Sorry for the delay. I may write big but I also write slow!
CA$H ONLY
Chapter 8: Withdrawal$
By: I Write Big
Pain is an illusion.
The concept known as pain is nothing but a word used to describe the electrical signals that rush through the body to tell the brain it should stop doing whatever the hell is causing that very signal. Legends speak of mammals in the Far East who have, through decades of meditation, mastered the art of blocking pain from their minds. This doesn't serve any purpose other than to allow these Masters to regularly sit on hot coals for no discernible reason. Maybe to show off to tourists. In his tranq fueled Nirvana, Duke truly believed he had reached that fabled level of enlightenment.
"Wake him up!"
There was a slight pressure on his chest but Duke didn't give a shit. Giving a shit was a pain and pain is an illusion. Such trivialities didn't matter in the grand scheme. That pressure on his chest was kinda getting prickly though... As if that heavy something was not on his chest, but rather in his chest… like, literally inside his chest… Was that an illusion too?
...
Nope, there was definitely something in his chest. And it was pouring into him searing hot fire! Pain is real! PAIN IS REAL!
"GAH!" screamed Duke as his eyes ripped open.
"`Bout damn time!" a squeaky voice said. "How ya enjoying the pick-me-up?"
His heart pounded so hard and fast against his ribcage that Duke feared he was going into cardiac arrest! His nerves were so heightened that he could feel every individual strand of his fur bristle and that just made his skin itch like crazy! His neck snapped around until his muzzle pointed down at the Epi-Pen still stabbed into his sternum like a knife. The urge to faint at the disturbing sight straight out of a Pup Fiction was overpowered by the adrenaline the needle had pumped into him.
Then he unexpectedly yawned.
"Huh, guess there's still some tranq in ya system, Weasel-boy."
Christ Almighty, did that voice hurt. It was worse than claws on a chalkboard while a laughing hyena huffed helium. He moved to cover his ears but his arms didn't seem to want to listen to him. Duke's head swiveled towards the painful voice but then lost control and tipped to the side. Somehow his skull had gotten ten times heavier.
"Oh jeez, this one's a riot. I'm in no mood to play. Hold him."
Duke struggled against the massive weight, barely swinging his neck back and forth to roll his cranium like a teeter-totter. The room flipped in and out of focus like a badly shot B-Movie - something must be wrong with his eyes - but he got the idea he was laying on a table in a dark and very cold room. The gentle ocean gurgling in his head told him that this was fine. The rapidfire rocket going off between his lungs disagreed. They both seemed to agree the wire box attached to his wrist where his paw should be was strange.
What was he doing here? What was he doing before he got here? It was all so blurry… At last he spied his captor. Standing over him was a disinterested polar bear in a nice suit. Didn't exactly match the voice. "Hey! I said, hold him!" that squeaky source of sorrow ordered. The polar bear plucked out one of the earplugs he was wearing and looked down at something Duke couldn't see. "Hold him in place like ya did before!" The polar bear nodded, replugged his ear and grabbed Duke's head. The gargantuan paw gingerly turned him until Duke was looking at… a shrew.
There was a nagging flicker that told Duke he knew this lady shrew with the big hair. The ocean in his head totally agreed because all mammals are connected in one beautiful family. The rocket in his chest evolved into a multi-detonating firework. There was an importance to this shrew and Duke knew what that importance was, he was just too high to remember.
Needle claws threaded into Duke's nose hair and pulled tight, "You were too tranqued out when I asked this earlier, Weasel-boy, but this time, I wanna straight answer. WHERE'S..." the claws wrenched tighter and a tear trickled down Duke's jowl. "MY..." she pulled him closer and he saw manic anger flashing across her face. "BABY?!" A pawful of nose hairs ripped out and there was pain! So much pain!
