Work Text:
There was something so terribly sad about the silence that followed as Himothy struggled to think of a happy memory. And that birthday cake story? Could it get any more pathetic than that?
Crocpot had plenty of happy memories, so many that they struggled to sort through one to provide for the challenge. People they had met, things they had built, disadvantaged lives they had changed. All of them were memories tinted with the bright stain of happiness, like the grease and oil that clung to their hands and transferred to everything except the numerous rags they used in a futile attempt to keep themself tidy. It was easy for Crocpot to remember happier times; just days ago they learnt that they built the first functional apparatus capable of inner-dimensional travel through the time-stream continuum, who wouldn't be happy with that?
They could conjure up plenty of happy memories at the drop of a hat. If pressed, they could even rank them in order of importance or even how happy they made them on a scale, but Himothy? Poor Him couldn't even come up with a single happy memory and Crocpot thought that was utterly insane. How could somebody as refined and dignified as Himothy, who published an informative novel on goblinoid puberty and had been knighted twice over, not possess a single happy memory? It was an improbability and yet he stood before them.
Even worse, while Crocpot was busy trying to figure out how the hell that was even possible, Himothy didn't seem bothered by it. No, he acted as if it was a totally normal thing, not to be able to think back on your life and remember times you were happy without also recalling deaths and illnesses and tragic circumstances. Sure, maybe he got a delicious cake on his third birthday, but his babysitter was deathly ill and barely able to attend, so whenever he thought back on that happy memory, it would be overshadowed by that loss.
Not even publishing his book seemed to make him happy. Sure, he was proud of it, and it was by far his greatest achievement, but he didn't even consider it when searching for a happy memory. He seemed to have a different definition of 'happy' than Crocpot had- to them, a happy memory was just one that made them smile when they thought of it, one that made them feel warm and tingly in their chest, one that made them ache in a good way, like the ache from hard work and lying out in the sun after a long day. But Him seemed to believe happy memories were designated, were happy only because they were supposed to be happy, not due to how they made him feel.
"Don't you find the mycelium fascinating?" Noki waved a cluster of mushrooms under Himothy's nose, and with a disgusted sound, Himothy reared away. "What? You don't find it captivating? Intriguing, even?"
"A dirty clump of fungus?" Himothy wrinkled his nose and shuffled backwards, not-so-subtly trying to put space between him and Noki's mushrooms. "No, I don't find that particularly inspiring. If you must know, I actually find it quite detestable."
"What do you have against 'shrooms?" Gus asked, cracking an eye open where he was lounging against a particularly spongy clump of moss, settled perfectly in the only beam of sunlight able to pierce the thick company of the trees around them, looking endlessly pleased with himself. "I think they're quite tasty with a bit of soy sauce, sauteed in a cast iron pan with butter and garlic..."
He trailed off, ruminating on all the delicious ways to cook mushrooms, and Himothy stuck his tongue out in a surprisingly childish gesture for someone who considered himself to be more mature than the rest of them. "They are slimy, and icky, and taste like dirt. Mushrooms used to grow all around where I lived as a child and my mother would cook them all the time. I swore that I would never eat another mushroom for as long as I lived."
For anyone else, such a comment would be nothing but a funny little anecdote, but Crocpot, already thinking about moments of Himothy's life, jumped at the opening. "Your mother used to cook mushrooms a lot then?"
"I don't really know if 'cook' is the right word," Himothy replied. "A goblin's stomach is of a higher constitution than many other humanoids. Things like mushrooms and raw meat don't particularly bother us."
"Did you used to have a favourite meal?" Crocpot pressed.
"Not particularly," Himothy wasn't looking at them, but at a perfectly smooth, polished stone that he had almost tripped over before they arrived at this clearing and was keeping in his pocket as some sort of spell component or keepsake or something of the like. "Food was scarce, especially with so many mouths to feed, so I ate whatever I could get my fangs on."
Crocpot frowned, mildly frustrated. For a man who had so much to say at any given moment, he didn't exactly talk about anything of sustenance. "What about now? Do you have a favourite food now that you're older and can eat whatever you want?"
"Huh," Himothy tilted his head to the side, eyes a little distant as he pondered. "You know, I don't think I've ever thought about it before."
It was so utterly basic that Crocpot didn't know what to do with it. They wanted to ask questions like 'what was your childhood best friend's name' and 'what was your favourite book' and 'what is your earliest memory' but if Himothy didn't have a favourite food or a happy memory, they suspected that the chance of him having an answer for any of those questions was pretty disappointingly slim.
"Grilled and slow-roasted over a roaring fire with thyme and olive oil," Gus said, speaking in low tones to Noki as they compared their favourite mushrooms. Crocpot suspected that while Gus was reciting his best recipes, Noki was listing mushrooms for their more scientific purposes. "You know, I once knew a fellow who could whip up a portobello mushroom in a delicious alfreo sauce and serve it with pasta and it was perhaps one of the most delicious things I had ever eaten in my entire life."
"I personally like trichoderma cornu-damae because they grow like to look like crystals," Noki carefully folded his cluster of scavenged fungus in a rag and tucked it into his pack. "I wouldn't eat them though, their toxin is deadly! Lethal, even."
"Eh," Gus waved a bored, disinterested hand in Noki's direction. "What's the point of a mushroom if not to taste delicious?"
Ignoring them and their burgeoning argument, Crocpot shifted so they were closer to where Himothy was cleaning his teeth with a long stick of some kind, the pointest part jammed right between his front teeth. "So, Him," they aimed for nonchalant, but if they were going to be accused of being anything, subtle was not one of them. "You want to take another crack at that 'happy memory' challenge? I'll go first- I once found a bunch of scrap metal and used it to make toys for all the children in the neighbourhood. How about you?"
