Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/12213720.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Major_Character_Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      Emmet_Otter's_Jug-Band_Christmas, The_Muppets_-_All_Media_Types
  Relationship:
      Emmet_Otter/Wendell_Porcupine
  Additional Tags:
      Friends_With_Benefits, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Emotional_Hurt/Comfort, Angst
      and_Hurt/Comfort, Canonical_Character_Death, Parent_Death, Loss_of_Parent
      (s), Frottage, Underage_Drinking, Underage_Sex, Implied/Referenced_Rape/
      Non-con, Implied/Referenced_Child_Abuse, Suicidal_Thoughts, Hand_Jobs,
      Alcohol_Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced_Alcohol_Abuse/Alcoholism,
      Daddy_Issues, this_is_giving_me_existential_questions_about_my_life
      choices_tbh, I'm_Sorry, i'm_not_that_sorry_actually, angstifying
      childhood_classics
  Stats:
      Published: 2017-09-28 Words: 3046
****** Frogtown Hollow Moonshine ******
by ConnivingOphelia
Summary
     Life's never been easy for the working poor in the hills of Frogtown
     Hollow. But everything's been so much worse since Pa died.
On cold afternoons like this, every sound seems amplified by the glittering
layers of frost that glaze the branches, the bushes, each blade of grass. It
crunches beneath their feet as they trudge between the trees side by side. The
warm steam of their exhales floats up in cumulus formation before them. All
around, the birds have all fallen silent as if stunned by the sudden frigid
assault. Even the river’s babbling rush has died, smothered beneath the thick
layer of snow-dusted ice.
Wendell coughs. The hoarse plosive seems to echo as the sound bounces off the
frosted trees. “Old Lady Possum is such a bitch,” he grumbles.
“Shhh,” hisses Emmet. He glances behind them even though he already knows
they’re far out of earshot of her house, her beady black eyes that bored into
them as she scowled from her perch on her veranda.
“Relax. She can’t hear me. She’s inside her miserable house, probably counting
out all her pennies. I swear to God, I thought she was gonna stiff us.”
From the disgusted way the old woman had sneered down at them as she inspected
their handiwork rebuilding the ruined fence, Emmet’s a little surprised she
actually did hand over the fifty cents. Most of the other adults in Frogtown
Hollow still treat him with careful sympathy -- gently-chosen words, soft pity
in their eyes. Old Lady Possum is so ancient, she isn’t perturbed by the
looming shadow of death. She’s probably old buddies with the Grim Reaper. Emmet
shifts the toolbox to his other side and shoves his numb hand deep into his
pocket.
They walk in silence. The only sound is the crackling treads of their footfalls
as they trudge through the frozen grass. Emmet hadn’t noticed how their steps
have fallen into perfect sync until Wendell breaks the rhythm, stumbling over a
root, spitting a stream of mumbled curses toward the ground. He clears his
throat and quickens his pace to catch back up. “Hey, you’re not pissed off, are
you?”
Emmet glances over at him, blinking to force his eyes to snap out of their
reverie and focus again. “About what?”
“I don’t know. That shitty fence job? Harvey’s dumb talent contest idea?”
“I’m not pissed.” Emmet looks down at his boots, at the wet splash pattern
across the toes from the kicked-up bits of ice.
“Well, you seem pissed. Maybe you’re just quiet. I mean, I guess you’re always
quiet these days since--” His words choke themselves off quickly and he falls
into awkward silence again.
Emmet can feel all expression, all emotion drain away from his face. It’s been
almost two years. It shouldn’t still hurt like this, the dull burn blazing back
up into a breathless moment of fiery grief as acute as the beginning. He’s
supposed to be the man of the house now. He’s supposed to be okay. He doesn’t
speak, doesn’t dare open his mouth, doesn’t even dare to breathe too deeply in
case the fire within him might feed on the oxygen and burn even higher. He
waits for it to fade back down again and settle back into the dimly glowing
coals of its usual low ache.
