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"I don't know why you keep doing these stunts, Gonzo,"
"I'm a stuntman," Gonzo replied, confused.
"Well yeah, obviously. I know that," Rizzo rolled his eyes "But why don't you pick ones a little less, I dunno, risky?"
Piggy had proposed some big, awful dance number for the show's finale, and it seemed everyone in Muppet Theatre was busy, on and off stage.
For Rizzo, who'd thankfully escaped any requirement on stage, this meant that the duty of playing nursemaid after Gonzo's latest stunt had gone to him.
"The audience want a good show, Rizzo. I wouldn't be Gonzo the Great if I didn't get a little busted up. I'd just be Gonzo," He explained, smiling a little wistfully.
Rizzo frowned, and looking up from the blue appendage he was hastily bandaging, he found it hard to discern whether his friends glassy stare was from the pain or something else entirely.
"No. You'd be the same old Great Gonzo with a few less concussions to show for it. And I wouldn't have to plaster you together like some freaky kind of Egyptian mummy,"
Gonzo huffed "You don't understand. Besides, you don't have to do this. Pepe's not on stage either, is he?"
"No, but I doubt you want him near your injuries. The guy may have four arms but I hardly reckon he has a bedside manner," Rizzo shuddered.
"And you do?" Gonzo raised an eyelid.
Rizzo ripped off the end of the bandage with his teeth and tossed the unused roll at him "I'm helping, ain't I?"
"Why are you helping?"
"Cuz we're friends," Rizzo snapped, soaking a cotton swab in the antibacterial gunk he'd dug out of the theatre's first aid box "And friends don't leave their weird blue friends to deal with their injuries alone. Even if they totally brought them upon themselves,"
Gonzo just hummed at that, glazed look returning.
Rizzo pressed the next swab down a little harder than necessary "Alright. What's actually up with you? And don't tell me I wouldn't understand,"
Gonzo sighed, attempts to look serious and pensive made futile by the bandaged, singed fur all over his body.
"I know you don't think I need to do this stuff, but I do. Face it, Rizzo. I'm nothing. If I can't fly into the air or herd bulls through the studio then what can I do? I can't sing, I can't flirt with the guests like Piggy, I can't play songs like Rowlf. Without my amazing stunts, all the audience sees is a..." Gonzo paused dejectedly "Is a little blue freak by himself."
Rizzo stopped in his tracks, caught off guard by the uncharacteristically sad confession.
Since the Muppets had picked him up he'd always been fondest of Gonzo. The enthusiastic, unapologetically weird whatever that ate tires and caught cannonballs always seemed so unbothered by the social conventions that Rizzo was so desperate to fit into. In a funny kind of way, he looked up to him, and not just because he was smaller.
"That's stupid, Gonzo. Who cares what the audience thinks? It's not like they think too highly of the rest of us, either. You could burn to a crisp and you'd still be a little blue weirdo to them. It's family you should worry about. And family don't like seeing family hurt themselves for entertainment,"
"That's easy for you to say. You're a rat. You've got a family," Gonzo snapped.
Rizzo felt like finding the offending cannon that had got them into this mess and hitting him with it "No, you idiot, not that family. Us. The Muppets. We're your family, Gonzo. You could lie down on that stage for your whole block and I bet no one would think less of you. We care about you. I care about you,"
"You really mean that?" Gonzo asked shakily.
"Of course. Would I be putting up with this if I didn't?" When Rizzo looked up at Gonzo again, he found he looked on the verge of tears.
"Thank you, buddy, "
Rizzo's eyes felt prickly, too, and not from the disinfectant "Don't go all strange on me now. You're probably concussed from how hard you hit the ground,"
Gonzo grinned "Probably. It was pretty cool though, right?"
Rizzo couldn't hold the urge to smile back "Yeah, yeah,"