Howling like a wolf, Duke's brain breached the ocean's surface and gasped for breath as memory after memory came rushing back to him like a hot kiss at the end of wet fist! Bootlegging! Puma Usher! Love Comes Fur Me! Wipe your record clean! Horn! South! Cash! Travis! Crazy shrew! Pickle! Picklle! Pikel! Recipe! Train! Bunnyburrow! Gideon! Ransom! Commercial! Cottontail! Pickle, Picklle, Pikel again! Clawleone! Plane! Travis! Horn! Another train! Half a train! Cottontail again! Crazy shrew again! Travis! Horn! TRAVIS! HORN! TRAVIS-HORN!
...Li'l Judy.
He had fucked up.
Duke coughed and his eyes rolled into the back of his head. After days on the run, he had made it practically to the Big Mansion doorstep and then fucked up. He made the stupid mistake of trusting the one mammal who was nice to him. Then again, how the hell was he supposed to know Travis and Horn were the same mammal? That was lamer than a Shyama-llama twist! Where was the slow build up? The clever clues? What was this, a soap opera?! Better question: what the fuck is happening? He was tranqued... and left buried in the snow to freeze… He was dug up and taken somewhere warm, uh… warmer. But by who? With what miniscule control he had, he narrowed his sights on the shrew.
She was who he came to deliver for.
She was Fru Fru.
Mama.
"Oh, ready to talk now? Good. Daddy made this look hard," Mama dropped the nose hairs with a confident grimace that could intimidate Mayor Lionheart. It only made Duke give her a slack-jawed smile. She was the shrew he had been searching for and she was Big's daughter! This tiny shrew had an arctic army at her beck and call that was dying for a weasel to give them a target! He had zero clues what Travis-Horn-Whatever was really after but that didn't matter anymore! All that mattered was Duke could tell Mama where her baby was!
"Glalwlihhh…"
For the longest time, no mammal uttered a sound. That was not the dramatic moment Duke had imagined.
"Glalwlihh!" repeated Duke. His mouth was numbed to paralysis. Sounds moaned and groaned out of him like a blind drunk but they sounded like gibberish.
"What the hell are ya saying?" Fru Fru demanded, "Glossyric?"
"Glalwlihh!"
"Claw it?"
"Ah! Glalwlihh!"
"Growlith? The Pokemon?" guessed a new voice from down near Duke's paws.
"Fredo, I got this!" Fru Fru called down to the other voice. "Ya just keep trying to wake your brother."
"I'm am, but when Donny plays dead, there's no tellin' when he'll get up. Could be minutes, could be hours."
She dragged a frustrated paw through her fur as Duke tried to smack his lips and managed to spray spit everywhere. "Give him another shot!"
Nothing happened.
"Hey!"
The polar bear holding Duke in place let go, presumably to pull out one of those deafness-preventing earplugs, and gravity pulled Duke's super heavy skull back around until he saw the cage holding that crazy shrew Donny. Next to it sat a guy shrew. He gave Duke a kind wave.
"Hey there, how you doin'? Name's Fredo. Hope my wife isn't givin' you too much trouble, but we are lookin' for our kit, you know. Can I get you somethin' to eat? You thirsty?"
If Duke's jaw wasn't hanging like a limp noodle over the table edge already, it would've dropped to the floor. Never had Duke met a nice shrew. Not to sound speciesist but violent and mean were to shrews as fluffy and cute were to bunnies. Only exception was li'l Judy but she was still a baby. This shrew before him, though, glowed with genuine affection and morality. It made Duke want to puke.
Fredo pulled out a tiny silk handkerchief and proceeded to wipe the drool off Duke's cheeks, "Here, you got a little somethin'." Fru Fru jumped into view and pushed the handkerchief away.
"What are ya doing, Fredo? Don't be nice to this trash! He took our baby!"
"Aw, I'm sorry, Snookums. I only thought he might need some comfort because you were doin' such a good job scarin' him."
She giggled like a young school shrew, "I was?"
Fredo wrapped his arms around Fru Fru and dipped her romantically, "The way you were screamin' into his face when he was still drugged, I've never seen you more beautiful."
