EvergreenGirl: Since my first Regular Show fic did well, I decided to write more! This idea just came to me, so I wrote it down. Feel free to review!
Don't Lie to Me
"Dude, what are you doing?" Mordecai asked the raccoon.
Mordecai was getting busy sweeping the kitchen, but Rigby was rolling on the floor. "I'm sweeping the floor!"
"I don't think you're doing it right. You're supposed to use the broom," Mordecai stated, pointing to the broom lying on the hardwood floor.
"That's too much work. I'll just collect the dust in my fur and take a shower after."
"Since when do you shower? Besides, you're just spreading it around. Stop it. I don't wanna have to sweep again." The blue jay nudged his friend with the end of the broom. "If you can't sweep right, then go clean the table instead."
"Fine," Rigby mumbled, getting off the floor. "Since when do you care about doing the job right, or doing it at all?"
"Since Pops slipped on a dust bunny in here and almost broke his neck. So quit being a jerk and clean something."
Rigby scratched his head. "When was that?"
"Dude, that happened only an hour ago! You need to take your brain to the drycleaner's or something."
Rigby let out a long, loud sneeze. "Ugh, I'm gonna go rinse off."
After the Rigby made it to the top of the stairs, he slipped on a book someone left on the floor, nearly falling down the steps. "Whoa! What the heck?" he cried, catching himself.
He picked up the thin book. "12 Steps to Being the Perfect Friend," he read the title aloud.
Rigby tossed the book on his trampoline for a bed. After quickly rinsing off in the shower, he decided to read the book. The steps in the book seemed simple enough, and it only took him an hour to read it. "Rigby!" Mordecai hollered angrily.
Rigby hopped off his trampoline and sped down the stairs, book in hand. "What's up, Mordecai?"
Mordecai set the mop he was using back in its bucket. "You've been gone for two hours! What were you doing up there, man?"
"I showered and then read this book," he explained, holding it up.
"Dude! You're s'posed to be helping me! Do you want to get us fired?"
"I'm way too lazy, and I don't really care if I get fired," Rigby stated in an unnatural, monotone voice, then quickly slapped his hands over his mouth.
"Are you okay, Rigby? You're acting weird, and you never admit being lazy."
"I feel alright. I don't know what that was about, but I couldn't lie when you asked me something."
"Yeah, right," Mordecai said, unconvinced. "Quit trying to prank me and get to work."
"Mordecai, it's true! I can't lie! I think it's this stupid book I read. Seriously, ask me what my name is, and I'll try to lie."
"That's dumb, I'll know you're just pretending. I'd need to ask you something you wouldn't answer truthfully in a million years."
"Oh, fine! Ask me," Rigby replied, attempting to mentally prepare himself.
"You know that time, when we were kids, and I found my Peter Gabriel tape missing and my favorite boom box broken?"
Rigby cringed and nodded. Mordecai continued, "I asked you if you did it and you said no-multiple times. You said someone threw a rock in the window. Was that true?"
"No! I was trying to do the scene from 'Say Anything', but I dropped it. It was an accident and I thought if you knew I took your boom box you'd be mad and hate me forever!" Rigby confessed against his own will.
Mordecai's jaw dropped. He frowned and started to cross his arms. "No, please don't be mad at me!" Rigby whined, but Mordecai crossed them anyway.
"Too late. Is there anything else you have to confess?"
"Yes," he squeaked sheepishly. "Mordecai, please don't make me tell! It'll ruin our friendship!"
"You should've thought about that before reading that book, or even doing the stuff to begin with!"
Just then, Benson walked into the kitchen. "What are you guys doing in here?!"
"We're skipping work to argue, and I can't lie!" Rigby told him.
"Then stop fooling around and water the trees like I told you to do four hours ago!" Benson screamed, and left the room with a huff.
Mordecai looked daggers at Rigby. Rigby stuck out his lip to pout. "Oh, don't even try that on me. You heard him; let's get back to work," Mordecai said.
