the box further aside to get closer to Guy, almost unable to talk at all.
“I…” it was too late to stop himself from crying “…I was their son. I wish they were here.” He couldn’t look at them both, so he made sure he was reaching out for both of them. They held onto his hands and came in until they had encased his tired body and the sobs that kept growing out of it.
“I miss them. I miss them so much.”
“We miss them too.” Phil whispered, his voice thankfully dry and sincere, along with his wife’s.
“We’ve missed all of you.”
Guy had earlier regretted not letting The Croods, with the exception of Grug, know about where he came from before they had met. But perhaps that was necessary. Perhaps he wasn’t meant to share with them then. Phil and Hope were here to help him get through, and to talk it through. It would be better for everybody to hear them all at the next story time anyway. They would be there to help him when he got it wrong, or forgot. Perhaps, it suddenly occurred to him, they could all work together to open his mother’s box.