"Klilghh Alliegee!" Duke swore. Thankfully, he was rolled away from the disgusting sight and faced the polar bear again. In their paws was a fresh Epi-Pen, its needle gleaming in the dim light. The multi-detonating firework upgraded to a never-ending howitzer! "Glalwlihh! Glalwlihh! Glalwlihh!"
The shrews continued their conversation near his ear. "You sure that's smart, Snookums? Those shots are meant for bears as big as Koslov. I'm surprised the first one didn't kill him."
"Ya leave the worrying to me, Fredo. Let him have it!"
Nothing happened.
"Hey!"
The polar bear plucked out an earplug "Hmm?"
"Don't 'hmm' me! The hell ya think I was saying? Let him—"
There was a knock-knock-knock. "Sweetie, ya down there?" Every mammal in the room froze, except Duke.
"Glalwlihh!"
"Shut him up!" At Fru Fru's orders, something thick and distinctly sock-shaped was stuffed into Duke mouth. Without the muscle dexterity to spit out the wad of sweaty cotton, Duke could only pray that his sense of taste didn't return soon.
He heard the bear carry the shrews up a set a stairs and Fru Fru's sickenly sweet voice sounded from above, "What is it, daddy?"
"Hopps is here. She said ya was waitin' for her."
At this point, Duke's ability to feel a chilling ball of icy dread drop into the pit of his stomach returned with a vengeance.
"What are ya doin' down there by the way, sweetie?"
"Keepin' Fredo company, is all. Don't mind us, Daddy."
Duke heard the door slam and an extra pair of feet returned down the steps, "Weselton?"
"Eeshldin!"
Cottontail popped into his view, showing equal parts concern and shock, "What did you—Why are you—Cheese and crackers!" She yanked out the Epi-Pen. That hurt much less than Duke expected. Then she took the sock from his mouth and used it to staunch the blood seeping out of his chest. "Bandages!" she demanded.
"S-Sorry, don't got any, officer," Fredo shrugged, "This is more of a torture basement."
Cottontail pressed a finger to his neck and growled, "Why are you torturing him? His heart rate is through the roof! I could arrest you for this!"
"Hey!" scoffed Fru Fru, "I was tryin' to find my baby! Ya lucky I didn't bring him to Daddy. He'd have already iced this weasel three times!"
Through the numbness, Duke felt the pressure from Cottontail's paws lessen. He saw her anger soften, "He didn't have… li'l Judy?"
"He was on the South edge of Tundratown, buried under a bridge, drugged out of his mind like a homeless bum..." Fru Fru continued on and on about the disgusting state Duke was found in but neither he nor Cottontail listened. He instead stared back at her searching gaze that seemed to be trying to read his weary face. Duke never thought he would ever feel the need to apologize to a copper but that's exactly what was happening. Without any of his lies or tricks, this mammal had trusted him. Actually trusted him! And he went and fucked it all up. He should've been left to die under that bridge.
Cottontail leaned down and asked, "Did you see the mammal who took her?"
He weakly groaned back only to show how useless it was to ask, "Glalwlihh."
"Don't talk. Blink," she instructed. "One blink: yes. Two blinks: no. Did you see the mammal who took her?"
He wanted to tell her to stop. He couldn't help. What was she going to do, go down a list of every mammal in Zootopia? Still, he couldn't bring himself to ignore her. Blink.
"Did they hurt her?"
The ferret seemed more interested in keeping the baby out of sight. Something about distracting the Bigs and Clawleones. A mammal smarter than him would've figured this out by now. Why couldn't've Cottontail trusted a clever fox like Wilde? Why did she have to go and trust a dumbass like him? Blink-blink.
"Do you know where they took her?"
And there was the million dollar question! Anxiety racked Duke's already speeding heart as he heard Li'l Judy calling his name. Begging him to save her. And he laid there like roadkill. Blink-blink.
