Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The Duck brothers were sitting in a comfortable silence as they each did their own thing. 

Dewey was sitting up in the cockpit, steering the plane as music played on his radio. He could never sit in silence too long before he got uncomfortable so he always made sure he had his radio if he ever got a chance to fly. This was by far the longest he had ever flown on his own, so he popped some fresh batteries in before they left. 

Not too far from him had been Huey, tapping his food as he looked at the map on the wall. They were heading to an ancient temple that was said to hold a magical staff with the ability to control the weather. Huey had been able to learn the location of the ‘Stormweaver’ and was currently trying to navigate. He has a lot of practice with navigation as he always volunteers to map on their usual adventures. This, however, was his first time navigating from start to finish. 

Louie was in the very back of the plane taking a light nap. He had finished taking inventory of their supplies and food a while ago, so he decided to rest. They didn’t plan on being away from home too long, but it was always good to have extra supplies just in case something happens that they didn’t plan for. They had enough food and water to last a few weeks and tools for every possible situation. They had to be ready for every possible situation. Nothing could go wrong.

Except things did go wrong. Very, very wrong. 

It all happened so quickly. 

They thought they could do an adventure on their own. 

They hadn't expected the plane engines to suddenly explode mid flight. 

Chapter Text

To say Dewey was angry would be an understatement. 

The Sunchaser was known to be a very sturdy plane. It has survived many flights, and crashes, by Launchpad. It never has more than a few minor damages when it lands like this. But this was any normal crash with a miscalculated landing, the engine had literally gone up in flames while they were 30,000 feet in the air. 

They would have been at the temple by now. They would be finding that staff and proving that they can handle themselves on Adventures, that he can’t handle himself on adventures. 

But instead of celebrating the perfect execution of their perfect plan with his brothers, Dewey found himself waking up strapped to a plane seat while the plane itself was destroyed around him. 

His body hurt and there was a distinct ringing in his ear as he took in his surroundings. 

Once his brothers realized that he couldn’t gain control of the plane, Huey forced him out of the cockpit and pushed him to a seat in the center of the plane. 

The last thing Dewey remembers is the look of pure terror in Louie's eyes as he saw the quickly approaching trees while Huey tried to force both their heads down. 

They held each other tight as they hit the ground. 

Now, as he looked over at his brothers he saw them unconscious in their seats. 

Huey was directly beside him with his head lolled forward while Louie leaned heavily against the window. Their arms were still connected in their slumber.

As Dewey is trying to watch his brother’s breathing, he hears a loud bang coming from somewhere in the plane. This brought awareness of their still impending danger and his head became less foggy. 

The Plane was on fire. 

Pure adrenalin pumps through Dewey's body as he jumps out of his chair. He moves to roughly shake his two brothers in hope that they wake up quickly and run off the plane with him. Huey was the only one to open his eyes. 

Dewey didn’t have time though. Smoke was filling the plane fast and they had to get out of there fast . He tells Huey to get Louie up and runs to the emergency exit. 

He pulls on the latch and tries to push the door open, but it won't budge. 

Somewhere in the distance he can hear Huey yelling but the words are muffled. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Dewey hopes that the ringing in his ears would just be a temporary thing. 

Dewey is ramming his body into the door as hard as he can but it barely opens a crack. 

His chest burns as his lungs fill with black smoke instead of air. 

He can feel hot streams of tears on his cheeks. 

Please 

Please open. 

He barely notices the body appear next to him until the door suddenly has twice as much pressure pushing against it. 

Slowly, the crack of the door widens until it’s large enough for them to squeeze through. 

As Dewey’s feet hit the grass, he pushed his feet to get as far from the plane as possible. He doesn’t get very far as his legs collapse under him.

He coughs aggressively as his lungs desperately try to take in air. 

When his breathing finally evens out, he can register Huey coughing next to him. 

Panic swirls in his stomach as his ears search for a third set of coughs, where’s Louie? The fear slowly subsides though as he sees his younger brother being cradled in Huey’s arms, Louie never woke up. Dewey crawls over to his brothers as sobs rack his whole body. The adrenalin begins to wear off.

