#and also. implied lumpygrab I'm sorry my hand slipped and also I've been thinking about how Lemongrab conceptualises relationships recently

[t4t-lumpygrab]

Fanfic Request!

Request: Lemongrab and Treetrunks bonding :) Word count: 1.6K

Woo! Sorry that it took a while to get to this one! Hope you like it. 

🍋

Normally someone banging on the door meant that the police were trying to pin something on her again, or that Mr Pig had forgotten his keys and really really badly needed to use the bathroom. Very rarely did it mean opening the red door and seeing a huge yellow creature staring down at her unblinkingly. 

Treetrunks took a step back, noticing the prominent scarring across his face and two twiddling hands, and how one of the eyes staring down at her was a slightly different oval shape than the other. When he smiled the left side of his mouth was missing multiple sharp, pointed teeth. “Hellooo little elephant…”

“Golly! The new Lemongrab is awfully bold!” she thought to herself. She hoped he wouldn’t try to force his way in, based on her memory of the last lemongrab that seemed like something he might do. “Can I ask what you’re doing here?” She asked politely. 

“I want you toooo tell me about my predecessor.” he said quietly. 

“Well I only met him once. What do you want to know?”

“He said something rude to you, but I cannot remember what… And so I cannot apologise.”

Treetrunks was surprised. The new Lemongrab is awfully polite. She decided he must take after the second one more. “He called me a servile.” she stated. 

Lemongrab frowned. “I am sorry.”

“And then he called me a slave.” 

“I apologise dearly.” Lemongrab shifted uncomfortably in the doorway from foot to foot and then turned away. “Bye.” 

“Where do you think you’re going?”

He stopped and glanced over his shoulder. “I came tooo atone for my past life’s mistakes, now I shall take my lemon leave.”

Treetrunks frowned at him and whisked her tail from side to side. “You call that atoning?” The new Lemongrab is awfully noncommittal, she thought.

“I… have apologised?” Lemongrab seemed confused. 

“You- or he, or however it works,” Lemongrab shrugged. It seemed he wasn’t sure what to think about it all either- “hurt my feelings! But even though you hurt my feelings I still cooked a pie for you. Now you need to do something for me, mister.”

Treetrunks went back inside and Lemongrab followed her curiously into the kitchen. He hurriedly sat down at the table and took a deep breath to steady himself. Treetrunks had been making pie batter, and the red table had been dusted with clouds of flour. Lemongrab drew a self portrait of himself in the flour residue and then rubbed it out with his sleeve while he waited for Treetrunks to assign him a task. “I help you… and then I will have atoned for my misdeed?” 

Treetrunks had resumed kneading the batter with her stubby front legs. “You can start by picking my apples in the orchard.” 

Lemongrab stood up, bowed to her and went outside into the apple tree grove. He picked one, single apple off a nearby tree and placed it on the table. “I have produced an apple for yoouu!” 

Treetrunks glanced at him standing in her kitchen, looking proud of himself. “Now go and do the rest of them.” 

Lemongrab picked around 10 apples this way- doing each one individually and piling them up in a pyramid shape on the table. 

The new Lemongrab is very methodical. “That’s enough dearie.” 

Lemongrab sat down obediently next to his large apple sculpture and waited, expectantly, for another task. Now that she’d gotten used to him the scarring didn’t bother her as much anymore. Lemongrab idly tapped his fingers on the table the same way Sweet Pea did while he sat and waited, watching her rolling out the batter with curiosity. 

“You can start dicing the apples now.” She passed him a knife and then froze immediately after. A knife! He’d attacked the Ice King the moment he wasn’t useful to him anymore when they’d been trapped in the dungeon, and he’d done all those awful things to his own brother and children. And she’d just handed him a knife! 

Lemongrab didn’t seem to notice her reaction and was unskillfully hacking at the apples. It was clear he’d never chopped food before. The sight of him frowning down at a nicked piece of fruit, not having cut a single slice off it, was so ridiculous she stopped being scared of him. “You’re supposed to do it like this dear-” 

Lemongrab watched her cut an apple and clumsily tried to copy her. She began to worry that he might cut himself accidentally, but Lemongrab dissected the apple successfully. He picked another apple off the pyramid and began to cut it, glancing up at her occasionally. Whenever she looked over at him from where she was preparing the filling with the diced fruit he’d prepared, he looked embarrassed and averted his wide eyes.

“You may as well spit it out.” She said eventually. 

