What's that you say, Leyla posting in this thread?
Couldn't be...
Then...who?
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Nearly an hour later, Piggy was walking again. Some of her equilibrium was restored though the wistful melancholy had not yet released her entirely from its strangling silk. Her brief stop in that sweet, treasured place had acted as a reminder to her. For a fleeting moment, the dread of Kermit’s reaction to her scars had surrendered to the hope in his return. Oh, to have him with her! To feel the warmth of his comforting presence again!
Ah, but that day was nearly two weeks away, and there was no promise that their reunion would be warm or comforting.
Miss Piggy put more distance between herself and her sanctuary. The sky was black above her and cold around her, but she wasn’t yet ready to face the boarding house, or the madness within. She regretted the lateness of the hour. A little shopping, through a window or otherwise would hit the spot right now.
“Hmm… pity,” she murmured sweetly, absently brushing the dirt off of her pants as she puzzled over where else a person wanting to avoid people might go.
“Maybe…” There was a little coffee shop that kept odd hours not too far away. Piggy never bothered remembering the name of it. It was far too down to earth to be worth the bother. Not much above the rank of dive really, at least by her exacting standards. Kermit would have liked it, but she pushed that thought out of her head ruthlessly. Piggy knew it, and liked the large chocolate brownies they served, and that was enough.
Thinking about tasting the decadent treats added impetus to her feet, as well as power to her craving and Piggy picked up the pace without really thinking about it, losing her troubles in pleasant chocolate dreams.
That turned out to be unfortunate.
Without warning, a shadowy, misshapen figure swung down from a large overhanging branch, dangling right in front of Piggy. "Hi, Miss-" was all it managed to get out before Piggy collided solidly with it. The distracted diva let out a terrified shriek, following it immediately thereafter by a defensive karate chop that took the Great Gonzo out of his tree and into the sweet embrace of unyielding concrete.
“That was great! Better than usual!" he cried, delighted. "You really walloped me good that time!"
Piggy meanwhile was trying to swallow her heart back down into its customary position. “Of course it was! You scared me nearly to death, Gonzo!"
"Oh... I'm sorry... I didn't mean to." The apology was more heartfelt than it would have been before the accident.
Fright shifted smoothly into irritation. "How could you not have meant to?!" she demanded with enough volume to send her voice echoing through the streets. "You jumped out at me in pitch darkness with no warning at all!" He peered up at her, innocently puzzled at her distress. With a frustrated noise, she growled, "Just get up, will ya?"
"Well, I would, but I'm not sure I can." His obvious approval of the force of the impact rankled Piggy. It was simply too weird. Letting out a beleaguered sigh, Piggy snagged him, hauling him roughly to his feet. Gonzo swayed for a second and she caught hold of him again.
"Stop that! Moi did not hit you that hard!" she snarled, though privately she rather suspected she had hit him harder then she intended in her fright.
"Oh, no, you did, and believe me, Miss Piggy, I appreciate it!"
"You are out of your mind," she told him flatly, moving to walk past him. Now she really needed chocolate.
“Out of my tree now, too,” he said lightly, taking hold of the trunk again and starting to climb. He made no effort to stop her from leaving.
Spotting this with the corner of her eye, Piggy spun back. “What are you doing?!
“Climbing my tree, what does it look like?”
“That IS what it looks like! But why?! Everyone is back there, wondering where you are! Camilla is beside herself. Get home this minute, and settle her nerves! So she’ll get off mine! Why aren’t you there?”
Gonzo dropped down to the earth again and turned to face Piggy. “I- It’s…I…” he gave her a helpless, pleading look that made her squirm. “I dunno.”
She frowned at him for a long moment. “I’m getting a brownie. You can come.” She began walking, not looking back to see if he followed.
Gonzo did.
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“This doesn’t seem like your kind of place.”
“Exactly,” she replied, looking over her brownie with grim satisfaction.
“So, why-“
She had been just about to take a large bite, but giving him an irritated glance she set it down again. “Who would ever look for moi here?”
“Well, no one I suppose, but-“
“You,” she pointed a gloved finger at him, “-are weird. If moi was looking for you, moi would look somewhere a weird person would go. Such as… a tree.”
“You were looking for me?” Gonzo’s eyes were almost wistful.
