Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

~Age 10~

Jackie was walking home from school one afternoon, whistling the tune from his favorite after-school cartoon while idly flicking a yo-yo up and down in his hand. He was sticking to the sidewalk today so he could stay in the shade of the trees. Not because he disliked the pleasant sunshine, mind you- it was simply because his yo-yo was metallic. Whenever it caught the sunlight, it would sting his eyes and force him to look away and he wanted to keep playing with it for as long as possible.

The teacher had confiscated it from him earlier in the day because, as she’d put it, “It’s study time, not playtime!” She thought she was so clever, hiding it in her desk under the papers from that morning’s quiz where no one could get it. Mrs.Oldson, however, had not counted on being called out of class to deal with a small trashcan fire in the hallway and leaving her desk, and collection of stolen school-grade contraband, unguarded. A 10 cent box of matches and a slight headache from the fire-alarm was more than worth the price of his yo-yo, a few candy bars, a joy-buzzer, and a pack of sparklers.

As Jackie successfully executed a perfect walk-the-dog trick with his yo-yo, he was suddenly brought out of his reminiscing by something hitting him on the head. “Ow!” He rubbed the top of his head where the object struck him and looked down to, much to his surprise, see a little yellow sneaker on the ground. “Huh?

 Looking up to see where the shoe had come from, he spotted a young rat through the branches of the tree. The kid couldn’t have been more than two or three years old, as he still hadn’t developed the signature front-teeth most rats got by the time they started school. Jackie could tell that he kid was absolutely TERRIFIED up there by the way he clung to the large tree branch for dear life and kept his eyes screwed shut.

Truthfully, the kid probably would have been fine even if he’d fallen since he was only half-way up the tree, but, when you’re little, everything always seems scarier. With that in mind, Jackie decided to check on the kid.

“Hey, squirt! How’s the weather up there?” He called up to the terrified rat.

Realizing that someone was talking to him, the little boy hesitantly opened one eye to look down at the ground. “Huh?” Seeing the ground, however, made him yelp and cling tightly to the tree branch. “Scary!” The kid cried pitifully.

“The weather’s scary? Well, that’s no fun!” Jackie said as he pocketed his yo-yo. “You should jump down here- the weather’s great!” He joked with a big grin.

The kid fervently shook his head, hiding his face against the branch. “I can’t!”

Jackie was about to make another joke, one about high-dives, when he heard the kid start sniffling and saw his shoulders shaking. “Aw, geez..” He muttered before setting his backpack down and climbing up the tree with ease. It didn’t take long at all for him to reach the branch the kid was on and, to get his attention, he knocked on the wood behind the kid. “Knock knock!”

The kid startled slightly from the closeness of the voice and cautiously turned his head around to look at Jackie. “Who..Who’s there..?”

Jackie grinned, glad that the kid at least had the decency to respond to a classic setup. “Ash.”

“Ash who?” The little boy asked, trying to keep his eyes on Jackie and off the ground.

“Oh, gesundheit!” Jackie finished the joke by pulling out a balled-up tissue from his pocket and holding it out for the kid to take.

“Heh..” A small giggle came from the boy as he took the tissue from Jackie and wiped his face. “You’re funny.” The kid said with a little smile.

“And you’ve got a decent sense of humor!” Jackie told the kid as if he were congratulating him for something.

The tiny rat smiled more and tried to turn around so he could face Jackie properly, but he nearly lost his balance. “Ah!”

Jackie reached out and grabbed the boy by his sleeve. “Woah, now!” He steadied the kid and started dragging him closer so he could grab onto him. “I know trips are nice, but I’d rather not see you next fall.” He managed to get the kid close enough that he could turn and offer his back to the scared rat. “Hey, kid, you like piggy-back rides?”

“Uh..Uh huh..” The rat said with a nod. At a “come on” gesture from Jackie, the kid carefully climbed onto the duck’s back and wrapped his tiny arms around his neck like he had the tree-branch earlier. “Thanks.”

“Eh, don’t mention it. Now, how ‘bout we make like a tree and leaf?” Jackie asked with a grin before beginning the climb back down to the bottom.

The kid giggled again, the death-grip he’d previously had on Jackie’s neck and shoulders loosening a little. “Hehe..leaf..”

Jackie chuckled, reaching the ground in no-time flat. Just for fun, he even did a flip when he landed on the ground. “Whoo-hoo-oooh!” He laughed and looked back at the kid once he was upright again. “Some fun, eh, kid?”

To Jackie’s delight, the little kid was now laughing too. “Yeah!” He said with a bright smile, looking much happier than he did up in the tree.

Jackie knelt down on the ground so the kid could climb off safely. “So, half-pint,” He stood up and brushed stray pieces of bark off of his pants. “What were you doin’ up there, anyway? Playin’ Tarzan?”

The kid shook his head with a small frown and pointed up into the tree. “My kite got stuck..”

Jackie looked back up into the tree and, sure enough, he could see a bright yellow kite shaped like a lightning bolt wedged in a leafy branch. It was on the very edge of the branch, but just high enough that he couldn’t jump up and get it on his own.

“Hmm..” Jackie hummed in thought before an idea struck him. With a grin, he looked back down at the kid. “Hey, you like yo-yo tricks?” He asked while pulling out his metal yo-yo.

The kid nodded, looking at the yo-yo curiously. “Uh huh?”

“Then check this out!” Jackie said proudly as he began his walk-the-dog trick again. “This little guy’s well trained, huh?” He asked with chuckle. “Go fetch, boy!” He jerked his hand upward so that the yo-yo flew up into the air and caught on the tail of the kite. With a quick tug on the string, Jackie brought the kite down and caught it in his hands. “Good boy!” He praised his yo-yo, giving it a little pat like he would a real dog before proudly holding the kite out towards the kid. “Told ya he’s well-trained.”

The kid’s eyes practically sparkled as he took the kite from Jackie. “Woooaah! Cool!” He looked up at Jackie as if the older kid was the most amazing thing in the world. “Thank you!”

Jackie shrugged and repeated what he’d said earlier. “Eh, don’t mention it.” He grabbed his back-pack off the ground and unzipped it, pulling out one of the chocolate bars he’d swiped from the teacher’s desk earlier. “Here, you want some?” At a nod from the kid, he broke off a quarter of the candy bar and handed it to him. The pair walked together as Jackie continued his trek home. “So, you live around here, kid?”

“Mhm.” The boy said around a mouthful of chocolate before he swallowed and pointed to a small house a block away. “That’s my house.”

“Huh, no kiddin’?” Jackie asked, pointing to his own house across the street. “That’s mine over there!”

“We’re neighbors!” The kid stated proudly, as if he’d just made an important discovery.

Jackie reached down and playfully ruffled the kid’s hair. “We sure are! What’s your name, neighbor?”

The kid beamed up at him, holding out his hand that was still sticky with chocolate. “I’m Elmo!”

“Nice t’ meetcha, Elmo.” Jackie took the happy little rat’s hand with his own sticky fingers and gave the tiny hand a friendly shake. “Call me Jackie.”

~Age 15~

Jackie stood outside of his unofficial home-away-from-home (even if it was just across the street) and knocked on the door. He was chewing on some bubblegum and currently blowing a bubble while he waited for someone to answer. His worn out red and blue backpack was slung haphazardly over one shoulder as usual since he knew he’d be setting it back down in a minute anyway.

He heard the familiar sound of running steps and mentally counted down the seconds until the door swung open to reveal a familiar young rat.

“Jackie!” Elmo greeted the older kid with an excited hug once the door was open.

He’d grown quite a bit over the past few years, currently standing at chest-height to Jackie. His original mop of shaggy brown hair had grown as well, the slightly longer locks now hanging around his chin. He’d even grown into his first set of rat-teeth with no problems, the distinctive over-bite much easier to see now whenever he smiled.

“Heya, Elmo.” Jackie greeted the younger boy by hugging him around the shoulders with one arm and used his other hand to muss the rat’s hair. “Your folks still here?”

“Yeah..” Elmo said with a roll of his eyes when he let Jackie go. “They’re in the living room..” He hooked his thumb in the room’s general direction. “Dad’s taking forever. AGAIN.”

Jackie chuckled and followed Elmo to the living room. “Gee, there’s some major breaking news..”

“Alert the media- it can still make the nine o’ clock special..” Elmo muttered back sarcastically with a sly grin.

Jackie grinned back at him. Elmo’s sense of humor had gotten even better over the years, much to Jackie’s enjoyment. The kid had a healthy sense of sarcasm while still enjoying Jackie’s puns and even tossing a few back himself when the situation called for it. He was also a lot smarter than other kids his age, so he was usually able to come up with something clever that could leave Jackie rolling on the floor laughing.

As they entered the living room, he heard the sounds of a man and a woman bickering, apparently over which jacket the man was going to wear for the evening.

“Knock, knock.” Jackie called while knocking on the old wooden frame of the living room doorway.

The rat couple in the living room stopped their bickering to look at him. The husband was a slightly shorter rat with a strong build that was clearly made from years of physical labor, making him look a little silly in a suit at the moment- his buzzed haircut certainly not helping matters any. His wife, on the other hand, was a tall, slender woman in a nice red dress with long brown hair the same color as her son’s that was currently pulled up in a neat bun.

“Oh, Jackie!” The wife smiled and walked up to him, her far-too-tall heels clicking on the hardwood floor with each step. When she reached the teenager, she smiled down at him and reached into the little black purse so she could hand him a small wad of cash. “Thanks again for coming on such short notice. Here’s money for pizza, you can keep the change.”

Jackie took the money and stuck it in his pocket. “Eh, don’t mention it, Mrs.S.” He jokingly bumped Elmo with his elbow. “You know I’m always happy to help keep this menace contained.”

Elmo stuck his tongue out at the duck then gave him a challenging smirk. “You can’t stop me forever! One day, I’ll sneak out and begin my reign of destruction on St. Canard! Mwahahahaha!” He gave his best evil laugh, rubbing his hand together like a classic bad-guy from a movie.

“Not if I have anything to say about it, Tiny Terror!” Jackie smirked back at him playfully, dropping his backpack so he could grab Elmo in a half-assed attempt at a choke hold and noogie him.

“Ack! My one weakness!” Elmo cried dramatically. “Luckily, I know yours too!” He managed to turn enough to wedge a hand along Jackie’s side and tickle his mid-section.

“Ahahahaa! You fiend!” Jackie gasped out between bouts of laughter.

They wrestled for a minute while the adults finished getting ready, the pair of rowdy boys eventually ending up on the floor in a giggling heap.

“Alright, you two.” Elmo’s mom said when she was ready to leave. “We’ll be back by nine. Remember the rules, Elmo: Don’t break anything. No violent movies. No sugar after 7:30. In bed by 8:30. And make sure you brush your teeth before you go to sleep this time.”

“I got it, mom.” Elmo said, subtly rolling his eyes as he stood up from the floor while Jackie remained seated cross-legged on it.

“Good.” She leaned down to give him a kiss on his forehead. “Have a good night, boys.”