Lemongrab stopped cutting and blurted out. “You are married.”

“Yes?” 

“So… How do yoouu know if… you are in love?” 

Treetrunks looked up at him in surprise. It was the first time she’d seen Lemongrab look embarrassed about anything. “You probably aren’t if you have to ask.” she replied. 

“Oh.” Lemongrab seemed disappointed. “But… hmm…”

“So who is it?” 

Lemongrab’s eyes widened. “None of your business!”

“You brought it up.” 

Lemongrab shrugged and went back to cutting the fruits but he seemed distracted, and Treetrunks was very curious about him all of a sudden. “The new Lemongrab is obviously much more complicated than I thought…” she said to herself. 

“But I guess at the end of the day only you can decide if you’re in love or not. Everyone is different. We’re all like apples and oranges, or however the saying goes.” 

Lemongrab made a hmm noise and tapped his fingers together as he reflected on this. “I do not know myyyy own feelings…” he said eventually, “I care… and I am happy when we are together… But what if I am merelyyy tricking myself and, and I just want to believe that I am capable of loving someone, but in reality I feel nothing. And if I look into my lemon heart-” He made a lemon shape over his chest with his fingers, “-I shall find naught but emptiness.”  

“Lemongrab of course you can feel love.” Treetrunks said sadly. Poor thing. She supposed it made sense, though, she’d been so quick to judge him that she hadn’t really considered how he must feel having survived what he did. Or not survived it- he did die, didn’t he? She was still confused about how candy people worked. But it must be even more confusing to have to deal with those unanswered questions every single day of your life, especially with no more siblings to turn to. Lemongrab was completely alone now.  

Lemongrab seemed unconvinced at her words. “Hm. Debateable. I can only be stable if I am alone.” 

“It’s true that being with other people can be scary and sometimes you might get hurt, but it can be a lot of fun too.” 

“Nyes...” The corner of Lemongrab’s mouth twitched upwards into a smile before he suppressed it. 

“So who’s your sweetheart?” She asked again, feeling nosy. 

Lemongrab got embarrassed again and she realised he was pretty terrible at hiding his feelings for someone who claimed to not have any. “It iiis not like that. Ngh! No! We just hang out sometimes and call each other.” he said quickly. “We are simplyyy… political allies.” 

“If you’re just political allies why don’t you tell me who it is?”

“That is none of your business.” Lemongrab said coldly and then suddenly he realised something and asked; “Treetrunks are you my political ally?”

“What?” she was caught off guard by the question. 

“Are you?”

“I guess not. I’m not a politician.” Lemongrab seemed disappointed by her response. Political ally seemed to have a deeper meaning for him. “But that doesn’t mean we can’t be friends.” 

“Friends scare me. No rules. Strange… unpredictable. I had a friend once, then he ate me.” 

“Lemongrab it doesn’t have to be like that. I’m not gonna eat you. I’m way too tiny for that.”

“Hmm…” He looked like he was considering her offer. “Friendship…” he said it like a foreign word. Treetrunks realised she’d never thought about whether Lemongrab had many friends, if any. All of a sudden she had a mental image of him sitting alone in his castle for days on end and she suddenly felt very sorry for him. 

“We will have too write up an agreement for it.” He said eventually. 

“Or you could just finish helping me with this pie and come visit every now and then.”

“No… rules? No- no procedures? I do not even need tooo show you my passport?”

“Lemongrab did you bring your passport?”

“Of course.” Lemongrab fished his passport out and showed it to her. “Please excuse my unflattering photograph.” 

She pushed it away. 

“Lemongrab: when you’re friends with someone it means you like each other and enjoy spending time together. It’s when you feel… relaxed and like you can be your goshdarn self with somebody. There’s no need for all this hullabaloo about passports and passwhats, you just do whatever feels right. And if that doesn’t go math you say sorry and do something else.”

Lemongrab was still clinging onto his passport. He thought about her words carefully for a moment and they replied slowly; “And theeeese are the rules… of being friends?”

“They’re more like guidelines, but if it helps you can think of them as rules.” 

“I see. Yes. Yes I would like to beeee friends.” Lemongrab smiled, showing the tips of his sharp, fanged teeth but this time it didn’t frighten her. 

“And Lemongrab-”

“Hm?”

“Being in love is like that too. No rules just guidelines.” 

Lemongrab raised his passport to cover his face and she couldn’t help but laugh at him. “Lemongrab seems like a nice boy.” Treetrunks thought.