Piggy hesitated. “No,” she replied honestly, “But, if I were, moi would look somewhere weird. If vous were searching for moi…where would you look?”
Gonzo considered that and shrugged. “I wouldn’t look for you… I’d look for Kermit, and find you that way.”
She frowned at him and took a bite of her brownie. When she had swallowed, she spoke coolly, “I’m not always with him.” I’m not with him now.
Gonzo shook his head, “No, but he usually knows where you are.”
“Yes, well, that’s my doing, not his.” Awkward under the self-confessed weirdo’s gaze, Piggy set herself to polishing off the treat.
He let her.
Just as she was on the last bite, Gonzo asked, “Are you all right?”
With her mouthful, she was stymied in her efforts to toss off a quick ‘I’m fine,’ before the question could sink in somewhere deeper. She glowered at him instead as he waited patiently for a reply, the concern in his eyes disconcertingly sincere.
She swallowed. "Moi am every bit as 'all right' as you are," she replied, looking at him piercingly through lowered lashes. It was a double edged sword, and meant to make him back off; however, despite his turning over a new leaf, there was more daredevil in Gonzo than not.
“That bad, huh?"
Too pre-occupied for such games, she let the sword drop and put an end to their verbal sparring. "At the very least."
Gonzo sighed guiltily "I'm really sorry, Miss Piggy. I'd give anything to undo this."
She shrugged, pulling back a little and wrapping her arms around herself. "I know that... but, you can't."
The little whatever he was who laughed in the face of extraordinary pain...flinched.
Piggy started at the movement, and a wave of dismay swept her feet from under her. "Oh, Gonzo, I- I... I didn't mean it that way. I didn't. It was an accident. I know that." She watched him swallow hard, and had to blink rapidly. It was stunning to find herself all of a sudden swamped with pity. She dropped her self-shielding arms and reached out to catch his hand. "I know it," she repeated.
"I’m really very sorry, Miss-" his warm and gravelly voice was quicksand with unshed tears.
"Stop it, stop it," she hissed, almost horrified, before yanking him roughly across the table for an entirely unexpected hug.
"I'm sor-"
"Shut up, don't you dare make me cry in here. This is my brownie place. I will kill you."
Gonzo pulled back and gave her a tremulous smile. "Promise?" he teased.
"Don't you wish," she growled, grasping onto the weak tension breaker like a crazed Sesame fan getting the last Elmo doll in a hundred miles. As one, they looked around the cafe. Gonzo trying to regain his composure, Piggy checking for witnesses. The staff were wise enough not to let her catch them seeing.
"Um...I... I want you to know... nothing like this will ever happen again, Miss Piggy."
"It's pretty unlikely," Piggy agreed primly. "I can't imagine ever being desperate enough to give you huggies."
"Uh... I...um… I meant the accident." He gave her a look of utter sincerity. "I won't ever let that happen again."
"Don't make promises you can't keep," Piggy chided him, but it was a gentle thing.
“Oh, I won't! I'm not. I didn't... I didn't get a chance to tell you this, but... I'm giving up my act...well... the stunt part anyway. Nothing dangerous ever again."
Piggy stared at him.
Her eyes narrowed ever so slightly, and she leaned in towards him...but said nothing. Nervously pinned under that gaze, Gonzo tried to carry on. "Yeah! I mean, don't worry... I'll still be here to... to help out with the show. Sam has been really helpful... and...I didn't do anything fun or exciting tonight, and I got a standing ovation!"
Piggy managed to convey skepticism without moving a single muscle.
"No, really! It was great! Well, maybe not great...it was good! I did... jumping jacks... and..." His words were coming slower and slower as though Gonzo had to start ramming them through a brick wall.
He was desperately jealous of those words.
"And... haiku! Haiku for you! Say... that rhymes. How ‘bout that. Um…anyway! It was really good. Or... good...well, okay. It was okay. It was almost okay…. kinda... pointless, really. Yeah, pointless. Oh, I am so depressed." He let his head drop to the table.
At last, Piggy moved.
She shook her head solemnly. "You... are a world class idiot," she told him in the same manner someone might observe it was raining or that there was a gaping hole in the theatre.
Gonzo didn't lift his head. "I know, but I'm trying to fix it."
