duckycooper

[duckycooper]

[duckycooper]

[duckycooper]

There were plenty of places to put a bird house that steered clear of the acres used for farmland. Maddox would require little more than some scrap wood and screws, though the perfectionist in him would insist upon a few other items: stain to keep the wood fresh, hinges to make a door. "Never? All the time you spend outdoors and you're still not very acquainted with Nature, huh?" Ducky teased.

Maybe there should be something weird about ribbing his old college professor but Ducky had always felt relaxed in their relationship. It wasn't like Ashton was his parent or something. He was just a really smart guy who failed Maddox four times and wouldn't give his papers anything higher than a C+. No weird feelings there!

His words confirmed his interest in the store. "There's a Bowie record I need. It has a song for you on it." Ashton was a lot of things but Ducky had come to realize that hip wasn't one of them. There was a lot of music that he considered mainstream classics Ashton had somehow never heard. "I have the key." Ducky wanted Ash to know this side trek wouldn't take long and they'd be back on the road in a bit. "In and out." Ducky promised.

"At least you'll fall in a very cool way," he shrugged, imagining what more they could do with any form of those superpowers. Flying itself would've solved so many problems with scouting and dealing with the horde. They wouldn't have to deal with the horde at all. Ashton had been on a few runs with Maddox before to know if they pass by the area, he was sure to request a location, and so he made the usual walk down the blocks of where he'd request to visit, before he could even ask.

Ashton frowned to think about that terrible outcome, "..oh," humming knowing that Maddox had a point, one Ash probably wouldn't have known nor understand. Simply thinking a birdhouse would help the local species build a home as they've done themselves, then again depends what local species is left. "Maybe not by the farm then," he could see the birds nipping away at their fruit and vegetables, destroying crops the farm team would not be happy about. "Yeah?" Surprised to see him still agree anyways, "that'll be fun, we can find some supplies along the way, I've never built a birdhouse before."

He paused in his tracks seeing the store Maddox would've been eyeing, pointing towards the block in front as he glanced back to Maddox, "wanna take a visit there again?"

[duckycooper]

He's impressed with her familiarity with the series. Ducky wouldn't have pegged her as someone who had an interest in such a dorky topic. His smile grows boyish as he listens to her. "For sure. I think Spock and Kirk make a lot more sense together anyway." And maybe that had been one of the early indicators of Ducky's own sexuality. If people had a bond like that, Ducky didn't think gender really needed to factor into the equation.

Ducky offered his arm out to Aspen after she accepted the offer of a nightcap, waiting for her to hook her own around his. "Reading is probably the safer choice. I've been known to get animated after a glass of wine and I'm too tired to stay up all night passionately arguing the defense of Captain Sisko." Janeway and Picard were close runners-up naturally, but Maddox stood by his choice.

He can't remember the last time he read something aloud to someone. Books were usually consumed hastily, Ducky attempting to finish it in the little free time he felt he had. He wanted to hold those beautiful stories inside of him before they were lost to the world forever. Aspen's request would be good for him, too. A reminder to slow down. "We can probably get through a few chapters before I pass out."

-

Ducky had filled two glasses, one with wine for Aspen and another with grape juice for himself. The homemade juice was so bitter it tasted pretty close to wine, from what he remembered of it. That had been the biggest reason for offering Aspen the alcohol in its place. He settles into the orange couch that's the center piece of his living room, waiting for Aspen to follow suit and make herself comfortable. The book is sitting in front of them on the small coffee table ready to be explored. He looks at her with thought, "...If I pass out on the couch do me a favor and just sleep in my bed tonight." Maddox didn't really want Aspen walking back to her place at night even if they were supposedly safe within the Wexley's walls. When he'd invited her over he'd planned to walk her home after but in the fifteen minutes that had passed a wave of exhaustion had caught up to him.

"Right. A Wrinkle in Time." Eyes flicking to move over the cover, applying the words on it to what she knew they said now, though it was more to memorize the sight of the word, than to read it.

