Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

He hated this place. There was nothing funny about it.

There were actually six walls to his room: four provided him his prison space with the delightful addition of having his own bathroom. Quackerjack spent most of his first hours in it trying to count the tiles first before he made a game of guessing the number of nubs in the popcorn ceiling. The nurses had told him more than enough times (six, but they insisted it was more) to leave the emergency pull cable by the toilet well enough alone unless he actually had reasonable use to clear it, but that was like telling a child not to put his finger in the wall socket; a visit from Buddy the gorilla RN after the sixth (supposed) impulse made sure that he kept his fingers to himself.

Mostly.

He still wasn’t convinced that the ficus tree by the windows was a real thing. He pinched and rolled his feathery digits around the waxy leaves as he looked through the bars to watch the courtyard down below. It was springtime.

His building was the third in a set of four, boxed around a gentle garden in the direct center of them all- an atrium, as he heard the nurses called it. There were footpaths snaking around the flowerbeds and budding bushes, composed of fine gravel that twinkled under rainfall. The benches were those old wrought iron beauties he envisioned in old romance films, naturally set beside graceful rose bushes that were in full bloom under the dewey crisp air. Everything was so serene and quiet down there, surrounded by old grimey brick on all sides which hushed the screams of the damned from within.

Quackerjack placed his plant-free hand on the cold window pane, curling his fingers in a feeble attempt to grab the bars outside.

It had been three days since he had been admitted here, and the hushed whispers he heard from the residents as he was carted down the nauseating sterile halls hinted that his fate was worse here than prison- the grey bar motel, a five star resort. He had been tied to an upright stretcher as if he were cargo strapped to a courier’s hand truck, muzzled and arms crossed under a terrible jacket to keep his body parts to himself. His manhandling certainly hadn’t improved in the examination room once his executioners delivered him there: a flurry of gloved hands forced him onto a table as garbled jargon and dogs in glinting spectacles gripped his limbs so tight that he squeaked out. Another hand tore down his frill while its cruel twin jabbed a needle filled with a strange white liquid into his neck. And it was all downhill from that point, though Quackerjack normally didn’t mind playing rough. Hell, he’d gladly deliver his dukes if the sedative hadn’t kicked in like a hammer to his head. By the time his eyes saw shapes and his brain stopped swirling, he was tucked in a strange bed in this now familiar room.

His costume had been confiscated, and that stung. He felt naked and strange. The baby blue pajama pants with the thin fading stripes made him feel like some boring sitcom dad missing his morning paper. Everything felt loose and scratchy, but the worst was the feeling of his issued slippers slapping the bottoms of his feet with every step. No, worse than that was the lack of bells, for his hat had been one of his favorite security blankets over the years. Nothing that a little yank and a jingle couldn’t do to silence the demons skittering around in his head...now there lay the stark reminder of his horrible bed head whenever he reached up to scratch the messy feathers up there. At least he got to keep his fake teeth- he doubted those morons even realized that during that intimate frisk.

A leaf between his absent fingers crimped as his heavy thoughts drifted down darker paths. All of this torment culminated from one well meaning night owl calling the police after seeing a strange clown standing at the doorstep of their neighbor’s house across the street. What made next day’s gossip even more delicious was a cascade of ironic events that St. Canard was no stranger to: first it came down to the call being routed to officers that were actually patrolling that beat of town, to tackling the freak to the ground after witnessing a weapon of some sort in his hand and finally, the cherry on top the sundae of insanity came from the bill of poor sweet Claire calling out a name to the bozo as he was gut-punched, piledriven and wrestled into the back of the squad car. It was later determined that the item in question had been deemed a tool of potential mass chaos. The dogs down at the SCPD threw him through the ringer, shining brights lights into his dulled eyes and barking demands for his story in the ole’ fashioned. Quackerjack found more interest tugging at the restraints which pinned his wrists to the table, but he had been more than jovial to retell his heroic hatred towards WhiffleBoy despite the looming depression still hanging over him.

Naturally, it had been a story as old as tin cans. Everyone and their grandfather knew of his beef against the video game industry from his excessive follies over the last few years. Quackerjack had raided toy stores, conducted burnings of the merchandise over bonfires while giggling his maddened chants...he’d rigged game competitions, impersonated critics, stole from factories and even from the city dumps to fuel his insane vengeance. St. Canard had become one giant game board to him and seeing the ruin of WhiffleBoy was his ultimate prize. Unfortunately for him, the boys in blue weren’t that swayed to party. While he sat in a cold holding cell that night, the lawyer that had been appointed to him fought with the clerks and advisors over his sentence as if his life were a day at the races. The sentences should have been easy. Forty years- nay, one hundred and ten, no mercy. No chances to see the morning sun from his bedside ever again. One hundred and fifty with no opportunities for parole, no freedom in his wings save for an hour a day out in the yard...or, perhaps...perhaps...it was time to address the problems at the source.

A hundred and fifty years felt like eternity. Right now, ten minutes felt like an hour. It made no difference to him.

In the present moment, Quackerjack continued to stare down into the courtyard. Clumps of tattered leaves were now being squeezed in the python’s grip of his hand while its sibling drug its fingertips across the cold condensation trails along the glass. His eyes were quivering inside their sockets in restless rebellion after his morning medication forced his limbs to feel like pudding. Outside the door he could hear the whirring clicks of old cart wheels snagging on the beaten ends of old linoleum and the cackling of the resident hyena a few rooms down. He was currently in the Clement Ward, which housed the most violent residents of the institution. In layman’s standards, it was where the criminally insane went when even the judges shuddered at the sight of them. His eyes moved up from watching the rose bushes to look across the atrium at the opposing brick- Serenity Ward. That was where the more humbled spirits of St. Canard were taken to when the ills of the world became too much for their spirits. That was where he should have gone if his own sins had never touched his slate. Serenity Ward protected terrified and lonely spirits whom where given companionship and visitations. Game nights, outings with guardians to the leisure spots in the city and where doting nurses hushed away the demons going down with the medicine. It was a sanctuary to the mentally ill who held no delusions of grandeur or plots of petty vengeance.

His brows were heavily furrowed as he thought. Quackerjack liked the idea of nurses eating with him instead of shoving pills down his throat. But his true focus moved to the right, towards the eastern brick wall looming over the courtyard. That was the Kinder Ward, and that was where all the little goslings and pups and other sweet souls went when they needed help too. But more importantly, that was where the toys were, in colorful rooms filled with shelves containing picture books and stuffed animals. He yearned to color his name across the chalkboards and crawl through the indoor play structures. He craved the smells of crayons and markers out of the box, and of that unique scent of rubber as it stretched and jiggled. The holy grail of the playland though was definitely the parade of stuffed critters that provided a sobering reminder that Banana Brain was no longer with him. Sleeping the last few nights had been frighteningly similar to an addict in withdrawals, and that kept the nurses on edge when they made their rounds.

He was alone again, with no phylactery to speak for the hissing voices inside his head.