She rolled her eyes expressively, but he missed it entirely. So she snagged him by the nose and forced him to look at her. "World. Class. I. di. ot."
"Wha?"
Piggy took a long breath, inhaling to remember her patience. "Gonzo, my dear idiot, what on earth are you doing this for?"
"So that no one else gets-"
"Idiot." Piggy scolded him as Gonzo frowned, wondering if she was going to let go of his nose anytime soon. "I don't believe that for a second, and neither do you."
"But I don't want-"
"Oh, of course you don't. What does wanting have to do with anything, anyway?”
"Um..." Was he still talking to Miss Piggy?
“You didn't want that act to go haywire... and you didn't, I presume, want me to get in the way of that metal thing."
"Oh, no, of course I-"
"Hush. I'm talking." Gonzo hushed. "Well, guess what. I didn't want to be hit by it either. I didn't want youto give up your act, and I sure as heck didn't want Kermit to go gallivanting around Europe without me.” She let go of him abruptly and through her hands up in the air in exasperation at the general unfairness of life. "And did any of that matter? Nope! 'Cause it all happened anyway. It did and I was and you did and he did too, lousy frog, and that’s just they way it is.” Gonzo visibly moped at her...and it annoyed Piggy no end. "So you can just forget about not wanting, Gonzo... because there's nothing you can do about the thing that you didn't want to happen once it's happened." He sighed, nodding meekly in the face of the tangled phrase. "And don't you sit there sulking at me, weirdo, 'cause I am sick to death of all this ‘not wanting’ and ‘is’!"
Gonzo opened his mouth to speak, and then thought better of it.
Piggy abruptly thumped her elbows forcefully on the table and dropped her head into her hands in defiance of more than one rule of polite dining etiquette. She was quiet for a moment, her eyes lost in somewhere faraway. “We don't get to do anything about the ‘don't wants’, Gonzo, but... the wants...the wants aren't always past hope."
"Piggy, I don't-"
"You had better not say want."
"...get it."
She glanced heavenward. "There's a newsflash," Piggy grumbled, but she let the sarcasm drop quickly. "Listen, there are no guarantees in this world of safety, Gonzo... and there are fewer guarantees of happiness. You are...so... lucky that you know how to be happy. Not everyone does.” She sighed gustily. “So, what are you doing? Punishing yourself? Making yourself miserable by giving up what you love? You think that's gonna make me happy? I have enough on my conscience as it is, thank you very much."
"But it was my-"
"I swear you're worse than Kermie sometimes! You are a weird, mad, dangerous lunatic, Gonzo! …So go on and be one. You don't want to be one right now maybe, but you are one... and heck with ‘don't wants’, 'cause 'don't wants' don't listen to the likes of you and me.
Gonzo sat up a little straighter. "So... you're saying... I'm stuck with me?"
"We all are." She tried not to sound too aggrieved about it. Gonzo smiled a little bit. Only the merest breath of a smile, but it was a happy one. Piggy echoed it, all unintentionally. "And you know what they say, don't you? Better the lunatic you know..."
He nodded, smile broadening, before giving her a cautious look. "So... if I maybe... were to get my cannon, Betsy, back from the pawn shop... it wouldn't bother you if I let her out ... sort of, on probation-like?"
"Now, moi never said that your act wouldn’t bother me." But she was still smiling.
As if someone had unshackled Animal, Gonzo shot out of his seat and onto the table, scattering napkins and condiments everywhere. "Oh, good!" he cried, laughing suddenly in wild delight like a long-held prisoner set free. "Because I have so many great ideas!!!"
Piggy scooted back quickly, glaring at him, but speaking to herself. "Well, he learns faster than the frog, anyway."
"-oh, and then yesterday, I saw this huge bonfire and it occurred to me: sandpaper slip and slide! Then all I'd need would be the world's longest piece of spaghetti!"
Watching him cavorting and planning, Piggy was suddenly very tired. "Come on, buzzard beak, vous must plot madness, and moi must sleep."
"Oh, sure! Sure, of course, whatever you want, Miss Piggy! Oh, my head is just spinning! Oh, how can I ever repay you!"
Piggy shrugged laconically, "Since moi know vous cannot pick up the cheque, why don't you tell me about the show I missed? Vous mentioned something about haiku... for moi?"
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