The treehouse looks strangely beautiful in the icy mist. Emmet squints up at it
as they approach. They were just kids when their dads all teamed up on the
project. His memories of that summer are all immersed in a sepia light, like
he’s pieced the events together from old photographs. It seems like more than a
lifetime ago, Pa home from his sales travels, looking young and strong-bodied
and immortal, laughing as he worked with the other fathers to hoist the huge
planks and bolt them in the boughs. Harvey’s dad, qualified in his carpentry
expertise, took charge, and the others all cheerfully followed his orders. At
their feet, the boys watched with wide-eyed awe as if they were witnessing
superheroes in the flesh. Even Wendell’s old man grinned and joked and worked
alongside the rest of them, the memory of him almost unrecognizable with
happiness. Everything is different now, but their treehouse is solid as the day
they built it. They stop at the rope ladder. Emmet fumbles to push the toolbox
up his arm to free both hands.
Wendell shifts his weight, out of impatience or cold Emmet can’t tell. “Just
leave it on the ground. You don’t have to lug it up the ladder.”
“No.” A hammer starts to slide out; Emmet readjusts.
“It’s not like this is a high-traffic area. Besides, nobody wants to steal that
shitty little toolbox.”
The grief flares back up into a full blaze again. His throat feels almost too
tight to breathe. Fuck you, he thinks but doesn’t say. Ma used to fly into a
rage when Emmet cursed, but not Pa. He can still hear the old verse Pa recited
whenever Emmet let a bad word slip out -- “Emmet, son, let no unwholesome talk
come from your mouth; let your words be a gift to those who hear them…” Pa
always had a platitude for every occasion. If he repeats the sayings to himself
over and over, maybe he’ll never forget the sound of Pa’s voice. Without a word
he grabs onto the first rung of the rope ladder with half-numb hands, and he
hauls himself up. The toolbox rattles against him with every movement.
Wendell follows up behind him with somewhat less graceful motions, wheezing by
the time he reaches the top. Emmet leans against the wall and watches as he
doubles over to catch his breath, hands on his knees, panting dramatically.
“Jesus, why did we have to build this thing so high?” He straightens up and
pulls off his toboggan, fans himself like an old lady in church. “Maybe we’re
getting too big for this.”
A stab of panic twists through Emmet’s gut at these words, at the prospect of
growing out of this place, these memories. At the idea of Wendell abandoning
him too. “Maybe you’re getting too big for this,” he quips lightly, trying to
disguise the needy fear inside him. “Maybe you oughtta lay off the mashed
potatoes.”
Wendell snorts and turns away, flipping Emmet the finger halfheartedly over his
shoulder. “Oh, blow me.” He rummages around the top shelf against the far wall,
pushing aside cans of lantern fuel and unearthing a large mason jar. It sloshes
as he pulls it down, almost half full of nearly-clear liquid. He brings it over
to Emmet, and they settle down onto one of the worn log benches.
Emmet eyes the jar. “That looks a lot less full than last time.”
“Naw.” Wendell unscrews the cap and drops it with a clang onto the sawdusty
floor at their feet. “You just have a terrible memory. What, you think I’m
sneaking up here to guzzle this down by myself? There’s plenty more of this
right at home way easier to come by.”
He has a point. If there’s one thing his dad has in abundance, it’s hooch. And
poorly-managed anger. “Maybe you’re sharing it with someone else.”
Wendell takes a quick shot from the jar and shudders. “No way. Who the hell
would I share it with?”
“I don’t know. The guys?”
“Like hell. Charley’d probably go tattling to his mama. And Harvey’s already
enough of a know-it-all asshole when he’s sober, I’d hate to deal with him
wasted.” He passes the jar over.
Emmet stares down into the mouth of the jar, at the way the trees from the
window above them cast ghostly miniature silhouettes in their reflections on
the moonshine’s surface. When he gives the jar a little shake, the reflections
distort and dance. Pa never drank this stuff. Sometimes he’d come home from a
long sales trip bearing interesting little gifts for Ma: a bottle of exotic
fruit wine, chocolates filled with cherries and French liqueur. He never
brought moonshine into the house. It would have seemed so out of place there,
so much better suited to Wendell’s trailer where the drink’s taste is as strong
and as angry as his dad always is. So much better suited to this cold treehouse
and the desolate emptiness in Emmet’s chest.
“Hey, Earth to Emmet.” Wendell nudges against his shoulder, and the reflections
in the jar dance even harder. “You sure you’re okay?”
Emmet lifts the jar to his lips and gulps. The moonshine burns as it streaks
its way down inside him, a different burn than the sear of his sadness.