He looks up just in time to see the back of the plane explode, the fire reaches high above them. 

All the while the soft sound of music continues from his radio. 

Chapter Text

Louie wakes up as his body lurches forward, unable to stop the bile already forcing its way up his throat. His body sways slightly as he’s racked with dizzy spells and the only thing he can focus on is the pounding in his skull. 

Something, or someone, gently pushes him onto his back and places something cold on his forehead. The contact hurts for a second but the chill quickly starts to ease the pain away. It’s only after several minutes of heavy breathing that Louie can open his eyes. At first, all he can see are tall trees reaching high above him, it’s beautiful, he thinks. Louie has always loved the woods. He and his brothers would always mess around in the woods after school. His favorite thing to do was to stare at the way the sunlight leaked through the gaps between the leaves. 

These trees were much taller though, much much taller. Where were they again? He tries to think back and remember how he had gotten here but he finds it difficult to focus on it as he spots a familiar face. 

His older brother Huey was looking down at him with a worried expression. Louie can see a small cut above his eyebrow that is still bleeding slightly as well as specks of dust on his face and clothes. He seems sad. 

Louie opens his mouth to ask him what’s wrong but is surprised when the words come out slurred and weak. Huey gave him a small smile before answering, “I’m fine, it’s you I’m worried about. You hit your head pretty hard”, Louie could vaguely feel the comforting hand gently petting his hair.

Hit his head!? He doesn’t remember hitting his head, although that would explain the pulsing in his brain. The last thing he can remember is packing the place for an adventure. Where are they going again? Had they left yet? Where was everyone else? 

Suddenly, a new voice speaks up from somewhere behind Huey.

“Is he awake?”

The volume causes him to wince but Huey quickly turns to shush the loud person. A few seconds later, Louie can see his brother in blue walking up to them while struggling to hold an armful of supplies. Dewey places the various assortment of objects - some of which Louie recognizes as stuff he himself packed - on the ground a few feet away. 

Louie sits quietly as he looks his brother over. He didn’t seem to have any injuries other than large bruises on his arms. Like Huey, he also has what looks like dust all over his body. What Louie did notice almost immediately was the redness of his eyes, he had been crying. 

“How ya feeling Lou?” Dewey asks, making sure to keep his voice quiet this time.

He wanted to say that he felt like he was hit by 50 buses head first, to ask what was happening, where they were, and how they possibly hit his head so hard he couldn’t remember anything. But the most he gets out through the blur in his mind is, “...awful…” The rest came out a mumbled mess.

Dewey doesn’t react to what he said though, like he doesn’t even hear him. He grabs Louie’s hand and says, “Don’t worry, Uncle Scrooge will come for us. Everything will be alright”. 

Louie’s eyes fall closed again at the brightness of the sun, “What… happened?” he whispers. He has no clue what’s going on! Is he supposed to be worried? 

The petting on his head suddenly stops, “You… don’t remember? Jeez, the concussion is worse than I thought”. Huey begins to ramble to himself as he begins to rummage through the first aid kit in his lap. 

Dewey looks Shocked at Huey’s words, “He doesn’t remember the crash!?” He yells, causing Louie to grip his head in pain. 

“C-crash…?” He lets out weakly. 

Panic rises in Louie’s gut. Did Dewey mean, like, a plane crash? He starts to push himself up into a sitting position, ignoring his brother’s trying to push him down again. He can't hear what they’re saying over his own thoughts. Where’s their family? Were they on the plane too? No, that didn’t make sense, Dewey said something about Scrooge saving them, right? Where are they now? Where’s the plane? 

He looks around quickly trying to find some answers but all he can find are trees. It seems peaceful as the sound of birds chirping is heard from beyond the foliage. But as the fear settles in he becomes more coherent. Louie begins to notice the scent of smoke in the air and the obvious pieces of metal surrounding him and his brothers.  