Sighing defeatedly, Himothy shook his head at them. "Crocpot, we've already gone over this. I have plenty of happy memories- so many that I can't even begin to list them! Where could I even start?"
"Exactly! So just start at the top. The first one that comes to mind," They leaned in close, hopeful. Why the hell did they care so much about the happy memories of a goblin they barely knew and had only met a couple of weeks ago? Maybe the thought of an unhappy life was a worse fate than whatever the hell their future selves were trying to spare them from, worse than the world descending into boiling agony or something. "If you've got so many then it should be easy to pick one."
Himothy opened his mouth, and Crocpot waited, hopeful, before his brows furrowed and he pursed his lips, thinking. His eyes drifted away, upwards and right past Noki's shoulder where he was waving his mushrooms about, trying to recall a happy memory. But, to Crocpot's unsurprised disappointment, there was none. No wonder he was always so uptight and nasty, they thought. Maybe, without any happy memories, he didn't even know how to be happy, as if that wasn't really an emotion he knew how to access. He had frustration and exasperation and nastiness down to an art form, but Crocpot couldn't recall a time in the full few weeks that they had known him when he had been genuinely happy. Proud of his book, yes, but not happy.
"Well," Himothy bristled, sitting up straighter. He pulled his coat closer around himself and turned his nose up. "It's no matter, I've just got so many that I couldn't possibly pick a single one, and why does it matter, anyway? You keep asking about my happy memories but you aren't pestering the others about it."
"That's because they already said their happy memories," Crocpot said before they could lose their nerve. "Himothy, I don't think you have any happy memories and that's why you can't think of any."
"I- well- that's preposterous!" Himothy spluttered, stuttering in his shock. "What a ridiculous thing to say. Of course, I have happy memories! Everybody does! Just because I like to keep such things private does not mean I don't possess any! I have plenty!"
Crocpot shrugged, unperturbed. "I don't know. You haven't exactly been very forthright lately and you haven't proved it to us so you could just be lying again."
"Proved it- how dare you?" Himothy was red in the face, all the way to the tips of his large, green ears, and Crocpot couldn't be sure if it was out of anger or embarrassment. Noki and Gus seemed to have silenced their mushroom talk to listen. "You have no idea what you're talking about. Why don't you just focus on your silly little childish time-travel machine and I'm going to go scout the perimeter to make sure nothing out there in the woods comes out and eats us, hm? I am the perfect size for a delectable snack and I have been told that I look quite delicious- I'm not about to become jungle chow."
Sighing, Crocpot watched Himothy spring to his feet and march away, his olive skin nearly melding fully with the verdant green of the forest around him. His shoulders were high above his ears, and he walked very stiffly, as if he wanted to run but forced himself, with every fibre of his being, to walk away at a casual, even pace instead. Something clenched in Crocpot's chest as they watched his receding back, and they wondered if maybe they shouldn't have pushed so hard.
"It doesn't look like that went as well as you were hoping for," Noki said, suddenly beside him, his fingers coated in mud. "Poorly, even."
"Thanks, Noki," Crocpot sighed. "I hadn't noticed."
"Oh, you know what Him is like, he'll be fine," Gus waved a hand as he rolled onto his stomach and began to sunbathe his back, the beam of sunlight growing smaller and smaller as the day progressed. "He's just a little repressed, is all. What that boy needs is a kick up the backside to get him over the hump, if you know what I mean."
"No, I don't know what you mean," Noki frowned at Gus. "I'm confused, even."
Before Gus could explain exactly what he was talking about and most likely confuse Noki even more, Crocpot heaved themselves to their feet, silently apologising to their aching muscles and joints for sitting in such an uncomfortable position for so long. The things they do for this group, putting themself through unnecessary and easily avoidable pain just to help them, and Himothy didn't even have the presence of mind to thank them for it. "He's not repressed, Gus, he's got plenty of emotions." they winced as they twisted their shoulders and something tight in their lower back popped. "He probably doesn't care about it at all. I just think it's sad. I can't imagine living my life without any happy memories."
Gus made a satisfied, unbothered sound right down deep in his chest that might have, if Crocpot was brave enough to put a word to it, been a purr. "Maybe being happy just means something else to goblins. Who knows? He thought that celebrating his last birthday with his dying babysitter was a happy memory, so goblin happiness might be just what us humanoids call tragedy! That would be a fantastic plot for a stageplay, now that I think about it. The premise of everybody experiencing emotions differently and therefore creating strife and conflict between the group? I need to write that down, that's genius..."
While Gus frantically searched his person for parchment and any kind of writing implement, Noki held out a hand and offered Crocpot a small smile and a short-stemmed, purple-petaled, almost iridescently glowing flower, it's chlorophyll tainted by bioluminescence. The fact wasn't lost on Crocpot that this flower was almost the perfect bridge between Noki's field of study and Crocpot's. "You know what he's like. He's strange," he said. "Peculiar, even."
Out of Crocpots entire vast vocabulary, those were some very keen words to describe the goblin they were tentatively trying to call a friend. "You're right. Thanks, Noki."
As Noki wandered away in search of more mushrooms, Crocpot tried to put all thoughts of Himothy and his frightening lack of happy memories behind them. Who cares if someone didn't possess memories that made them smile or laugh or feel warm inside? Crocpot had plenty of happy memories for the both of them, and they valued them dearly, kept them close and protected in their chest, safe beside their heart. Maybe, if everything went well, they could help Himothy create some new happy memories, ones that made him laugh and smile and feel warm when he thought about them, ones that made him realise that being happy was better than being incorrigible, and that true happy memories weren't supposed to be so damn hard to recall.
Maybe they could help Him create memories that were better than a dying loved one at a birthday party at the start of puberty because that was just plain pathetic.