Killjoys ⇾ Male!Jessica Rabbit

𝖎𝖎𝖎. Joke's On You

Eddie blinks. "That's what you woke up me for?"

Side stepping her uncle into the apartment, Santino slaps the morning paper onto Eddie's side of the desk. Both Valiant's close in on the Lieutenant for a better look. Taina nearly chokes on whatever is left of the donut she's eating.

The headline screams: "TOON KILLS WOMAN!" and underneath it reads: "Miriam Acme murdered at the hands of jealous rabbit."

"You got trouble, Eddie," said Santino.

🐇

The drive to the crime scene wasn't far. A dozen police cruisers were parked outside of the old Acme Factory. Every inch of the lot was blocked off with yellow police tape to keep out the public and nosey reporters. Taina almost felt like a celebrity climbing out of Santino's car, squinting as the cameras and reporters shouted for a comment from anyone beyond the yellow-velvet tape-rope of the crime scene.

Taina had to take a few big steps to catch up with her uncle and Santino as they made their way to the factory's entrance. But then Eddie stops and so does Taina to see what's grabbed his attention. Following his gaze, she sees the brightly colored fantasyland that is Toon Town. She's never been, of course, supposed she'd look greatly out of place among the vibrant and exaggerated.

"Now what?" said a slightly annoyed Santino.

"Just haven't been this close to Toon Town for a while," said Eddie.

Taina notices how different Toon Town's sky is. It's a different color-different blue; a "Toon Blue", you could call it.

Santino walks back and takes Eddie's arm. "Let's go, somebody wants to see you."

The factory is a large warehouse filled with stacks of Toon gags. Boxes of dynamite, giant slingshots, boulders, everything you could imagine in a Sunday morning cartoon. Santino stops where a large black safe is imbedded at a cockeyed angle in the floor. A forensic team is furiously at work around the safe. A neatly drawn chalk outline around a body is half obscured by the safe. Taina stops dead in her tracks. She's never seen a dead body. Not even her own father's. Taina didn't want to shatter the image of his dead body with the alive one she fondly remembers and sees in old photos.

"They say the rabbit got the safe idea from a cartoon he was makin' the other day," said Santino.

"What a gasser," mumbled Eddie, reciting the slogan to Acme products.

Santino's lighthearted demeanor fizzles when turning to the Valiant's. Taina's in a depressing trance and Eddie looks completely disgusted about something. The Lieutenant sighs. "Wait here." Santino walks off to Acme's glassed office where a sobbing Jesse Rabbit is being interrogated. Taina looks sympathetically to the man. It must suck finding out your father might be a murderer.

Eddie sidles over to where the Forensic team are dusting and checking the photographs they had taken for prints. One of the men looks up from his work.

"Say, didn't you used to be Eddie Valiant?"

Eddie ignores the slings and arrows and surveys of the crime scene. Taina notices the door of the safe is ajar. Curiosity getting the best of her, she tries to look inside. One of the Forensics closes the door with his knee, giving Taina a pointed look. Taina gives him an awkward smile, as she wanders back next to her uncle, feeling like a kid following around her parents at some adult event she wasn't invited to.

"Mr. and Miss Valiant?" asked a familiar voice. Uncle and niece turn around, as they are face to face with the speakeasy singer from the night before-Jesse Rabbit. He was as remarkably beautiful as he was on the stage twelve hours ago. But Jesse didn't look like he wanted to serenade them, he looked about ready to beat the snot out of one, or both, of them. And as Taina expected, he was, because without a second thought, Jesse punches Eddie clear in the jaw, sending her uncle to the ground.