The only area he hasn’t seen yet is directly behind his brothers backs. They sit firmly in front of it as they continue to try to talk to him, to calm him down. He has to see though, he has to know how bad the situation actually is. He slowly forces himself to hit on his knees as he tries to look past their heads. When they refused to move out of the way he attempted to push them. The push was weak and barely managed to move the boys but did the job just fine.

Louie finally spots the pile of metal that used to be the Sunchaser. The majority of the cabin was luckily intact save for some broken windows. The cockpit, though, was crushed. The wings were completely destroyed, and there was obvious evidence that there was a fire. Basically, completely destroyed. 

They could have died. 

He sits back down into the dirt and he can feel heavy hands on his shoulders. His brothers are still talking, probably trying to comfort him. He doesn’t want to listen. He looks around at the trees again.

It’s nothing but trees. 

Miles upon miles of trees. 

God his head hurt. 

Chapter Text

It’s been two weeks since the crash and Huey is struggling to keep it together. 

Once they realized that it would probably be a while for rescue to come, they quickly worked on setting up camp. A lot of the supplies they had in the plane had been destroyed in the fire but they rummaged through the wreckage for anything that could be useful, but unfortunately it wasn’t much. 

So, using Huey’s extensive knowledge from earning his wilderness survival badge, they were able to make a small shelter with branches. 

Well, by ‘they’ he means Dewey, mostly. 

Turns out that the sudden jolt of pain Huey had felt in his ankle when running out of the plane was a sprain, so it was pretty painful to walk now. And of course, Louie could barely stand with the dizziness from the concussion at the time. So that left Dewey as the only actual useful one for now. He had spent the whole day trying to build a shelter for him and his brother’s while Huey guided him on what to do. 

They weren’t under it now though, it was too small for each of them to sit comfortably and it’s way too cold at nighttime to stay away from the fire. Louie was already asleep, resting his head in Huey’s lap as he and Dewey sat beside each other. 

There had been a comfortable silence between them, but Dewey always hated the silence, “I would kill for a burger right now” He said, voice scratchy with thirst. 

They’ve already started running out of food and water and have had to start rationing what they have left into smaller quantities, only eating just enough not to starve but not enough to make the hunger go away. Huey looked over at his brother. He sat hugging his knees to his chest as he stared into the fire. Dewey has taken the crash hard. The adventure had been his idea to begin with, it had taken him weeks to convince them to come with. 

Huey doesn’t blame his brother, though. Never. The plane exploding had nothing to do with him. 

But still, looking at his brother and seeing the guilt in his eyes, the fear in Louie’s, he doesn’t know what to do. 

Huey is the oldest. It’s his job to chase the monster from under the bed and dry their tears away. But out here? What can he say other than-

“Just a little longer, ok?”. He says with a hand on the other’s shoulder. It’s all he’s been saying since they got here. 

It’s starting to get old. 

“What do you think is taking them so long?” Louie speaks up softly from his lap, he was always a light sleeper. He continues to lie cuddled up against his brother’s lap, still holding onto his phone tightly. It died after hours of him trying to find a connection, trying to call for help. “I mean, don’t you think if they knew where we were, they’d be here by now?” 

“Don’t say that, Lou-” 

“He’s right,” Dewey interrupted, “In a way… I guess. They’re obviously having trouble tracking us. We have to start thinking of surviving long-term”. 

They’re already losing hope. 

Chapter Text

The three brothers are running out of food and water quickly. They’ve skipped meals and rationed, but nothing can stop the inevitable. They need to find a water source, and to do that, they’ll have to move away from the plane. Huey doesn’t like the idea, he hates it actually. Leaving the plane means walking right into danger. He knows the kinds of things lurking beyond those trees, he’s memorized them, listed them over and over in his mind in the dead of night when every noise makes him flinch. Poisonous plants, venomous snakes, man-eating bears, falling trees. Growing up, Uncle Donald always said to stay put if you get lost, so you are easy to find again. What happens if the plane is found but not them? Will they give up? Assume the worst?

He tried to convince Dewey not to do it while watching him pack up anything that would fit in their hiking bags. They can collect rainwater, he says, never mind the fact that it hasn’t rained once since they got here. Dewey is quick to remind him of that. 

