Work Text:
The thing about living in a garbage can is that you really never know what you're going to see when you stick your head out. He's become pretty darn good at telling the time, what with someone explaining it slowly and loudly every couple of weeks.
The thing is, it's also quite dark in a garbage can. He suspects everyone thinks his can links to a nice house like all theirs, well lit and decorated neatly and brightly, with a fire going to protect him from the worst of the cold. Instead, he just has the can. There's space enough for him to stretch, to turn around, to awkwardly huddle in on himself if it's the middle of winter and his two threadbare patchwork blankets are not enough. The batteries in his torch, hard won and well-prized, ran out long ago, and nobody's thought to bring him more; he would buy some, if he had money, and if he thought his can would be there when he got back. As such, sometimes the only thing he has to go on is how quiet it is on Sesame Street from ambient noise and muffled voices, how long since he's talked to someone; he's learned not to pop his head out if it's quiet, a silence you feel you could cut with a knife.
He doesn't have one of those either, though it would come in quite useful at times.
Sesame Street is not one of those places that turns into something dark and cruel when the sun sets. There aren't people walking the street, showing their wares by wearing inappropriate clothing and hoping for someone to come and take them away; there aren't a dozen others like him, waiting for dark to slip some kind of poison from their pockets, hidden and well-prized, to make things just a bit more bearable.
It's not like that at all; the police sometimes send a car down, cruising silently through the darkness, sleek and shiny and out of place, more for show than utility, so they can say they have the best interests of the residents well in mind when it comes to tax time.
If they wanted to catch anyone, they'd send it during the day; they'd have an officer walk down, hustling the aimless onward, who'd bang on his can and tell him to move on.
The things he's seen are more subtle than that, because they forget he's there; Big Bird didn't even ask him to help when everyone was harassing him about Aloysius, and he couldn't say that didn't hurt a little, since Big Bird is the closest thing to a friend he has. He sees everyone's secrets, and not just at night when he looks out just to reassure himself that the world is still out there, not just when he hears something out of place, or when he thinks it's later than it is and the sun is only just peeking over the rooves, in that last quiet moment before everyone wakes up for their perfect lives.
Today he can't sleep; the blankets aren't warm enough, and his can must be icing on the outside because he's shivering despite his fur. He pushes the lid up and looks out mainly for different, fresher air and to stretch, to get rid of the crick in his neck and the tension in his shoulders, the pain in his back. It doesn't quite work, never does, and of course, he doesn't have a nice doctor who writes prescriptions to make things like that go away. The lid, though, as cold as it is, is like an icepack on the top of his head, though if the cold was going to help it would have done so when it seeped down over and through his skin overnight.
"Good morning, Oscar," Kermit says happily. This is not unusual; seeing Kermit wander home in the early hours, a bit dazed, sometimes with collar and shirt in hand, is one of the few moments that he feels accepted.
Today, though, instead of grunting back, he stares as men throw a black bag over Kermit, and bundle him into the back of a plain van. Oscar sits down, easing the lid down as quietly as he can, and sits still until the sound of the van fades.
Of course, there's nothing he can do.
Of course, nobody asks him if he saw anything.
And the next time Kermit walks home early in the morning, he doesn't say good morning to Oscar.