Quackerjack released the leaves and crossed his arms, sinking into a crouch before curling up on the floor.

-----

Mealtime was very particular in the Clement Ward. Breakfast began service between six and halted exactly two hours after, without fail summoning a stampede of nervous inmates desperate to gorge on undoubtedly the best options of the day. Lunch was always called at one in the afternoon and stopped orders at three, but dinner took the longest. Dinner was at six and went all the way until nine thirty: that was when evening medications were being distributed, and the orderlies found it much easier to get creative in hiding crushed pills into the heavier, more filling dishes. Dinner that night was the first full meal he was given in three days after the cocktail of medications no longer forced him into zombification. He was also relieved to finally be let out of his room to take his business into the actual canteen.

In the Clement Ward, meals were commonly delivered to the rooms. Residents who played nice were allowed to be escorted to join a communal dining. Buddy was breathing down his back the entire time as his slippers snagged against the bleached stickiness of those gross linoleum floors, and having a massive ape hand on his shoulder was bound to snap it at one point if he didn’t keep moving. Three days with the big lug proved to be an interesting foil of sorts: Buddy spoke less than three words a week while Quackerjack belted out a Greek epic’s worth when his medications wore thin. Tonight, he certainly was starting to come alive again.

The orderly was specifically assigned to him, and as such there wasn’t much of his day where Buddy wasn’t right there nudging him around with that delicate sledgehammer of a hand. Buddy changed his bed after throwing his bouncing ass off of it, cleaned up the scattered towels in his bathroom, changed out his toiletries and cleaned the window free of smudge prints...but Buddy was not his buddy. He had no friends in here. As he was led right down the specific route to the canteen, Quackerjack curiously watched the other residents wandering the halls in thanks to good behavior. Some were with their own caretakers. Others sat in chairs inside the social nooks of the ward or shuffled about with security cameras drilled into their backs. Many avoided his gaze as they played with their restraints but some were bold, licking their lips and whistling as he stumbled past them. Quackerjack realized in that moment that he was the only bird present in a crowd of predators.

This was the land of the outlaws and quickdraw tempers.

He attempted a grin at a tiger who had been leaning against the door frame to his room, but dropped it once he noticed that the big cat was missing not only half of his right ear but also his eye on that side as well. The feline rumbled out a growl fitting for the purr of an engine as his head followed the duck in pajamas and his gorilla in white. Quackerjack’s neck feathers prickled to an icy sensation as he heard a passing remark of teeth sinking into his little candy ass. Buddy’s grip on his shoulder tightened, though it was impossible to say if it was from genuine concern. The gorilla kept his restraint consistent while guiding the supervillain through the maze of white. Buddy even went so far as to shamelessly ram his elbow into the side of a passing weasel in a straightjacket, leering at the opposing eagle orderly for excusing the obscene slobbering noises coming from the musteline’s jaws.

The dining area was quiet tonight, as it was every night in the criminal ward. But Quackerjack didn’t know that. Buddy kept both hands on him while he sidestepped down the buffet line. Even the hulking hen behind the glass received one of his slurring grins, which was mirrored back in an uncomfortable manner while she dished up portions of his dinner on a divided tray fitting for an elementary school cafeteria. It was when he gripped his hands around the sides that Quackerjack realized how ragged his body really had been behaving lately.

Three days pumped full of a cocktail’s worth of tranquilizers had done a number on his normally unbound energy. The suppression of appetite that came with the side effects had also starved his body of the fats and nutrients it needed to run smoothly. The slab of chocolate custard jiggled in its dish while the mountain of peas neighboring it threatened to topple while his grip shook so terribly that Buddy had to cup his hands over the mallard’s as they walked. He carefully pushed Quackerjack into an old padded dining chair after designating an empty table, and took the tray away from him as the duck started to tremble.

The remembrance of hunger reminded his brain that the heavy dose of sedatives pulsing through him earlier at his room’s window was finally starting to ebb...and hoo boy, did he feel like upchucking his own stomach at the terrible dizzying sensation that it followed. He gripped a spoon as he waited for Buddy to give him his food, but the gorilla seemed to be waiting for something else. The spoon trapped in the mallard’s fingers banged against the table in a broken morse code while a bulldog orderly pushing a cart made her rounds to their location.

Quackerjack grimaced at the labeled cup of candy-colored pills being offered to Buddy.

“Can’t you at least make them berry flavored?” He snarked, thankful that his energy was returning. The gorilla snorted while returning the tray and taking a seat after on the opposite end of the table. He watched the mallard grumble from the silence and instead take to stabbing at his portion of dumplings and gravy. Oh, did that duck eat.

Quackerjack gorged with the ravenous hunger of a dragon with the smoking attitude to boot, only growing more agitated the more his spoon clanked and tapped against the tray. Quackerjack hated being suppressed. Not by Quackwerks, not by prison guards, especially not that bastard Negaduck and above all else, not by those little tablets of poison that forced his brain to rot like sludge. Above all else, he held nothing against the gorilla; Buddy hadn’t done a single thing yet to spark his ire...yet. With his brain swimming back in its pool of restored thought, he couldn’t stop himself from glaring at the massive ape with all the brattiness of a child being denied dessert for dinner.

Buddy was a saint though, and waited patiently while his patient made a scarfing ass of himself. Quackerjack’s gaze burned itself into that cup, eyeballing every little nuisance that had been tormenting him. One quieted the noises in his head. Another stiffened his muscles while adding weights that he couldn’t see. The blue one right at the top was the worst though. It forced a feeling of calm emptiness upon him where he felt incredibly sick if the world moved too fast. That one was the terrible little fiend that rattled its way down his throat the most over the last few days, where looking out windows and caressing plants were all he could do lest he collapse under the heavy fog building up inside his head. The silent nothingness that those horrid medicines brought weren’t a cure, he was damn sure of it. They were bullets that broke his armor.

When the ape offered the cup, he had the gall to refuse. He refused to be silenced and drooling like a sloth while cooped up in this horrid place. Too few colors, too little noise. And no toys. Why don’t they just break his legs while they were at it. But Buddy didn’t like that response. In his own charming way, he slammed his fist lightly onto the table and flared his nostrils. It was such a raw and powering statement that Quackerjack suddenly recalled being a duckling again, all bucktoothed and miniscule under the looming shadow of the playground bully. If possible, his white feathers paled even more as a sheepish chuckle escaped him.

By reflex, he nearly vomited the sticky little capsules back up while struggling to force them down with a choke of water. The remaining minutes he held onto were to be spent deducing just how big of a stuffed toy he could turn the brute into if given the time and materials...As Buddy nudged him back into the hallway, Quackerjack figured he could get a good ten minutes of skinning in. Halfway back to his room, his legs started to feel heavy and forced him to stumble like a drunkard. But his mind, his clever and wild mind...it refused to bend one more time to the poisons he’d been force fed. Buddy could see the mismatched feathers on the back of the duck’s head ruffling with every firm nudge forward.