Jackie quietly chuckled at the embarrassed look on Elmo’s face as he tried to wipe the lipstick mark off of his forehead. “See ya later, Mr. & Mrs.S.” He waved to the adults as they left, only getting a nod of acknowledgement from Elmo’s dad before the two were out the door and he could hear the car leaving within the next minute.

Once the coast was clear, Elmo looked at Jackie expectantly. “Sooooooo..?”

Jackie feigned ignorance, tilting his head as if he were confused. “ ‘Sooooo’ what?”

Elmo pouted at him and tried to grab the duck’s backpack so he could peek inside. “You brought it, right?”

Jackie snatched his backpack and rolled backwards to get back up to his feet, still trying to look innocent. “Oh, are you talking about the healthy homemade veggie snacks and educational films for tonight? Of course!” He opened the bag himself and rummaged through it, looking inside with a “confused” expression. “Well that’s weird..the only things in here are-” He grinned mischievously and pulled out a VHS tape as well as a large plastic bag of brownies. “Mutant Slug Men from Planet X and my quadruple chocolate brownies!!”

“Yes!” Elmo pumped both fists into the air excitedly. “You’re the best, Jackie!”

“Anything for you, bud.” Jackie laughed and skipped over to the couch, jumping backwards onto it so that his legs hung over the armrest. He grabbed the land-line phone off of the table nearby. “C’mon, let’s order the pizza so we can watch this bad boy!”

Elmo agreed enthusiastically and joined Jackie on the other side of the couch.

They ordered their usual pizza- extra cheese with double every topping possible- and used the time while they waited to get their homework done (they both hated it, but it was easier and quicker doing it together- Jackie could proof-read Elmo’s English homework to make sure he didn’t forget any words and Elmo was smart enough to help Jackie with his math homework). They finished just as the pizza guy arrived and happily tossed aside their notebooks in favor of messy junk food and a PG13 bad sci-fi horror movie. They laughed together at the stupid designs of the aliens and the bad special effects, Elmo grinning every time he pointed out a visible wire or zipper on screen.

By the second half of the movie they’d finished their pizza and were seated on the floor eating the brownies that Jackie brought. Elmo was laying on his stomach, feet idly kicking in the air behind him as he watched the movie and ate his sugary treat (at 7:35, he might add). Meanwhile Jackie, having already seen the movie before bringing it over, had pulled a different notebook out of his backpack and was scribbling something in it, his tongue poking out the side of his beak as he concentrated.

“Another toy?” He heard Elmo ask him suddenly.

Jackie looked up from his notebook and saw that Elmo had sat up next to him and was looking at the drawings- mostly of teeth and wind-up keys- across the page.

“Yep.” Jackie confirmed while tilting the notebook to give Elmo a better view. “I was thinkin’ about those novelty fake-teeth you see in joke shops and thought ‘Hey, wouldn’t it be cool if you could play with those?’, so I’m tryin’ t’ think of HOW…” He looked back down at his sketches with a slight frown. “I just can’t seem t’ come up with anything good, though..”

“Hmm..” Elmo looked at the drawings, eyes narrowing as he thought the idea over in his head. “Oh!” He looked up at Jackie, his eyes getting that little spark in them they always got when he had an idea. “What if they could move?”

“Move?” Jackie repeated, giving the rat a curious look.

“Yeah, move!” Elmo reached over and grabbed the pencil and notebook from Jackie, the duck letting him since this was more than normal for the two of them by now. “If you used the wind-up key to power a spring system, then, when they were wound-up, they’d start jumping across the ground!” He drew up some crude blueprints of a wind-up key powered spring system that would allow for just that.

“Elmo, you’re a genius!” Jackie’s eyes lit up at the prospect and he put his arm around Elmo’s shoulders so he could lean in close and point at the bottom jaw of the fake teeth. “The springs could go in here with some weights to keep ‘em from flipping over if they jumped too high!”

“Ooh, good idea.” Elmo agreed with a nod, adding some small weights to the blueprints. They bounced ideas for the teeth off of each other until they had a perfect design for a set of wind-up powered teeth that would clack and chatter and jump across the ground, the two taking turns adding to the drawings and blueprints as they talked.

This was another thing that Jackie liked about Elmo- the two of them worked really well together. They were both pretty smart for their ages and had shown a gift for engineering, something that they fostered the growth of between each other with their constant ideas and feedback. If one of them came up with a general idea for something, the other would offer concepts for how the idea could become reality. The pair could spend hours at a time going over ideas for a single invention and never get bored.

“I swear, kid, you and me need to go into business together.” Jackie said as he looked over the finished plans for the wind-up teeth. “With my weird ideas and your brains, we’d be the toy kings of the world!” He declared while raising his pencil dramatically, looking like he was holding a scepter.

Elmo grinned at his friend’s overly-dramatic nature and shrugged. “Sure, I wouldn’t mind. It’d be fun to work for my best friend.”

Jackie grinned and pulled the rat into a half-hug with one arm. “Work FOR me? You got cotton in those big ears or somethin’? You’re gonna work WITH me- we’ll be partners!” He looked down at the younger kid and set down his pencil so he could extend his pinky towards the rat expectantly. “By the time you finish school, I’m gonna have the business up and runnin’ so we can get started right away. Deal?”

Elmo chuckled and hooked his own pinky around the duck’s with a smile. “Deal!”

Chapter Text

~Age 18~

Jack rounded a street corner while drawing in his well-worn toy design notebook. It was the latest in a very long line of books that he carried with him everywhere until he would eventually use the last page and, like the others, leave it sitting on the bookshelf in his room for later reference. He couldn’t wait until he finished high school so he could focus on his toy-making full time, already eagerly counting down the days until graduation.

Today he’d decided to swing by one of his favorite burger joints on the way home from school for a snack, hardly paying attention to where he was going.

That is, until a familiar voice caught his attention…

“Hey, give it back!” The voice of his best friend yelled in frustration.

“Ha! Why don’t’cha come an’ get it, wimp!” Another voice teased, followed by a chorus of laughter from a couple other voices.

Jack scowled and snapped his notebook closed, looking around for the source of the voices. He soon spotted them in the park across the street:

Elmo, now standing slightly taller at 11 years of age, was surrounded by a group of boys who looked close to the same age as him but were MUCH taller than the scrawny rat. Elmo was currently trying to reach his backpack, which was being held up high above his head by a pig-boy that just laughed at the smaller kid’s troubles.

With the other kids distracted laughing at Elmo’s vain attempts at retrieving his belongings, Jack decided it would be fun to get a little payback on his friend’s behalf. He reached into his backpack to pull out the appropriate supplies and snuck around behind the group of kids using the trees as cover.

The pig holding Elmo’s bag laughed as he roughly shoved the smaller kid backwards onto the ground. “Haha! What a loser!”

Elmo frowned at the taller kid and tried to get up. “I am NOT a loser!” He countered, but was just shoved back down once again.

The other kids laughed at Elmo more and started to join in on the fun of shoving the meeker kid around, when a loud bang and some of the dirt nearby being kicked up caught their attention. “?!!!!”

There were a few more bangs, all hitting in different spots around the group and terrifying the pre-pubescent children.

Elmo looked between the kids in front of him and saw a familiar figure stepping out from behind one of the trees. “Jackie!”

Jack smirked, holding what looked like a gun in his hand as he walked casually up to the group. “Hey there, kiddies. Having fun?” He walked right up to the pig, easily towering over the younger boy. “So, you like picking on kids smaller than you? What a coincidence!” He grinned and giggled manically, raising the gun so that it was pressed under the quivering pig’s jaw. “So do I.”

The other kids screamed and ran away in fear from the apparently deranged duck. “AAAAAH!!!!”

“Now, how ‘bout you be a pal and give my little buddy his stuff back, hm?” He asked, his thumb pulling back the hammer of the revolver.

“O-O-Okay!!” The pig readily agreed, dropping the bag so Elmo could grab it while he stood up.

Jack looked at Elmo with a devious grin. “I dunno, Mo, whattaya think? Should we let him off with a warning this time?”

Elmo chuckled, easily able to tell what Jack was planning. “Nah, I think you should pull the trigger.”

The pig’s eyes widened in alarm as he looked between the two desperately. “N-No, please! Don’t! I-I-I’ll do anything!”

“Anything, huh?” Jack inquired with a raised brow. At a fervent nod from the scared boy, Jack smirked. “Okay, fine. We’ll let y’ go if you say something for us.”

“W-What is it?” The pig swallowed down his nerves, sweating bullets by now.

“Saaaayy..” Jack grinned more. “ ‘I’m all washed up’.”

“I’m..I’m all washed up..?” The pig repeated back, confusion momentarily breaking through the terror.

To the pig’s shock and surprise, Jack pulled the trigger on the gun but, instead of a bullet hitting him and ending his life, the kid found himself being sprayed with a stream of water.

“You sure are!” Jack yelled, laughing hysterically as he shoved the pig over and grabbed Elmo by the hand to make a hasty retreat.

Elmo held onto the duck’s hand tightly and followed his lead, chuckling the whole way.

Once they were far enough from the park, Jack stopped to the put the squirt gun away in his backpack and Elmo finally saw the small bag of firecrackers in the front pocket.

“Ah, so that’s how you did it..” He muttered while getting a chance to put his own bag back on his shoulders. “Thanks for the help, Jackie.”

“Eh, don’t mention it- I know what kids are like at that age.” Jack said, slinging his pack over one shoulder once everything was safely tucked away. He looked back at Elmo with his usual smile and nodded his head in a “follow me” motion as he started walking away. “C’mon, let’s grab a bite at Hungry Harry’s.”

“Sure.” The younger rat followed his friend’s lead without hesitation. “As long as I’m home by five.”

Jack snorted a bit in a failed attempt to suppress a laugh. “Seriously? You’re STILL grounded?”

“Yeeaaaahhh..” Elmo heaved a heavy sigh, his shoulders slumping a bit. “It was just a blown circuit breaker- you think they’d get over it by now…”

Jack shrugged, giving his friend a sympathetic pat on the back. “You know how adults are: They always say ‘Be creative!’ or ‘Try new things!’, but the moment you set the bathroom on fire it’s all ‘What the heck were you thinking?!’ this and ‘Trying to make glow in the dark water doesn’t count as a science experiment!’ that.” He pitched his voice to resemble Elmo’s mother at the appropriate quotes.

Elmo couldn’t help but smile at the bad impression, snickering quietly with a shake of his head. “It would’ve worked if our electrical grid wasn’t so faulty!” Their conversation stopped briefly when they reached their destination, the pair stepping up to the counter to order an extra-large helping of fries to split and two chocolate milkshakes, Jack picking up the tab despite Elmo’s protests. After they got their junk food, the two found a bench nearby to sit on and eat their snack. “Hey, Jackie,” Elmo began to say around a few fries with a tiny dab of ketchup on them. “I just thought of something.”

“Should I get the rubber gloves and bleach?” Jack asked while tearing open five packets of ketchup at once and drowning his half of the fries in the red sauce.

“No, not this time.” Elmo took a sip of his milkshake and swallowed before continuing. “I was just thinking: You’re practically a grown up now.”

