Work Text:
It was exactly 10-till-8 in the morning when Scooter walked up to the Muppet Studios’ parking lot.
As he muttered to himself, he struggled to hold his cup of coffee and his clipboard at the same time a- it had been a bit of a rough morning for Scooter, who'd nearly slept past his alarm and had ended up having to rush around to get ready for work in time. He hadn't even had a chance to eat, much less fully wake up from his fitful sleep. Maybe he should've invested in that dumb whale noise machine Pepé had tried to sell him, after all..., He thought to himself, fighting through the exhaustion that seemed stubborn on sticking around.
...Luckily for his work schedule, however, the sight that lay before him startled any trace of that exhaustion right out of him.
His bosses, Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy, seemed to already be on the lot due to the presence of their familiar cars, but aside from them, the lot was practically empty- where there was usually a circus of cars and noise that filled every parking space to the brim, there was now a ghost town, the gravel was dry and barren beneath his feet…
That was, however, except for one lone figure in the center of the lot.
The figure was crouched low to the ground and slightly hunched over, their arm moving methodically at the shoulder as they dug…something into the ground repeatedly. They didn’t seem to be trying to cover their face, but Scooter still struggled to see what they looked like.
What in the Sam heck are they doing? He thought, frowning as his fingers drummed against his coffee cup. He wondered if he should go over and see what the rogue figure was doing, but a part of him thought that was just asking for trouble so early in the morning - this was the Muppet Studios, after all, where a simple question could very well end with you getting glued to a speeding truck. He already had other work-related things he had to worry about, anyway.
…On the other hand, however, he couldn’t take the chance that the odd presence wasn’t another muppet, but in fact someone doing something illegal (well, ‘illegal’ even for Muppet standards). If they were, doing something illegal, then whether he liked it or not, Scooter was currently watching it all go down- if he walked away from whatever this was, wouldn't Kermit blame it on him? Wouldn’t it all be on his head?
Cheese and crackers, it was way too early for this.
His hand clenched around his cup, frown set deeper into his face. Here goes nothing…
Scooter came closer to the figure, albeit very reluctantly. Head cocked, he tried to find any sort of indication of who the stranger was, but they were far too hunched over for Scooter to see much of anything. What on Earth were they doing?
Though a thrill of fear went through him for just a moment, Scooter reached over to tap the figure on the shoulder…
Only for the figure to spring to life before him.
Almost too fast for Scooter to keep up with, the figure veered away from him with a high-pitched yell, so far and fast that they nearly fell on their backside. Scooter wished he could say that he was the more composed of the two, but there was absolutely no way to hide his own startled shriek, or the way he held his coffee cup out as a makeshift shield. However, heart pounding, Scooter kept the shield up with a shaking hand…only to lower it once the figure’s face was revealed. He thought he might be hallucinating (his heart was still rattling like a drunken skeleton’s bones, after all), but he was sure he’d seen their head of messy brown hair and their pure (and dusty???) blue coat.
“...Walter?”
Though Scooter’s tone was wary, he knew he was right once the figure - now revealed to be Walter, his dear friend and co-worker- flashed him a familiar, beaming smile.
“Oh, Scooter! Hi!” Walter replied, breathing a sigh of relief as he waved.
“...I'm so glad it's you!” Though Scooter was still very confused, he felt a flutter in his stomach at the pure joy on Walter’s face.
Not here, he scolded himself, pushing the feeling down as deep as it would go. …Not in front of him.
“...You are?”
“Well, yeah! See, I was a little scared that I was gonna get caught by Bobo and be, like, thrown off the premises or something, but with you, that’s not gonna happen!”
Walter had still been smiling throughout his entire explanation, practically bouncing in his fancy dress shoes. Once he finished, however, his smile became uncertain, and his eyes went from slick to panicked in almost a minute flat.
“...You’re not gonna throw me out, are you? O-Or get me in trouble?!”
“Wha- No!” The response burst out of him without an ounce of hesitation (why would he ever get Walter in trouble?). Still, he was sure his confusion was clear on his face, for Walter followed his gaze down to a small plastic box place the far left of their feet.
“...What are you doing out here, though, anyway? You usually don’t get in till 8:20.”
“Huh! Oh, that’s easy!” Walter bent down to pick up the box, the prideful beam of a smile that played at his mouth contrasting greatly with the bewildered frown that was surely on Scooter’s.
“...See, Rizzo keeps stealing my lunch, eating it, and then replacing it with old apple slices - where he’s getting them from, you couldn’t pay me to wanna know-, and I’m getting really tired of throwing out perfectly good lunch boxes every day-!”
“Oh, he likes to mess with you, too?”
“...Huh? What’d he do to you?”
“...Walter, he wrecked my entire car last week.”
“...Oh yeah! I’m sorry, Scooter, I think I missed that episode.”
“Everyone did.”