Give him fifteen, and he’d have the rigging ready.

He was a genius, proud and simple. He’d been to college. He’d excelled in all the sissy boy home ec classes with the sewing and pattern matching. Quackerjack also was a savant in shop class, where nobody, nobody dared use that term “sissy boy” to his face while he brandished power tools with no goggles. By the time he graduated college, he had full honors and a vast trophy cabinet full of awards and certificates for his studies in elementary development, design theory and a slew of other feats he had wrangled up in his hunger for a beautiful degree to hang upon the mantle. He wanted to create toys, and nobody, nobody was going to tell him otherwise.

His body was shifting back to feeling like a ragdoll full of sand once he was guided to the door of his room, but his brain still fought the numbing crawl of the institution’s claws stabbing at the sides. It would only be a few more minutes until the sedatives and benzodiazepines killed his jumpy nerves and forced the hysteria within him to hush again; he’ll resist it to the very end.

Buddy had his giant hand back on the duck’s shoulder as he unlocked the door and tugged them both inside. He made Quackerjack take a seat in a chair by the window while he set to work tidying up the place. The supervillain scowled, glaring at him with gradual heaviness to his eyes. He felt so sluggish...his spine was turning into a wet noodle. Slowly, he slumped back into the seat and violently lurched his head forward as the dulled segments of the world began to slur together.

In twenty minutes…

Quackerjack stared at a fallen leaf by the ficus. He couldn’t remember what the twenty minutes were even for now.

Buddy kept his face stoic and composed as he fluffed up the pillows and fixed the angle of the picture frame above it. It was some tacky avant garde piece of random lines and colors, which was a cruel thing to have in a house of the confused. He snorted and turned away from it to retrieve the duck, but raised his brows at the sight of the intoxicated mallard, shakily balancing his weight between outstretched fingers against the cold pane of the window while he groggily looked outside.

*****

The next morning fared a bit better. Quackerjack woke up to a tangle of warm blankets coiled around his body, a feeling he finally learned to appreciate after four days of heavy stupors. The last doses must be watering down (or he was building a tolerance), for his thoughts were crisp and energized as he stretched underneath the scratchy sheets. He poked his head out after his nostrils caught wind of something sweet in the room.

On a small table beside the door was a tray containing pancakes and a glass of orange juice. The mallard blinked. Odd. Oatmeal as dense as wallpaper paste had been his mandated choice for the previous mornings. Perhaps this was the day his jailors finally got tired of throwing their drug money down the drain and decided to put rat poison in the batter. He sat up, ruffled the mismatched feathers on his head and yanked the blankets away from his chest; Quackerjack still fell out of bed due to an ankle tangle.

By the time that Buddy made his morning appearance, the platter was almost licked clean. The ape took up so much space in the doorway that he almost blocked all light from the hips upwards as he stared at the duck eating his breakfast on the floor, looking like the bed had just given birth to him from the mess of sheets swallowing up his left leg. Quackerjack grinned at him, feeling like a thousand bucks for the first time in over half a week. He raised his goopy fork in a proud salute while the orderly snorted and lumbered in to start grabbing at the chaos of blankets. The duck giggled as one tug ended up scooting his butt across the floor.

While Quackerjack polished off the last of his orange juice, he watched Buddy. It was quickly becoming a new pastime of his, seeing just what that boring fur mountain would do next. Making the bed was expected, but he was curious as to where his morning cup of poison was and why it wasn’t in the ape’s hands.

Not like he was complaining any.

It felt invigorating to be able to think again. He smiled dreamily at the phantom tings of music and giggles bouncing around in his head. He gave a delighted wiggle at the distant muffling of action movie noises and faint dramas from his favorite toys in their fantasy battles. One noise seemed louder and more gushing, like the floodgates from a distant memory were breaking apart and rushing towards him. It took Quackerjack a moment to realize the source was from Buddy drawing a bath in the bathroom.

Despite his childish nature, Quackerjack actually loved bathing. He loved the popping of bubbles and enjoyed pretending to be a puppy snapping his jaws at them. The sweet smells of fruity soaps tickled his senses while he played with rubber ducks and whatever else he could find to dunk into the foam. But this place was horrid, for there were no toys in there. He had checked- Three times, to be exact.

Buddy looked visibly relieved when the duck didn’t fight the invitation. Quackerjack bounced on his heels to some gleeful little tune inside his head as he peeled off his blue pajamas and stuck his finger into the hot water. His downy coat bristled up in delight from the sting, and he wagged his little tail as he stared into the swirling mass of froth among the surface. He swore he could pick up a soft pang of lavender. The undressed jester was just about to dip his foot into the bath before a chill of revelation tickled up his spine. Slowly, he turned his head to address the big ape in the room. There was something so strange and utterly endearing about Buddy.

The orderly stood there dutifully by the sink, watching him without saying a word. He didn’t make faces at the duck who quickly slipped into his mad little world, starting first with tapping his fingers above the foam before devolving into gleeful splashing just to watch the bubbles rise and sink in lazy waves. Quackerjack quickly found friendship in a wash rag which became Sud Face, who talked in a gargled accent due to the fizzy water. Buddy didn't say a word when his patient erupted into a fit of seemingly random giggles while he used Sud Face to clean his armpits. Buddy was simply ...neutral, and Quackerjack liked that quite a lot. He disliked feeling belittled.

Today just seemed to be his day. No tranquilizers, no lumpy breakfasts and now, he had a personal butler. Buddy carried out his discarded clothes and replaced them with a new set on the sink. Quackerjack was too busy making a wizard’s hat out of bubbles to even really pay attention. His genius streak showed when he submerged himself underneath the thick blanket of foam and emerged just as quickly, viciously rubbing at his soaked hide like a man possessed. Buddy would have jumped in after him if he wasn't already aware that ducks had water resistant feathers, and that Quackerjack just willingly turned himself into a living bubble generator. For a fleeting moment in this miserable place, the jester hugged his incredibly frothed body and sang out a happy tune while inside his happy bubble coat.

The end of the session came with a towel stretched open by two giant monkey hands. Quackerjack stared at the invitation for a moment before making a face. He stood up briskly, masking the shiver of cold air rushing between his feathers with smacking away his sudsy armor for the ravenous drain. He held his beak to the air while stepping one leg out, slipping on the other and falling right into the awaiting grasp of the hunky primate.

Buddy chuckled softly while beginning to towel him off. His palming was as strong as his grip, scraping the duck’s feathers to their standing points while their owner wheezed and clawed at those bulky arms out of frantic protest; Quackerjack now knew what it felt like to pet a cat backwards.

He had entered that bathroom in a joyful dance. Now, he stumbled out of it in brand new green striped pajamas with sausage fingers trying to smooth down his stubborn crest. A lot of the kids on the playground used to tease about it, how his head feathers naturally fanned out in all directions like a cockatoo’s. At one point in his teenage years he even tried to style it like a pompadour to impress the girls who fawned over the brooding bad boys like Ames Keen and his classic motorcycle. Buddy didn’t seem to feel that spark.

