Quackerjack took in a deep breath to try to calm himself, only to burst into laughter that he couldn't contain. He slammed a hand over his mouth, but it didn't do a thing to stop the painful laughter. It only made his chest tighten as the gross, dark, anxious feeling in him spiked.
His legs stopped cooperating with him, and even though seconds ago he couldn't bring himself to stop running, despite how tired he was, now he felt frozen in place. He tried to force his legs forward, but not only did they stay in place, but he leaned back too. He wasn't going anywhere.
That was fine. He didn't really have anywhere to go. He'd just needed to get away from Drake.
The thought of his guardian was the final breaking point. Tears fell from Quackerjack's eyes s he fell to the ground and just sat on the street curb. He rocked back and forth as he pulled on his head feathers, because the physical pain in his head was nowhere near as bad as the agony in his chest.
Though he was crying, he wasn't sobbing. He was still laughing breathlessly, and it hurt. He couldn't breathe, but he couldn't stop laughing. Why? What was wrong with him? Why couldn't he just react like a normal person for once?!
It wasn't even evening yet, and lots of people were still walking out and about. Most people gave him confused looks or frightened expressions, but they walked right past him. People moved to the other side of the street to get away from the crying child. They shielded their own kids away from him.
If he was in better spirits, he would be laughing in amusement instead of distress. St. Canard wasn't known for being overly compassionate, but he thought that most people would stop to help a crying kid. And maybe they would have if it weren't for the fact that he was laughing instead of sobbing.
They were scared of him. He wasn't trying to do anything at all, and they were scared. He didn't think they would be as anxious if they saw Bushroot or Liquidator here, mutant freaks that they were. At least they were mentally normal. Not like Quackerjack. He was normal on the outside, but the freakiest of them all. Even people who didn't know him could see it. The only one who couldn't see it was himself, and maybe that was just another thing that made him a crazy freak.
Quackerjack felt like this exhausting pain would never go away, that he would just keep laughing until he ran out of breath and fainted. All of a sudden though he realized that the laughter had died down to just an occasional thing. His breathing wasn't back to normal, but he didn't feel lightheaded from breathlessness. He wasn't fine, but he was going to be okay.
Quackerjack took a deep breath and did his best to uncurl himself. He felt a little sick, but he thought a fair amount of that might be hunger. He hadn't eaten anything in twenty four hours. He lifted his head and looked around, as though hoping to find a meal right in front of him. There was nothing. Not even a store.
Quackerjack drooped. He didn't know where he was, or where he wanted to go, let alone how to go about getting there. He was completely and utterly lost, and if he wasn't so drained from his crying and laughing he would have broken down all over again. As it was, all he could do was look around pathetically, feeling numb.
He didn't really know what he was looking for. And then he saw it. There was a flash of fabric that he saw out of the corner of his eye. His head whipped around, but there was nothing of significance there. There was a nudge in the back of his head though, telling him that he hadn't imagined it. That he wasn't crazy. Something was there.
With nothing else to do and nowhere else to go, and a desire to prove to himself that he wasn't just imagining things, Quackerjack stumbled to his feet and ran in the direction that he had seen movement. He would recognize it when it saw it, he just had to find it.
He walked down the street until he heard a noise in an alleyway. The street was full of all kinds of white noise, with traffic, and people walking and talking, but this sound seemed to stand out above the others. It sounded similar to a rubber ball bouncing on the ground. When Quackerjack faced the alley, he heard the sound again, clearer this time. He felt like it was drawing him in.
Quackerjack smiled to himself, though he felt a rush of fear in his chest. He gave Mr. Banana Brain a squeeze. He didn't get it. He felt both excited and scared. He didn't think he had any reason to feel either, let alone at the same time. He hadn't even known that was possible.
He stepped deeper into the alley. The hustle and bustle of the street behind him seemed to fade into oblivion. All that mattered was the alley ahead, and the figure he saw lurking in the shadows.
Even though their face was obscured in darkness, Quackerjack knew who this was. He thought he might have known since he'd seen the fabric out of the corner of his eye, because there was just one person he knew who he would only see for brief moments from the side of his vision, just long enough to be sure they were there, but not long enough for anybody else to take notice.