“...Right, Sorry,” Walter winced sympathetically. Ultimately, however, he launched right back into his story without missing a beat.
“...Anyway, I got sick of throwing stuff out, so I thought of a way to get him back.”
“You did?” Wearing the brightest smile Scooter had ever seen on him, Walter gently shook the contents of the box.
“I did!”
Upon further inspection, Scooter could clearly make out pastel-colored pieces of sidewalk chalk, the kind that the grade school kids from Scooter’s memories used to play with. The sight of the familiar tool put a fond smile on Scooter’s face, phantoms of him and his sister Skeeter dancing across his eyes. He saw the two of them drawing on the sidewalk as if it was just yesterday, playing for hours on end and squabbling loudly over the purple chalk - it was always Skeeter’s favorite, he knew, but he would never let it go without a fight- as the sun set on their block.
…I haven’t seen anything like this in years, he thought to himself, eyes drifting from the box of chalk and back to Walter’s grin.
“...You’re gonna get him back with chalk?” He asked. Feverishly, Walter nodded, his normally innocent smile tinged with a hint of mischief as he clapped a free hand over his occupied wrist.
“Yup! I’m gonna use the chalk and draw weird stuff all over Rizzo’s parking spot! Once he sees all of it, he’s gonna be so mad - it’s gonna be priceless!”
Scooter tried to keep it together, he really did - he couldn’t bear to shatter the pride in Walter’s eyes -, but he couldn’t help the chuckle that burst out of him. The prank was weak, sure, but it was also just so cute - so Walter - that Scooter sort of found it…endearing.
Though he felt this, however, he didn’t say it, and the mocking air of his laugh shifted Walter’s expression from a prideful beam to a slightly annoyed frown.
“...You think it’s lame, don’t you?”
“N-No,” Scooter couldn’t stop chuckling. “...Not at all.”
Frowning deeper, so deep that it was almost a pout, Walter swatted Scooter’s bicep.
“...Well it was the only prank I could think of, OK? I’m not the master of trickery like you used to be.”
“I prefer the term “designated rascal”,” Scooter grinned.
Though he didn’t pull pranks as often as he used to, anymore, he still fondly remembered the mischief he’d caused - in fact, he could still vividly recall the time he replaced all of Gonzo’s (girlfriends) chickens with tiny feather dusters. By the time the others had found out, the chickens had barreled out of the supply closet, red-beaked and threatening to unionize. …Ah, good times.
“...Besides, you don’t have the keys to the entire Studio like I did…and do.”
“The entire Studios?” Walter’s eyebrows shot up into his hairline. “...I bet you used to make Kermit mad.”
“Oh, I did,” Scooter felt a pang of shame travel across his cheeks at the memory of Kermit’s red face and gravelly-voiced reprimands, but the mirth born from the memories outweighed any stray feelings of guilt.
“...Believe me, Walt, if almost getting fired 5 times in a row was an Olympic sport, I would’ve won the gold.”
“I can imagine,” By the time Scooter’s story had finished, Walter was back to smiling, giggling behind his hand so hard his cheeks turned pink.
“...I wasn’t nearly on that level. I think the worst prank I ever pulled was convincing my cousin Crash that he was made of licorice,” Walter replied, tone slightly rueful.
“...Well that, and the time I melted the door off the chem lab back in middle school.”
Walter may have thought that last prank was ‘lame’, but Scooter did not. In fact, if anything, that prank sounded terrifying (cool as heck, but also terrifying), and he turned back to Walter with new curiosity. This almost didn’t feel like the same old Walter he saw every day- the one who asked everyone how their day was going, who always took everyone’s coffee orders and apologized when people dropped soup on him-, and Scooter wasn’t entirely sure what he made of that (well, actually, he did, but he couldn’t share it).
“You pulled a prank at school?” Scooter almost felt aghast. “...That’s so metal, Walter! I never tried anything there.”
“...You almost got fired from a job, Scooter! More than once! That’s infinitely more risky than anything I did!” Scooter shook his head, chuckling lightly.
“-And a lot more boring. I guarantee you that if I had tried anything at school, the students would’ve appreciated my genius way more than Kermit had.”
“...Or, at least, they would’ve if I’d ever actually gone to school.”
“...Right. I’m sure they would’ve.”
Scooter hadn’t missed the way Walter rolled his eyes, but he also hadn’t missed the giggles that tumbled from his lips. The pink haze on his yellow-beige felt hadn’t quite disappeared, instead darkening the longer Walter laughed, and it filled Scooter's heart with some sort of…pride as it fluttered inside his chest.
I can’t believe I made him laugh like that, Scooter thought to himself. …Look at me go!
The smile on his companion’s face was akin to the sun, bright and warm as the hopeful glow from Scooter’s childhood. There was always an odd glow around the scattered muppet, sure, but right then, in the throes of a truly monstrous giggle fit, it felt like a ray of light taken straight from the sky- Scooter wasn’t sure how quite to put the feeling in his chest into words, but he could only describe the sight before him as…pretty.