Quackerjack took to ruffling his feathers all back to their normal splits while he was once again guided down the hallway. Without the drugs suppressing his system, he could finally tune in to everything around him...and this place was still boring as hell. Off-white walls, a sterile clean smell mixed with fake vanilla...if Buddy hadn’t gone through all the endearing trouble of gussying him up then Quackerjack would have gladly defeathered himself.

And what was the deal with asylum food, anyway?

He flashed some finger pistols at the tiger once their eyes met again, and he made sure to really waggle his little candy ass to the agitated feline. Quackerjack never forgot a punchline.

This time he wasn’t guided towards the cafeteria but down another hallway and set of doors that were completely unfamiliar to him. The walls beyond them shifted from that gross white-cream color to a pastel orange, home to more door tags holding crazy titles and words that made no sense to him. The lights in this section were either burning out or dimmed intentionally, which made the colors that much darker and more warm; the paint was starting to remind him of a warm tomato soup. A sea of white shuffled in his vision from the other orderlies in their daily flights: many held clipboards and stole pens from the pockets of coworkers, and many more carried bundles of clothes and pushed carts brimming with bright orange bottles. So much orange and white...he was hankering for a creamsicle. Buddy remained silent among the chaos, keeping his eyes peeled for one specific door with one particular placard beside it. Once it was found Quackerjack had no time to read it before he was led inside.

There were many consultation offices in the criminal ward that were properly equipped with methods of containing the violently insane. Some had thick plexiglass walls between the patient and doctor, while others employed gurneys with thick leather straps and muzzles. This room in particular had the latter. Quackerjack uncomfortably took a seat in an innocent looking armchair while watching Buddy strap his wrists and feet down.

“Is it too late to ask for the sedatives?” He giggled but the anxiety killed it. Being held down and forced to stay still was dangerous pressure testing his berserk button, and it showed in how he curled his beak back to expose even more of his pearly whites; he looked like a dog on the cusp of snarling. Buddy gave perhaps the most convincing attempt at an apologetic look before he stepped back and opened the door for a new soul to walk in.

Suddenly the name tag on the desk across from him made a bit more sense. Richard Honeywell was a large brown bear in an equally large dark blue suit. The duck found he rather liked the red and white striped tie and matching handkerchief the doctor had on his person, though he giggled under his breath at the sight of hilariously tiny spectacles perched atop a proud grizzly snout. The ursine walked with a posh air about him, further impressing with a light nod to the orderly while taking his seat in a (mostly) identical chair that actually sat in front of his desk. Quackerjack furrowed his brows.

“Hey, where’s your fun belts, doc?” He cackled while rolling his wrists under his own restraints. Honeywell huffed and pushed up his readers. “Oh! Doc...yeah, doc-torrrrr.” That last part rolled off his tongue as if it were the spiciest word around. “Here to do an examination on me? Tap the ole’ teeny hammer on the knee? Ooh! How about my temperature? I can always drop my pants…”

“Jack Punnerman. What an odd turn of events to finally see you here.” The bear drolled out stiffly. Quackerjack made a sour face; it had been too long since someone called him that. The doctor reached back behind his chair to retrieve a manila folder, which he opened and scoured the top page inside. “According to your colorful history in St. Canard, it is entirely reasonable and justified that you should be facing a hefty prison sentence for your crimes.” He glanced up from the fine print, sighing at the giddy bouncing coming from the insane mallard. Quackerjack’s smile was pleasant but his eyes were wide with anticipation. The bear looked back to his files.

“According to investigations, arrest records and deliberations decided by the courts, it has originally been decided that you were slated to serve two consecutive life sentences without any possibilities for parole. However…” He placed his paw over the paperwork while adjusting his glasses, “An unforeseen sponsor has pleaded to your cause, and convinced perhaps the entire body of St. Canard to rally for your rehabilitation.” He could see the disconnect to his words, from the way the lunatic’s eyes darted to various spots on his suit while sitting in silence. Honeywell thought for a moment, and sighed.

“Simply put...Quackerjack,” He started again, relieved to finally see the duck perk up with complete focus, “Your latest stint at the WhiffleBoy headquarters was the final straw to put you in prison until you die. You have spent many years destroying this city and putting fear into her people. We received word four nights ago from a generous source to instead keep you here, to make you…”

The bear stopped. Something in his turning of words sparked a sudden great ire in the duck’s posture. Quackerjack was definitely listening now, but his body was frozen and stiff in its seat. His face was locked into a downward tilt as his eyes stared at the doctor in a wolfish state of utter hostility. Even Buddy gave the doctor an anxious look. Honeywell loosened his tie while clearing his throat.

“...This is good news. Tell me what is on your mind.”

Quackerjack’s teeth glinted under the office lights as he quietly snarled in his seat. At that point his head was pressed so low to his green cladden shoulders that his neck was no longer visible.

“Don’t ever say that name again.” The duck’s comical lilt from before had flatlined to a low growl. His fingers curled into the cheap upholstery as the nostrils at the base of his bill flared in sharp exhale.

Honeywell sat up a little straighter, intrigued. “Jack, part of rehabilitative therapy is confronting the anger and fears that affect you. I cannot make such promises.” He reached back behind him again, this time grabbing a tape recorder and placing it on the right armrest. He tapped his claws along the buttons while listening to the agitated breathing of the foul waterfowl. “I am not here to play devil’s advocate either but I will say it simply: Your choices are either to spend the rest of your life in a maximum security prison without any chances of freedom...or you can stay here, as generous people have advocated so that you may walk freely among the outside world again. As a complete man.”

They watched each other in an intense silence while Honeywell waited for Jack’s breathing to slow. Quackerjack was restless, paranoid of the doctor’s next moves or perhaps his own thoughts as he wheezed under the intensity of the office lights. The bear held his gaze while taking long exaggerated breaths, holding them for a few seconds and then doubled the length of the exhales. It took a few moments of observation, but the undressed clown began to copy him. Honeywell expected it was a subconscious reflex, but he had long grown used to the sharpness of a criminal’s mind.

Deep breathing exercises were effective in settling the mind. Setting a long and gentle pace allowed for oxygen to deeper penetrate the muscles and sweep over the mind like a gentle breeze to dissipate a crackling storm; it carried blood like ambrosia to nourish the wounded. Honeywell found it was fitting: a clown playing with mimicry. Perhaps his patient was getting at something here.

After a few more moments, the doctor spoke again.

“I was told you enjoy games, Quackerjack.” He noted while clicking a button on the tape recorder. As expected, the duck perked immediately and much more favorably under such a statement. He grinned as if his tantrum had never happened.

“Gosh, doc...you’re good.” He cackled. “What’s next? Oh! How about you tell me the meaning behind the color of my eyes.” He batted his lids; Honeywell saw that they were green.

Green with envy, as the old sayings were.