Mordecai and Rigby split up to water all the trees, and by the time they finished, the sun was just beginning to set. The duo collapsed on the couch. "Ohhh, that was the most exhausting day ever," Mordecai moaned.
"You could say that again," Rigby said, staring up at the ceiling.
"Oh, I have another question for you. When we played 'Zombocalypse: the Video Game' last week, and when I came back in the room after using the toilet, you had a thousand more points than before. You said it was always like that. You cheated, didn't you?"
Rigby pursed his lips before mumbling quietly, "Yes."
"Ugh, Rigby! What the heck!"
"Don't ask a question you don't want to know the answer to," Rigby said in that same, creepy monotone voice as before.
"What are you doing?"
"I'm giving you friendly advice. That's what the perfect friend does."
Rigby's voice seemed robotic, almost like he was programmed to say that. "Can I see that book?" Mordecai asked.
"Yes, you may, dearest Mordecai," Rigby replied eerily and handed over 12 Steps to Being the Perfect Friend.
Mordecai read the information on the back, but didn't dare look at the contents of the book's pages.
Are you a terrible friend? Does everyone hate you for it?Do you get so upset that you want to drive your car off a cliff and into a volcano? Well, now you don't have to! With "12 Steps to Being the Perfect Friend" you can be the best friend you can be! People will like you! Pets will like you! You'll be all that and the kitchen sink . . . and a bag of chips!
"Dude, we need to get you to Skips. He'll know what to do."
"Yes, this book is cursed, alright," Skips said after Mordecai and Rigby explained what happened. "Where did you find it?"
The three of them stood in Skips' room. "I tripped on it going down the hallway upstairs," Rigby's creepy voice replied.
"So, can you help us or not, Skips?" Mordecai asked.
"Hmm, it looks like a book I've seen many years ago. I don't know how it got in the hallway, but I do know how to fix Rigby. He has to tell everyone he knows how he feels about them, and then drink an entire bottle of hot sauce."
"I don't want to drink hot sauce!" Rigby cried in his normal voice.
"Rigby, your voice's back!" Mordecai exclaimed in delight.
"It won't be for long," Skips told them. "It goes in and out, but eventually the book's curse will change him into its idea of the perfect friend permanently."
"I don't want to be the perfect friend!" whined Rigby.
"Then you have to tell everyone how you feel," Mordecai repeated.
"And drink hot sauce?" Rigby asked grudgingly.
"Yeah, dude."
Rigby groaned.
The two friends went all over the park and town, Rigby confessing his feelings. Some people slapped him, others laughed, and Benson shouted, "Get out of my apartment!" when Rigby told him, "I think you're really mean and annoying sometimes, but you're a pretty good boss."
"I think you're cool sometimes, but your 'my mom' jokes are freaking annoying," Rigby told Muscle Man, who gave his signiture shriek and kicked the wall.
"Eileen," Rigby said to her, "I really like you, but I'm too socially awkward and whimpy to ever ask you out." Eileen just stared, blinking repeatedly, her cheeks flush.
Mordecai and Rigby returned to the house, and sat at the kitchen table, a large, intimidating glass of hot sauce in front of Rigby. "Mordecai, I think you're the best friend I could ever have, ever. I never meant to hurt you when I did those stupid things. I'm sorry, man."
"Wait, before you drink it, I have one last question. When I broke the lamp yesterday, what did you tell Benson? Because I never got in trouble."
"I told him it was me. And then I said, 'At the end of the universe lies the beginning of vengeance.'"
Mordecai chuckled. "Thanks, dude. Alright, drink your hot sauce."
Three hours after downing the entire bottle's worth of hot sauce, Rigby spent the night in the bathroom. Rigby moaned in agony. Mordecai knocked on the bathroom door and asked, "Rigby, you need anything?"
"No. Just remind me to never read books again."