“Look, it’s not that I don’t enjoy your company—”
“It’th fine.” Daffy had been expecting something like this for a while. Certainly since Sasha had come back; she clearly didn’t like him. And, honestly, he was right not to. “I need to leave anyway. I’m putting you in danger.”
Jonny didn’t exactly do a great job of keeping a straight face. “Right, yeah. Miss Piggy turned up. Had to change all my light bulbs.”
“No, thith ith what I’m talking about,” Daffy insisted.
“I promised you a place to stay until you were back on your feet,” Jonny said. “Least I can do is find you another sofa to crash on. Alex just got a place, maybe he can let you stay there. Look, I know we haven’t actually known each other long, but I do worry about you, all right? You’re not well.”
“I’m a Toon,” Daffy said with a false confidence. “You know nothing happenth to uth.”
“Which is why you’re covered in scars,” Jonny pointed out. Daffy had really, really hoped he hadn’t picked up on that. “If you don’t want to stay with Alex, maybe Frank…?”
“Why are you tho inthithtent on keeping me around?” Daffy asked. “Your partner hateth me—”
“Sasha doesn’t hate you. They just weren’t planning on an extra roommate.” Jonny grimaced. “And it’s because you’re cutting yourself off, and that’s not good for you, mate. I mean, when’s the last time you spoke to someone who wasn’t me?”
“I—” Daffy hesitated. There had been Alex, and then Miss Piggy and…wait, had he talked to anyone since then? “I thpoke to Porky latht week.”
“You spoke to him? Or he talked to you, while you tried to find a way to escape?”
“All right, all right, there’th no need to be tho perthonal,” Daffy snapped. Part of him appreciated it, but at the same time, the comment stung. “It’th jutht…thith ithn’t the kind of main character I want to be. I’m putting everyone elthe in danger jutht by being around them.”
Jonny frowned. “Did you consider that maybe you’re not the main character, you’re just the punching bag?”
“Every day of my life.” Daffy sighed. The truth was, that was usually how it went. Even when he was the main character, he was usually the one taking all the lumps. But this…this was different. “If it wathn’t for what happened to Wile E., maybe I would be lethth inclined to quarantine mythelf, but ath it ith, I can’t rithk it any more. If thomething happened to you—or Thasha—or Alexth—or, perish the thought, the Ambaththador, becauthe I wath here—”
“All right, all right.” Jonny held up a hand. “I obviously can’t stop you if you’re determined to…go to ground or whatever. Go stay in a hotel, whatever you want to do. Just…keep in touch, all right? You know—don’t be a ‘stranger.’” He grinned as he said it.
“Ho, ho, very funny. Ha, ha, it ith to laugh,” Daffy deadpanned dryly. He glanced down at the tape recorder in his hand as it clicked off. “Do you want thith back?”
“Thought it was yours, mate.” Jonny cocked his head to one side. “Hey, can I use that in my podcast? I need a good framing device.”
“Sure. Digital recordingth don’t work anyway. At leatht not for the real oneth.” Daffy sighed. “Give me five minuteth and I’ll be out of your conthiderable hair.”
Jonny ran a hand self-consciously through his bleached hair, which was sticking straight up, but said nothing.
True to his word—and Daffy always tried to be true to his word—he had those few things that were actually his packed and ready to go inside of five minutes, said a last goodbye to the Ambassador—who purred mightily in a way that almost convinced him to change his mind—and was out on the streets of London. It was past sundown by now, late enough that the commuters were home but early enough that the people who’d gone out after work weren’t on their way back yet, and he had the streets to himself, more or less, which was good.
He actually didn’t have any idea where he was going. He’d thought the apartment was bought and paid for, but he’d learned after going back to the Institute that it had just had a particularly long string of rent paid that had finally run out, hence why he’d still been staying with Jonny until he found a new place. He could go to a hotel, but they weren’t particularly secure, and then there was the possibility of him putting a whole bunch of innocent people at risk. Children. Children stayed at hotels with their parents, and he would never be able to live with himself if he got a child hurt, not when his whole purpose in life had been to make children—and adults—laugh. But he also wasn’t going to get a new apartment this quickly. Renting took time, it was after hours for most rental places anyway, and at the very least for tonight he was going to need somewhere to stay. Sleeping on the streets would be dangerous, assuming he didn’t get arrested.
Theoretically he could ride the Underground all night. Or maybe he could go sit at one of the stations where trains ran all night and pretend he was waiting on one. Or maybe he could go stay in the Archives. Yeah, that sounded like a good idea. If it was good enough for Porky, it was good enough for him…
“Hi there,” said a cheerful voice—almost too cheerful, from somewhere behind him.
“Are you Daffy Duck?” asked a second voice, a bit lower but matching the first in tone.
“Yeth?” Daffy said automatically, turning towards the voices. “Why do you—oh no.”
His eyes fell on a pair of ersatz delivery men, dressed in matching uniforms that were somehow both ill fitting and perfectly tailored at the same time, standing in front of a white delivery van. Painted on its side in faded letters were the words BREEKON & HOPE DELIVERIES. The delivery men might have claimed to be Breekon and Hope, but there was an itch in the back of Daffy’s head that told him the short, round-faced Muppet with its white hair and bushy mustache and the tall, gangly Muppet with a steel grey fringe and jowls went by a different name back in the United States.
For Muppets, they had surprisingly strong grips, something he discovered when they shot out and grabbed him by the arms, pinning them tightly to his sides.
“Miss Piggy wants to see you,” said the first one.
“She says she changed her mind,” added the second.
“No, I-I—” Daffy stammered. Granted, he hadn’t even attempted to find the gorilla skin, but surely he had more time?
The Muppet delivery men didn’t seem to care. The taller of the two—Statler, the name slammed itself into his brain with such force that he’d almost expect to find it stamped on his forehead in reverse, this was Statler and Waldorf—slid open the door on the side of the van, and they hurled him into the cargo space easily. He cartwheeled across it and slammed painfully into an unfinished wooden box bound round with chains. The door slid shut and closed with a loud and very final sounding clang. The next sound was that of two doors shutting, and then the engine rumbling to life.
Daffy whimpered. “Oh, God.”