The doctor listened to the tape scratching for a moment while he retrieved a pen from a coat pocket.

“How about we play a game today.” He unscrewed the cap and capped it on the opposite end. Quackerjack was starting to lean in his chair, intrigued. Honeywell flipped through a few pages in the villain’s paperwork and settled on a blank section. “I am thinking of a very important person. I want you to guess who that person is.” His eyes peered up from behind the small lenses of his spectacles, “If.” The bear held up a finger in emphasis. “If...you guess correctly and help me find them, then I will give you a nice reward. Does that sound alright?”

The unmasked clown had a bright twinkle in his eyes. Quackerjack gleefully wiggled once in his seat, grinning so brightly that his bill became mostly teeth in that moment.

“A game! Oh, how did you know I love games?” He giggled so hard he almost went cross eyed. Honeywell chuffed, tapping his pen against the paper only once before ceasing.

“An educated guess. Now...Quackerjack.” He chose the name carefully, thankful that the criminal was docile when addressed how he wanted. “...Quackerjack.” The bear repeated again, drawing the duck’s attention from the tape recorder back to his face.

“Hi.”

A small quiver of a smile fought against the doctor’s face, but he remained stoic. This was serious research, and he was walking a thin rope to keep this clown’s circus controlled.

“Hello, Quackerjack.” Every time he said it, the more joyful his patient became. It was a note worth scribbling down. “I need help finding this person. You seem eager to assist me.”

He was concerned that the recorder was going to pick up more of the armchair springs due to the amount of bouncing that the criminal was doing, but Quackerjack was obviously deep in thought. Counseling was gross but games? That was a-okay. He was looking up at the ceiling while mentally preparing for his little expedition, but finally blurted out.

“Alright, doc. You gotta tell me, what is this person like?” He loved playing guessing games. That was when his brain started getting very colorful with imagery. Honeywell looked at him but didn’t answer. As the silence stretched, the clown grew antsy again. With a grunt of annoyance, he clicked his teeth. “Well, what? Are they a boy? Girl? Dinosaur?”

One of those answers pleased the bear in the big blue suit. He watched a big paw scribble something else down on the paper.

“Boy.”

Quackerjack quirked a brow. It seemed the doc was going insane if he already was telling answers....then those feathery white brows raised, and he grinned some more. Clearly, Pooh Bear over here was testing his clever thinking. He was a genius toymaker, after all. Take notes, doc. The duck rotated his ankles within their straps, crossing one slippered foot over another as he giddily thought of the next question. Twenty Questions! Oh, how he loved that game. Who knew that therapy was so easy?

“Oh! Oh! I got it...Uh…” He closed his bill and furrowed his brows in thought. Honeywell watched him with budding amusement.

“I believe this person is someone you are familiar with.”

That helped a lot, actually. The duck writhed in his spot as he thought again, shifting between sneers and smiles as various faces danced through his mind. Honeywell waited patiently, glancing down at his watch at one point. Finally…

“Liquidator!”

Honeywell made a face.

“Liqu- nevermind. No, not him.”

“Bushroot?”

“No.”

Quackerjack snorted impatiently.

“How about Megavolt?”

“Jack-”

“MY NAME IS QUACKERJACK.”

Honeywell cheek palmed himself. “Yes, yes...Quackerjack…” This one was going to be a project. It was mighty nice that the pay was worth it. “This person is someone you know. Someone who you care very much for.” He removed his paw to instead steeple his fingers. “Can you think of a person matching that?”

He glanced down to check the tape recorder while letting his patient think. When he glanced back, Quackerjack’s smile had fallen as his eyes glazed over. The bear quietly tapped his fingertips, glanced back at his watch and then cleared his throat.

“Do you know this person, Quackerjack?”

To his relief, the mallard slowly dipped his head in a thoughtful nod.

“Yeah, I know her…” He saw the widening of the doctor’s eyes while Honeywell retrieved his pen.

“Her? Tell me about her.”

The clown twitched his bill. “Say, you said earlier that this person was a boy! Wait…” Sheepish, Quackerjack flapped his hand under its restraint as if to wave away the strange prompt he had just spat out. “Uh...well...there’s one guy I liked very much…Great guy, told good jokes. Smart too, very slick...Sweet, sweet guy…”

Honeywell nodded along, writing down the descriptions even though he knew the target. The waters were getting dangerous if he kept prodding, given the reaction he saw earlier for simply name dropping the WhiffleBoy brand. Mr. Banana Brain would no doubt send out the sharks if his name rolled off the ursine’s tongue. Cautious, Honeywell let Quackerjack have his moment before deciding his next words carefully.

“I see. It sounds like you are very attached to this man. However, I don’t feel that he matches the description of the one I am looking for…” He tapped the butt of of his pen against the string of notes he had penned the last few minutes. “In fact...I think he is someone you would enjoy very much. Tell me...Quackerjack,” That name sounded so odd in such a serious environment. “...what sort of qualities do you like in a person? I think we are getting closer.”

Together they sat as equals for the briefest of moments as the doctor wrote down every point that his patient made. He read over the bullet points once Quackerjack finished nattering and read them back:

- Good sense of humor
- Different from the crowd
- Attractive
- Great Smile
- Enjoys games and toys
- Go-Getter
- Crafty
- Genius Visionary
- Amazing laughter
- Enjoys Like-Minds
- Hatred of WhiffleBoy
- Likes Bananas

Honeywell chuffed back a chuckle as he finished. “I apologize for writing them in mostly in my own wording, but I hope these are accurate to your points…” His smile fell as Quackerjack stared at the paper as if it had just spontaneously combusted. For once this entire visit, Honeywell’s lips formed into a soft smile. “Does this person sound familiar to you?”

Quackerjack remained speechless, as uncanny as it was to him. The duck rolled back into his seat, staring at the blue shins of the doctor as his brows fell heavily onto his eyes. Slowly, he nodded again. His gaze didn’t move even when the legs pushed up into a stand.

“We would like to keep you here with us, Jack.” The ursine rumbled out softly. He moved to the left side of the room as he spoke. “I mentioned minutes ago that a kindly sponsor has convinced a good many figures in St. Canard to let you stay here instead of in prison. I hope you can accept that gift. You speak very kindly of yourself- our job is to help you connect with that inner peace.”

Quackerjack perked slightly as he hear a soft click followed by quiet static. Slowly, he turned his head to look at the television mounted in the corner of the room, beside the doctor’s desk on its own thick stand. He sat up a little bit straighter as colorful images and bouncy lyrics flooded the room; hello, sweet fix.

Honeywell adjusted the volume before standing back, clicking his teeth as he watched the first few seconds of the introduction: Peri Panda was a well known mascot to young children, and his “edutainment” brand of programming won many awards over the years for its whimsical worldbuilding and tackling of many topics. The doctor turned his head halfway through the theme and his body followed suit. As expected, the insane toymaker’s gaze was glued to the monitor like a moth drawn to light.