Jack gave a dramatic gasp and pointed a soggy, ketchup-coated fry at Elmo as if it were a knife. “Bite your tongue! How DARE you accuse me of such a thing!” He placed his other hand to his chest and looked away with a pout. “I am NOT a grown up.” He stated defiantly.

Elmo rolled his eyes a little and moved some of his fries away from the red-swamp that had claimed Jack’s share. “I mean..you kind of are: You’re legally able to drive and vote now. You’re almost done with school. You started telling people to call you ‘Jack’ instead of ‘Jackie’-”

“You still call me Jackie.” Jack corrected, grabbing a messy handful of what was mostly tomato paste with some potato in the mix by this point and shoving it in his mouth.

“You never told me to stop.” Elmo grabbed one of his fries, but hesitated right before he brought it to his mouth. “Did you..um..want me to..?”

Jack paused mid-chew to think the question over. He’d started telling people to call him Jack over the past year just because it felt natural to do so, as if calling him Jackie made him seem TOO young somehow. Pretty much everyone had shifted over to it without too much fuss, but, thinking about it, he really had never asked Elmo to do the same.

“Hmm..” He swallowed down the tomato-potato mush and gave Elmo a grin. “Nah.” He finally answered with a shake of his head. “It’s okay if it’s you.”

“You sure?” The young rat asked, the frown on his face easily telling Jack that the kid was worried that Jack was just placating him.

“Yep. I think ‘growing up’ is just a mental thing- if I try hard enough to avoid it, then I can live to be a million and still never be an adult.” He put his arm around Elmo’s shoulders to comfort him, looking him in the eyes with a sincere smile. “You’re my best friend, Mo, and you’ve called me Jackie since we met. So, if you keep calling me that,” Jack reached up with the hand around Elmo’s shoulders and playfully smeared a streak of ketchup across the rat’s cheek. “Then it kinda feels like I don’t have to grow up!” He laughed at the startled look on his friend’s face, nearly falling off of the bench with the force of his laughter.

“Aaagh! Don’t do that!” Elmo complained, wiping at the ketchup in an attempt to get it out before it stained his fur. “You’re such a jerk..”

He glared at the chuckling duck before a smirk lit up his face and he popped the top off of his milkshake cup. Dipping a few fingers into the cold, sticky liquid, he retaliated by leaving a glob of it right on Jack’s beak. He even placed it close enough that it tickled his sinuses and made him sneeze- actually making him fall off the bench for real that time.

Jack sat up and wiped his hand over his beak, forgetting that it was still coated in ketchup until he crossed his eyes to see all the red now visible across his bill. He stared at it quietly for a moment before he burst into a fit of laughter again, Elmo joining him this time.

The two laughed and laughed until they were breathless and holding their aching sides with quiet giggles. Deciding to be the one to offer a truce first, Elmo offered his chocolate-covered hand down to Jack so he could pull himself up onto the bench. Jack grinned and took it with his own chocolate and tomato covered digits, pulling himself up until he was seated next to Elmo once again.

As they sat together and finished their less-than-healthy snacks, Jack regarded his best friend with a quiet smile. He may have been unable to resist ruining such a nice moment earlier, but he meant what he said:

Elmo was the only one who could still call him Jackie, and he could continue to do so for the rest of time, for all Jack cared.

~Age 21~

Jack heaved a taped-up box up into the back of his beat-up old mini-van (a hand-me-down from his parents), taking a moment to wipe the sweat off of the feathers on his face using his shirt. He mentally checked off the boxes loaded into the car to make sure he had everything.

Personal toys and toy prototypes? Check.

Notebooks? Check.

Clothes? Check.

Framed pictures? Check.

Best friend hiding in the backseat? Check.

…Wait, what was that last one?

Craning his head to see past a pair of boxes, he spotted the familiar bob of brown hair ducked down in the floorboards between the front and back seats. With an amused grin and a quiet chuckle, Jack ripped a piece of excess packing tape off and slowly made his way around to the driver’s side of the car. He opened the door to the front seat, got in, checked his mirrors, and looked like he was about to start the car and drive off…

Before he turned around while pretending to check the road behind him and slapped the tape on the back of the crouching rodent’s neck.

“Ack!” Elmo yelped at the sudden contact and sat up. “Jackie!” The thirteen-year old rat glared at his friend and rubbed at the spot the tape was stuck to. “Was that really necessary?”

“Probably not, but it WAS fun.” Jack grinned, reaching back and offering the boy a hand climbing up to the passenger seat over the center-console. “So, practicing your mime routine by pretending to be a box?”

Elmo took the offered hand and climbed over so he was sitting next to Jack in the passenger seat. “Mhm. I figured if I blended in with the rest of your junk, you wouldn’t notice.” He reached behind his neck and began plucking at the strip of tape stuck there in an attempt to remove it.

Jack leaned one elbow against the steering-wheel as he watched his best friend’s struggles with an amused smile. “Hate t’ break it to ya, Elm-tree, but you’re a bit too big for that.”

“Yeah, I know..” The rat winced slightly when he finally managed to rip the tape off, relieved to find that he only removed a few bits of fur and one strand of hair. There was a moment of tense silence after he balled up the tape and threw it towards the back to be picked up some other time. He scooted forward in his seat and crossed his arms on the dash, looking out the front windshield at the driveway in front of them. “…It’s gonna be weird not having you across the street anymore…” His face was calm and neutral, but Jack could easily pick up the slight quiver to his voice when he spoke.

“Yeah..” Jack agreed, looking out at the driveway as well. “It’s gonna be weird for me, too.” He turned his head back to look at Elmo with a smile, though it was a bit more forced than his usual grins. “Look at the bright side- at least we don’t have to listen to our folks bitch at us for flashing morse-code at each other every night.”

“Mh, I don’t think my flashlight would reach that far..” Elmo tipped his head to the side as he thought something over. “Unless I gave it a few upgrades..I did want to try out that new fusion battery on something..”

Jack chuckled quietly and nodded his head in approval. “Hey, if it works you can make one for me and we’ll blind pilots every time we flash each other.”

“..Yeah..I guess so..” Elmo leaned his head against his arms on the dash with a slight frown, growing quiet again.

Jack saw the beginning traces of tears in his friend’s eyes and sighed in fake-annoyance. “Aw geez, don’t you get started or you’re gonna get me goin’, too. Was already bad enough dealing with mom and dad..” He reached over and wrapped one arm around the smaller rat’s shoulders to pull him into a hug, resting his chin on top of the other’s head. “It’s not like I’m movin’ out of town. Hell, the bus ride only takes like half an hour- and half that much in a car!”

“I know..” Elmo said quietly around a sniffle. “It’s just..weird..it’s been ten years and now..now I gotta get used to you not being..HERE..”

Jack could feel the small traces of water soaking through his shirt, but he ignored it in favor of holding the rat a bit tighter. “..It’ll be weird for me too, Mo..”

They stayed like that for a while, Jack rubbing comforting circle’s over the other boy’s back as he cried quietly into the duck’s chest. Jack almost joined him, but just barely managed to keep himself together.

Finally, the shudders going through Elmo’s body calmed down and he sat up straight again. He took a second to wipe the long sleeve of his shirt over his face before looking up at Jack again. “Promise you’ll talk to me on the phone?”

Jack smiled softly and playfully ruffled the rat’s hair. “Even if your parents get sick of me and try to block my number.” He smiled more when his friend finally smiled up at him. “And you better believe you’re coming by for sleepovers and hangin’ out: We’ll be able to stay up as late as we want, eat junk food at three in the morning, and watch all the bad movies we can stomach without any stupid grown-ups around to catch us!”

“You mean besides you?” Elmo countered with a small smirk.

Jack gasped in mock-offense and shoved the younger boy away. “You come into MY car and insult me in such a way!” They grinned at each other and laughed for a moment before Jack gave Elmo’s shoulder one last affectionate squeeze. “I’ll call ya tonight after I get settled in, alright?”

“I’ll make sure dad doesn’t block your number until then.” Elmo responded, giving the duck one last hug before getting out of the car. “Later, Jackie.” He closed the door behind himself and waved goodbye as he took a few steps back from the car.

Jack waved back to him before he backed the car out of the driveway. As he drove down the street, he glanced in the rear-view mirror.

He watched as the only home, and best friend, he’d ever known got smaller and smaller until they were both out of sight.

True to what he said, the trip to his new apartment down-town was only a fifteen minute drive away (give or take, depending on traffic). His furniture had already been moved in earlier, saving him the trouble of hauling everything up to the second floor himself. It did take him a while to get all of his belonging’s moved in, though, and even longer to unpack the essentials he’d need (toothbrush, a couple dishes, his night clothes, and some toys and journals to keep him occupied when he got bored of TV).

He finally grabbed the phone set up in the living room and sprawled out on his stomach on the couch while eating some chocolate muffins his mom had made him as a moving-out present. The phone rang a few times before someone eventually picked up.

“Hello?” The gruff older voice answered.

“Hey, Mr.S- it’s Jack. Elmo free?” He asked before scarfing down one of his muffins.

“Yeah, hold on.” He heard the older man calling Elmo’s name, followed by a quiet conversation a moment later.

“Hello?” Elmo said after a minute.

“Hey, pip-squeak. How’s my favorite mad-scientist?” Jack asked with a chuckle.

“Oh, hey, Jackie.” He was trying to sound casual, but Jack grinned when he could practically hear the smile in the kid’s voice. “We just finished dinner. How’s moved-out grown-up life going?”

Jack narrowed his eyes in warning, even though he knew the rat couldn’t see it. “Don’t make me drive back down there just to pour water on your condenser.” He warned before rolling over onto his back, head settled back on the arm-rest. “Honestly, it’s pretty boring so far. All I’ve done is move boxes, open boxes, and pull stuff out of, you guessed it, MORE boxes.” He grabbed another muffin from the coffee table. “But, I guess it’s not ALL bad- I get to have chocolate for dinner and no one can stop me!” He giggled and bit his muffin in half.

Elmo giggled a bit too. “Keep thinking like that and you’re gonna be too fat to fit in your car within a month. I can see it now- you’ll stop talking to people and we’ll all go over to find you stuck in your doorway because you gained over three hundred pounds.”

Jack laughed more as he imagined what it would be like to suddenly put on that much weight. “Even when I get out, you’ll have to roll me down the stairs like a big squishy ball of death!”

The pair laughed and talked about anything and everything that came to their minds well into the night. They discussed Elmo’s science fair project (that self-illuminating light bulb sounded pretty cool already), new toy designs Jack had come up with earlier in the week (he made a note to add giant squishy putty balls to his book later), and the ventriloquist show Jack had seen on TV when he took a break from unpacking earlier.

Truthfully, they were dragging out the conversation because neither of them wanted to stop talking to the other anytime soon. They grasped onto every possible topic they could find, making it last for hours.

After a while, though, Jack heard the muffled, distant voice of Elmo’s mother saying something to him. “Okay, mom..” Elmo said at a slight distance from the phone before he returned to it with a sigh. “I gotta go- mom wants me to go to bed.”

Jack looked at the clock on his VCR and noticed it was already after eleven. Damn, when had it gotten so late?