“We’re going to die, Huey. What’s the point of them finding us if we’re dead? We need food and water if we want to last another week,” Dewey yells. He’s been more irritable lately, most likely due to hunger. It’s caused a lot of arguments. “I’m going. If you want to stay with the busted plane, be my guest. Come on, Louie”. 

Louie quickly follows behind, backpack already stuffed to the brim. The younger’s concussion had improved a lot over the past week, allowing him much more mobility and much less puking. Louie has already lost hope that rescue is coming, so why would he want to stay? His hand momentarily touches Huey’s shoulder as he passes, like he already knows he’ll follow. Of course, he will. The last thing they need out here is to be separated. 

The last thing he needs out here is to be alone. 

So he huffs out a dejected sigh before grabbing the third bag and beginning to walk. As they move into the trees, Huey looks back at the family plane one last time, scared for what was to come.

Huey is starting to get on his nerves. 

He’s been fighting every one of Dewey’s ideas just because he’s scared. Dewey understands his brother’s fears; all he wants is to be home with his family again. But they can’t keep sitting around waiting for something to happen. They’ve been here for two weeks. They’re hungry, thirsty, and quite frankly, they stink. 

Plus, Dewey’s bored. 

So, he decides that some changes need to be made, why couldn't Huey understand that? Even Louie agrees with him, and he’s scared of everything. 

The oldest of the three must have gotten tired of arguing, though, cause he’s been walking alongside them silently since they left, eyes locked on the compass in his hands. Which Dewey is honestly grateful for because he has no clue how to read one of those things, and he definitely doesn’t trust Captain Louie Lost with it either. 

His brothers started to get sick of walking after hours of not finding anything. Louie grumbling about his legs being tired, and Huey limping slightly, sprained ankle that he won’t admit to having obviously still bothering him. Dewey chooses to ignore that his feet are hurting as well; he’s having fun! It’s just like an adventure, though a slightly uneventful one. 

“It’s starting to get dark…” Huey speaks up quietly after a while. Dewey looks back to see him stop with a concerned look pointing at the sky, “We should stop and build a shelter for the night”. At his words, Louie immediately plops down into a sitting position on the ground, muttering a faint ‘finally’ to himself. 

But Dewey doesn’t want to stop. He doesn’t want to sit and rest like he’s been doing for the past two weeks. This was his first taste of some excitement in a long time, so what if it’s a little dark out? “Nooo, we should keep going! We’re so close to finding something, I can feel it”. 

Louie groans from his spot in the grass, “Come on Dew! We’ve been wandering around this forest all day. Anything that’s out there to find obviously isn’t anywhere close”.

“Just a little longer-”

“No Dewey,” Huey interrupts, “It’s getting dark, we have to stop. It is too dangerous to be walking around at nighttime”.

Here he goes fighting him again. Huey is always bossing them around just because he’s the oldest, and Dewey is sick of it. “Why do you get to decide if we stop? This was my idea, I say we keep going until we find a lake or river or something”.

“We’d be walking around all night! You haven’t exactly been very successful in ‘finding’ something today”. Huey’s getting angry now; he can tell. The way he starts to grip the compass tightly and his face begins flushing a light shade of red. 

“Hey, you’re the one with the compass here! Besides, we would have found something by now if you hadn't been stopping every five seconds to decorate the trees. You’re the one slowing us down!” 

“Decorating the- I’m marking our path so we can find our way back if we have to. It’s a completely necessary step if we don’t want to be completely lost in the middle of nowhere. But you seem more than willing to just pick a direction and run in blind!” He’s yelling now. Huey never yells. 

Their time out here in the wilderness hasn’t been all that long, realistically. But every second the three of them have spent has been a test on their rapidly thinning patience. Two weeks with the only form of entertainment being staring into a campfire and listening to the sound of Louie’s light humming of the music he wished were playing in his earbuds. They’ve spent their days trapped in the cycle of sweating their asses off during the day and freezing at night. All this time waiting for their family to show up and sweep them back into their normal lives just for another disappointing day to pass by. They're tired and they’re angry and they just want to go home, but they aren't home. They’re standing here with no clue of where they are, arguing about whether or not they should walk or sit . 