“Enjoy your reward. I will be back in twenty minutes to hear of your decision.”

The door clicked to the right of him, but Quackerjack didn’t look to check. Buddy was probably gone too, but all that mattered in his field of focus right now was the cartoon being played. Almost instantly, he started to bounce lightly in tune with the peppy little panda boy in his bright yellow hat and blue overalls. Apparently Peri’s deal today (the sweet little idiot) was that he accidentally kicked his favorite ball into the yard of his mean old dog neighbor and needs to find the right way to get it back. But as Quackerjack watched, the more the picture started to grow fuzzy in his eyes. Slowly, Peri’s voice grew muffled and distant, as if he were speaking from two rooms away.

It was all because the duck shifted his focus to his own reflection in the monitor.

His cheek twitched as he stared, wide eyed and nauseated from the creeping weight pushing into his belly while he thought of the doctor’s offer.

Then his brain, his brilliant, cruel lover of a brain decided to punch that icky tummy just a bit more while he dug his shaking fingers into the fake leather of his ass-numbingly monster of a chair. The haunting of memories began to gurgle between his ears in a bastard laughter that even he was disturbed by.

“I want you to be better, too! Why do you have to be so much meaner these days?”

The phantom smell of bananas lingered in his nostrils as he shamefully lost his breakfast over the left armrest.

Chapter Text

“Tell me about your childhood.”

Honeywell tapped his pen against the notepad on his knee when he heard the snort from the other chair. Quackerjack was sprawled across his armchair in a completely wrong manner, spindly legs draped over one armrest while his head lolled over the side of the other. His feet were playing a dangerous game of bouncing the toes on his slippers while he fumbled with the loose buttons on his pajama shirt.

“Only if you let me look at those pretty ink splotches, doc.” The mallard giggled. He wasn’t completely unaware of the occasional clicks made by the recorder sitting on the table beside the ursine and he wasn’t going to give it any good answers. The old trout-eater thought he was clever in having that dinky little legal pad beneath his meaty mitts to look busy, but there was no way it was going to be used for the intended purpose. Every breath Jack took and every syllable that teetered off his tongue were going to be stolen from his possession and etched into the archives of this horrible place’s history.

The least he could do was humor the good doctor a little bit.

Jack sat up, making a drawn out show in his stretching as if the minutes didn’t truly matter. As he scratched one of his feathered pits, the duck grinned lazily at the remarkably patient bear.

“Now, what led you to think that a boring guy like me would have a great and thrilling history?” He giggled again in his trademark lilt, sounding off little rounds of noise without breath like bullets from a machine gun. Oh, it agitated Honeywell, but the big guy wasn’t at liberty to become unhinged just yet.

Soon, though, soon...two can play at this game.

Unfortunately for himself, it seemed that he still had the weaker hand. Honeywell sat up a little straighter as he adjusted his glasses.

“Your records provide little in terms of giving us grounds to decide your healing process. They are more apt for a...courtroom, than a physician’s office.” He was careful to word the matter sensitively, although the implications only brought out more of the criminal’s iconic teeth. Quackerjack perked upright like a hound on a scent, his green eyes glittering in a childish glee.

“Oo-ooo-oo! That spicy, huh?”

He stared at the doctor, waiting for the punchline that was stubbornly being held behind those sharp teeth. And the doctor knew. Oh, did he know. Jack could tell from the way his left ear twitched while the seconds dragged on. The duck bounced in his spot to shove that wedge just a little bit deeper. Finally, the bear sighed and wrote something down onto the notepad.

“Unfortunately.”

He pursed his lips at the whoop and applause from the convict.

“Jack, I don’t want to keep asking. Please.” His waning tolerance heavily weighed upon his words. Jack looked at him with a fleeting moment of contempt before he ultimately sighed and sat back down. The old guilting routine: if it worked on children, it could also be used for a manchild.

“I want to know more about you.” The bear continued. “With such a colorful persona and history, surely you won’t have any problems in sharing.” He kept his tone softer now, as if he were addressing his patient more in the tone of a curious parent asking a child for a secret. It worked, of course, as he saw the sudden change of demeanor in the duck’s face. The duck legitimately looked flattered by the show of interest.

“Well, if you insist, doc…” He rolled back into his previous pose, crossing one pajama-clad leg over another as he twiddled his thumbs against his chest, head rolled back over the other armrest. “Shucks, where do I begin?” He clicked his tongue in thought.

“You may begin with your childhood or your parents.” Honeywell insisted. Quackerjack’s eyes widened a bit as he stared at the ceiling.

“My parents! Wow, you’re good…” He looked as if a strong revelation had hit him. “Well, I had a mom and a dad. Um…” He was oddly silent for a moment. It went so much against his brazen character that Honeywell made a physical note of it in his legal pad.

“...I, uh, I had a dad. He was in the military. Left a lot. Didn’t see him much.” He was fiddling with his hands with greater restlessness as his tone remained concerningly serious. “So, it was just my mom and I.”

“May I ask which branch did he serve?”

“Navy.”

Honeywell put down his pen as an amusing thought hit him. Ducks in the Navy. Of course...of course...but it was also highly unprofessional to think of such a thing in a playful manner, so he cleared his throat and nodded.

“I see.”

He left it at that, to see where else the duck’s narrative would take them. Quackerjack was staring up at the ceiling while his hands slipped into a more desperate rubbing.

“It was hard on my mom. She worked hard to give her best. Maybe she was afraid of something, because she started giving me tons of…of...” His beak quivered, and it stretched into a dreamy smile to match the gaze in his eyes. “...toys.” It was the magic word that brought all those happy memories skipping on back. Honeywell added another tic to the notepad while keeping a cautious eye on the duck.

“What do you think she was afraid of, Jack?” The doctor asked softly. He watched the mallard still his hands while his eyes darted between the ceiling tiles. The sudden lunge he took to sitting upright startled them both.

Honeywell watched, startled by the sudden outburst of restlessness. Quackerjack was pawing at his mop of head feathers in a timid hurry, pulling them down the sides of his temples as if trying to cover himself in a metaphorical blanket. He drew his legs in and dug his heels hard into the edge of the armchair as he started to rock.

“This is boring!” He wailed with a snort. “I don’t like these questions!” His left eye twitched while staring at the other man. “You ask me all these nice fluffy-duffy questions about moms and the Navy and then you tease me with toys!” He was snorting and writhing like an addict on withdrawals; Honeywell just stared.

The bear blinked once and jotted another note down.

“That was you who brought it all up, Jack…” He reasoned, flaring his nostrils at the defiant grumble that came his way. He adjusted his glasses again and looked at the distressed duck. “But let’s talk about these toys of yours.” He was holding the recorder now in his spare hand while he reviewed his written notes. “You said that your mother bought them all for you.” He glanced up to see the lost look to the villain’s eyes. Quackerjack was still drawn up in his chair, rocking and tugging on his head feathers like a lost child.

“Yeah…” The mallard mumbled as he glared at the floor.