"I knew you were really here." Quackerjack said. He felt like he should be terrified, but he felt far too relieved that he wasn't completely insane after all. There was a dark, familiar chuckle as the figure stepped out of the shadows and Quackerjack got a good look at Negaduck. And this time, he didn't disappear when he blinked or glanced the other way.
"And I knew you'd find your way back to me." Negaduck said slyly. He leaned towards Quackerjack, looming over him so much that it felt like he was about to swallow him whole. He wanted to take a step back, but his legs were blocked and felt glued to the ground. He couldn't move again.
His mouth wasn't frozen though.
"How'd you know?" Quackerjack asked shakily. Even he hadn't known that he would find his way back to Negaduck. This wasn't how he had wanted to end up. He wanted to go home, but how was he supposed to do that when he didn't have a home to go to?
Negaduck smirked and did something Quackerjack thought he would never do. He brought himself to Quackerjack's level. Negaduck knelt on the ground, putting himself level with the boy.
"Because you don't belong with normal people." Negaduck said. He put his hand on Quackerjack's head, as though to brush his feathers, but he wasn't gentle the way that Drake was. Negaduck pulled at his feathers, not yanking any of them out, but teasing and threatening it.
Quackerjack swallowed thickly. "I-I don't?" It was something he knew, but hearing it said out loud scared him. "Why not?"
Negaduck leaned in close until their beaks were practically touching. Quackerjack didn't dare to breathe. The harsh grip on his head turned gentle, which was somehow even scarier. "Because of that crazy little mind of yours."
Quackerjack's hands were shaking, as though all of his unused energy from being unable to move was coming out through his hands. "I-I'm not crazy." His defensive anger came out again, even though he knew that he shouldn't dare to talk to Negaduck in that way. "I wasn't hallucinating you. You know that!"
"You think that's all that makes you insane?" Negaduck asked. "What about the little games you play in your mind?"
Quackerjack frowned. He did play a lot of games, and many of them were silent and when he was on his own, but now did Negaduck know about that?
"The games where you fantasize about different ways to hurt people." Negaduck said. Quackerjack opened his mouth to object, but Negaduck put a hand over his beak, silencing him. "Oh, I know you don't want to think about these kinds of things, but you can't help it, can you?"
Negaduck was practically whispering now, his voice seeming to penetrate into Quackerjack's soul. "You think about swerving the car into oncoming traffic, and laugh at the thought of how that might traumatize anybody watching." Quackerjack felt like his blood turned to ice. "You think about going on a killing spree, murdering people with absolutely no rhyme or reason, using different methods each time, just because you're curious about how long it would take the cops to figure out that they were looking for just a single person."
The first situation wasn't one that he'd thought of exactly, but he'd thought similar things. The second one though was actually one he'd thought of just a few weeks ago, when he'd woken up in the middle of the night because of a nightmare, and he'd gone downstairs to find Liquidator watching a detective show. But Quackerjack hadn't told anybody about it.
"How…how do you-" Quackerjack trembled.
"Because I know you." Negaduck said. "Better than you know yourself, and certainly better than Darkwing Duck." He spat the name like it was a curse. "You know, he knows you're crazy too."
Quackerjack shook his head. "No, no, he doesn't. He…he told the others I wasn't crazy. He helped me."
"You poor fool, he wasn't helping you." Negaduck said. "He was trying to tame you."
Quackerjack grimaced. He didn't like that phrasing. It made it sound like he was a wild animal.
"Darkwing thought that if he was nice enough to you, he could passive aggressively bully you into being a normal person." Negaduck scoffed. He probably thought that just having a good example would be enough to cure you, and if not then at least he could show you how to pretend that you're just like everybody else."
Part of Quackerjack didn't think that sounded too bad, but another part of him was horrified at the thought. He wasn't normal. It was just who he was. Did Drake want him to change who he was? And if Quackerjack did change, would he even be himself anymore? Just thinking about this whole thing made his head hurt.
"Why do you want me?" Quackerjack asked.
"Because you can be useful to me." Negaduck said. "And I can make it beneficial to you too."
Quackerjack pouted. "How?"
"Darkwing wants you to repress who you are." Negaduck said. "I want to help you embrace it." He smirked. "You have so many twisted thoughts in your mind. You push them away and tell yourself that you don't want to hurt anybody. You play childish games to distract yourself from what you really want to do. You're doing Darkwing's job for him."
"B-but I don't want to hurt anybody." Quackerjack said. He wanted to play and have fun, and he wanted people to have fun with him. How could hurting people be fun?