“You should have just stayed with the plane. It’s not like you’re helping. Me and Louie don’t need you here,” He says. It’s something he knows he’ll regret saying later, but right now he’s mad and all he wants is to make Huey feel the same way.

Huey’s eye’s go wide as he listens to Dewey’s words, “You’re the reason we’re here, Dewey. None of this would have happened if you hadn't forced us on this stupid adventure that probably wouldn’t have even worked out. I think it’s about time we stop listening to you”. This makes Dewey stop. Of course he knows it’s his fault, it’s all he’s thought about since he woke up on that demolished plane. But to hear it be said to him by his older brother, who is never supposed to judge him is something he has never expected. It's his turn to blink away tears as Huey continues to speak. 

“You’re an idiot” He says, voice wavering, “This is not an adventure. If you want to keep walking around the forest in the middle of the night, you can, but me and Louie are going back to the plane. Back to safety” He turns to walk away, back down the long path of colored ribbons tied onto trees. 

Good. Let him go. Dewey doesn’t need him, “Fine!” 

“...louie?”

Dewey turns the opposite direction, “Go waste away at that crummy camp.” 

“Wait”

“I’m going to survive”, he picks up speed and continues on his journey, alone this time. 

“Where’s Louie!?”

Dewey stops. 

He turns around to see the spot Louie had been sitting suddenly empty. When had he left? The sight causes Dewey to forget all of his anger from a minute ago. He looks around, expecting to see the familiar green hoodie somewhere between the trees, but no one's there. 

Huey is calling his name loudly, “Louie! Where did you go!?” There is no response. 

He’s gone. 

His little brother is gone, and it’s all his fault. If he hadn’t been so self-centered, so stupid. If he had just listened to Huey and stayed at that dumb camp, stayed at home … God he’s an idiot.

Huey seems to be equally as freaked out. 

“Where is he!? Oh god, what if something got him? We have to find him!” He is hyperventilating, speaking through sharp gasps as he walks around frantically. 

He’s panicking. 

Dewey quickly walks up to his brother and grabs his arm, “Huey, calm down, ok? He probably just walked off somewhere. We just have to stay calm-”

Huey turns and grips the sleeves on Dewey’s shoulders roughly, tears running down his cheeks, ”I can’t stay calm! Louie’s scared of the dark. He’s out there all alone, he’s probably terrified. He probably ran off because of our fighting. Why can’t I just shut up sometimes!?” 

“Don’t say that, this is not your fault. I started the fight anyway.” Huey tries to speak up to deny him, but Dewey interrupts, “We can’t panic. He couldn’t have gotten far, we just have to look for him, alright? Breathe”. 

“Ok… ok. We’ll look” 

The Two brothers spend the next five hours searching in the dark. They call out Louie’s name what feels like thousands of times and never hear anything back. They look for any kind of sign of where he could be, but find nothing. They search and search, but their baby brother is nowhere to be seen. 

At some point, Hey decides to sit against a large tree, face buried in his knees as his shoulder quivers from his cries.

He’s so tired. He tries to hold himself together so he can look for Louie, to find him and pull him into the tightest hug he’s ever given and never let him go. But he’s tired, and he can’t hold his tears back anymore. 

He vaguely feels Dewey sit down next to him. A gentle hand begins to rub his back silently as sobs rack his body. Huey doesn’t know how long he cried for, but by the time he finished, he was exhausted. He just sat with his eyes screwed shut, breathing heavily.

“I’m sorry for what I said earlier.” Dewey’s voice is soft with empathy, "We do need you. I don’t know who I’d be without you, Hue”. 

Huey opens his eyes again for the first time since he sat down. The sun set completely hours ago. It’s almost pitch black, the only light being the moonlight softly illuminating Dewey’s face. His little brother looked tired. He’s leaning heavily on Huey’s shoulder. “It’s alright. I’m sorry for what I said, too. I didn’t mean it.” 