“How did you feel when you had them?”

Quackerjack’s brows were set hard onto his eyes, forcing them into a squint as he dug deep into his memories. They were all important pieces of a very complex puzzle, and Honeywell suspected that each one was jagged and colorful and had its own place in creating the finished product of the man sitting before him. His lips twitched into the faintest beginnings of a smile while he waited. This was tiring, but it was progress.

He hadn’t realized he had been holding his own breath until he exhaled in tandem with Quackerjack. The mallard sat up and began to smile again. It was sheepish and frazzled, but it was oddly comforting.

“Ha. What’s there not to feel? They were all great! Like my own parade of noisy, bouncy, cuddly friends.” He was rubbing his head with each word that he added fond emphasis to, which in turn curled his smile back into the playful state. “I had po-go sticks and those smelly markers and so many stuffed animals! Oh-oh! And jump ropes, bouncy balls and hula hoops, toy planes and model trains…” He was counting them off faster than he could count on his own fingers. Honeywell scribbled random lines onto the pad to give the impression of noting every item listed, an action he noticed excited the mallard even further. When he looked up, Jack was grinning at him like a child before Santa.

“Say, doc...what’s your favorite toy?”

The bear blinked. He honestly hadn’t put much thought into memories of his own childhood. He set his pen and recorder onto the pad and removed his glasses to clean them.

“You know, I cannot seem to choose.” He smiled, and it was a genuine one. He had found a way to tame Jack’s unruly nature and learn about him at the same time. It was a win-win that he was immensely proud of. “I remember when I was a cub that my father used to take me fishing.” He raised his lenses to the light for inspection. “I was terrible at it.” He chuckled along with Jack at the silliness of it. “I couldn’t trick the fish, but I admired the ducks I saw.” He placed his glasses back on his snout and hummed. “My father was a woodworker in his spare time. He used to tell me to find the ducks I liked the most, and he would make carvings of them for me.” His own eyes were fond as he looked down at his notes. “Some waddled on strings, and others floated in the bath. One was even made into a kite. So I suppose those were my favorites.”

Quackerjack had stopped his rocking by this time, instead resting his chin upon crossed arms which in turn had been propped against his knees. His watched in wide-eyed wonder while his beak quivered in touched elation at such a touching story.

“Am I a pretty duck, doc?” he asked, utterly tickled from the storytelling.

It was then and there that the old bear knew he was probably slipping. It was unprofessional (no doubt) to sidle on up to the patient’s side and get cozy with them. It was very contrarian to his stance in seeing the results, in that Jack responded favorably when spoken to like a child. When he was met on the same level, he was enthusiastic and willing to play a more fair game. Honeywell side eyed his recorder, dreading on hearing his own voice later on playback. He cleared his throat while straightening his tie.

“You are...unique, Jack.” It was all he could manage to say. He watched the mallard cock his head like a confused pup, but his smile remained.

“And you’re a willy-nilly stuffy old bear, Honeybuns.” He stuck his tongue out and giggled.

---

Considering all the terrible breakdowns and suffocating spaces, lunch was actually pretty decent today. After days of choking down sticky stews and blobby dumplings, Quackerjack tore into his lasagna like a man possessed. His tongue was almost completely submerged into the low belly of his plate as he rooted his beak around to lap up every last calorie. Tangy, sweet, juicy...tomato innards dripped out the corners of his mouth like warm plasma. The real kicker was that all things considered, his dining habits still made him out to be the most sane beast in the room.

Buddy remained dutifully by his side, hilariously crammed into his spot and staring in fierce silence at his patient’s tray. There was a sad mop of spinach that lay neglected in a wet ball, destined for the trash after the mallard declared it to be no more appetizing than cow cud. The gorilla couldn’t really fault him there.

The staring, Quackerjack could shrug off; he had enough of Buddy to fill a yearbook. It was the room that was slowly agitating him more than the quiet snorting of the ape. He could hear the wet coughs of the boar two tables down. The sounds of clumsy forks shearing against porcelain bristled the feathers on the back of his neck. Glancing up, he witnessed a dog watching his own drool dangle in a hideous descent towards his juice glass. The worst thing of it all was aside from the disgusting noises, there was a disturbing silence permeating in the air like a bad smell.

Hell, even prison allowed exchanges in the mess hall. That he knew from experience.

Quackerjack ignored Buddy wiping the cheese bits off his chin as he tensely observed. This place was more dead than stand-up in a graveyard. Some of the nurses looked like they’d rather be elsewhere and that deeply bothered him. He heard a low grumble beside him, boiling up from the deep barrel chest of his own aide; Buddy seemed to silently agree with his thinking.

“Yeesh, how many sedatives did they put in today’s pudding?” The duck finally snarked, only to find that Buddy was less than impressed. The big ape quirked a heavy brow as he held what else but the very thing that was about to ruin his day. Quackerjack stared at it being slid in front of him with an offending jiggle and oily shine and it was then and there that he suddenly decided that the cup of pills beside it looked more appetizing. Fortunately there wasn’t a fiasco this time in swallowing them down faster than he could catch that big galoot’s hand moving- his frown was already upside down within seconds.

After days of the same drug cocktails, Quackerjack now knew all of the steps to tango. His feet still stumbled back when he was lifted from his chair but he no longer saw things in slow motion. His pupils fluttered under the stagnant white lights as they stuttered to process through the fog of calm that wafted throughout his brain. The dose fortunately dropped in strength so he at least wasn’t a drooling idiot on the walk back to his room. In fact, the sluggish haze was almost pleasant now that his body was learning to tolerate it, so he giggled like a drunk and snuggled up next to Buddy while sloppily trying to coordinate his spoon to his mouth; he had earned this damned pudding.

-----

Quackerjack waited patiently in his chair while Buddy changed his sheets, and that was a surprising first. His body was getting used to the caress of drugs to avoid being stupid enough to fight back anymore. His limbs felt like jelly and his head like it had rocks rolling around but there was a strange fog of comfort slipping through the cracks of it all which calmed him. The voices were gone. The world seemed so much quieter and fuzzy, like a snug embrace in a warm space. This place must make bank on getting high, and that was a thought that made him lazily chortle. He crossed his legs and lightly rocked in his spot, watching his aide. The gorilla was quick and precise, fluffing up the pillows and making a face when he caught one of them with a face drawn on it: dried toothpaste and soap skids, but its goofy smile sent a message that it looked plenty happy to be there. Buddy shook his head and placed it back.

Those large strong hands carefully tugged the duck by the wrists, guiding him out of the chair and towards the edge of the bed. Quackerjack wobbled like a penguin as his slow mind struggled to keep up with his locomotion. Once he was sitting, he tried to follow Buddy pulling off his slippers and fixing the cuffs of his pajama pants. The ape caught his gaze and they shared a moment of silence. For the first time in days, there was a smile on the large mammal’s face. He nodded and patted the mallard’s shoulder before standing up and leaving. Quackerjack watched him go, and hung his head as the door clicked shut.