With a start, Scooter gulped. He pushed that feeling deep, deep down as well, along with all of the other thoughts like it.
Not. In. Front. Of. Him.
Almost as if it had never been there, the fluttering inside him, along with his smile, dissolved. He turned his gaze down to the floor, then back to the box cradled in Walter’s small hands in one swift motion - anything to avoid the blinding light of Walter’s face.
“...Right, well, uh,” Scooter gulped again. His hands felt clammy as he pulled a piece of chalk - purple, like his childhood, like more comforting times (times where he wasn’t pining after the muppet beside him)- out of the box.
“...If we’re gonna finish your prank before Rizzo gets here, we’d better get back to it now.”
“Huh? You’re gonna help?” If it was possible, Walter’s big smile widened. “...But I thought you thought the prank was lame.”
“I never said anything like that.” Scooter kept his red face down to the ground, already digging his chalk into the ground like Walter had earlier - he was entirely just trying to avoid looking directly at Walter, but if he got to prank Rizzo at the same time, well, that was just a consolation prize.
Walter watched him for a beat, and the longer the did, the more the anxiety began to eat at Scooter’s gut. Why’d he have to look at him like that?
…Eventually, thankfully, Walter crouched down beside him, merely laughing as he began to maneuver his own chalk - bright green, like the Kermit design on his ever present watch. Though he was trying so hard not to look at Walter, Scooter thought that that fit him rather well.
Together, the two muppets drew on the gravel, the chalk shaving itself as it dug into the grooves of the lot in cheerful spirals. While Walter was actually putting together coherent pieces (mostly of Rizzo in mustaches), Scooter was just drawing to draw in an effort to keep his mind preoccupied with anything that wasn’t Walter - unfortunately, however, Walter seemed intent on keeping his attention squarely on him, from the way his arm brushed against Scooter’s as he drew to the way he giggled over his own scribbles. The feel of Walter hovering against his side did wonders to throw off Scooter’s concentration, but the gofer hoped that it wasn’t too obvious (despite his obviously shaking hands).
He tried in vain to keep his eyes on his own work, honestly, but as an endless stream of mirth floated out of Walter and filtering in and out of Scooter’s ears, he couldn’t help but take a look at the canvas beside them.
Aside from the mean phrases written in loopy handwriting and the numerous mustached Rizzos, Walter had drawn a hulking green trash can. In the trash can, however, was the true point - it was Rizzo, sticking halfway out of the overflowing rim with trash stuck to his jacket, with furiously drawn lightning bolts surrounding all of the can’s circumference.
He really could be so cute sometimes, Scooter thought. He frowned deeper.
…OK, OK- he was cute all the time.
Walter’s arm bumped against his once more, the soft feel of cardigan fabric brushing against a satin sleeve. The electricity that shot up Scooter’s arm was so white-hot it nearly burned, burned like the blush that quickly climbed back up to his face, and his drawing hand shook once more.
He knew Walter had only bumped him by accident, but the feelings the touch brought him were almost too much to bear. On reflex - and a bit harsher than necessary-, Scooter bumped Walter’s arm back.
For a beat, Walter said nothing, and a spike of guilt shot Scooter right through the gut. Before Scooter could bark out a hasty apology, though, Walter bumped him back- a lot harder than Scooter had, might he add. Scooter, flabbergasted, turned to his companion, only to be greeted with that same bright grin and airy giggle.
…Oh, so it’s like that, then.
As Walter continued to giggle beside him, Scooter leaned into Walter’s space with his chalk in hand. Before his companion could say anything about it, Scooter drew a quick, sharp slash of purple across one of Walter’s green angry-eyed faces, and he burst into giggles as Walter’s mirth faded into indignant shock.
“...You didn't!”
“What’re you gonna do if I did?”
Walter only stared at him for a moment, eyes still indignant. Scooter continued to smirk, but the longer Walter stayed silent, the less sure that smirk became. What if he’d actually offended Walter? He certainly hadn’t meant for that…Oh Boy…
Finally, agonizingly, Walter moved. Mirroring Scooter’s actions from before, the green chalk in his hand drifted into Scooter’s space, and in one quick motion, drew a big barrage of hearts - all over one of Scooter’s out-of-place bird doodles. Scooter gaped.
“...You didn’t!”
“I did!” Walter’s grin was wide enough to split his face in two, the laugh that matched said smile the picture of victory. Scooter couldn’t help but laugh along even as his heart thudded like a judge's gavel against his ribs. The hearts on his side didlook rather cute, after all…
After that, it was complete madness; like twin hurricanes, the two went on and on with their work, throwing themselves over each other as they scribbled madly over each other’s work. As Scooter put a bigger, more exaggerated mustache on one of Walter’s Rizzo pieces, Walter continued his assault of hearts and strikes, laughing so hard at Scooter’s work that he nearly howled - Scooter was aware that his dumb doodles weren’t nearly that funny, but hearing Walter laugh so loudly, so freely, made his ego so inflated that he could ride all the way into the stratosphere.