Dewey shakes his head slightly, “It’s ok, you were right, anyway. This is all my fault.”

“No, it’s not. The crash had nothing to do with you, your flying was great. Besides, I thought the adventure was a good idea anyway”. 

In the distance, wolves howl at the moon in the sky, making themselves known to the whole forest. 

Their hands instinctively find one another in a comforting hold. This wasn’t the first time they’ve had a fight and then made up almost immediately. They were mad once, but the world will keep spinning, and they’ll be ok. 

The two sit in silence for a while, sleepiness washing over them. Huey almost falls asleep from his brother’s warmth, but he can’t. They have no shelter, they’re out in the open with no means of protecting themselves. Louie has the hunting knife. 

“I hope he’s ok…” He decides that the only way of staying awake is by talking. It’s also the only way of staying out of his head. Of thinking about all the horrible states his little brother could be in right now. Passed out in the woods, hanging off a cliff, drowning in the hypothetical pond they were looking for. Being eaten by those wolves-

“Louie’s stronger than we give him credit for. Sure, he gets scared easily, but he’s sharp. Knowing him, he’s probably found himself a nice cozy cave full of gold to swim in.” 

Huey chuckles softly, the horrible images fading from his mind. “Yeah, I’m sure he did… We’ll keep looking in the morning.” 

“Yeah, it’ll be easier to see when the sun is up.” Dewey pulls him into a tight side hug with his arm draped over his shoulders, “You go to sleep, alright? I’ll keep watch. I’ll wake you up in a while for your shift”. It’s familiar, they had started doing shifts back at the camp due to their collective anxiety. 

Huey yawns, “Ok”.

Chapter Text

Huey was woken by the bright sunlight shining onto his face. As he peeked his eyes open, he saw the trees surrounding him. The feeling he gets is one that he has felt every morning he found himself still stuck deep in this forest, discomfort. He felt the rough bark of the tree that had been rubbing against his back as he slept. His body is sticky from the hot summer air, and the layer of grime on his skin reminds him of how long it’s been since he had a bath. Huey moves to stand but stops as he notices Dewey's heavy weight, leaning heavily against his shoulder and fast asleep. He never woke Huey up for his turn last night. 

Guess he’s stuck here. 

As he accepts his fate, he starts to look around at his surroundings more. The ground is full of dew-covered grass that makes his legs wet, brightly illuminated by the sunlight peeking through green leaves. Pretty white flowers are scattered around, he even spots a bee rolling around in one. Sounds of nature echo through the forest. 

It’s strange. Huey has been here for what feels like forever, but he never noticed how pretty his prison was. 

His eyes slip closed again and he lets himself relax, basking in this new state of calmness. He stayed like that for a while, listening to the soft sound of Dewey’s breathing and the repetitive tapping of a woodpecker in the distance. He feels himself slowly drifting back into sleep. 

But the peace didn’t last long as it was suddenly interrupted by a new sound. 

Running. 

Heavy feet loudly hitting the ground, rapidly getting closer. 

Huey hits Dewey on the arm a little harder than he meant to, waking him up. Dewey groans in his still half-asleep state, “What’s going on?” he gasps, “Aw man, did I fall asleep?” 

“Shhh,” Huey scolds, “Do you hear that?”

The footsteps continue, closer than they were a second ago.

Huey doesn’t give him time to process. He grabs his brother’s arm and pulls him behind the large tree they had previously been sleeping on. They wait for whatever it is to pass, hoping it won’t notice them. 

The two silently watch the bushes. 

Leave crunch under every step. Closer, louder. Huey can feel his heart racing, his mind feeling at full speed thinking of every possible creature that could be lurking beyond the leaves. What happened to not being scared? Dewey grips his shirt from behind, keeping their bodies close. He’s afraid too, for once. But as they watch something come through the bush, it isn’t a man-eating bear or any type of horrible monster like they were expecting. It’s a familiar face. 

“Louie!”

They watch as their brother runs past them, not stopping at their voices. The two run after him.