He stewed in an intoxicated silence, wondering what would come next. Outside the window, he could hear the chirping of songbirds as they trilled their songs of freedom. In the bathroom, he noticed the plip-plip of water drops falling from the sink faucet. If he held still long enough, the light drumming of his own heartbeat thrummed through his ears. He never realized how comforting a pulse was, morbid as it was to think about. The duck glanced to his side, looking forlornly at the defaced pillow. It was no Banana Brain, a familiar face that he struggled to remember in a state like this. Perhaps it was for the greater good.

It was just terrible how lost he felt while swimming in the fog.

If there was one thing that his medications were consistent at, it was that they brought forth a growing sleepiness that even he couldn’t shrug off. His spine rolled onto the mattress and he splayed his arms across the cleaned comforter. That awful painting caught his gaze and he tried his damndest to follow the crossing lines; eventually the motions started to nauseate him. Every breath grew more labored to push out, and his eyes fluttered heavily with every blink. The ticking of his bedside clock clicked slower and slower as the seconds melted into the tarry infinity of time. He never caught on to when the sounds struck last in his mind, as he had fallen asleep long before the new hour struck.

Quackerjack’s dreams were different from his reality. They stole elements of his waking world and twisted them into strange events that he never could make sense of. His dream world was as vivid as the waking one, but colors distorted. Sounds sometimes sped up or slowed like molasses inside of his ears or even more nonsensically they sometimes were produced in environments that they didn’t fit in. He sometimes dreamed of airplanes that trumpeted like elephants or tumbled over himself in nightmares of Quackwerks where every coworker was replaced with every horrid toy that he despised making on the monitored production lines. Music played in slow warps or blasted so loud and tinny that sometimes he startled himself awake. Nothing made sense and there were many nights where he woke up angry that he couldn’t have his fun when he couldn’t control the rules.

Some nights, however, things lifted towards the more hopeful. Perhaps it was the medication swimming through his blood and up into his brain, but his dream today was pleasant in sound and warm in color. Shapes still melted in his dream-vision as the gentle chatter of old radio voices echoed into his dream space with promises of great deals and thrilling lineups. He was walking through a seemingly endless yard of dark maroon grasses and a deep indigo sky, where random rooms with only three walls fazed into their places on both sides of him: some contained rooms of familiar furniture, others of his favorite play things. He swore he could smell the same peach pies that his mother used to make as he passed a select few, and he noticed behind the radio voices was the underlying, gentle hum of the soft jazz she used to play. It sounded so close to embrace and yet miles away.

But no matter how fast he walked, he couldn’t seem to get close enough to touch anything. It was like he was trudging on a treadmill and it upset him. But that was mere child’s play compared to the torture that there, just beyond his sights in one of the rooms was his pride and joy, his mentor, his friend and closest friend and his child , sitting so primly on top of a big blue bean bag chair surrounded by throngs of plush toys. Quackerjack whined as he stretched his hands out in a frantic grasp, his fingers kneading the air as he choked out a needy sob. He stumbled and struggled to pick up his feet but they felt like weighted lead with every step, and Banana Brain just smiled his kindly smile. It was so frustrating that he had to stop and ball his fists.

The duck was angry and yet not. He was pissed at the uselessness of his limbs but lulled by the face he had missed like a bad fix. His mother’s jazz droned on as though she were there like the old days, giving him tastes of home with her favorite music and her renowned treats. He panted and shook his head, overcome by a furious pawing at his face in a frantic attempt to grab at the bells of his cowl. But they weren’t there. Not even in the lawless land of dreams.

Defeated and lonely, he sank onto the dream grass and realized they felt like the carpet of his old bedroom. He curled down into the tightest ball he could attempt and shivered. He wanted his friend. He wanted himself back.

“I miss the good old days, back when you used to be fun.” The doll gurgled from his throne. “Why did you have to become so mean?”

It wasn’t the same string of words but Quackerjack remembered the sentiments. Even Darkwing looked somber while he held the bouncing doll with the top heavy head. Quackerjack had never any reason to not trust Banana Brain, not even when his voice did sound scratchier and deeper inside the Whiffleboy dev room...

He dug his fingertips into the fine feathers of his face, harmlessly scratching at himself to keep the tingling antsiness away. The tangy pie smell in the air seemed to carry an exotic banana flavor that lingered in the back of his throat. The jazz dipped into a softer tone, overpowered by the sudden arrival of tapping.

Tap. Tap tap.

The duck shivered. It was like listening to metal on glass.

Tap...tap. Ta-tap.

He squinted out from between his fingers, finding Banana Brain still smiling. All of the stuffed animals surrounding his bean bag were now staring at the duck. Quackerjack couldn’t ever remember a time in his life where he felt so uneasy from looking into the plastic eyes of a toy.

Tap.

The jazz slowed in the background of his dream, thrumming like a dull heartbeat, and the banana-pie smell became so sweet that it almost nauseated him. He watched Banana Brain slowly sitting upright and tilting his head in the opposite direction, sewn mouth splitting open to form a toothy felt grin.

His voice shifted into one that was lower and flighty, full of uncertainty that registered as one far too familiar to Quackerjack.

“Oh gee, you don’t look so good…”

It was at this point that the tapping became so loud that Quackerjack’s eyes opened as he jolted out of his dream state. The hospital room spun in sickening swirls as his hazy eyes tried to adjust. Reality was so...sterile, and he hated the bland look of his space. His dry tongue licked across his teeth while he bobbed his weighted head and rubbed at his eyes. It was easy to write off the strange noises as just odd fragments of dream logic...until he heard them again.

Tap tap.

He nearly took a nosedive in his sleepy attempt to peek underneath his bed; nothing tappy there.

Ta-ta-tap.

His stomach almost emptied itself from the rapid vertigo that came in trying to push himself back up. Quackerjack lurched in his crawl across the bed to stare at the walls, the door to his bathroom, that one little dresser near the door out until finally his eyes burned and blinked angrily from the bright burst of light hitting them.

The tapping had stopped.

The duck rubbed his eyes to soothe them, and blinked slower to try and adjust. The window slowly rendered back into view, bringing with it a splash of color he hadn’t noticed before. Quackerjack stared, head tilted in confusion as he regarded the bulb of a colorful blue flower that had somehow scaled the brick to reach his sill.

A coating of thorns glinted in the sunlight, swayed to tap against the smudged glass when the wind beckoned. Quackerjack sighed with relief and rubbed at his throbbing head.

“Oh, yeesh. Definitely not good. Did they poke you with needles? I hate needles.”

The duck froze up.

“You should get some fresh air. Yes, some fresh air will do you good. It always does the plants good, and they are everywhere.”

It was as if a cannonball dropped into his stomach. Paranoid, the mallard peeked up above his hands, just like he had in his dream.

But this wasn’t a dream anymore. The flower quivered its petals until it resembled a bill, to which it produced an elated smile.