#ae’m not very happy right now can you tell

[thereareeyesinsidethetrees]

sorry to bring it up again (thinking about it because we’re going to be turning anonymous asks on over on the pridetriangles blog), but the fact that that anon was the exact same individual that initially yelled at us for ‘telling folks what to ship’ when we weren’t like a year ago is fucking wild to us

you almost seemed like a decent individual! you went ‘yeah, that’s fair, thanks for telling me why you’re blocking’ and ae went ‘cool, that’s the end of it’

our immediate thought on seeing (mutuals hit us up to know what all their blogs we know of are if you want to block them too 👍) right after was ‘that’s them isn’t it. that’s too perfect a coincidence, that has to be them’

fuck the benefit of doubt cause apparently it was

it’s just. such a horrible realization that we had someone keeping track of us for over a year in spite of being blocked. ae don’t get it. what do you get out of that. what do you do all day. how many other folks are being targeted by you. it can’t be just us right. good fucking god

[starshinewriter]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: DuckTales (Cartoon 2017) Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Dewey Duck & Huey Duck & Louie Duck, Louie Duck & Scrooge McDuck Characters: Louie Duck, Huey Duck, Dewey Duck, Scrooge McDuck, Doofus Drake (mentioned) Additional Tags: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Brotherly Love, Protective Older Brothers, doofus is the worst, scrooge used to be as well but hes working on it, Episode: s03e21 The Life and Crimes of Scrooge McDuck! Series: Part 10 of Set After Summary:

Louie apologized to Doofus, he isn't sure how to feel about it. (Spoiler alert, he's very sure.)

Notes: 

yes im aware this is another louie-centric story and yes im also aware that i still have to finish the final chapter of AMOM.... that's all i got.

hope you enjoy!

Alternative to Ao3:

The first thing Louie does when he gets home is go up to his room, he thinks his Uncle has some idea of how worn out he is cause he doesn't say anything against it. He knows that he'll have the room to himself since his brothers are still occupied with the gribbles and honestly that relieves him a bit, as bad as that makes him feel he needs to be alone right now. There's also the thing of them knowing whenever something is wrong the moment they see him and will ask questions that he isn't ready to answer yet.

He throws himself on his bed and does everything he can not to think about the day's events but fails almost instantly. So he tries to think about everything except the part that bothered him the most. He fails at that too.

He apologized to Doofus Drake, that was something that he did. And he's supposed to feel happy about it, apologizing is a good thing, but all he feels is everything he always feels with Doofus: dread, terror, the overwhelming desire to get as far away from him as he possibly can- which is about as opposite from good as you can get. He doesn't get it, why doesn't he feel better about this? Why does he feel like he just made a huge mistake? Sure, Doofus is Doofus, but he had gotten him off of his back, which had been his whole goal, he should feel good right now, but all he feels is trepidation.

Trauma, Huey would call it.

All he knows is that he wants it to go away and he doesn't know how to make it, and that might be scarier than actually being scared. What if it never goes away? What if he always feels like he can't let his guard down, ever? What kind of life is that? He buries himself in his blankets and that's where he stays, alone, until the door opens and voices that are talking about something he can't hear pause when they see him. He can practically feel them look at each other and carefully step to the bed.

"Hey, Lou." One of them -Dewey- says. "Whatcha up to?" He doesn't say anything. They look at each other once more. He feels the bed move a moment later- once, twice, and then he's surrounded by the comforting presence only his brothers can give. He stays in the blankets.

"What happened today? Uncle Scrooge gave us a summary but it was mostly about him and what he went through."

"Doofus Drake was there." Is all he says, but it's more than enough, in less than a second arms are encompassing the blankets and grabbing him in a hug. They know what a trigger Doofus is for him.

Huey places his head near where he knows Louie's is, "Do you wanna talk about it?" He feels his head shake and fights back the urge to sigh, of course he doesn't, but that doesn't mean he shouldn't. "We won't force you, but it might help you get your thoughts in order."

"I apologized to him." His brothers share a glance,

"Why?"

Louie shifts in the blankets, his brothers move to make him more comfortable. "To get him to leave me alone, mostly, and drop the case. But I dunno, Uncle Scrooge was apologizing for what he did, so I thought I had to too."

Dewey looks at him with confusion, "But you didn't do anything, not anything that he didn't deserve. Why apologize for that?"

"It felt like the right thing to do."