The wind in Cottontail's sail vanished. Those dumb ears flopped against her back. Seems she was finally getting the message. He couldn't help her. He was useless. She had trusted the wrong mammal.
A phone was held up to his face, on it he saw a news article from down South picturing a shrew. "They didn't look anything like him, did they? Does the name Michael Hornesto mean anything to you?" Duke sighed. This idiot copper didn't even know she was looking for a ferret. She was clearly grasping at straws at this point.
Blink-bli— "Ol' ooo?!"
Another layer of numbness melted away and Duke felt the intoxicating rush he got when he figured out the end of the movie from just seeing the trailer! This shrew looked just like crazy Donny in the cage! Only those ears! Those damn ears don't belong on a shrew! They belong on a—
"`EHE!" For the first time in what felt like weeks, Duke's body jerked, bouncing himself against the table!
"Hey! Whoa! The hell is he doing?" screeched Fru Fru.
Cottontail held him down but kept the phone in front of his face, "What is it, Weaselton? Do you know him?"
He scoured the article, jumping past all the meaningless well-wishes, the simple career summary, the funeral time, until he saw the word… 'orphan'. The first sense of feeling returned. Specifically around his ankle where a strip of film felt like it gripped tighter than an iron chain. With that tightening a spark had been ignited and like on a trail of gunpowder that spark shot from one edge of his mind to the other, making ridiculous connections he had no way of proving, no evidence to back up his hairbrained theory! It was emotional logic! It was movie logic! It was his logic!
Christ Almighty… The ocean was right.
"He stopped movin', did he have a seizure?" asked a very concerned Fredo.
A bunny paw tilted Duke's chin towards a rather anxious copper, "Weaselton, you know him?"
Goddamn right he knew him. Evidently, he knew a lot of shit. At least, he thought he knew a lot of shit. Could very well be full of shit but he wouldn't know what shit he knew until he checked that shit. Right? Blink.
A joyful grin wrapped Cottontail's furry face, "Alright, I'm gonna get you back to the station, clean you up and we're going to catch—"
Blink-blink.
The words caught in Cottontail's mouth when she saw Duke's refusal. Duke wished he had the tongue control to explain to her the need to maintain the illusion that he was still under that bridge. That this would only work if he went alone, or even where he needed to go alone. That he needed her to trust him one last time. That he needed the chance to unfuck this up!
"Weaselton, I can't let you go. Not after everything you've done."
The bravado and eagerness left Duke as he looked back at her regretful thousand-yard stare and was reminded who he was sloppily pleading with. This was Cottontail. He wouldn't be surprised if she'd give herself a parking ticket! To her, the law was the law. And the law said he was under arrest.
"There are those we put away… and those we try to change." Her sentence hanged in the air as he saw something new overcome Cottontail. He couldn't name what that look in her eye was, but it gave him hope. "You know... as much as I hate to admit it, I was impressed with your diner plan. You can be pretty clever when you want to be, Weaselton. Anybody can be anything, right?" She removed the sock from his no longer bleeding chest and took his free paw. She smiled down at him and for a second Duke thought he saw in her what Wilde saw. "Today, I guess, you get to be the hero."
With a swift tug, she hefted Duke onto her back.
"Um, officer, if you need help escortin' him back to your cruiser..." offered Fredo.
She marched towards the stairs, "I'm not arresting him."
"Bu-but we're pressin' charges!" Fredo sputtered.
"And I've been taken off the case."
"Hbttat—WHAT?!" the shriek echoed into every corner of the Big Mansion. Duke's ears flattened against his skull but he still heard Fru Fru's huffs and puffs, "THAT MONSTER STOLE MY BABY! AND YOU'RE NOT TAKIN' HIM IN?! GET HER!"
Nothing happened.
"Hey! Take out those damn earplugs! She's gettin' away!"
From Duke's position hanging on Cottontail's back, he got a clear view of the polar bear unstopping an ear and going, "Hmm?" before Cottontail reached the top of the staircase and kicked open the door. Several polar bears down the hall turned towards them.
