Chapter Text
In a room in an apartment on a street in Magic City: City of Magic lived three unicorn roommates. And those unicorn roommates were really, really bad at doing the dishes. Like, so bad. Roffle and Lolz had made a slightly selfish assumption that their more serious roommate, Charlie, would wash them at least a little bit, but they were wrong.
Roffle turned away from their oddly well-woven friendship bracelet to look at Lolz, “Hey.”
“Hey, you.” Lolz responded.
Roffle glanced at the pile of dishes in their sink before continuing the braiding of the friendship bracelet.
“Do you think if we like.. Asked… He’d do the dishes….”
“Who, Charlie?” Lolz questioned, looking over at the bracelet. Roffle smiled and hid it from their view.
“Yeah.”
Lolz pondered the question for a moment before answering, “Um. I mean, maybe. We don’t know him that well though, lol. I feel like that’d be kinda weird. And maybe mean.”
Slightly disheartened, Roffle frowned, “Oh.. yeah…”
Lolz continued, “Cuz then it’s , like, why don’t we just do them ourselves?”
“Probs cuz we got hoof feet. And also dish water is nasstttaayyyyy.” Roffle smiled slightly at their blue horsey friend.
Lolz ended up smiling as well, “Hehe. Yeah. So nastayyyy.. OMG.” They perked up slightly as an idea popped into their head, “What if we just threw them away?
“Charlie??”
Lolz gave Roffle a look, ”What? No. the dishes. What if we threw them away and then just got paper and plastic ones instead?”
With a gasp, Roffle quickly sat up, “THAT WOULD BE AMAZING!!!!”
“Yeah! We’d never have to wash any dishes again!”
“YAYYY!!!” Roffle cheered.
Getting off of their couch, Lolz started towards the kitchen. Roffle followed after, and grabbed a garbage bag with their teeth.
“Okay, so let’s go inside and throw the dishes away, and then we can go out.”
“I wanna get cute plates.” Roffle said with a muffled voice.
After grabbing a second bag, Lolz responded in a way that sounded like affirmation. The two double-bagged so the shards of the plates didn’t pierce through the plastic bag and get the nasty, nasty kitchen water and cold ramen noodles on them. Eventually, they managed to tie it and Roffle went into the elevator as Lolz followed behind.
After successfully booping the first floor button, Lolz spoke up, “Hey should we, like, tell Charlie that we are throwing out literally all of the dishes?”
The elevator doors opened, and Roffle set the bags down, “Nah. He’s probably, like, sleeping.”
“Oh, yeah. He sleeps a lot.” Lolz smiled slightly.
“Hehe. Yeah.”
The two approached the door. They stared at it, then at each other. The garbage bag was thrown out the window.
With their task accomplished, the two unicorns left to the store to purchase wasteful products. They were under the impression that Charlie would stay asleep, so what was there to worry about? Unfortunately for them all, Charlie ended up properly waking up and actually leaving his room far before the two could come back. He clip-clopped his way out of the hall that their bedrooms were in and two the conjoined kitchen and living room.
Initially, he noticed that the sink was completely empty and found himself pleasantly surprised. His roommates weren’t particularly diligent cleaners, or workers, and so the upkeep of their shared apartment was mainly left to the bare minimum. He didn’t feel the right to complain though, as he himself was a part of the problem. Though it wasn’t mentioned often, in his own head he validated his lack of energy to clean with the fact that he primarily kept his mess in his own room. Sometimes. Not really. Charlie felt bad about it.
Charlie also felt hunger pains. Given that his roommates had cleaned all of the dishes, he told himself that he would clean everything he used as he grabbed a box of mac and cheese from the cupboard.
“..Huh?”
Charlie stared at the empty cupboards with confusion. He blinked a couple of times before looking back into the sink, believing that maybe he had seen things. The sink was empty. But so were the cupboards. The pot was there, at least, if not poorly washed. Charlie went back to the living room space and began to look around for any stray dishes.