"People don't like what they don't understand." Her father had always told her that when people had inevitably started to distance themselves from her, or even turn one, once her antics wore them down. Though the heady consequences of not having some sort of self control had kept her mostly in line, despite her destructive energy tending to come out in other ways. Hence her banning from any sort of dishwashing duties.

"Good for her. You know, I really hated the Uhura and Spock stuff in the new movies, especially when they had her using it to further her career? Like she was a cadet. The whole thing was so annoying. Like yes, thank for trying to honor the original bi-racial kiss or whatever they were trying to do, but it honestly, wasn't it. And I really like those movies as a whole."

Brows rising at the offer, and face lighting up, her original reason for being in the library was already well forgotten, Hannah so far out of sight to be now out of mind with her current distraction.

"Sure! That sounds like fun. Maybe you could read a couple pages for me?" Holding the book up she gave it a little shake. "Unless you'd rather talk Star Trek because I'm perfectly happy doing that, too. What's your Captain tier list?"

[duckycooper]

[duckycooper]

Seeing John-Paul enter the room felt natural and Ducky greeted him with an easy smile. The Wexley had been his ex's home for as long as Maddox had known him and there had never been a question of that changing. They embraced each other in a mutual hug and Ducky inhaled the familiar scent of after shave and Patchouli. "Your sister told me I was always welcome to drop by. Guess I'm holding her to that," He pulled away from Jp with warmth in his big brow eyes. "We stayed at our apartment as long as we could."

Although he'd pulled back, Ducky's arm was still around Jp's shoulders in some need to stay close. Like Jp would slip away the moment he was let go. "Then we went to the club." The owner of Eden's Gate happened to be the one thing that still connected Jp and Maddox after all these years. His face shifted into one of discomfort and his hand slipped from Jp's shoulder. "A few of the girls had been there but there was only one thing we could do by the time we got there." Each face had been familiar and Maddox had been determined to end their suffering.

"Are Charlie and Jeremiah okay?" The two most important people in Jp's world. There'd been a time when Ducky had thought there were three. An assumption that had hurt him tremendously.

Who: @duckycooper

When: The twins' arrival

Where: Quarantine suite

He didn't care what warning Val had given him about screening for infection, keeping everyone safe, and all the quarantine yada, yada, yada. When John-Paul got wind that the Cooper twins had shown up at the Wexley's doors he had to see it for himself. She would just have to get over it and stick him in his own suite because he wasn't going to heed any of her warnings.

"Duck!" he called out when got to the lab. "Holy shit!" he added happily, a wide smile crossing his face as he hurried toward him and pulled him in for a hug. "I had to see this shit for myself. You guys are really here. I can't believe it. Where have you been? How have you made it out there? Are you okay?" he started barraging him with questions, his excitement nearly uncontrollable.

[duckycooper]

Maddox had initially assumed the dogs kept on the other side of the building had been for fighting or terrorizing survivors, but had come to learn they were simply meat. Barking wasn't an uncommon sound but it had never seemed to go on as long as it was right now and the sharp noise was putting him into sensory hell. He'd kicked his neighbors hands enough that several of her fingers had snapped off on the cage next to him. She continued to hold her mangled hands out but there was no current threat posed.

Ducky was tapping his forehead against the concrete floor in an an attempt to distract from the overstimulation and the sight of the infected's crooked limbs. He was so out of sort he could hear Jp's voice calling out to him of all people. He frowned and rubbed the back of his head in irritation. Was he really in such deep shit he was hallucinating his ex boyfriend calling out to him? Maybe the situation was a little more serious than he'd thought. "Stop, stop, stop." Ducky muttered to himself in frustration.

"Johnny! Wait!" Madison called out once she'd found him on his way back to his place after the wedding.

As much as he hated that nickname (all in thanks to his mother who so lovingly giving it to him growing up) there was only one person he allowed to call him that - Madison. He turned just before unlocking his apartment and flashed her a smile as she jogged to catch up to him. "Hey Mad. What's up? After party at the farm?" he asked with a chuckle, knowing her pentiant for the night life. But when he saw the pained look on their face his stomach dropped. "What's wrong?"