"GET THAT WEASEL!" Fru Fru's orders erupted from the basement. That was enough and the polar bears barreled towards them.
The world got suddenly far away as Duke was carried high into the air, just beyond the mountainous polar bear fists. They came down against a far wall and launched again at what felt 20 times faster than when he crashed that plane yesterday. Cottontail landed a two-legged kick against one bear's jaw and the mammal toppled over like a tree. Duke wondered what the hell were those bunny legs made of.
Tipping over as much bear-sized furniture behind her as she could, Cottontail steered them through the mansion. It was disorienting not being able to see where they were going. From Duke's point of view, the polar bears were always on their tails, barely out of reach. He had no idea what the Big Mansion's layout was like but they had already made nine turns and dove through twelve doors! Christ Almighty! How big was Big's place?!
Another turn and up a flight of stairs, slide down a spiral staircase railing, around an indoor marble fountain and then STOP!
The stop was so sudden and abrupt, Duke nearly flew out of Cottontail's hold. There were no more polar bears behind them, no sounds of being chased. They must've lost them! Then why the hell weren't they escaping?!
"Hopps?"
Oh…
Duke saw the bunny legs before him try to adopt a casual pose, "Mr. Big, hehe, nice to see you, again, even though I juuust saw you a minute ago, in your own house, which is here."
"...Wha whe ucck?" remarked Duke before he could stop himself.
"Who is that you got on your back?"
Cottontail maneuvered around to make sure Big couldn't see behind her. "Him? Oh, nooobody you have to worry about. Complete stranger." Duke couldn't believe what he was witnessing. He didn't know what he wished he could do more right then, slap himself or laugh his ass off. Goody-goody Cottontail couldn't lie to save her life! It was only with bitter irony that he realized that his life was the one her lies needed to save. "Me and Fru Fru finished that uh… thing we had to do so…"
"...Daddy..." the battlecry faintly roared like a distant yet fast approaching train.
"What was that?" asked Big.
"Fru Fru? I didn't hear Fru Fru! And I absolutely would've heard her because, you know, bunny ears. And now, if you'll excuse me, I'll be on my way."
"You taking the nobody with you? Koslov here could help you carry—"
"NO! I mean, there's no need." They were on the other side of Big now and Cottontail's legs started pedaling backwards. "I will take care of this. Thank you for the offer!"
Christ Almighty! How was Big falling for this hokey schlock? How did Bellweather fall for this hokey schlock?! Wilde told him what happened in that museum. It's like the last play Cottontail did was back in grade school! Was it too late to go back to the torture basement? Duke would take that any day instead of having to sit through this! In that aggravating moment of mediocrity, one of Duke's neuron pathways managed to slip through the weakening tranq and gave the order to Duke's arm muscles. His free paw came up to give a critiquing palm to his own head but along the way accidentally slapped Cottontail's... cottontail.
"EEP!" an effeminate yelp resounded down the hall.
Duke was dropped to the floor by the harshly blushing copper who was now covering the seat of her pants. Both stared at his offending paw in awkward silence. Not wanting to give her the wrong idea, Duke immediately tried to say he was sorry. Through his rubber lips it came out, "Fffwuffy!"
Cottontail got even redder.
"Wait a second…" Mr. Big and Koslov watched the cop and robber, "Is that the…?"
"DADDY!" the earplugged polar bear and Fru Fru splashed through the fountain, "THAT DAMN DIRTY WEASEL IS IN THE HOUSE!"
Instantly, Cottontail chucked Duke through the nearest door and ran after him. She slammed the door behind her and blocked the entry with a bear-sized chair. As Duke laid upside-down against the far wall considering how he was both sorry and surprised at what he felt was indeed 'fffwuffy', he regained some neck control and saw they were now trapped in a bathroom. Everything from the sink to the toilet was as gigantic as the rest of mansion, except there was far less gold and rhinestone than he expected. It was probably a spare meant only for the bodyguards.
