Friendly Rivals

TogetherAgain

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Right, so, let's see if I remember how to post here... Hi! I still exist. I still write when I can, too, just not necessarily anything that would be posted here. But Fraggle Rock has totally invaded my brain lately. So last night, when I was supposed to be working on homework, well... this happened instead. Just a cute little one-shot, taking place sometime within a year after Change of Address.

Do enjoy!


Friendly Rivals


Gobo Fraggle was still chuckling as he made his way back down the tunnel. Now that he and the Silly Creature—Doc—were friends, they had started getting to know each other and their respective cultures. Doc loved hearing about Fraggles, but some of the things he had to say about Silly Creatures were just absurd! Today, for instance, Gobo had gone into Doc’s new home and found him reading a—what was it called—a newspaper—about girl Silly Creatures being allowed to do the things that boy Silly Creatures did. As if there was any reason they wouldn’t be allowed to! Gobo had been baffled, and then when Doc tried to explain it, Gobo had actually fallen down laughing. Sprocket, Doc’s dog, had been pretty amused by the conversation, too—especially when Gobo had tried to explain to Doc that the only real difference between girls and boys was that boys could sometimes grow whiskers and girls could sometimes lay eggs.

“Fraggles—lay eggs?” Doc had asked.

“Of course!” Gobo had said.

“Fascinating. You must be monotremes, then! I’ve never heard of any outside of Australia,” Doc had said—whatever that meant. “Well—Silly Creatures don’t lay eggs, but—”

“They don’t?” Gobo had asked. “Then where do Silly Creatures babies come from?”

For some reason, that had made Sprocket snicker, and Doc had been too embarrassed to answer. They were strange creatures.

Anyway, Doc had told him that there were more differences than eggs and whiskers for Silly Creatures—or at least, a lot of Silly Creatures seemed to think so. As Doc explained some of those supposed differences, Gobo had laughed until he was sore. Now that he had mostly recovered, he knew just what to do with his newfound knowledge—go and tell Red, of course. It was fun to get her riled up. If he played it right, this would make her furious!

“Hey, Red!” he called out as he entered the Great Hall.

“WHOOPIE!” Red jumped down from the wall she’d been climbing and landed with a perfect tumble, rolling to her feet right next to him. “Hi, Gobo! How’s the Silly Creature?”

“Doc. He’s pretty silly, alright,” Gobo said. “You wouldn’t believe what he just told me. He said that Silly Creatures think all boys are better athletes than all girls.”

Red’s face contorted. “What?” she said. “That’s ridiculous!”

“It’s true!” Gobo insisted. He made a point of talking as calmly and casually as he could, because that always got a bigger reaction from her. “They think that just by being boys, well, boys are faster, and stronger…”

Red scoffed. “Oh, please…”

“And braver, and tougher,” Gobo added mildly. “Kinda makes you think, eh?”

“Sure. It makes me think Silly Creatures are even dumber than your goofy uncle,” she said.

“Wha—hey!” Gobo scowled. Insulting his Uncle Travelling Matt was off-limits—not that Red ever seemed to care.

“Well, come on! Even he knows that hard work and training—and natural talent, of course—are the only things that decide how good an athlete someone is,” Red insisted. “It has nothing to do with being a boy or a girl!”

“Unless boys just happen to be born with more natural talent than girls,” Gobo said mildly. He was a little proud of himself for managing to say that without even snickering.

“Oh, forget it, Gobo!” Red snapped. “I mean, I’m a girl. Name one Fraggle in this whole Rock I can’t outrun!”

That was easy. “Me,” Gobo said.

“I can too.”

“Can not!”

On the other side of the Great Hall, Boober was doing laundry, scrubbing a blanket against his washboard while Wembley provided musical accompaniment on his drums. They both looked up at the sound of the argument—a very familiar sound to them, although Boober couldn’t make out the words from here. He wasn’t sure if Wembley could, but they both seemed to forget what they were doing as they watched the usual give-and-take.

“Can too!” Red insisted. “And even if I couldn’t outrun you—Name one Fraggle I can’t out-climb!”

Gobo pointed to himself. “Me.”

“Oh yeah?” Red said. “Remind me, Gobo—who has the trophy for climbing?”

“For now, you do. How ‘bout a rematch, eh?”

But Red had moved on. “Name one Fraggle I can’t beat at tug-o-tails!”

“Me,” he said stubbornly.

“Again, Gobo—who has the trophy?” she said.

“When’s the last time you agreed to play for the trophy?” he argued. “It only counts if you compete against someone for it.”

But she wouldn’t let him dwell there either. “Name one Fraggle I can’t out-swim!” she challenged, and she stared him down in smug triumph. She definitely had him there!

Gobo smirked, but he couldn’t quite admit defeat, even on this front. “…Well…once in a while, I can catch you,” he said.

She put her arm around his shoulders like she was breaking some bad news to him. “Only when I let you, Gobo Fraggle,” she said. “Only when I let you.”

He did snicker then, and they started walking further into the Great Hall. “Well then, how about that rematch for the best climber?” he said.

“I thought you wanted to win my tug-o-tails trophy,” she said.

“Climbing today, tug-o-tails tomorrow,” he decided.

“Why wait for tomorrow? Think you’ll need the extra rest?” she taunted.

“Who, me? Not at all,” he said, pointedly mild and casual again. “I just figured that you would. Y’know—girls being more delicate and all…”

“Gobo!” she snapped.

She gave him one good hard shove towards the Fraggle pond. He just managed to grab her wrist and haul her down with him, so they both fell in the water. As soon as they surfaced, they started splashing each other as hard as they could. They were both laughing.

Boober turned and looked at Wembley. “What were they arguing about?” he wondered.

“I dunno, but it looks like it’s over now,” Wembley said mildly.

“Mm,” Boober said. And they went back to scrubbing and drumming in rhythm.
 

The Count

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Cute, cute drabble involving the age-old gender argument between :smirk: and :excited: with a side cameo by :sigh: and :coy: just minding their own Fraggly chores. Thanks for posting and good that you still remember how to post here. :zany:
 
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