"It's Maddox," she said as she caught her breath. "He was supposed to be back from his run before the wedding but I haven't seen him all night and when I tried to get him on the walkie, some guy got on saying they've got him and we'll never see him again unless we bring them medical supplies and vodka and fusion cores- whatever the fuck those even are. He was fucking laughing when he said it and I don't know what to do. We have to go and get him JP. We can't just leave him out there. They'll kill him. I can't lose my brother after all of this. I just can't," they frantically explained, their mind spiraling into worst case scenarios.

He took hold of her by her shoulders and made her face him, moving his grip to her face to lock eyes with the Cooper twin. "Madision, Madison, look at me. Calm down. Everything is going to be okay, okay?" he told her, though his heart was pouding so hard from his own fear he felt like it would burst right out of his chest. "Where did he say they had him?"

"He didn't, but I heard some animals in the background."

His hands slid from their face and ran themselves down his own. They had to have him at the animal shelter. That was the only place that would have any sort of animal that wasn't part of the township. "Alright. You head upstais to Charlie's, just tell her I'm headin out for Maddox, but just don't give her all the details okay. I don't want her to worry about me and I'll be back soon. With Ducky," he assured her quickly before taking off.

------

"Hey asshole!" John-Paul called out to the first raider he saw once he made it to the outer parimeter of the shelter. The man barely had enough time to turn around before JP's fist landed against his jaw, knocking him to the ground. Without hesitation he pulled out his knife and stabbed it through his chest, continuing on through the front door.

He had to fight through four more raiders before finally hearing Maddox's voice yelling out further down the hall. "Ducky?" he called out just to be sure as he took off in the direction of his voice.

[duckycooper]

"We should leave a note." The idea already committed to in his mind, because it was the one thing he could do to quell the obvious worry in his twin. There was an obvious pause as he considered what exactly this note should say because he'd skipped that part in making his suggestion. Maddox leaned his head back so he could make eye contact with Mads as the plan formed. "We can try and come back every month on our birthday."

That way no one outside of the family would know which day to expect them, lowering the odds of someone else finding the note and attempting to set a trap. Because that was the kind of shit people did these days. Set traps to catch other people. Welcome to the Thunderdome.

He knew as it he said that there were a million reasons they may never get a chance to return. But having that note felt like there was still hope they'd come back and and maybe that when they did mom and dad would be waiting. "And we should leave a window open, in case Jimmy Hendrix comes back." A stray that Maddox had been trying to coax inside for the past several weeks. He hadn't been around for about five days and it didn't bode well for the cats survival. Maddox was still holding out hope though.

"Oh you know she's definitely a sharpshooter by now," she chuckled with the image of mom as some Annie Oakley type living her best life in the apocalypse. "And she only agreed to the practice because the dogs get the bed space," she added with just as much fondness.

Ducky, whether he realized it or not, always managed to keep her spirits up. It was bad enough they'd lost the feeling of mom and dad being there, alive, Madison didn't even want to begin thinking about what life would look like without him. Especially now.

"I hate that we have to leave here," she admitted with a sigh, finally switching off the phone to save the battery, gently clutching it to her chest even after it powered down. But their supplies were running low and if they stayed any longer they'd join the masses of undead outside the building. "I still feel like they might just show up one day and we'll miss them by something stupid like a day or some shit. Stupid fucking apocalypse. Really puts a damper on things, doesn't it?" she asked rhetorically with a bit of dark humor to try and keep the mood light despite the surrounding doom and gloom.

[duckycooper]

[duckycooper]

my first favorite hobby is yapping. second is being extremely quiet and not talking ever at all ever.

[duckycooper]

"That just sounds like falling with extra steps." Maddox stated. The route they were on was familiar and it didn't require much active thinking for Ducky to navigate. He matched Ashton's stride but with no sign of danger his mind was already drifting.

There was a record store three blocks ahead that Maddox habitually visited when in the area. He liked to browse the records and pick one or two to add to his collection at home, the rest remaining in their place for him to return another day. Today his mind was set on a new Bowie album.