He checked the spice cupboard, and then the refrigerator and freezer (which he noted with slight disdain would need to be cleaned out as the microwave-keto dinners Roffle bought when they were insistent about going on a diet splurged on, and then never prepared had now gone bad). He even checked the bathroom and their shared room (though he only peaked in, as he didn’t feel good about invading their personal space. That, and the clothes on their floor made it hard to open the door anyways. How did they wear all those clothes? They were unicorns. Unicorns can’t wear clothes.).
Charlie was at a loss. Did they get rid of the dishes without telling him? He frowned, and thought of going back to bed, but his stomach rumbled again. He wished they had more fruit at home.
Charlie turned to the sound of the door opening. Lolz came in, a bag of groceries draped across their back. Roffle wasn't carrying anything (Selfish).
“This is like such a good investment. It's really economic.” Lolz started as they shimmied the bag to the floor.
Slightly annoyed at the sudden surge of the use of the word “economic”, Roffle spoke up, “Stop saying that- Oh my god what the hell is Charlie doing.” Full stop.
Surprised at the sudden change in tone, Lolz turned their head to where Lolz was looking, “…Charlie..?”
From their sad little horse couch, Charlie looked up at them with his sad little horse eyes. Inside of a frisbee was about half a box worth of macaroni and cheese. And he was eating out of it.
Looking down at his frisbee-plate and back to the two with hesitance, Charlie swallowed thickly, “I.. Oh, uh.. H-hi, you.. Guys. How’s it- Uh, groceries, huh?”
Lolz’s eyes widened in horror and disbelief, ”Charlie.. What.. Wh-what are you doing?”
“My god…” Roffle took a step back.
Looking down at the frisbee, Lolz spoke with genuine concern, “We- We didn’t know that.. Charlie, look, just put the frisbee down, okay? We’re here to help you. We WANT to help you!” Their voice began to take on a panicked quality.
Roffle chimed in, “Y-yeah, man!”
“I.. But I’m hungry!” Charlie frowned.
Shaking their head, Lolz retorted, “We- We know, Charlie! But, look-”
Charlie also shook his head as he cut Lolz off, trying to rationalize the situation, “-And there weren't any dishes left, so I.. So I…”
“OH MY GOD!!” Roffle was now on the verge of tears, “He’s using a- a- o-one of those yogurt seals as a spoon (somehow)! This can’t be happening!!”
“Charlie.. Why didn’t you tell us it was this bad?” Lolz asked with sympathy.
“I..”
“WE JUST WANT TO HELP YOU!!!” Roffle gasped, overwhelmed.
Taking a step forward, Lolz couldn’t help but shout in desperation, “Just- look, put it down, alright?! Put the frisbee down!”
Charlie took a step back as Lolz came towards him, shaking his head, “NO! YOU CAN’T HELP ME- I- I’M HUNGRY!!!!”
Roffle began to sob, “SOMEONE STOP HIM!!! DO SOMETHING!!!!!!!!!!!”
It seemed as if all was at a loss, until Lolz caught a glimpse of the grocery bag. Without wasting any time, they nudged the plastic towards Charlie.
“Look-” They started, “Charlie, look! Look what we got! It's going to be okay, alright?! Just, look at me, just this once!”
Charlie looked into the bag of styrofoam bowls, paper plates, and plastic utensils. Though he still felt uneasy, he finally allowed the two other unicorns to come closer. With some shame, he frowned at this own frisbee plate,
Lolz tilted their head, “See? Isn’t this better?”
Clearing his throat, Charlie looked down at his big, scratchy man-hooves, “Yeah- That’s.. Uh, pretty smart, actually. I-I feel a little silly now.”
“Shh… “ Roffle rested their head on the back of his neck, “You don’t have to explain yourself.. Things will be better from now on, my sweet summer child.”
“..What?”