“Awww, I’m gonna be bored again.” He whined with a pout.

“If you get too bored, you could always go look for the present I left you.” Elmo said with a slight chuckle. “I hid it in one of your boxes. Night, Jackie!”

“What?!” Jack asked as he sat up. “You little sneak! When did you-?!” His only response was distant laughter as Elmo hung up the phone. Jack glared at the dial-tone emitting device before he broke into a grin and laughed too. “I taught that kid way too well.”

With nothing else to do, Jack tossed the muffin wrappers from his dinner into the trash and started looking through his boxes for anything that looked remotely like a present. When half an hour of searching left him with nothing, he began to think about which boxes were closest to Elmo when he was hiding in the car.

He doubted it would be in the box with his dishes, so that left- Aha!

With a triumphant grin, Jack went to his bedroom and opened up the box that contained his still-packed toy notebooks. Lifting the top-notebook out of the way, he found a small wrapped package nestled underneath.

It was flat and heavily padded to keep it from getting damaged, all wrapped up in shiny silver wrapping paper with a big golden bow. Jack carefully pulled the bow off and set it aside for later before eagerly tearing the wrapping paper and protective tissue-paper underneath off to see what his present was.

Once the paper was out of the way, Jack turned the gift over in his hands and stared at it with a look of surprise that slowly melted into a soft, affectionate smile. He hugged the present close to his chest for a moment before setting it down on the nightstand by his bed.

Deciding he’d done enough for one day, he got ready for bed and changed into his pajamas. Before he went to sleep, though, he looked at his nightstand and smiled again at the sight of his present:

It was a picture in a simple black table-top frame. The photo was of himself and Elmo from when they were around thirteen and six, respectively, and had gone out trick-or-treating for Halloween. They decided to go as a pair of stereo-typical prison convicts in black and white striped jump suits with a little papier-mâché foil-wrapped chain connecting their arms (both for costume effect and because Elmo’s parents didn’t want him wandering off without Jack). In the white boarder of the photo the words “Jackie & Elmo, PARTNERS IN CRIME!” were written in big red letters.

Jack reached over and turned the picture so that it was facing him, smiling at the sight of himself and Elmo and their big grins in the photo. Seeing his friend’s face helped him feel less lonely as he closed his eyes.

“Night, Elmo..” He said quietly before he fell asleep.

Chapter Text

~Age 23~

*knock* *knock* *knock*

Jack groaned and rolled over, trying to ignore the knocking at his door.

*KNOCK* *KNOCK* *KNOCK*

If he ignored it long enough, it would probably go away..

*KNOCK* *KNOCK* *KNOCK*

“Alright, already, I’m comin’! Geez!” He yelled in the direction of his front door as he finally, begrudgingly, sat up on his couch. He’d had a late night at the toy shop and ended up crashing on the comfy cushions as soon as he’d gotten home. Looking at the clock told him that it was nearly two in the morning and he was irritated over being woken up after less than two hours of sleep. He stood up with a yawn and stretched his stiff joints before walking to the door. He didn’t even bother looking through the peep-hole to see who it was as he opened the door, too busy rubbing his eyes. “Dude, do you have any idea what..time…it..” His irritated question trailed off when he saw who was standing at his door. “Elmo?”

Blinking the sleep-induced fuzziness from his eyes confirmed for him that, yes, it was indeed his best friend standing at the door of his apartment at two in the morning. The poor teen looked like a literal drowned rat, his button-up shirt and pants soaking wet from the rain that had started shortly after Jack got home. His head was tilted down and his shoulder-length hair was just as wet as his clothes and plastered to him, hiding his face from the duck in front of him.

“Can..Can I stay here tonight, Jackie..?” Elmo’s voice came out small, meek, and almost afraid- a tone that Jack had never heard from the normally self-confidant boy, even when he was bullied or beaten up by the kids in school.

Jack frowned, wanting to ask what happened to put his friend in such a state, but he decided that questions could wait until the other boy was no longer in danger of catching hypothermia.

“Considering I’m not a completely heartless jerk- yeah, you can.” He stepped aside so Elmo could come in.

The next hour passed in a tense silence as Jack helped Elmo get cleaned up. He let Elmo use the shower to warm himself up while he pulled out some of his spare pajamas for the other to wear and threw the rat’s soaked clothes in the dryer. He grabbed a spare pillow and blanket from his closet and set them up on the couch to make it a bit more comfortable to sleep on, the pair more than used to random sleepovers by now (though usually under much nicer circumstances).

By the time Elmo exited the bathroom, his fur and hair slightly fluffed from the static-rich towels Jack had in there and changed into the pajamas Jack left for him, he had the couch made up into a make-shift bed.

Turning around to greet the kid made Jack’s words die in his throat, however, when he finally got a chance to see the teen’s face: He was covered in bruises dark enough to be seen through his short fur. The most prevalent ones were around his neck, looking like someone had gripped him by the throat and lifted him off the ground. There were slightly lighter bruises along his cheeks, on his long nose, and, most notably, the big one on his left eye that was swelling into a full-blown black eye.

Elmo must have noticed Jack’s wide-eyed stare, because he suddenly looked down and shifted uncomfortably. “……”

Jack frowned at the reaction, knowing that whatever happened must have been really bad to make the rodent so skittish. Looking at the couch he’d made up, Jack got an idea and suddenly took everything off of it- the blanket, the pillow, the throw pillows, and even the cushions. He then walked past Elmo to his bedroom and proceeded to strip everything off of his own bed and carry the assortment of sheets, blankets, and pillows into the living room with him.

Grinning, he tossed everything from his bed down to join the pile on the floor. He then went over to the kitchen area of his living space and grabbed a few clips he used for chip bags, the two chairs from his small (and mostly unused) dining table, and a package of chocolate chip cookies.

Elmo gave him a confused look as he watched the duck bring everything over to the pile in the living room, tilting his head as he watched Jack begin to pin the sheets together with the clips.

To answer his friend’s confused stare, Jack just grinned and held up the sheets. “C’mon, Mo- ya still remember how to do this, right?”

He could tell that the confused rat was about to ask what he meant, but then the look of realization finally dawned on his face when he saw Jack finish with the sheets and push the small coffee table aside before putting the two chairs in its place with a foot or two of space between them.

A small smile appeared on Elmo’s face and he nodded. “Yeah, I think so..”

He helped Jack make sure the chairs were in the proper place before they spread the pinned-together sheets out to form a curtain-like tunnel that went over the back of the couch, straight out in front to rest briefly over the chairs, and then ended up tucked around behind the TV so it was still viewable within the tunnel they’d formed- for good measure, they even tucked the sheet on the other end beneath the couch’s feet to make sure it wouldn’t droop. The pair then crawled inside through an opening in the sheets near the sofa and arranged the various stuffed objects into a comfortable cushion nest with the sofa cushions propped up against the couch so they could sit up comfortably.

Once everything was setup inside, Jack crawled back out to grab the last of their necessary provisions for the night. Namely the TV remote, the cookies he’d grabbed earlier, two cups of milk from the kitchen, and, as an afterthought, he grabbed an icepack from the freezer and wrapped it in a washcloth. He handed everything to Elmo through the entrance before joining him inside again and the two got comfortably situated in their blanket fort.

Jack picked a channel that he knew played bad sci-fi movies late at night and opened the pack of chocolate chip cookies for them to split. The two friends were soon engrossed in a bad killer-robot movie with Elmo pointing out how scientifically inaccurate the details on the robot were while Jack talked about a design he’d come up with for a toy robot. After they polished off their chocolatey desserts and drained their glasses, Jack held the icepack up to Elmo with an understanding smile, one that offered sympathy without prompting for a story just yet.

Elmo took the icepack with a sigh and placed it over his swollen eye. He hissed slightly from the contact at first, but relaxed soon enough.

After a while longer of watching bad movies, he heard Elmo say something so quiet that it was almost inaudible over the sound effects from the TV. “Hey..Jackie..?”

Jack turned his head to look at the other boy beside him. “What’s up, bud?”

“……” Elmo looked down slightly, hesitating before he spoke again. “…Thanks…”

Jack just smiled at his friend and wrapped an arm around his shoulders, holding the teen against his side comfortingly. “Eh, don’t mention it.”

They smiled at each other before nestling back into the cushions to get more comfortable as they watched another movie. Jack pulled the blankets he’d stashed inside the fort earlier up to cover them as a general feeling of sleepiness and contentment settled over both of them. Half-way through the film, he heard soft snoring beside him and glanced over to see Elmo had already fallen asleep. With a tired but affectionate smile, Jack turned the TV off and pulled the blankets up a bit higher over both of them before falling asleep as well.

To absolutely no one’s surprise, Jack didn’t wake up until well past noon the next day. Thankfully, it was his day off from the shop, so he didn’t have to freak out about running late.

Feeling a weight against his side, he looked over to see Elmo still curled against him as the rat slept. Examining him in the dim daylight that filtered in through the sheets, Jack took the chance to quietly examine the boy’s injuries. The swelling in his eye had gone down a bit thanks to the ice pack, and some of the lighter bruises seemed to be healing a little as well, but would probably take more time.

Looking further down, he noticed that Elmo was gripping Jack’s shirt tightly in one of his hands as he slept. He seemed almost afraid to let go…

Jack frowned a little again at the boy’s subconscious behavior. Elmo may not have been physically strong in any sense of the word, but the kid always had a tough spirit. No matter how he got bullied or kicked around throughout middle and high school, he’d always kept a brave face and said that things weren’t that bad. THIS, though, whatever it was, was bothering him on a subconscious level and that worried Jack greatly.

Shaking himself out of his melancholy thoughts, Jack gently placed a hand on Elmo’s shoulder and gave it a light pat. “Hey, Elmo, wake up- let’s get some breakfast!” He spoke softly enough to avoid startling the still-skittish rodent, but raised his voice just enough to be effective.

Elmo groaned slightly and slowly opened his eyes, having trouble opening the blackened one all the way. “More like lunch by now..”

Jack shrugged. “Time is a man-made construct, pal.” He grinned excitedly. “So that means if we want pancakes after 12:30, then we can sure as hell have pancakes!”

Elmo released the grip he had on Jack’s shirt so he could rub at his non-bruised eye. “Fine, but don’t drown mine in whipped cream- I know how you cook.”

“You mean with style, flare, and great taste? I completely agree!” He joked as he gave the rat’s hair a quick ruffle before slipping out of the blanket fort to make breakfast.

To his pleased surprise, Elmo followed him and helped him pull out the ingredients for the pancakes. They worked together as perfectly as they always did when they set their minds to something, able to pass ingredients and tools back and forth without needing to ask for anything at all. This left them free to talk about the movies they watched the previous night and make jokes about the bad effects in so many of them.

While waiting for the pancakes to cook on the stovetop, a thought occurred to Jack and he briefly crawled back into the blanket fort to retrieve the icepack from the other night. He stuck it in the freezer so it could get cold again and, on his way back to the stove, he saw Elmo watching him.

Deciding now would be as good of a time as any to rip the metaphorical Band-Aid off, he asked the first thing that seemed safe. “How’s the eye? Any better?”