"That's because you're too soft." Negaduck said. "I've seen you at your worst, and I can make you even worse."
"But I don't want that." Quackerjack said loudly. "I don't want to be worse."
"But you want to be yourself, don't you?" Negaduck said with false sincerity. "Don't you want to play your games without being judged, or ridiculed, or looked down on?"
Quackerjack did like playing games, and even though his friends were nice and good playmates, they didn't always like the games he suggested. They thought they were weird, or boring, or dangerous, and their dubious glances hurt, though he tried to brush the pain away.
"Well, yeah, but…" Quackerjack glanced off. He didn't really know what he wanted.
"Just join me, and as long as you don't get in my way, you can play whatever twisted games your little heart desires." Negaduck said.
"But why do you want me?" Quackerjack asked, because he still didn't get it. He didn't have powers. He was needy and emotional, which he knew Negaduck hated. "I don't have powers. Not like the others." He knew that Negaduck wasn't just taking what he could get, because he'd been following and keeping an eye on Quackerjack this whole time. He'd specifically targeted him.
"Because without relying on powers, I've seen you do something that, loath as I am to admit it, I can't do myself." Negaduck growled. Quackerjack could hear the frustration in his voice. Negaduck seemed more reluctant to admit weakness or fault than Drake was. "I can go toe to toe with Darkwing Duck, but I can't overcome him. Not alone. We're like two sides of the same coin. I can't beat him, and he can't beat me."
"You, though." Negaduck seemed to be studying him. "You can outsmart him. I've seen you do it multiple times." Quackerjack blinked. He had no idea what Negaduck was talking about. "Your biggest downfall is that you get caught in your own head. If I can get you to focus for once in your life, then you can play your mind games with Darkwing Duck, and we can beat him."
"Mind games?" Quackerjack frowned. "Like what?"
"Manipulation." Negaduck said. "Playing the long game to convince somebody that you're playing one game, but while they're busy trying to learn the rules, you pull a fast one on them before they can even figure out that you're playing a completely different game."
Quackerjack's brow furrowed. He felt more confused than ever. He hadn't played games like that with Darkwing, and yet Negaduck was convinced that not only had he, but that it had almost worked. How could a kid almost outsmart a detective?
"Trust me, kid, it'll work." Negaduck said. "I know Darkwing better than he knows himself."
"Because you're a lot like him, right?" Quackerjack asked. Negaduck's eye twitched with barely contained fury. Quackerjack cringed back, but the older duck miraculously didn't lash out.
"...Yeah, something like that." Negaduck said.
"What if I don't want to play?" Quackerjack asked. Negaduck's gaze narrowed furiously.
"What makes you think you've got a choice." Negaduck said. "You may know how to manipulate Darkwing, but I can manipulate you like a puppet." He reached out and grabbed Mr. Banana Brain from Quackerjack's arms. He tried to hold on tight, but Negaduck yanked him away. The villain squeezed Mr. Banana Brain so hard that Quackerjack was terrified that he would fall apart.
"No!" Quackerjack cried out. He reached for his doll, but Negaduck scowled and lifted him higher, tightening his grip. Quackerjack froze, terrified that Negaduck would bring out his chainsaw and just shred his doll to pieces right in front of him. He knew he hadn't had him for very long, but he felt like the doll was his last desperate hold to sanity and stability. Without Mr. Banana Brain, he had nothing, and he was scared that Negaduck knew it.
"Give him back! P-please, just give him back." Quackerjack said loudly. "I-I'll play your games. I'll do what you want. Just give him back."
Negaduck rolled his eyes and dropped Mr. Banana Brain. Quackerjack found himself able to move again as he dove for his new friend. He scrambled for the doll, clutching it tightly to his chest and sobbing desperately. Negaduck growled impatiently and grabbed his arm, yanking him to his feet.
"Stop being such a baby." Negaduck said. "We've got places to go. It's time to put the pieces in place for our game with Darkwing." He pulled Quackerjack along, and the boy was only vaguely aware of it. His eyes were glued to Mr. Banana Brain, and his mind ran with ideas.
Manipulation, huh? Pretending to play one game, but really playing another. Quackerjack looked at Negaduck, who was apparently similar to Darkwing in ways that weren't just physical. Maybe he could do this after all.