Something cleaner, purer, more absolute. Here is the alcohol, here is his
throat, here is the control in Emmet’s own hands to pour it in and let it burn
over its predictable path. Nothing like the burn of his grief, with its sudden
blazes and random flares immobilizing him out of nowhere. He swallows hard and
coughs. “Yeah, I’m fine.”
Wendell’s expression still seems dubious, but he doesn’t press any further as
he takes the jar back. His swallows are deep and almost comically loud,
draining the hooch in large, efficient gulps. He’s a better drinker than Emmet.
But of course he has a role model at home for that, demonstrating daily. He
tries to push it back into Emmet’s hand, but Emmet only shakes his head.
“What?” Wendell seems genuinely offended. “You’re pussying out on me?”
“I gotta go home after this. Ma will notice if I’m stumbling around, reeking of
moonshine. She’ll tan my hide.”
Wendell just stares as if the words make no sense. Emmet feels a stab of guilt
at his own insensitivity. Ma doesn’t tan his hide anymore anyway, only gazes at
him with her sad eyes, shaking her head with monumental weariness. “Oh, Emmet,”
she murmurs in a voice with a mourning dove’s sorrowful cadence. And then she
turns away. It’s somehow worse than a switching. “Besides,” he adds quickly, “I
gotta go cut a Christmas branch. I already put it off too long.”
“You and your weird little branch tradition.”
He feels himself bristle, coiling to leap to the branches’ defense, just like
the toolbox. “If you don’t cut it down, the rest of that tree will still be
alive in a hundred years.” The echo of his father’s voice in the quote is so
faint it’s barely there at all.
Wendell rolls his eyes and gulps from the jar again. “What the hell do I care
if that tree is still alive or not? The whole damn forest could burn down and
nothing would change.”
He’s right in a way, but he’s also wrong. If the forest burned so would the
treehouse, along with their last tangible link to happier times, along with
their only real reprieve from the everyday struggle of life in Frogtown Hollow.
What would they do without this last window into those innocent memories, this
hiding place to escape into their quiet, indulgent little vices? Emmet shivers.
Wendell glances down at him over the rim of the moonshine jar. “You cold?” He
puts the jar down on the floor.
Emmet nods.
“C’mere.” Wendell scoots closer, unzips his coat and rests his arm over Emmet’s
shoulders. The coat drapes over him like a blanket, like an enveloping wing.
Emmet presses closer in to Wendell’s radiating warmth. The contrast to the icy
breeze that gusts in through the paneless window above them makes Emmet’s
senses feel confused and disoriented. He closes his eyes.
He can feel Wendell’s touch before he actually makes contact; the nerve endings
in the skin of his thigh start tingling beneath his layer of clothes, and he
tenses his muscle just as Wendell’s hand lands there as soft as a bird
alighting in the snow. At the tiny moan that flutters out of Emmet’s mouth, the
touch turns stronger, more insistent. Emmet arches up into him. The sensation
of pleasure reacts with his sadness like ammonia to bleach. His brain doesn’t
know what to do with nice feelings anymore. He turns his head away and hopes
Wendell won’t notice the tears well in his eyes even as the blood swells his
cock beneath Wendell’s stroking touch.
When Wendell gives him a gentle shove, guiding him off the log bench and onto
the floor, Emmet goes unresisting where he’s led. It wasn’t that long ago that
there was room for them both up there on the bench when they met here to mess
around, but not anymore. It’s like what Wendell said, what Emmet fears -
- they’re slowly outgrowing this place, whether they want to or not. There’s
nothing Emmet can do to make it stop, to hold onto the things he loves. Time is
cutting everything down. What it doesn’t annihilate in one crushing blow, it
slices apart little by little, branch by branch. Pa was wrong. Nothing will
still be alive in a hundred years, not even the remnants of the evergreens he
tried to preserve. It’s all just kindling, nothing more. Emmet squeezes his
eyes shut as the tears begin to fall.
He can feel Wendell’s eyes on his face. “Hey,” Wendell whispers. “It’s okay.
It’s okay.” Wendell unzips Emmet’s jeans and pulls his hard-on out into the
freezing treehouse air. Emmet feels him shift to adjust his position until he
can still stroke Emmet off without breaking rhythm while he humps himself
against Emmet’s leg. “You’re okay. You’re okay.” His voice is breathy and
uncertain, as if he’s only pleading for his words to be true.