Elmo shrugged, avoiding eye contact again. “Kind of…”

“Hm, guess that’s better than it feelin’ worse.” He conceded with a shrug as he picked up the spatula again. Jack idly lifted the corners of the pancakes to check them, giving him an excuse not to stare at Elmo as they talked and providing the younger boy with some comfort. “So, something happen at school? Just give me a name- you know I’m not above scarin’ the shit out of teenagers.” He said with a smirk.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Elmo lean against the kitchen wall with a small smile. “No, it’s nothing like that this time..” His smile fell slowly as he swallowed down a lump in his throat. “I just..I, uh..” He took a deep breath and sighed it out heavily, apparently trying to gather his nerve before he continued. “I kind of- that is, I just..well, I said something stupid and dad..he..he got kind of mad at me.”

“What?!” Jack’s eyes widened in shock and he nearly dropped the spatula, managing to catch it at the last minute before it hit the ground. Once he set the utensil safely back down on the counter, he turned so that he was fully-facing his friend. “Your DAD did this to you?!”

He was…well, shocked would be a gross understatement. Sure, he had never really had any super-long conversations with Mr.Sputterspark, but, from what he could tell, the guy didn’t SEEM like the kind of man to just snap and beat the crap out of his kid for no reason. Maybe he missed some signs or something?

A dark feeling bubbled up inside of him as a single thought crossed his mind: Had this happened before?

He’d known Elmo and his family for thirteen years- the thought that he’d somehow missed signs of this happening to his best friend before terrified and infuriated him at the same time.

“Yeah..” Elmo’s quiet voice brought Jack out of his thoughts that were quickly spiraling into something darker due to his brain conjuring up images of the young rat in pain. “It’s not a big deal…was my fault, anyway..shouldn’t have said anything..” He was looking at the ground, speaking more to himself than to Jack at that point.

Jack’s eyes set in a firm glare and his mouth formed a scowl as he turned back to the stove briefly, moved the frying pan with their pancakes off the burner, then walked over to Elmo to place his hands firmly on the rat’s shoulders. His friend jumped slightly from the unexpected contact before looking up at the duck with a startled expression- both from the grip the bird had on his shoulders and the look on his face.

“You listen to me, and you listen good, got it?” Jack said with a steely-firmness his voice never before possessed. At a hesitant nod from the teenager in front of him, Jack said exactly what was on his mind. “What you said doesn’t matter- NOTHING you could’ve said gives him, or anyone else, the right to HURT you! He doesn’t agree with what you said? That’s fine, but HE was still the one who was wrong for putting his hands on you! YOU didn’t do anything wrong- HE did! So don’t you dare go blaming yourself for ANY of this, got it?”

“…” Elmo listened to the older boy with a wide-eyed stare that slowly began to mist over as he processed the other’s words. He nodded at the end of it and wrapped his arms around himself in a self-conscious need for comfort and security. “…So..you wouldn’t get mad at me if I said the same thing to you…?”

Jack shook his head and moved one of his hands off of the mammal’s shoulders to pet the top of his head in a small gesture of comfort. “You’re my best friend, Elmo. You could tell me you were secretly an alien spy or an evil super villain planning to destroy the planet and wipe out all life on Earth and I’d still have your back- hell, I’d help you build the doomsday weapon myself! Promise.” He moved his hand off of the other’s head and held it in front of him with the pinky extended.

Elmo looked at his hand for a moment with a tiny smile before hooking his own pinky around it and giving it a little shake. He let go afterwards and took a deep breath to help him organize his thoughts before he spoke again. “Have you ever thought about, you know, dating someone…other than a..you know..a-a girl..?” He looked away slightly, getting that uncomfortable and nervous look on his face again. “I mean..is it okay to-to..to like a guy the same way you’re supposed to like a girl..? I-I tried asking my parents about it, but my dad he-he got..he got really mad an-nd grabbed me and..and..he..” He swallowed nervously, one hand going up to rub tenderly at his still bruised throat. “He said ‘I didn’t raise any f-fags in this house, so you’d better man up and quit with that fruity way of thinking’…at least, that’s the nice way of putting what he said…”

Jack’s eyes softened in understanding. So that’s what happened…talk about a difficult way to come out of the closet…

“Honestly?” Jack started, earning a slight upwards glance from the rodent in front of him. He paused briefly for dramatic effect before giving the boy a sympathetic smile and a nod. “Yeah. It’s fine to think like that- you can like whoever you want, as long as you’re not hurting yourself or someone else.”

“R-Really?” Elmo asked, a hopeful edge to the tone of his voice.

Jack nodded again. “Yep. At least, for me it is.” He shrugged a little as he continued. “Granted, it’s not always safe to talk about that sort of thing- lot of people are stupid like that, especially adults- but I’ve kinda played both sides of the field by now, if you catch my drift.”

Elmo’s jaw visibly dropped and hung open for a moment before he spoke again. “Seriously? You jerk, you never told me!” He pouted and gave Jack a light punch to the shoulder.

Jack chuckled at the other’s pouty face and shrugged again. “You never asked and I didn’t feel like bragging about my many adventurous conquests.”

Elmo raised a skeptical eyebrow at that. “Really? YOU??”

Jack pretended to look insulted. “What’s that supposed to mean? I’ll have you know that I am quite a catch!” He winked with a coy smile.

The expression was enough to earn a laugh from the rodent, instantly brightening the mood between them and earning a chuckle from Jack in return.

“So, we’re, uh..we’re not..you know..weird..?” Elmo asked with a shy smile while running one hand through his long brown hair.

Jack laughed at that question, throwing his head back as he did. “Oh no, we are DEFINITELY weird!” He wiped tears from his eyes before giving Elmo a much more reassuring grin. “We’ve got a lot of things that make us weird, Mo…but..this ain’t one of ‘em. If anyone says otherwise, you just come to me and I’ll deal with ‘em.”

Elmo smiled with more confidence as he wrapped his arms around Jack in a tight hug. “Thanks, Jackie..for having my back..”

Jack smiled softly and returned the embrace, patting his friend’s back comfortingly. “Anything for my ‘Partner in Crime’.”

~Age 25~

Jack stepped out of his red sports car after he parked it safely in the spot outside of his apartment complex, walking into the air-conditioned lobby and taking the elevator up instead of the stairs. The shiny car and nice building were a far cry from the beat up old mini-van and cramped apartment he’d started out with a few years ago- a true testament to his financial success.

He had started out small, getting a part-time job in a toy shop and studying under the aging owner as he learned various trade secrets. Over time, he’d begun introducing his own toys to the store’s shelves until he was named partner in the business and, once the previous owner retired, he took over and used the money to expand his ideas. Just like he’d thought, his toys were a huge hit with the kids! It didn’t take long at all for “Quackerjack Toys” to become a household name and for him to move out to a better spot in town closer to his company’s main office.

A lot of things had changed rapidly in his life, especially over the past two years. However, as he reached his floor and pulled out the key to his apartment, he was happily reminded of one thing that stayed the same.

Said thing was casually seated on Jack’s couch, currently drawing up blueprints for his latest science experiment.

Elmo looked up when he heard the door open and gave Jack a quick nod in greeting before looking back at his blueprints. “Hey, Jackie.”

“Hey, Mo.” Jack greeted in return as he shrugged off his brightly colored red and blue jacket and hung it up by the door. “Still working on your static generator?”

“Mhm.” Elmo hummed absently while erasing one of his lines and redrawing it. “I’ve got the prototype set up at school already, it just needs some final adjustments and it’ll be perfect!”

“Heh, cool. Can’t wait to see it.” Jack said before heading back to his bedroom to change out of his work clothes and into his home-clothes (mainly consisting of comfy sweat pants and loose tee-shirts).

Having Elmo at his apartment had become an even more frequent thing over the past two years. Ever since the night his best friend had turned up on his doorstep in the middle of the night, soaked, scared, and abused by his family, Jack had made it a point to always get a spare key for the other to keep with him- giving him the freedom to come over any time he felt lonely or scared or even just bored. The rat had been hesitant at first, saying he didn’t want to bother the duck, but, after MUCH insistence from the older boy, he finally caved in and accepted the key.

Thankfully, Elmo had never come to see Jack in that rough of a state again, but he did still come over sometimes with a bruised cheek or wet streaks in his fur from when he’d been upset earlier. Jack never failed in his quest to help his best friend temporarily forget about his troubles, offering a shoulder to cry on or a funny distraction depending on which was needed more for the current situation.

Admittedly, having someone to talk to about his own romantic preferences was refreshing for Jack, too. Unlike Elmo, he’d never even broached the subject with his own parents, and, more like Elmo, he didn’t exactly have many friends besides the other boy to talk to.

Things were slowly changing in society as time went by, but the general populace was still very vocally against the idea, making it unsafe to openly discuss one’s personal tastes unless you were sure you were among like-minded individuals.

Being the head of an up-and-coming company that catered to children put Jack in an exceptionally awkward spot as well: One bad rumor or public scandal and people would start accusing him of crimes that, honestly, disgusted him to even think about. For now, it was best to keep his relationships a secret from everyone.

Well, everyone except Elmo, of course.

Once Jack was changed into his more comfortable attire, he joined Elmo on the couch by flopping over the length of the cushions with his legs dangling over the armrest and his head landing beside the rodent’s leg so he could look up at the seventeen year old’s intensely concentrated face.

“Hey, Nick-Elmo Tesla,” He joked with a chuckle, earning a hum of acknowledgement. “I’m feeling waaaaaaayy too lazy to cook tonight- you wanna stay for pizza?”

“Hm? Oh, yeah, sure, sounds good..” The other boy said quietly, still concentrating on his blueprints.

Jack hated being ignored, even if it was indirectly. With a smirk he sat up and grabbed his phone from the end-table. “I’m thinking extra-large with quadruple cheese, half the sauce, with pickled peppers, pineapple, and extra anchovies- sounds great, huh?”

“Mhm, sure..” Elmo didn’t even register the unappetizing combination, instead he just absent-mindedly agreed and nodded along. Jack pouted and turned the phone over in his hand so that the antenna was pointing forward and poked the teen in the side with it, causing him to yelp and finally look at the pouting duck. “Ack! What?”

Jack gave him a dead-pan expression and a raised eyebrow. “You just agreed to a pizza smothered in cheese with pickled peppers, pineapple, and anchovies.”

Elmo at last made an appropriately disgusted face. “I did? Gross!”

Jack chuckled at the expression and smiled a bit. “That’s more like it. You are WAY too into your electricity crap- way more than usual.” He brought his legs up onto the couch and crossed them as he looked at his friend expectantly. “Wanna tell me WATTS up?”

Elmo rolled his eyes slightly at the pun, but finally set the paper and pencil down with a sigh. “It’s just…prom’s this week and my parents keep bugging me about going.” He looked away from Jack with a slight frown. “They keep asking me which GIRL I’m going to take..” The way he emphasized the gender made it very clear exactly how his parents had been pestering him

Jack nodded in understanding with a sympathetic roll of his eyes. “Oof. That’s rough, bud.”