"We could accidently attract an invasive species," Which could be bad in several ways. It could carry disease, or impact the environment, or even affect other species birth rates. Despite Maddox pointing out the con to Ashton's idea it wasn't enough to outweigh the pros in his mind. Living birds! Tweeting! Hopping! "But I still think you're right. I could make a few and the kids could paint them." Ducky was always in favor of inviting the community to his projects. The fence he'd helped build around most of the township was painted beautifully by Hannah and others who wanted to make it feel less like they were locked inside of it.

"Hm, I'll hafta keep an ear out for them," he paused for a beat in silence to listen, the sound of birds and nature, so long gone as if it long never existed. As if all they knew where the sounds of moans and groans of the undead. "I wouldn't put it past them to be smart enough to survive," Ash agreed with a small smile back to Maddox. It helped that it was a quiet day today, most of the heavy lifting already cleared out by the others, Ashton and Maddox helping to do a follow up scout to clear out stragglers and pick up some supplies.

They continued on after a short reprieve down the street, glancing back only with a short look of confusion at the statement. He should've been used to it, Maddox often goes off on tangents, though still somewhat adjacent, still always surprises Ash anyways. "Really? I guess so, thought maybe teleportation is better." The best thing Ash could do with Maddox back in the day as a student was to lean into the tangent together anyways. "Maybe both then, wouldn't be able to teleport into the sky without flying." All seemingly wishful thinking for the world they lived in.

Still, once he knew they were in the clear of threats, Ash looked high up to the buildings, trees, wondering where these birds might've adapted to. "Think we should do bird houses? Help them out a little, and they've at least be in a safer place by the farm or the park," he thought out loud, as if simply seeing a problem and that was something they could have a solution to fix.

[duckycooper]

"A Wrinkle In Time," He answers Aspen's question with a clarification that is more for him than her ( maddox doesn't want to offend her; he liked how aspen talked when she wasn't entirely certain in what she was saying. it was sincere ). Ducky smiled before confirming. "Yeah."

The fact she couldn't read the title went unnoticed by him for the moment. "It made one of the American Library Association's most challenged book lists." The list was taken once a decade and kept track of literature schools and other offices attempted to enforce a ban on. Usually for political or religious reasons. "People really didn't like witchcraft." To Ducky it seemed silly to get so upset over something that children dressed up as for Halloween. It felt comparable to getting mad about books with Werewolves or Mummies.

"People really didn't like interracial kissing, either." Ducky joked about Star Trek's most famous controversy without realizing his train of thought my require some elaboration. "At least Nichelle Nicols had the last laugh." Her career lasted 50 plus years and her legacy stilled live on.

Ducky was well aware of the time and there was nothing left to be done that couldn't get put off until morning. He wanted to unwind. Usually he'd do that with Madison, but present company wouldn't be bad either. "Do you want to come up and have a glass of wine?" It sounded a lot better than staying here and waiting for Hannah to show and start crying at Aspen.

Following along behind him, she kept enough of his face in view to watch his eyes dance across the spines of the books that had been so meticulously organized with care. The jumbled of letters and numbers meant nothing to her, especially when they were written vertically, but it was something in the way that she could see his mind working written on his face that was super endearing.

Maddox was maybe the nicest guy she'd ever met, definitely the most expressive, and there was something about him that just made her hyper aware of her behaviour. The idea of anyone upsetting him kind of upsetting in itself. He was just so... pure, maybe?

Lost in her thoughts she blinked back to herself as they came up to the row of books they needed, reaching out for the one he plucked so deftly off the shelf.

"Is this the wrinkle one?" It didn't even occur to her that she should probably be able to read the title herself, and she wasn't sure how she'd find a way to read it or have it read to her, but she also didn't want him to know she couldn't do it for herself.

"Well, I followed star trek pretty well back in the day, so I think I should be able to follow this one. At the very least we'll know I can self spin my own continuity." At least there was one thing she did know: Pop culture.

Brows rising at the mention of a person being a literal star, she flipped the book over to scan the cover with much more interest. Maybe she could talk Knox into reading some of it to her. He was the only one besides Anora that knew she couldn't read worth shit.

