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Kermit found himself most awake in the quiet hours of the early morning. He’d gotten into the routine of taking peaceful walks before the sun rose, especially when Miss Piggy was away on business. There was no waking up to a cold side of the bed when he wasn’t sleeping in their bed at all.
On this particular morning, he found himself at the theatre. He’d shimmied the door the way he always used to when he wanted to pace around the stage. Even still, nobody had fixed the lock.
He wandered, dodging the floorboards he knew would squeak under his shoes. Even in the dark, his flippers knew where to take him. With his eyes closed, he could map out the entire theatre in his mind. Somehow, that made physically being in that space a comfort to him.
It was the tiniest bit too cold. Kermit longed for a warm beverage, something to warm him from the inside out. Alas, he wandered, hoping the movement would feign away the chill. He circled the stage, thoughts remaining both obvious and elusive.
Creak.
Kermit stopped.
Creaaaak.
The soft pad of footsteps echoed through the empty auditorium. Someone else was in the theatre.
Swiftly and silently, Kermit slipped into the curtains. He had nothing on him, not anything that he could use as a weapon.
The unavowed presence stepped onto the stage. The figure was was ambiguous at first, but when they turned to face the invisible audience, Kermit’s shoulders dropped their tension.
“Gonzo?”
“JESUS.”
Kermit came out of hiding. “What are you doing here?”
“You scared me.” Gonzo’s voice carried an air of offense.
“I scared you?’” Kermit matched his tone. “You scared me! I thought someone had broken in!”
“You broke in!”
“So did you.”
Gonzo crossed his arms with a huff.
“What’re you doing here?” Kermit asked again, a bit softer this time.
“Passing time. You?”
“Passing time.”
“Hm.”
Kermit took a seat, crossing his legs. Gonzo planted himself next to him.
“I really missed this place.”
Kermit nodded, slow and relaxed. “Me too.”
A silence filled the space again, peaceful though uncharacteristic. It was easy to visualize the seats full, the set intricate and the critics snide remarks. There was a moment, a passing moment, where Kermit wondered if Gonzo was imagining the same things.
“Can I ask you a question?” Kermit spoke without thinking.
Gonzo turned and tilted his head. “Sure.”
“Do you still think about it?”
It took a few seconds for comprehension to take over Gonzo’s face. “Every single day.”
... He tried to bite back the next question, but it spilled out anyway.
“You know what the worst part of everything was?”
Gonzo didn’t move.
“You all liked Constantine more than you liked me.” The words stung in his mouth.
“That’s not true.”
“No, Gonzo, it is. You-”
“No.”
Kermit fought back the urge to just get up and walk away. “What? What then? I got replaced and he got in your good graces by giving you things I could never give you. You got the Kermit you wanted, and when you got me back, you had to give all that up.”
“He did try to kill us-”
“He was better than me,” Kermit said, “wasn’t he?”
Gonzo put his hands on Kermit’s shoulders. “He created an unsustainable version of you.”
“That you liked better.”
“At the time, maybe,” he admitted, “but not now.”
Kermit stayed quiet.
“He wasn’t real.”
“I can’t be him.”
“I know.” Gonzo’s eyes searched his face. “It’s okay.”
A rush of something, some kind of heavy feeling, hit Kermit like a ton of bricks. He shuffled away from Gonzo, suddenly desperate for the extra room.
“Kermit-”
“I’m sorry.”
“You’re sorry?” He reached a hand out. “Can I tell you something?”
He let his hackles down. “What?”
“When Constantine was pretending to be you, I didn’t question it.”
“Great start.”
Gonzo didn’t falter. “Because he let me do the most reckless things. He let me do that act that you’d said no to.”
Kermit blinked. “I know. I just said-”
“I thought you’d finally given up on me.”
He inhaled sharply, as though he’d been punched in the lung. “What?”
“I thought...” Gonzo paused, breaking eye contact to look out at the empty seats once more. “You know, I... christ this is awkward, uh-”
Kermit scooched back over. “You can say it.”
“I know that my ideas are dangerous.”
“They are.”
“And a lot of the time, I know I’ll be fine. But there are some days... some stunts that I know are pushing it.” He took in a shaky breath. “And I don’t care. I just don’t care. I want to, I want to so bad but I just cannot find it in me to be scared- well no, cause I am scared, I can’t find it in me to care that I’m scared, or that, that-”
Kermit didn’t let him get another word in. He pulled Gonzo closer, into the tightest hug he could muster. “I will always care. I’ll do enough caring for the both of us.”
Gonzo went limp in his arms, sniffling softly. “I’m really sorry. I should’ve noticed.”
“I’m sorry too.” Kermit rubbed gentle circles into his back. “For not noticing.”