"Was it?" Louie is silent for a few minutes, that's what's worrying him, what if in making the right decision for the case he made the wrong one for himself?

"I don't know." He finally answers. "I just know I wanted Scrooge and me to be able to go home and I didn't want to have a sworn enemy my whole life."

Huey holds him tighter, "Louie, your relationship with him is not the same as Uncle Scrooge's relationships with his enemies. You're terrified of him! You can't be around him or even think about him without freaking out! He trapped you in his house, he tried to have you killed, he's not your enemy, he's an abuser!" The room falls silent after that and it stays that way until sniffles start to come from the blanket pile.

"I didn't want to do it," Louie admits. "I just did what I thought I had to. But now, now I'm so scared." He breaks into sobs and his brothers quickly pull him out of the blanket and into a hug. "It's not fair, why did I have to be the one to do it?! Why does he get to get away with everything?!" Dewey starts rubbing his back which makes him calm down a bit.

"All I can say is he better hope he doesn't run into us."

"Agreed." Huey replies; Louie lets out a small laugh, yeah he better, but Louie wouldn't feel sorry for him if he did.

____________________________________________________________

His Uncle finds him in the kitchen later and nods at him as he goes to get something from the fridge. "Are you feeling better, lad?" He asks as he sets up a kettle on the stove.

"No." Louie says honestly.

"Ae thought that might be the case." He pours tea into the kettle. "Ae know apologizin' fer somethin' is hard, especially ta someane like that, but sometimes it's just somethin' yew have ta do."

"... What if I made a mistake?" Louie responds without looking at him and his Uncle sighs.

"The only ane that can tell ye that is yew, do yew feel like ye made a mistake?" Louie hesitates before nodding. Scrooge hums, "Necessary evil it's called, sometimes its the only thing we can do. Doesnae make it right, or fair, but look at the positive: at least he'll leave ye alone now."

Louie doesn't say anything to that. Was that positive big enough to negate the negatives? "I wish I didn't." He admits all of a sudden. "Does that make me a bad person?"

His Uncle looks at him sternly, "Louie Duck, you are ane o' the best people ae know. Ye constantly make me want ta be better, and ae know ye do fer the rest o' this family as well. All o' yew kids do. Ae know this situation is awful but ae'm proud o' yew fer being the bigger person, if that counts fer anythin'." Louie nods, it does, it counts for a lot actually.

"Huey said I shouldn't have had to do it, that my relationship with Doofus was different than your's with your enemies. Worse. And that he didn't deserve an apology. I agree with him and I hate that I did it. It didn't make me feel any better, didn't lift any weight off of me, it just made me feel worse. And you know what the worst part is? That I keep thinking that I made him like this, that if I hadn't of gone to see him on Only Child Day he wouldn't be like this, how messed up is that?"  

Scrooge turns back to the stove and removes the kettle then pours himself a cup of tea, "The lad was right, my relationships are nae that the same as yers, and it'll do yew no good ta compare them. Ae'll be honest- that child deserves a lot o' things, but an apology is nae ane o' them. Ae'm sorry yew were forced inta that position, yew should never do things cause someane else is or because it seems like the right thing ta do." He sighs. "It was a sticky situation, and ane ye really shouldnae have been involved in, ae dinnae need Donald yellin' at me ta know that's true." He says with a wry grin. "Ae'm glad yew were there though, ye were a great help." He adds, more sincerely.

Louie beams, "Maybe I should be a lawyer."

Scrooge chuckles, "Maybe." He looks at Louie, "Somethin' ae realized today was that while ae had a hand in creating my enemies and them me, ae ultimately made myself. Anyane can go on and on aboot apologizin' and holdin' people accountable, but at the end o' the day our own actions are the only anes we're responsible fer. Yew didnae make Doofus what he is, he made himself like that."

"That makes sense. Thanks, Uncle Scrooge." Maybe now he can feel better about this situation, between his brothers and his Uncle he's coming out with a much clearer view than before.

"And speakin' o' holdin' people accountable..." Louie looks at him with interest. "Ae'm thinkin' Doofus' parents and ae need ta have a little chat aboot his behavior. He cannae make yew as upset as ye get every time yew run inta him and get away with it." Louie grins at him, okay, now he can really feel better about this whole thing. It won't be right away, but he knows now that it is possible. He'll probably be scared of Doofus his whole life, and will never, ever, be near him again, but he won't always be a source of trauma for him and that's probably the best outcome.

And this point, he'll take whatever he can get.