"You think she'll figure out it was me?"

"Probably."

"How hard would you think she'd swat me?"

"Very."

"Cool." Kermit held back the urge to roll his eyes; no one could ever say to someone, straight in the face, why Gonzo had an undying obsession for anything remotely related to the word "pain." It was a miracle with no cure, a curse with no consequence, a guy without a life. That, and whatever the heck Gonzo was supposed to be. As of now, the scrunchy muppet had entirely convinced himself that he may have been part rooster. Kermit knew better than to believe him, because it was clear where he had even gotten the idea from.

"Hey, you didn't happen to see the girls today did you? Camilla, perhaps?" The frog stopped before one of the dressing rooms, the one he aimed to enter as he roamed the halls, with Gonzo pecking at his heels as if he had mistaken Kermit's flippers for bird seed. The amphibian breathed, rubbing his eyes with a freehand, as he turned back to face his chaser. "Gonzo-"

"I mean, it's okay if you didn't. I was just wondering. You do know which one is Camilla, right? Because one time I tried asking Rizzo, and he thought-" Gonzo faltered off the rails of his sentence, as he slowly began piecing together his observations; Kermit deemed eyes that spoke of an insomniac, while his smoothed skin was pale beyond malnutrition. The skin part wasn't very unusual, but it made some wonder if the frog's pigmentation had ever exhibited a deeper tone quality. It would have certainly boosted the frog's overall attractiveness, maybe even his morale.

"What the heck happened to you? Even my skull has seen better crashes." That was precisely why Kermit desired for the conversation to not take fold; it was only a matter of time before any converser would comment about his insulting appearance. If it wasn't a comment, it normally meant Piggy was trying to wrap the frog around her finger. Despite whether she wished to or not, Kermit did catch even her second guessing her conclusions, when it came to acknowledging him. Kermit knew he looked like a wart, he merely didn't want to be reminded.

"Don't you have a stunt to practice? A poem to recite? Anything that doesn't involve "bugging" me?" Kermit didn't know how many daisies to spin upon Gonzo's eyes before he decided to burn them with a torch. His patience had run dry decades ago, and it wasn't doing any one good to be shoving sand down his dry waterhole. Despite the jeopardizing hints Kermit gave with black glares and snarky comments, Gonzo remained unfazed. Per usual.

The sanity-scrambled artist blinked. Then he gave a second one for good measure, just to check himself to make sure he was actually using his brain. "Did Fozzie put you up to this? Because if not, you're worse at puns than he is."

"What are you,-just go away!" This bozo, out of all the kinds of people Kermit could have met. If Gonzo truly hadn't flagged the hints from before, he certainly did in that moment. He scampered back, not feeling the thrills in confronting the very man, well frog, that could flush his whole life away. A life the muppet weirdo had built around his very career. "Yeesh, okay! Someone's a bit volatile." It took everything within Kermit to not make a comment on that remark, specifically along the lines of whether or not Gonzo even knew what the word meant. Considering his chance of character, the indigo freak likely read it on some menu as a restaurant meal. Although the frog did have to count points on the pronunciation at least being on point, not many idiots with Gonzo's potential could probably get that far. It was a miracle Gonzo stepped over that line period. In the midst of those considerations, Kermit minified them with a dirty eye roll. He attempted for the dressing room door knob, again. He was swayed away from it, again.

"I feel like we've got some sort of tension between us. And I don't mean the good kind, where you're waiting for something awesome to happen. It's more like, you probably wouldn't hesitate in handing me over to a sleuth of starving mama bears, kind of tension." Kermit mused at the idea, it wasn't like Gonzo had been wrong. "My point being, did I do something? I mean, Kermit, I don't want you being mad at me. But if not, I'd at least like to know why." It was as if his own croak was lodged against his own tongue, leaving Kermit stumped as to how to configure his phrases. No words popped up the seemingly right answers, yet Gonzo's very concern wasn't a brash reasoning. The frog had been polishing the door knob with glassy fingers, as he fixed a small, darted, look at the young actor.

There wasn't really much to look at: a small whatever in a paper textured shirt that likely had seen better laundry days, a tie that was inside out (unknown to the motive of being purposeful) with a smeared, printed, tag still sticking upon it. Bulging eyes that screamed lunatic. Fur that was constantly unkempt and reeked of gunpowder, a stench that was pasted over ovenly baked raw tires. Gonzo was merely a stumpy, little, something. A thing. A whatever. Yet, there wasn't a darn tootin reason to hate him. For anything.

"I didn't know there was. I'm sorry if you perceived it that way." Those very words seemed to milk corruption into the air, and it was an air Kermit noted as poison. But no matter how hard he could run, that poison would still get to him someday. In his sleep, as he ate, when he least expected, and when he dearly expected. Kermit dragged his fingers away from the doorknob, staring back at Gonzo with a nightmare fazing his mind. The blue stump seemed almost relieved at the answer, as if he were ready to buy it off the shelves at any outrageous price. "It's cool, I was just trying to make sure. You just seemed a bit sour lately." The frog lurched his tongue against the roof of his mouth, sheathing his aggravation for undying kindness. "You wouldn't be the first to think that then."

"Just take it easy is all. Fozzie seems kinda worried about you." Kermit opted for silence over words, and gestured for the knob once more. "I should probably hide this shoe before Miss Piggy finds it." The frog turned back around, with an arched expression. "Why? I thought you would have wanted her to snuff you?" Gonzo retaliated with a smile, twirling the crusted, tapping shoe with a single hand. "I mean, it would be fun. But I promised the girls that I'll be back to practice my stunt plans."

"You never plan for stunts."

"Girls get so iffy about the smallest things. Especially chickens, let me tell ya." Kermit chortled stilly. "What were you doing with that shoe anyway?"

Gonzo merely shrugged, already preparing himself to make a corner turn out of the hall. "I wanted to see how far it would go before it hit somebody." Moments later, Kermit was only left to himself, and a dreary hall jarring his thoughts. He clicked himself out of that silent world, and finally opened the door he was so desperately trying to walk through. Gonzo was a strange idiot, but he was a brave, strange, idiot. An idiot Kermit hadn't seen in a long time coming.