Elmo looked back over at Jack with an irritated sigh. “It’s so stupid- it’s just a dance. Why does it matter who I go with? Or if I even go at all?”

Jack shrugged and crossed his arms behind his head as he leaned back against the cushions. “It’s ‘cause it’s some sort of ‘sacred rite of passage into adulthood’, or some crap.”

“Who’d you go with for yours again?” Elmo asked as he leaned back more comfortably on the couch too.

“Oh, I went with Stacey Storkson- girl from my theater club.” Jack answered, recalling the blue dress the long-legged girl had picked out and the white and blue tux he’d rented. “Neither of us had a date and we got along well enough, so we went together, took a couple pictures, danced like two times, then went home. It was alright, I guess, as far as parties go.” He looked across the couch at the other boy with a raised eyebrow. “So, anyone you’re thinking about taking?”

Elmo frowned and folded his arms. “No, I don’t really talk to any girls..”

“What about boys?” Jack teased with a smirk.

Elmo shook his head in response. “I don’t really get along well enough with any of the guys at school, either…”

“Hmmm..” Jack hummed in thought, idly spinning the phone in his hand as if it were a large pencil. “Well, anyone outside of school you’d wanna take? You know- someone you’d like to ask out on a date or somethin’?”

The rat grew quiet at that, looking down at his lap with an apprehensive expression on his face. “…………”

Jack looked at him with a curious frown, noting how tense the other boy looked. “Elmo..?” He prompted carefully, not wanting to make his friend feel pressured, but genuinely curious and concerned now.

“……” Elmo took a deep breath in and let it out to calm himself, one hand nervously rubbing at his opposite arm. “There..is one guy I-I kind of..like…well, more than ‘kind of like’..that is, I mean..” He groaned, grabbed one of the throw pillows off of the sofa, and buried his face in it, hiding the growing redness that had spread over his cheeks. “..I..think I have feelings for someone…” He muttered through the fabric and stuffing, just loud enough to be heard.

“WhaaaaaAAAAAT?!” Jack shouted excitedly, bouncing from his end of the couch over to Elmo’s with a big smile. “Mo, that’s awesome!” He shook the boy’s shoulder with both hands. “You gotta ask him out!”

Elmo shook his head fervently, clinging tighter to the pillow. “I can’t..”

“Why not?” Jack tried tugging the pillow free from the rodent’s death-grip. “Just take him to prom with ya! It’s fine if he goes to another school- lots of people sneak friends in!”

Elmo frowned when Jack managed to yank the pillow away. “He..doesn’t go to another school..” He looked away, shrinking back against the couch uncomfortably under Jack’s curious gaze. “He-He finished school a while back…”

“A while ba..?” Jack’s questioned trailed off at the meaning of those words: It was an adult. “Elmo..” Jack said with a sudden tone of seriousness as he put a hand on the younger boy’s shoulder. “He hasn’t tried anything, has he?”

He felt protective fury burning in his chest- the same way it did whenever he saw Elmo hurt or bullied or threatened by someone else. He hated the idea of someone doing anything at all to hurt his best friend and would do anything it took to protect him.

Jack knew from experience that teenage years were already a confusing time for people when it came to hormones, relationships, and sex vs. love, but the whole thing was even worse for people like him and Elmo with so few options available.

In his own search for knowledge about his sexuality, he’d learned that the best sources were adults in less-than-reputable locations. Most of these people were fine to talk to, offering advice and knowledge and understanding that was harder to find in places where the light of society shined much brighter. However, there were always people that preyed upon those confused, attention-starved kids who still didn’t have quite the same grasp on the difference between genuine love and physical attraction.

The thought of Elmo being used by one of those creeps had Jack already mentally planning what weapons to bring and where he could hide a body-

“No!” Elmo’s urgent voice brought him back to the moment at hand as the rat shook his head, avoiding eye-contact with the duck beside him. “He doesn’t- I mean, I’m pretty sure he’s not aware that I..” He took a deep breath before shaking his head again. “He doesn’t know that I like him.”

“Oh, okay..” Jack relaxed his grip on the other’s shoulder, feeling a bit better now that he knew some pervert wasn’t trying to take advantage of his friend. “So, what’s he like?”

“He’s, uh..” Elmo struggled for a moment to find his words. “Well..he’s smart, for starters, a great engineer with a lot of really big and creative ideas. He’s also pretty funny- he makes me laugh a lot.” The look he gave Jack was strange, as if he was looking at him and looking through him at the same time. “He’s really kind and supportive, too…he’s always there for me when I need him…and..and..” He looked away, his face turning red as he managed to say the final piece of his description. “And he’s…he’s m-my best friend..”

Those words hit Jack HARD, making him fall back against the couch as if he’d been physically struck by them.

Wow.

Okay, that…that was a lot to take in…

Jack took a minute to collect his scattered thoughts before he sat back up to look at the nervous rodent on the other side of the couch. “So…” He had to swallow down a lump that had suddenly formed in his throat. “You’re, uh…You’re serious, huh, Mo..?”

Elmo nodded with a shaky laugh, running an anxious hand through his hair. “Y-Yeah…I am.” He took a deep breath before looking at Jack again. “So…?” He prompted, his face telling the older duck that he was prepared for whatever rejection awaited him.

Jack frowned slightly at the hurt look on the other’s face and ran a hand through his own head-feathers to collect his thoughts.

His best friend just confessed to having feelings for him and was expecting an answer. Unfortunately, he wasn’t exactly sure how he felt about the whole situation, himself.

One the one hand, he did like Elmo a lot. He was his best friend and the person who understood and connected with him better than anyone else in the whole world. He had a lot of fun with the guy and, truthfully, he wasn’t that bad in the looks department (even if he was still a bit scrawny). All things considered, if they had been the same age, Elmo was totally the kind of guy Jack would’ve made a pass at by now.

On the other hand, there was the glaring problem that they WEREN’T the same age. Jack was significantly older than his friend and had seen the kid grow up. While it was true that he always thought of the other as his equal and never his junior or something condescending like that, he was still painfully aware of the fact that he was quite a bit older than the kid, as well, and the idea of being with someone who was still, technically, a CHILD grossed him out in ways that made his feathers fluff up, even if it was his best friend.

“Okay, look,” Jack finally said after he got his thoughts sorted, looking at Elmo with a serious expression. “You’re my best friend, Mo, above everything else. BUT, you gotta admit, I’m A LOT older than you.”

Elmo glanced away with a frown and mumbled. “Seven’s not that much..”

“Eight, during the holidays.” Jack added reflexively after many years of jokes regarding how their birthdays fell throughout the year. “Anyway,” He said with a shake of his head to get back on track. “You’re still pretty young and, I get it, things are..kind of weird and confusing right now. I’ve had PLENTY of experience in that department, trust me- it’s real easy to get a crush on someone you’re close to and think it’s love when it’s really just your friggin’ hormones driving you insane.”

That, unfortunately, seemed to be the wrong thing to say, making Elmo’s frown turn into a scowl. “Seriously?” He asked when he looked back up at Jack. “You think that’s all this is? That I’m-That I’m, what? Confused? Stupid? Just that desperate to get it on with someone?”

Jack frowned at the frustrated outburst. “That’s not what I’m sayin’, Mo.”

“Yes it is!” Elmo snapped, his hands curling into fists before he crossed his arms over his chest and looked away. “You think I’m just another stupid teenager and that I don’t know what love feels like just ‘cause I’m ‘inexperienced’. Well, guess what? This isn’t something new for me: I’ve been thinking it over for at least a year now, and it’s driving me crazy!” The edges of his face softened a bit as he frowned again. “It’s not just a stupid ‘physical’ thing, Jackie..I..I actually want to be with you. It sucks and it drives me crazy, but..but everytime I see you, I just get this..I get this sort of, I don’t know, ‘bubbly’- is that the right word? Do people get ‘bubbly’?- feeling in my chest.” He closed his eyes for a moment to avoid the startled look he was getting from the duck. “I think about you being with other people, or someone messing with you, and I start plotting ways to get rid of them. Then, when I think about what I want out of life, all that really comes to mind is just being with you- working together at your company, coming back here together after work, eating dinner together, then just hanging out or falling asleep next to each other.” He took a deep breath before looking at Jack with pleading, watery eyes. “So..So don’t just tell me it’s because I’m confused or because I’m too young- I’m old enough to know that I..I love you, Jackie..” He rubbed his sleeve across his eyes to stop any tears from falling. “Even if..you don’t feel the same..” He added quietly, so softly that Jack almost didn’t catch it.

“Elmo..” Jack frowned at the absolutely heart-broken tone to his dearest friend’s voice. He hated seeing the boy in pain, and hated even more that he was partially responsible for it. Taking a deep breath himself, Jack moved closer and pulled the teenager into a comforting embrace. “I didn’t say that, did I?”

Elmo looked at him hopefully. “You mean-?”

“Ah, ah.” Jack stopped him before he could finish his question with a shake of his head. “I didn’t say that either.” He put a hand on the mammal’s head and petted him gently in a familiar, soothing motion he’d learned after years of comforting the other boy. “Look, everything you just said..well..I’d be lying if I said it didn’t sound like stuff I’d enjoy doing, too. BUT,” He interjected the word into his statement when he saw the hopeful smile starting to form on the boy’s face and tried to stop it before it got too far. “You’re still too young.” He tapped the rat on his long nose when he was about to say something. “And I don’t mean that in a ‘you’re a hormonal teenager’ way, I mean it in a ‘I could go to jail for looking at you inappropriately and would totally deserve to get the shit beaten out of me by a big guy named Brutus in the showers’ sort of way. Right now, it just feels..wrong and kind of icky to think about you like that, you know?” He reasoned with a slight shudder. “And it’s not because it’s YOU- if I’m being honest here, I’d probably have made a move on you years ago if you were in high school with me- it’s because you’re still considered a KID.”

Elmo frowned a bit and looked back down. “So..that’s a pretty hard ‘no’, huh..?” Jack flicked his forehead with a light glare. “Ow!” The rat rubbed his head and looked back up at the duck. “What?”

“Would you quit puttin’ words in my mouth?” Jack said before his glare eased slightly. “It’s not a ‘hard no’, like you said. It’s more of a ‘no for now, but maybe later’, okay?”

“You mean it?” Elmo questioned, that familiar look of suspicion that showed he felt he was just being placated on his face again.

“Yeah, I mean it.” Jack said, holding his pinky out towards the other in a familiar gesture. “We’ll give it a few years, let you get a chance to try dating other kids your own age and see if anything settles down or changes for you. If you still feel that way once you’re old enough to LEGALLY buy me a drink, then I’ll go out with you. Deal?”

Elmo looked at his hand for a few seconds before bringing his own hand up and hooking his pinky around the offered digit. “Deal.” They shook their joined hands before letting go. After a moment’s hesitation, Elmo spoke again. “Hey, Jackie..?”

“Yeah, Mo?” Jack questioned while he went to retrieve the phone from earlier.

“…We’re..” The rodent frowned slightly. “We’re still best friends…right…?”