Dimly, as Walter leaned into his side with another hardy laugh, Scooter thought that this might be the most fun he’d had since…well, since the Muppets last did a movie together. Nothing compared to the feel of the spotlights and the laughter of the audience, of performing with his closest friends over and over…and yet, drawing on the parking lot with Walter, so close to the other muppet that he could feel the way his laughter shook his shoulders, felt like a very close second.
(…Boy, was he glad nobody he knew was gonna look at this. It was bad enough that the folks reading this at home were already reading his innermost thoughts and feelings; imagine if Walter could read them…)
Truthfully, Scooter could’ve drawn on the sidewalk forever, just laughing it up by Walter’s side, but the slightly exhausted sigh that came from the other muppet broke the spell entirely.
“...Well, I think we did it!”
Walter was now on his feet. As he grinned down at their handiwork, he twirled the worn green piece of chalk between his fingers. Scooter hummed as he followed his gaze to their work (he hadn’t even seen half the things they were drew, he'd been so stuck in his own haze), and though you couldn’t tell a rat from an ocean wave in their complicated mural, it was so colorful and vibrant that Scooter still couldn’t help but love it.
…However, he quickly noticed that the cavalcade of color no longer counted as a suitable prank, the mean phrases and crude Rizzo doodles now fully covered by their mad scribbles. The colors melded so well together that, had it been any other target, it would’ve been good enough to override the original purpose of their excursion, but because it was Rizzo…
“...Not yet.”
...Scooter had an idea.
Walter gave him an odd look, but Scooter hadn't clarified. Instead, he grabbed the worn-down brown chalk with a quick swipe. In big, choppy letters, at the bottom of their ‘masterpiece’, Scooter wrote-
“Rizzo sucks eggs!”
If Walter had been laughing before, he was practically cackling, now, arms folded over his stomach as he shook with the force of it.
“That’s so mean,” Walter’s voice was weak amidst his cackles.
“I know.” Scooter grinned back.
The two shared another bout of laughter over their ‘prank’, but it was cut off quite suddenly by the alarms that sounded from both his phone and Walter’s watch.
With a start, Scooter realized that the time read now read 8:30 AM- there was only 30 minutes before they were meant to clock in, and they were still playing with chalk! Why, Scooter had completely forgotten that they’d been at work (well that was new…) in the first place!
“We should uh- We should probably head in, now.” Scooter’s tone was awkward as he fiddled with his phone. He didn’t want to leave Walter, not yet, but he knew he had to- it’d just been so much fun, hanging out so freely and not having to worry about anything work-related for a while…Maybe, next time they were both free, Scooter would have to remember to ask Walter out (Not like that, not like that!) again.
Walter simply nodded, still glancing down at his watch.
“Yeah, we should,” He cast a glance at the mess of chalk on the ground, face slightly disappointed.
“...I just wish we could’ve seen his face.”
“That would have been pretty funny,” Scooter frowned. Not being able to see Rizzo’s reaction did kind of defeat the purpose of their prank (though Scooter wouldn’t have traded this odd morning for anything).
“...I’m sure we’ll still hear him scream, though.” Scooter wasn’t completely sure that last part was true. However, Walter still gave him a big smile for his efforts, so he supposed it was good enough.
“...Yeah, you’re right.”
The two stepped in time with each other as they made their way into the Muppet Studios. As they climbed the tiny flight of stairs up to the entrance, Walter’s hand brushed against Scooter’s - only once, only briefly-, and the gofer felt his heart explode like the colors on the ground.
Out of the corner of his eye, Scooter watched the strokes of their mural swirl together, kaleidoscopes of greens, browns, and purples twisting tightly around his thoughts like a vice (just like Walter himself). To himself he wondered, if he were fast enough to catch it, would he be able to hold Walter’s hand just as tightly? Just for a moment?
His phone chimed, again, reminding them that they were going to be late for work. They were in the real world again, and in the real world, they were just friends - co-workers, even-, and nothing else.
Scooter left the thought of Walter’s hand behind with the chalk, alongside the inner child that longed to play with it, again. Nothing else...
(Later that morning, however, when Rizzo stormed into the studio screaming bloody murder, Scooter caught Walter’s eye over the rat’s head. His gaze twinkling like the stars in the night sky, like the lights illuminating a grand theater stage, Walter shot him a wink…
…And suddenly Scooter could feel the chalk between his fingers once more, colorful dust staining his felt and sticking to every surface.
His hands clenched.
What he wouldn’t give…)