“Louie, stop! It’s us!”, “Why are you running away!?” They try to get through to him, but he doesn’t pay them any mind.

His running is frantic as he tries to dodge the large trees, and it’s obvious that he’s having trouble maintaining speed while pushing through the foliage. Huey can hear shaky sobs coming from him as he moves; he’s crying. Eventually, Dewey is able to catch up to him. He tries to get Louie’s attention by grabbing his arm, causing him to gasp and jerk away from him. He trips over a large overgrown root, slamming into the ground hard. 

Huey expects him to get up again and continue to run, but he stays on the ground, curling up into a tight ball with his hands covering his ears. He walks up to Louie, worried that he had hurt himself. When he reaches out to touch his brother, he is startled by his sudden screaming. 

“NO NO STOP!” 

Louie’s yells cause them to jump away. They watch, scared and confused, as their little brother continues to writhe, scream, and cry in the dirt. Dewey moves closer to his older brother and grips his sleeve, not knowing what to do. This makes it clear that Huey is the one who has to fix this, somehow. He walks over to Louie again, and Dewey follows behind. 

He sits down next to him and gently places his hand on his back. Now that he’s close, Huey notices the wetness of Louie’s body. His clothes are soaked through, and his hair sticks to his forehead. He’s shaking and mumbling ‘stop stop stop’.

“Louie?”

Puffy eyes peeked up from where they had been hidden, looking up at him before glancing around with a strangely confused look on his face. He expected to see something else. 

“It’s ok,” Huey says with a smile, “It’s just us”. 

Tears are still running down Louie’s face when he uncurls himself. He sits up quickly and practically tackles his two older brothers into a tight hug, startling them. “Woah-”

“It’s after me!” He sobs loudly, “It tried to get me”. 

“What!? What was? I didn’t see anything,” Dewey says. 

But Louie doesn’t answer. He continues to cry into their shoulders, obviously terrified of whatever “it” was. Huey doesn’t question him, though. He runs his fingers through his brother’s hair with a shush, “It’s gone now, alright? You don’t have to be scared”. 

They stay like that for a while, Huey and Dewey silently comforting Louie as he attempts to get control of his breathing. It’s a familiar scene that has happened many times before. Louie has always been very sensitive, though he hated the word sensitive. He feels his emotions very strongly, and he gets scared easily. Though as the three of them got older, Louie would pretend that he wasn’t as affected as he really was. There hasn’t been a breakdown like this in a long time. Whatever it is that happened must have been really bad. 

Louie’s weight shifts as he begins to pull away. He rubs his face roughly, obviously embarrassed by his meltdown. But Huey grabs his hand, showing him that it’s ok. He looks down slightly, “Oh, I’m sorry…”

Huey looks down at himself too, noticing the large dark spot on his shirt, wet from the hug, “Don’t be, it’s ok”.

“Why are you all wet anyway?” Dewey asks.

“Oh yeah,” Louie sniffles, “I, uh... found a lake”.

Louie leads his brothers through the forest slowly, trying to retrace his steps after blindly running around a few minutes prior. He can feel his legs shaking with adrenaline every step he takes. 

He’s ok. 

[That] didn’t happen, [it] isn’t real. 

Louie is used to nightmares; he has them pretty often. This one felt so real that he could have sworn that it actually happened, but that’s impossible. It was all in his mind, so nothing was after him. Nothing was ever chasing him….

He continues forward, occasionally glancing up at the tall trees. He walks hand in hand with Huey while Dewey attempts to balance on large rocks a few feet away. Their talking distracts him from his thoughts. 

“So, how’d you find this lake anyway? Did you trip?” Dewey laughs, still a bit confused about how he had ended up in the lake. 

Louie thinks about it. There had been a lake in his dream, he remembers that well, but in real life? “Well. I sort of just… woke up floating around in it. Maybe I was sleepwalking or something.”

There's a tug on his arm that pulls him backward, “Wait,” Huey says, gripping his hand tightly, “You woke up in a lake!?” 

Looking at Huey’s shocked face, he notices something behind him. Through the trees, there was water. 

“Oh look there it is!”