They stayed like that for a while, good long while. At some point, Kermit felt his own tears welling up, tears he hadn’t let himself cry since before The Muppets got back together. The weight of it all, the disastrous tour, the long hiatus, everything lifted from him. The feeling would settle on him like ashes later, but while he was in the theatre with Gonzo, he was free of all of it. He let the tears roll, not even thinking to wipe them away.
At some point, Kermit must have fallen asleep, because he woke up to Gonzo laughing.
“Huh?” He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. “What’s so funny?”
“It’s stupid.” Gonzo was grinning ear to ear. “I just realized, we’re never gonna kick old habits.”
Kermit sat up. “I’m.. following?”
“We can’t be in a theatre without putting on a show.”
He blinked.
Gonzo laughed a second more at his own, unfinished, probably horrible joke. “Tonight? A show of affection.”
He blinked harder.
“Wocka wocka?”
“I can’t decide if that is worse or better than something Fozzie would say.”
“I think it’s better.”
Kermit rolled his eyes. “You can’t pull off bad jokes like he does.”
“Yeah, that’s why I specialize in physical comedy.”
“Should I call for a wellness check?”
Gonzo nodded profusely. “Please do, Rizzo and Pepe won’t get the hint that I want my house to myself.”
“Isn’t Rizzo on the lease?”
“It’s still my house.”
“Sure,” Kermit said.
Gonzo smiled, this time warm. “I’m glad you were here tonight.”
“I’m glad you were too.”
“... You totally have to bother everyone else about not realizing you’d been replaced though.”
Kermit sighed. “Mm.”
“You deserve apologies,” he insisted, “not just one quick ‘sorry haha,’ like Kermit, that is huge.”
“I just don’t know what they’d say.”
“Did you know what I was going to say?”
The question sat in the air. Maybe he did, somewhere deep inside, know why Gonzo hadn’t suspected anything. Maybe that said more about him than he thought.
“Kermit?”
“Huh?”
“You can’t let it go unsaid.”
“Oh.”
“You looked so tired when I came in.”
Kermit huffed. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“You haven’t been sleeping.”
“When have I ever slept?”
“When you weren’t being haunted.”
“Haunted.”
“Haunted,” Gonzo confirmed.
“By..?”
“Us.”
Kermit rested back on his hands, tilting his gaze up to look at the ceiling. “Well if I was going to be haunted by anything, I’d hope it would be you guys.”
Gonzo hesitated. “You made that sweet, that wasn’t supposed to be sweet. Let me be concerned.”
“Nope.” He hummed.
“Please Kermit,” he whined, “just consider talking about it, at least with Piggy.”
“Why did you really come here tonight?”
“Don’t try to change the subject.”
Kermit tried to meet Gonzo in the eye, but he avoided his gaze. “Gonzo.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“You don’t have to,” Kermit spoke softly, “but Gonzo, if I hadn’t been here-”
“Because my sucky job at being a friend kept you awake?”
“Because I care about you,” he said, firm, “and because caring about you also means being bothered by the little inconsistencies.”
“Hm.”
“If I wasn’t, as you say, ‘haunted’ by you, would you still be here?”
“Do you want the literal answer or-”
“Gonzo.” Kermit put his hands on his shoulders. Gonzo tensed up. “I’m here to tell you not to do it. Whatever you were planning, however you were planning it. Don’t do it. I couldn’t kick that habit if I tried.”
“I’m really glad we got you back,” Gonzo murmured.
Another weight dropped off Kermit’s back. Somehow, on a random night in a random season at a random hour of the morning, the universe had brought Kermit and Gonzo to the same spot, to heal the things they could only heal in each other. Somehow, even though Kermit never thought he would completely shake the feeling of inadequacy, he’d crossed paths with a different kind of pain. Somehow, they’d proven to each other a deeper need than can be put to words, a need to be needed, a need to be valued, a need to be understood. It loosened like a rope gaining slack. Maybe Kermit would find that with someone else, maybe not, but it seemed fitting to have found it in the slightly too cold theatre where it all began.
“I’m walking you home,” Kermit decided.
“You really don’t have to do that.”
“Hey,” he shrugged, “I was honest when I said I was passing time.”
Gonzo glared. “Ha ha, sure, make fun of my horrible mental health.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“Mhm.”
“I’ll talk to Piggy about my stuff if you talk to Rizzo about yours.”
“Whoa.” Gonzo took a step back. “I didn’t think we were negotiating like that.”
“Gonzo.”
“Jeez, okay, fine.”
“Good.” Kermit nodded. “Now let’s get going before someone with an actual set of keys gets here.”
Gonzo nodded too. “Aye aye, Kermit.”