Jack blinked and looked at the other with a dumb-struck face. “What kind of stupid question is that?” He reached over and playfully tussled the other boy’s hair with a grin. “Of course we are! No matter what happens- if we go out or don’t go out, if we go out and it works out or doesn’t work out- we’re ALWAYS gonna be best friends. Got it?”

“Got it.” Elmo answered with a relieved smile before snatching the phone from Jack. “Now let’s order a pizza that DOESN’T make me hurl.”

Jack laughed and tried to grab the phone back from him (insisting that his jalapeño and Canadian bacon pizza wasn’t THAT bad), the atmosphere between them cleared and as carefree as ever, much to the pair’s combined relief. They spent the evening eating pizza and chocolate snack cakes and watching a comedy show on TV before Elmo left for home with a casual “see you later, Jackie” while Jack gave a light-hearted “smell ya later, Mo!” in return.

However, if Jack had known that was the last day he’d see his friend, he would have said so much more…

Chapter Text

~Age 25- A few days later~

Jack was sitting in his living room, boredly flicking through channels to confirm, once again, that nothing was on. With nothing else to do, he briefly debated on calling Elmo to see if his friend was free to talk for a bit or if he was still working on his science experiment. Maybe he could ask him how his prom went-

A sudden and urgent knock on his door stole his attention from the TV and made him cock an eyebrow in confusion. He rarely received visitors after seven on a weekday. Well, aside from Elmo- but the rat usually just let himself in using his spare key.

Heaving himself up from the couch and looking through the peep-hole in his door, Jack was surprised to see a couple of familiar rats, though without the most familiar one, standing at his door. “Mr. & Mrs.S?” Jack questioned when he opened the door for them. “What’s up?”

Elmo’s mother looked around frantically once she was inside, her usually pristine make-up smudged. “Is-Is Elmo here, Jack?”

Jack frowned at the distressed woman. “Elmo? No, I haven’t seen him since Monday. Why?”

Elmo’s father let out a frustrated sigh as he watched his wife’s expression worsen. “He didn’t come home from school yesterday OR today. We called and they said he didn’t even come in today and that no one even saw him at the dance. We know he comes to see you a lot, so we thought he was just hiding out here for some stupid reason.” He side-eyed Jack with a suspicious glare. “You sure he ain’t here?”

Jack scowled at the unwarranted look he was receiving. “Oh, gee, I’m PRETTY sure I’d notice another person hiding out in my apartment for two days- then again, maybe I’m just so blind and stupid that I confused my friend with a coat rack or something.” His voice was sarcastic and dripping with venom as he glared daggers at the surly rat. The two hadn’t exactly spoken since Jack found out about what the man did to his best friend.

“Don’t get smart with me, kid.” The rat countered with a harder glare. “We’re not stupid, we know the little faggot comes here to lick his wounds when he’s feelin’ ‘put-out’. If I find out you did anything with him-”

“If I did anything?!” Jack snapped at the older man while staring him down. “I’m not the one that makes him cry! I never grabbed him by the throat and made him run away from home in the middle of the night after beating the shit out of him! I’ve never HURT him!” He stared the rat down with two years-worth of malice and contempt weighing down his words, the righteous fury that had built up over time finally getting the chance to explode like it wanted to for so long. “If he’s missing, it’s probably because YOU finally drove him away! And, you know what?! I’d be glad to hear it if he did run away because I’m sick of seein’ the look on his face every time you decide to be an intolerant ass who’d rather have a son that hates himself than one that’s happy! Even if he did come here, I’d call the fuckin’ police WAY before I called YOU!”

Elmo’s father snarled and curled his hand into a fist. “Don’t talk to me like you know shit about my family, boy!” He slammed his fist into Jack’s face, but was surprised when the duck grabbed his arm and wrenched it back painfully. “!!”

Jack glared dangerously at the man he was currently bringing to his knees. “What’s wrong, old man? Not used to hitting someone that fights back?!” He brought his foot back and kicked the rat in his ribs.

He felt a sense of elation and vindication at finally striking back at his best friend’s abuser and kicked him again. And again. And again.

He didn’t care where he hit him- the face, the gut, his chest- Jack was seeing red and didn’t feel like stopping his assault anytime soon.

“Stop!” Elmo’s mother cried out desperately. “Please, stop!”

Jack spared her a milder glare over his shoulder (he didn’t hate her as much as he did her husband, but she still didn’t do anything to help or protect her son so he didn’t like her much, either). “Tch..” He gave the rat one last kick in the ribs before shoving him towards the door. “Come here again and I’ll tell the police you attacked me in my own home- I can afford better lawyers than you can now.”

That was all he said to the couple as they retreated from his apartment.

“Told you he was a bad influence on the kid..” He heard the old rat say to his wife once they were outside.

Jack slammed and locked the door behind them, adrenaline still burning through his veins. He turned his back to the door, clenched his fists at his sides, then looked down.

The anger and adrenaline slowly drained from his body as he now took the time to fully process the news that his best friend was actually missing.

He slowly slumped against the hard wood behind him and sunk down to a seated position. “Darn it..” He said while bringing a hand up to cover his face. “Where’d ya go, Mo…?”

~Age 25-40~

The search lasted for months, police coming by occasionally to ask him if he’d seen any trace of the missing teenager, to which he always replied negatively.

Every day when he came home from work, he silently hoped that he’d open the door and see his best friend sitting on the couch working on some new invention or his homework as if everything were normal. And every day he came home to the same disappointment.

On nights when he couldn’t sleep, he’d roam the streets to search for any signs at all of his best friend. Then, on days when he couldn’t concentrate on his work, he’d stop by Elmo’s school on the way home to see if anyone had heard or seen anything, but most of them barely even knew the kid existed so he stopped going there after the first few weeks (plus that one duck kid, Drakie something, kept trying to interrogate him for having a “suspicious appearance” and that was annoying as hell).

Eventually, the police stopped coming altogether and the rat was officially filed as a cold-case missing person’s report.

Jack played over their last few conversations in his mind over and over again. The last time he saw him had been emotionally turbulent, but he’d left on a good note. The few conversations they’d had over the phone before his disappearance didn’t seem out of place or anything.

Still, in the back of his mind, Jack couldn’t help but wonder if he’d missed some sort of sign..or, worse, that HE was the reason the teenager had gone missing…

Years went by and Jack focused on his toy business. The company grew and expanded over time and became one of the best known toy companies in the country, a feat he was quite proud of. Quackerjack Toys was frequently listed in several magazines and newspapers as one of the greatest toy manufacturers in the world. Jack had all of the fame and success he’d ever dreamed of!

Still, he never gave up hope that Elmo would turn up one day, so he stubbornly refused to move out of his apartment, even when his toy company’s main office moved to the other side of town and resulted in a longer commute. After all, he promised that he’d have the toy company up and running by the time Elmo finished school so they could go into business together- he had to make sure there was something waiting for the rat when he eventually came back.

Unfortunately, as time went on, things took a turn for the worst.

Jack began to suffer from stress and anxiety as his company’s stock-price plummeted. As video games began to gain popularity, less and less people were buying his toys. Frustrated and cracking under the stress, his toy designs began to take a much darker turn- he included real blades and knives, made dolls that were scary to children, stuffed animals that hunted kids like wild beasts, and many other horrifying contraptions.

Lawsuits piled up and, in one particularly bad court case, he finally snapped and attacked everyone in the room by unleashing an army of chattering teeth that moved on their own to bite the victims around him.

Realizing too late what he’d done, Jack ran from the police that tried to arrest him. He managed to get to his apartment before they did and packed the things that mattered most to him:

His toy design notebooks.

His favorite toys.

His favorite red and blue jacket.

And, at the last minute before the police kicked in his door, the framed picture of himself and Elmo from that Halloween decades ago.

He laughed madly as he took a running leap out the window, startling the officers. He landed safely thanks to his natural talent for acrobatics and went into hiding.

Jack spent the next few years living under society’s radar, hiding out in sewers and abandoned buildings as he plotted his revenge against those who wronged him.

His quest for vengeance drove him completely mad, leading the once proud businessman to reinvent himself as Quackerjack- the toy themed super villain of St. Canard!

Chapter Text

~Age: No Longer Sure~

Quackerjack kicked open the door of his current hideout with a chuckle, a bag of stolen goodies hoisted over his shoulder. “Oh Sparky, I’m hoo~ooome!” He called up towards the top of the lighthouse.

“Don’t call me Sparky!” Came the immediate reply of his electrically themed partner in crime from up the stairs.

Quackerjack giggled to himself as he hauled the loot up the stairs so he could show it off to the other super villain.

The insane toy making enthusiast had been introduced to the amped-up lightbulb liberator through another super villain named Negaduck, who, together with Quackerjack, his partner Megavolt, and their cohorts Dr.Bushroot and the Liquidator, formed a terrifying group dubbed “The Fearsome Five” that briefly took over St. Canard and regularly committed great acts of theft and mayhem throughout the town.

While he didn’t see the others as regularly outside of Fearsome Five (Fearsome Four if Negaduck was absent) work, he’d formed a rather special bond with the charged menace and found himself spending more and more time with the rodent. They worked exceptionally well together, able to match each other’s strengths and weaknesses quite well.

It also didn’t hurt that Megavolt was just as insane as Quackerjack AND that he shared the jester’s love of puns, jokes, and theatrics.

Aside from their bond as villains, though, Quackerjack couldn’t help but feel a certain kind of kinship with the unhinged rat that he hadn’t felt with anyone in a particularly long time. Even outside of causing mayhem and destruction, he liked spending time with the other villain doing whatever either one of them felt like in that particular moment. It didn’t take long at all for the two to become partners in more than one way…

As he reached the top of the stairs and tossed the bag into the room carelessly, Quackerjack finally got a good look at his electrifying counterpart.

The yellow-wearing rat was currently hard at work on some blueprints for a new gadget that he said would give them control of every electronic lock in the city- allowing them to steal its most heavily guarded items with ease. Megavolt had a strained look of concentration on his face as he frantically scribbled across the paper, likely trying to jot everything down before he forgot about it again.

With a mischievous smirk, Quackerjack snuck over to his distracted partner and placed his hands over the other villain’s goggles to cover his eyes. “Guess who, Sparky?”

“Quackyyy!” Megavolt groaned in frustration as he pulled the toy maker’s hands off of his goggles. “I told you to stop calling me Sparky!” As if in counterpoint to his claims, or as a demonstration of his nickname, a small spark of electricity jumped from his whiskers when he turned to glare at the duck.

“Aww, lighten up, Megsy!” Quackerjack teased, putting his hands on the other’s fluffy cheeks so he could squish them together. “Sparky’s a great nickname!”

“No, it’s annoying.” Megavolt said while swatting the other’s hands away with a pout. He then folded his arms and looked away, clearly sulking. “Can’t you call me something else since we’re, you know, dating?” He paused, blinked twice as if something just occurred to him, then looked back up at Quackerjack with a confused expression. “We..are dating, right, Jackie? Or is that something I just thought up?”