It’s not okay, he’s not okay. But that’s okay. He opens his mouth but can’t
find any words to explain this. “Yes,” he groans instead, his voice husky,
hungry, the crack of tears running all through it like woodgrain. “Yes.”
“Yes,” answers Wendell. His hand tightens around Emmet’s dick with practiced,
familiar motions. There’s that thing Emmet likes, the little twist at the end
of the upstroke, his fat thumb ghosting across the head to spread the slow leak
of precome. He knows Wendell knows he’s close. Maybe on some other day, some
afternoon less dreary with cold and sadness, Wendell might slow him down, edge
him up and back from coming, linger here longer in this sweet place where
language falters and pleasure swallows up their brains like a river current.
But this isn’t a day for lingering. Wendell’s hand moves faster and Emmet curls
up around himself, doubling over as if in agony. He cries out as the orgasm
thrums through him, shooting from a place deeper than his pulsing cock.
Before Emmet begins to come down again, Wendell’s grinding against his leg
becomes sharper, faster. Emmet reaches up to touch his arm, but Wendell grabs
him by the wrist with a growl and slams his hand onto the floor, pinning it
over his head. His eyes are darker, pupils blown black. His thrusts are hard
enough to hurt, hard enough to bruise. “That’s it, take it,” he snarls through
gritted teeth in a voice that sounds nothing like his own and everything like
his father’s. “Take it all, you little bitch.”
Emmet lies perfectly still. He isn’t sure exactly when Wendell’s old man
started punishing him with violence worse than the cruel words, worse than the
blows, worse than the chronic neglect. Emmet doesn't know how to talk about it
when his tongue keeps stumbling over humiliating words like molestation and
rape and pedophile. Wendell always changes the subject whenever it comes up
anyway. The truth really only leaks out in these fleeting climactic moments,
only to disappear again when it’s all over. Once again Emmet feels the
unfairness knifing through him. How could his own Pa, so gentle and kind,
suffer and die and vanish forever, while Wendell’s monster of a father lives on
and on and on? He tries to stifle the sobs but they gasp out of him anyway,
muffled only by the growls Wendell makes as he fucks hard against Emmet’s body,
the roar he lets out as he finally comes.
They lie in silence for a moment, staring into each other’s faces as they both
pant for air. Wendell politely says nothing about Emmet’s tears; Emmet doesn’t
mention the eerie way Wendell’s eyes melt back into their usual innocent,
boyish light. Together they catch their breath. Wendell releases his crushing
grip on Emmet’s wrist, ducking his head and flushing with embarrassment, as
though he’d forgotten he was holding him there.
Emmet pulls himself back up to sitting as Wendell rolls off him. He tucks his
wet, limp cock back into his pants, zips himself up, pulls his coat tight
around himself again. The cold wind is already soaking back into him, chilling
his overheated skin again, dragging him back down under the grey skies of
Frogtown Hollow. He stands and looks over at Wendell. “I gotta go cut that
branch and get home before it gets dark. Come with me?”
Coat still splayed open and clothes still disheveled, Wendell doesn’t look up
from the jar of moonshine in his hands. “Naw. I’m just going to stay here a
while.”
He doesn’t know what to say. He wants to drag him down the rope ladder and pull
him into the safety of his own house, hide him in his bed. He wants to sit back
down on the cold, sawdusty floor with him and drain the jar of moonshine dry
until both their hearts grind to an exhausted stop. He wants to go back to
those sepia-toned summer memories where everyone’s dads were both happy and
immortal, where the scale of the treehouse was just perfect for four innocent,
oblivious, carefree little boys. But Ma’s at home waiting for him. He scrubs
his fists against his cheeks to obliterate the tear tracks, practices slipping
his brave face back on. He grabs hold of the toolbox and hoists it up his arm.
“See you tomorrow?”
“Yeah.” His monotone answer reverberates within the mouth of the jar as he
drinks.
Emmet watches him a long moment more, then drops his eyes to the ground. The
tools in the toolbox rattle as he lowers himself unsteadily down the rope
ladder. The treehouse disappears behind as he trudges back through the brittle
grass. Off to cut the Christmas branch, to subtly dismember a tree that will
still be alive in a hundred years.
 
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