[duckycooper]

@survivalxofxthexfittest - jp animal shelter / nyc

out of all the shitty nights he's had since moving to new york city this ranked somewhere in the top five for sure. still not as bad as the night he od'd on poppers in the back of eden's gate, but a little bit worse than the time he'd got food poisoning and missed his astrophysics final ( 5th time was going to be the one for sure! ). all things considered his prolonged kidnapping and torture hadn't been as bad as it could have. he still had all his limbs, all his teeth.

yeah his nose was broken but that wouldn't be the first time it'd happened ( football, basketball, lacrosse - the boy loved his contact sports ). the worst of it was being used as a human chew toy by the infected his kidnappers kept in the dog kennel next to his own. okay scratch that, maybe the worst of it was being kept in a dog kennel. the shock collar on his neck was the humiliating cherry on top.

the reach of the infected woman next to him suddenly extended and ducky threw himself against the back of his small metal cage to hide from her rotting fingers. he grimaced at the smell and the revelation that she'd somehow broken her arm and earned an extra inch. "knock it off!" as if either of them had control of the situation their captors had put them in. "stop trying to eat me! eat them!" his plea of annoyance turned to frustration when he heard approaching footsteps. that was never a good sign for him. "i'm a feminist but i will kill your undead ass."

[duckycooper]

he nodded at her question, a soft smile at her nearly correct pronunciation of the dewey decimal system. "sure, yeah." there might not be a computer system to look things up anymore but maddox had always preferred the old-fashioned method anyway.

800 for Literature; 810 for American literature in English; 813 American fiction in English

the system was comparable to russian nesting dolls. categories within categories, all with their own very specific qualifications and exemptions. it really wasn't that confusing, it was basically the same way that encyclopedias were organized.

he'd walked aspen through the shelves as he read the decreasing numbers. 816, 815, 814, --813. maddox paused and his eyes scanned the spines of books for the familiar title. his tongue ran across his bottom lips as he searched. "here it is." he only needs two fingers to pull the book free from the shelf and hands it to aspen with a smile.

"there's some time travel in there but it's no where near star trek level confusing." ducky assured her, assuming this sort of book would be more or less up to her speed. "-actually there are some confusing parts, like how one of the characters was an exploded star but just don't think too hard about that." was that a spoiler? he needed to stop doing that.

"Thank goodness" Her entire body sagged with the relief of the information, and Aspen set the book down on the table in front of her with the same bashful look that usually came from her when she inadvertently broke something. "I'm sorry, if I had thought that throwing books could ruin them, I wouldn't have done it, swear." Though she was pretty sure they both knew she wasn't blessed with the forethought to her actions for that to truly be true. At least she would have felt bad about it after, maybe.

From the moment Ducky had shown up in the Township Aspen had had a rather girlish sort of crush on him, giggling and blushing when he'd pass by, and even finding herself nervous to talk to him in general, sometimes. He was maybe the first guy in the township she hadn't come on to, mostly because she was pretty sure she wasn't his type and she was also pretty sure she couldn't bare it if he turned her away.

Looking down at the book in her hands, and realizing that he'd clocked her for it's childishness, she pulled her hands away from it like it'd burned her and put them in her lap, face flush with furious colour. How was she supposed to tell him she couldn't actually read the titles of the books to find those? And even if she did, they'd just be more convincing that she'd read them.

"Can you show me where?" There, that was better than blindly trying to find it by the cover art or something. "I've never been good at the dooby decibel system."

[duckycooper]

If hard pressed to give his true opinion on the matter, Ducky would admit that he was pretty sure mom was still alive. Maybe it was his inability to truly imagine a world without her or because he expected to somehow feel it if she was dead. It was the same way he felt about Madison; that intrinsic bond that twins had, only it existed between the three of them instead of just two. Like an invisible umbilical cord that had never been cut.

He kept that to himself. Fear of judgement or dismissal, afraid that even Madison would look at him with pity because he needed that childish hope to hold on to. But that wasn't very fair to his sister because for all of his quirks and oddities Madison had never made him feel unaccepted.