Quackerjack giggled quietly and wrapped his arms around his partner’s neck with an amused smile. “Yeah, Megs, we’re dating.” Megavolt’s short-term amnesia problem had made the first few months of their relationship interesting, resulting in many times where Quackerjack had to remind him of the TRUE nature of their partnership. He didn’t mind repeating himself a few times- after all, it just meant he got to do little things like give Megavolt a first kiss all over again! “Besides,” He continued after giving the rodent a smooch on the tip of his long nose. “If we weren’t dating, you wouldn’t know my name!”

He let go of the confused rat and walked over to where he’d left his stolen goodies, pulling out an equally mixed assortment of valuables, money, and snacks. He found one of his favorite chocolate bars and peeled the wrapper off so he could take a big bite, humming in satisfaction as he ate.

“I know your name?” Megavolt asked, walking over to join Quackerjack and take out the loot. He grabbed a chocolate bar as well and peeled it open to take a bite.

“Mhm, you said it a minute ago- you called me Jackie.” Quackerjack explained, finishing his chocolate bar and tossing the wrapper aside carelessly.

“I did?” Megavolt questioned, still looking confused. “I thought I called you Quacky?” He finished his candy as well and tossed the wrapper aside in a similar fashion.

“You did, but you called me Jackie, too.” Quackerjack paused briefly to think over a rather crucial bit of information. “Say, Megsy, I don’t think we ever actually TOLD each other our names, did we?”

“Did we?” Megavolt wondered aloud, trying hard to remember if they had or not. “We must have, right? How else would I know YOURS?”

Quackerjack shrugged. “Could’ve just been a lucky guess. Buuuuut-” He cartwheeled over to the still confused rodent and pointed at him dramatically. “You should tell me your name, too, Sparky!”

Megavolt gave his companion a half-hearted glare. “If I do, will you quit calling me Sparky for five minutes?” When Quackerjack just shrugged again with a giggle, Megavolt rolled his eyes. “Fiiiiiine. But you have to promise not to laugh!”

“Sure thing, sparkles.” Quackerjack teased with a chuckle, one hand moving so he could cross his fingers behind his back.

Megavolt grimaced at the irritating pet name and hesitated a moment more before glancing away and finally revealing his name. “…It’s..It’s Elmo…”

Quackerjack’s previous chuckling came to a sudden and abrupt halt.

A simple name. Four letters, two syllables.

A once familiar word he hadn’t said aloud in who knew how long.

“El..mo..?” He repeated the name back, his voice trembling as he stared at the rat in disbelief.

There’s no way…

He couldn’t be…

“Yeah, yeah..” Megavolt said irritably. “I know, it’s a dorky name. Go ahead and get it out of your syst-AAAH!” He yelped when the clown suddenly tackled him to the ground, hovering over him with a strangely desperate and bewildered look on his face. “Owww!” He whined from the pain of hitting the ground, reaching around to rub the back of his head. “What was that for Quack..er..jack..?” He trailed off when he finally took notice of the way the duck was looking at him. “What???”

Quackerjack didn’t answer his friend at first. Instead, he just reached down with shaking hands and began to remove the other’s hat and goggles.

Everything else about him fit: The name, the rest of his face, the engineering brilliance, the fascination with electricity, the way they got along so well, his sense of humor-

He wanted so desperately for his assumption to be true, but he HAD to be sure.

Once he finally had the confused rat’s hat and goggles off of his head for a change, he let out a choked gasp. “Elmo..”

There was no mistaking it..

The brown hair and the shape of his head confirmed it.

He may have changed a little due to age and his eyes had shrunken quite a bit, but he really WAS Elmo Sputterspark.

While he was busy being blown away by this revelation, Megavolt was getting frustrated from his position beneath the jester on the floor. “You’re weirding me out, Quackerjack..more than usual..can you just get o-?” His complaining stopped when the bird above him suddenly wrapped both arms around the electric rat in a tight embrace and he buried his face against a yellow-clad shoulder. “Quacky..?” He asked with a frown, clearly confused by the other’s extra-weird behavior.

Quackerjack’s body began to tremble as he held onto the smaller man, almost as if he were afraid to let go. “Heh..heheh..ehehaha..” A sudden giggle-fit consumed him that rapidly escalated into full-blown manic laughter. “HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAHAAHAHHAHAH!”

Megavolt finally had enough of the duck’s odder-than-usual behavior and managed to sit up, giving the duck a light shove so that he began to roll around on the floor during his laughing fit. “I don’t get it- what’s so funny?” He asked with an annoyed pout.

“LIFE!” Quackerjack answered breathlessly between his loud bouts of laughter. “Life is HILARIOUS, Elmo! LIFE! Woohoohoohaha! AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAA!!” The insane clown eventually gained enough control over himself again to sit back up and give the beyond-confused electrophile a proper explanation. He did so by reaching into the chest area of his costume and pulling out something that was carefully preserved in a plastic baggy. “Do you remember this?” He asked, handing the object over to Megavolt.

“??” The rodent took the offered bag with a curious tilt of his head. He saw that inside the baggy was a worn out photograph of a young rat boy and an older duck boy dressed as a pair of prisoners with the words “Jackie and Elmo, PARTNERS IN CRIME!” around the white boarder. “This..This is..me..and..” Megavolt stared at the image for several seconds before something seemed to click in his mind and he turned to the smiling duck with wide eyes. “You…” Unfortunately, he seemed to get the wrong meaning from the picture because this time he was the one to tackle the other to the ground. He held the grinning madman by the front of his shirt while his other hand held the picture tightly. “Where did you get this?! I swear, if you hurt him, I’m gonna-!!”

“Slow your roll, Mo.” Quackerjack giggled, thinking the other looked so cute when he was all protective and angry like that. “I’m not THAT much of a masochist- I wouldn’t hurt myself over a picture.”

Megavolt apparently still didn’t get the meaning behind the other’s words, electricity sparking along the hand that was holding the duck’s colorful costume serving as a clear sign of his frustration. “What are you talking about, Quackerjack?”

With a smile that was slightly less insane than his usual ones, Quackerjack brought his hands up towards his bizarre hat-mask combination. “You don’t have to call me that, y’know. I already told you, Mo-” He pushed the fabric up enough to reveal his face to the other super villain. “Call me Jackie.”

Megavolt stared long and hard at the face below him before, with a blink that left his eyes wider than before, a jolt of electricity visibly passed up his body and through his hair- as if the realization was trying to physically manifest itself. “!!” He dropped the picture and brought a quivering hand to the clown’s face, touching it as though he wasn’t sure if what he was seeing was real or not. “J..Jackie…?”

Quackerjack grinned up at the stunned rat and placed one of his own hands over the one on his face. “Took you THAT long to get it, Mo? Guess you really did fry your brain, huh?”

“You-You were wearing a mask!” The rodent looked slightly embarrassed over being called out in such a way. “How was I supposed to know it was you?!”

“Are you kidding me?” Quackerjack asked as he sat up abruptly, knocking both of them over in the other direction so he was on top again. “I used the same name as my toy company! How could you not know?! And why didn’t you ever come visit me, you jerk?! I was worried sick!”

“I…I forgot..” Megavolt admitted with a frown, bringing a hand to his head as a look of pain crossed his face. “I couldn’t remember where you lived..or where I lived..I couldn’t remember where to find you or what your company was called..I barely remembered my own name, but I…I tried so hard to make sure I at least remembered YOU..I-I couldn’t remember your voice, but I tried to hold on to your face..” He opened his eyes and looked up at his closest friend in the world with an expression full of pain and remorse. “I’m…I’m sorry, Jackie…I tried..I-I really..”

“Elmo..” Quackerjack’s expression softened as he sat back up, pulling the other into his arms the same way he had so many times when they were younger. A hand instinctively found its way to the other’s slightly singed hair and pet it in a familiar, soothing motion. “It’s alright, buddy..we’re together now..” He hugged him tighter and planted a kiss on his cheek. “I’ve got my partner in crime again.” He tilted both of their heads down so that their foreheads could touch and he closed his eyes with a peaceful smile on his face.

“Heh, me too.” Megavolt said with a small smile, wrapping his own arms around the older duck and holding onto him just as tightly. “…Hey..Jackie..?”

“Yeah, Mo?” Quackerjack asked while opening one eye so he could look into the other’s shrunken pupil.

The sight that greeted him was a bright smile on that familiar-yet-new face. “Guess I’m finally old enough to take you out for that drink, huh?”

“Pfft! Hahahaha!” The question earned a snort of laughter from the duck. “I guess you are, kid!” He jumped up to his feet agilely, pulling the maniacal rat up with him. “C’mon, let’s paint the town red!” He joked while pulling his red mask/hat back into place.

“We’ll light up the night!” Megavolt cackled in agreement, putting his own hat and goggles back on and sparking brightly with electricity while taking Quackerjack’s hand in his own.

Jumping down the stairs two at a time while Megavolt walked at a steady pace beside him, Quackerjack couldn’t resist bringing up something that he felt needed to be said. “Oh yeah, by the way- I kicked your old man’s butt.”

Megavolt let out a loud laugh at that. “Really? Great! He was a jerk!…At least, I think he was…”

Quackerjack chuckled in agreement. “Yeah, he was. He punched me, so I kicked his butt…and his head, guts, ribs, and chest. Your parents refused to come back after that, for some reason.” He giggled gleefully as he remembered the feeling of beating the obnoxious rodent with such primal rage. He was suddenly jerked to a halt when he realized that the voltage junkie behind him had stopped moving. “Hm?” He tipped his head all the way back so he could see Megavolt upside down behind him. “What’s up, Megsy?”

Megavolt had a dark scowl on his face, eyes narrowed. “He HIT you?!” Sparks began flying off of his body as he seethed in anger. “Ooooh, if I ever get my hands on him, I’ll-!!” He didn’t even finish his threat, he just let out a frustrated shout and shot electricity out in a wide burst around himself and Quackerjack.

The crackling energy tickled as it raced across the duck’s body, like it always did whenever his partner let loose. He was more than used to it and often enjoyed the feeling, but, for some reason, it seemed especially attractive to him in that moment.

“Ya know, Mo..” He began with a giggle, wrapping his arms around the other villain’s shoulders. “You’re kinda cute when you’re crazy.” He pulled the startled rodent that was still standing a couple steps above him into a surprise kiss.

At first, Megavolt was too startled to do anything, but his body guided him in the proper way to kiss his partner back while his mind was still catching up. When they eventually broke apart for air, Megavolt had dull waves of static circulating around his body that were being passed along to Quackerjack’s own, causing their respective fur and feathers to fluff up slightly.

“You’re cute when you’re crazy, too, Jackie.” He said with a slightly unhinged grin. “And I love you for it.”

Quackerjack returned the grin with a less-than-sane smile of his own. “Love ya too…Sparky.” He finished with a hysteric laugh at the glare the other man shot him.

Together, the pair ventured out into the night with plans to muscle their way into a fancy restaurant and, likely, steal the wallets and valuables of the rich customers while they were there.

Many things had changed for them over the years: Neither had gotten what they dreamed of in life. Neither of them had a family or a home to go back to. Neither of them were sane, and probably never would be again.

However, those things mattered far less than what had remained the same between them:

They were still the best of friends and partners in crime, no matter what life threw at them.