"Can you hold your breath?" Cottontail's question confused Duke. Her lifting the giant toilet seat didn't make things any clearer. "Trust me, I've done this before. I can help you swim but I can't keep water out of your lungs. Do you have enough control yet to hold your breath?"
Duke stared at the porcelain bowl. Holy shit… She couldn't be serious. There was a bash against the blocked door and cracks appeared in the varnished wood. Cottontail didn't wait for an answer and dragged him towards their disturbing escape. His jello-like legs flailed in an attempt to get away. He didn't want to go anywhere near that thing! Cottontail hopped onto the rim and readied to heave him over the edge. He'd rather get iced!
"You..." a growl came from the wire box on Duke's paw.
Hard metal crashed across Duke's jaw, launching him and Cottontail over the rim and into the water! Liquid rushed into Duke's mouth! It took all his strength but he managed not to hurl and keep his mouth shut. So he could hold his breath! That answered that. But could he swim? Like a rock. Before he sank to the bottom, arms wrapped around his torso and pulled him back to the surface. Duke gasped for breath and saw a jagged hole was being cut into the bathroom door. He was then greeted with a prompt cage smash to the head.
"Donny, stop!" Cottontail got a firm hold of the cage, planted her feet against the bowl and tried to pull him off.
"She clung to you!" Unable to kick out of Hopps' strength, Donny instead shook his cage bars. "She felt safe with you! And you made her let go!"
The world stood still. On the other side of the room, the loud breaking down of the door had stopped. Instead, the shrews listened through the hole in staggered astonishment. The polar bears too waited with odd surprise. Even Cottontail seemed taken aback by what was said.
"Even my youngest brother Fredo never clung to me that hard. That innocent angel liked you, weasel, maybe even loved you! And you..." Duke saw those hostile muscles and claws retract. The desire to kill was gone, there was none left. Only pity. "You're garbage." Donny turned and kicked, flinging his cage off Duke's paw and onto the toilet's water tank.
No mammal seemed to want to break the silence and Duke understood why. He looked at his reflection in the toilet water and saw a weasel who was broken. The way that baby latched onto him like a tick. The way her little daggers clawed against his skin. The way her slobber got everywhere. Duke… missed it. "Yerrr rye," he slurred. "Aye gar'age." Duke managed to look up at Donny, "'N Aye gonna sa'e her."
Donny scoffed, "Save her? How the hell you gonna do that?"
"With me!" Cottontail piped in, shouting to Donny and the Bigs on the other side. "I'm going to help him. Please, Donny, Mr. Big, Fru Fru, if you trust me… then give him a chance." Cottontail tightened her arms around him. "I am."
Those last two words… Christ Almighty… Duke wasn't crying. That was just toilet water dripping down his face. Hot, salty toilet water.
Mr. Big combed a tired paw through his fur and turned to his daughter, "Sweetie?"
The shrew gripped the splintered door as frustration racking her body, "If… if my baby clung to you… a wily, dirty, little weasel…" The door spit even further from her tightly balled fists as she spat out the words, "Then maybe you ain't so bad."
Joyful relief overcame Duke to hear Fru Fru say that. It was almost complementary and that was worth celebrating. Even Cottontail's hold briefly resembled a hug.
"You already trusted him once," called Donny from above, "You really willing to make that same mistake again?"
"He's not a mistake," Cottontail corrected.
Dammit! All this hot, salty toilet water that was definitely not Duke's tears was getting everywhere.
There was a heavy sigh from Donny, "Fine, wondercop. We'll work together. Let's get you both outta there and—" Donny slipped, accidentally pushing his cage off the toilet water tank. It caught on the toilet handle. Both Duke and Cottontail's screams were literally drowned by the loud KER-FLUSH!
Every shrew and polar bear gawked at the now empty toilet.
Donny cleared his throat, "I did not mean to do that."
END CHAPTER EIGHT
And I've officially gotten the toilet humor out of the way!