The arm around him is a welcome anchor. Madison was always good at giving him that calming pressure without him needing to ask. They were a good sister. "I think mom finally learned to aim." They weren't really a gun family but dad believed in the first amendment and there had been a few summers at the camp ground shooting bottles and cans in family competition. "Could be better than dad now." Because when mom put her mind to something she got pretty serious about it.

"They still have the dogs." That was something Maddox was certain about. Those dogs had replaced Madison and Maddox when they'd moved to New York and had become their parent's other children. "And they've probably slept in bed with them every night." Despite dad's insistence that the animals didn't belong in the bedroom. He smiled a little while looking at the family pictures on her phone. It was nice to think about the good things. It always gave Ducky enough optimism to make it through the week.

"I don't know Duck," she answered simply.

Madison had been lost in the hypotheticals long enough and it had grown increasingly harder to pretend it wasn't affecting her as badly as it was. Especially when their parents were brought up. Their last conversation had been replaying over and over and over. Their mother's quaky voice as she assured them they were fine. The line cutting off their father as he tried to tell them to be safe and they'd be together soon - whatever that had meant. The sinking feeling she had that it was the last time she'd ever hear their voices again. Every second analyzed indefinitely searching for a way that she could have saved them. And it had become exhausting. The last thing she wanted to do right then was reminisce, but they knew there would be no quieting her brother's mind so they just went along with it.

"Much harder. But we would have survived same as we did," she agreed, shifting to wrap an arm around Maddox, hugging him slightly closer. She missed their parents immensely. Madison leaned forward to grab her cell phone from the coffee table, her arm never leaving her brother as she shifted back and forth. They pulled up their folder of pictures, the same as she'd done time and time again since that fateful call. "Do you ever wonder what they're doing right now?" she asked as she scrolled through the photos, smiling at a few from the most recent vacation they'd taken together, leaning her head against her brother's affectionately. "You think mom's still weeding her garden while dad waters the lawn?" she asked rhetorically with a chuckle as a picture of their mother and her prize winning orchid popped up.

[duckycooper]

hey (with the intention of slow dancing in the kitchen together)

[duckycooper]

He could come up with several possible reasons Aspen was hiding from Hannah. It would not be the first time that Aspen had fled into the library in an attempt to wait out the consequences of her actions. Ducky never really minded. Libraries were supposed to be places of refuge, right?

"Hallway was totally clear." He assures her before adding, "But if she ends up materializing between the shelves please don't use the books as a weapons this time." It had taken him 9 hours to rebind the three books that had been torn from Aspen throwing them at someone. His plea is polite and free from judgement. Maddox figured every one had their bad days and was entitled to loosing it a little. He just asked that she didn't destroy library property while doing it.

Ducky noticed the drawings on the cover of the book Aspen had held, clearly recognizing it as a children's book. "I could recommend you some more convincing titles if you wanna keep the ruse up though." There were plenty of topics that someone could bring up if they wanted to deal with Ducky's passionate info dump for the next hour, and books were definitely one of them. "A Wrinkle in Time, or One Hundred Years of Solitude." Both had elements of magic and whimsy which Ducky felt perfectly encapsulated Aspen Horowitz.

For the last hour or so Aspen had been hiding out in the library after having broken something in the museum, the motherly wrath of Hannah not something she was entirely looking forward to. So, where was the last place she'd usually ever be? The library of course.

She'd picked a random book off one of the tables and flipped through it before looking for something with more pictures, since there wasn't much for her in the other ones besides jumbles of letters and the occasionally recognizable word like 'and'. She'd just been about to get up check if the coast was truly clear when foot steps echoed in the halls of the library level of the building being prepped for the school, causing her heart to leap into her throat as she threw herself back into her seat, picked up a book and ducked behind it.

Her relief was palpable when it was just Ducks, the book lowering a little until he mentioned that it was upside down, a fact she hadn't noticed in time.

"Oh... right. I actually kinda thought you were Hannah coming to hunt me down." Laughing easily she bashfully put the book away, ignoring the fact that it was very obviously a book for small children. The maid in it was cute but silly, by the pictures, and she'd found she enjoyed the stories without even being able to read them.

"You didn't see her out there, did you? Hannah, I mean? And if you did, did she look mad?"