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Tigerhawk's Shelf of Angst
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Published:
2022-05-10
Completed:
2025-04-18
Words:
1,499
Chapters:
2/2
Comments:
14
Kudos:
372
Bookmarks:
38
Hits:
3,805

To feel confused

Summary:

“Why are you always so selfish?!”

Huey sat, still and tense, in his chair and breathed in and out. Here it comes.

Louie straightened himself and glared at Dewey. “Okay, what is up, man? You’ve been treating me like dirt all week!” he demanded.

Here it comes.

“Why did you say that to Mom?!”

Notes:

I wouldn’t say Della is bad or good here. She’s different things to all of the boys.
I meant to write this a long time ago, but didn’t.
It’s been so long since I’ve written just about Huey, Dewey and Louie.

Louie is super bitter in this.

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Chapter 1

Chapter Text

Huey guessed he should’ve expected it. He’d witnessed the tension building up between Dewey and Louie. It didn’t take a genius to know what was coming. He’d just really didn’t want to deal with it, so he’d hoped ignoring it would make it go away.

The last straw was snapped.

“Hey, that was the last pep!” Dewey exclaimed, glaring at Louie.

Louie smirked and took a long slurp from his can. “That it was, dear Dewford,” he lilted.

“I wanted it!” Dewey said.

Huey winced at his volume, trying to just focus on his homework.

“Too bad, so sad,” Louie simply said.

Dewey pushed him and he fell back into the kitchen table, knocking Huey’s pencil to the floor.

“Why are you always so selfish?!”

Huey sat, still and tense, in his chair and breathed in and out. Here it comes.

Louie straightened himself and glared at Dewey. “Okay, what is up, man? You’ve been treating me like dirt all week!” he demanded.

Here it comes.

“Why did you say that to Mom?!” Dewey shouted.

Louie stared at him, dead silent.

“This is about her?” he asked slowly. He smiled wryly. “Hah. Of course, it’s about her,” he grunted with a scoff.

Dewey’s beak scrunched, eyes alight. “She was alone for ten years. She—“

“And whose fault was that?” Louie bit, eyebrows narrowed and contempt burning in his gaze.

“She didn’t mean to leave us for that long! She spent all that time trying to get back to us!” Dewey said fiercely.

“She still left!” Louie yelled, fists shaking at his sides. “She left us, Dewey! Accept it!”

“She didn’t mean to! You have no idea how she felt all those years!” Dewey yelled back. “You don’t even care!”

“You don’t care how I feel!”

Huey couldn’t take it anymore.

“GUYS, STOP IT!” he butted in, physically separating them. They’d been so close, it looked like they were about to bite each other’s faces off.

Huey took one last deep breath. Time to play his role.

“You have different feelings toward Mom and neither of you are wrong for feeling how you feel,” he told them.

“Seriously, Hugh?” Louie glared at him, eyes incredulous with more than a hint of betrayal in them. “Dewey’s obsession with her isn’t wrong?”

“I’m not obsessed!” Dewey roared.

“No,” Huey said firmly. “Just because you don’t like Mom doesn’t mean he’s not allowed to like her.” He turned to Dewey with a stern face. “And just because you like her doesn’t mean Louie’s not allowed to dislike her.”

Betrayal was in Dewey’s furious eyes now. “She’s our mom! You should be defending her, Huey!”

“For fucking abandoning us?”

“LANGUAGE!” Huey shouted.

They both shut up.

“Just stop fighting about this already!” Huey demanded. He exhaled through his nostrils. “You’re not gonna change each other’s minds.” He gave each of them a look. “Just stay out of each other’s relationship with Mom. Got it?” he asked.

Dewey and Louie both were unhappy with that. Huey waited for a response, but didn’t get one. Louie went into the living room and Dewey stormed off toward their bedroom.

Huey sighed and dropped back into his seat. There was no way he could think about his homework now.

Betrayal; both of his brothers had looked at him in betrayal. Huey felt guilty, but he just couldn’t pick a side. He just couldn’t.

He… wasn’t sure how he felt about their mom.

Louie wanted him to hate her. Dewey wanted him to love her. Huey just wanted to be allowed to feel confused.

Chapter 2

Notes:

So I ended up thinking of something else, as well as a bit of a difference stance for Huey. But I still needed Dewey and Louie to have that argument, so I decided to add this as a continuation anyways.

Chapter Text

Huey was just tired.

He’d stopped stopped counting the days Dewey and Louie hadn’t spoken to each other. He’d stopped worrying about them. He’d just stopped caring, too burnt out to care anymore.

So that evening when he found Dewey and Louie on the opposite sides of their room—with their backs turned to each other to boot—he just rolled his eyes.

“Oh c’mon. You guys can’t fight forever,” he sighed, making his bed ready for the night.

“Wanna bet?” Louie said with a glower, not looking up from his phone.

From across the room, Dewey grunted in apparently unhappy agreement.

Huey was tired. “Is it really that hard to just stay out of each other’s relationships with Del?” he said, taking his hat off.

Dewey suddenly whipped his head up. “Wha—?” He blinked at Huey. “What did you just call her?”

Huey blinked. Then raised a brow. “Uh, her nickname? She goes by Del or Dels sometimes?” he said, confounded by Dewey’s reaction.

“Hmph. I just use Della,” Louie muttered, slouching against the wall in bed.

Dewey frowned. “But… why?” he asked, genuinely confused. He crossed his arms, squinting. “Seriously Hue, what even is Mom to you?”

Huey blinked, caught off guard by the question.

Louie appeared to pause at that too. Then he put his phone down and faced him. “Yeah,” he added, “You seem to just… not care?” he said unsurely.

Both Dewey and Louie gazed at him expectantly.

Huey thought for a long, quiet moment, staring at the floor. “…I don’t hate her,” he murmured, “but I don’t really see her as ‘my mom’ either,” he said with a crinkle between his eyebrows. It felt weird saying that and he knew it probably sounded weird too. But it was the only way he could explain it in a way that he thought made sense. “I understand that she did leave us. I also understand that she didn’t mean to,” he said. “But… it doesn’t really bother me.” At least, not anymore, “I like her. She’s like a best friend. Or like that weird type of aunt, y’know? Like Daisy’s sister. That’s…” Huey slowly nodded to himself, then looked up at his brothers, “yeah, I guess that’s just what I think of Dels.”

They both continued to gaze at him.

“…But don’t you want a mom?” Dewey asked.

Huey shrugged. “I guess I see Daisy kinda like that already.”

“But how does what she’s done, just, not bother you at all?” Louie asked with a disbelieving stammer.

Huey thought. Then he shrugged again. “Nuance, I suppose. I understand the context she was in.”

“Yeah, she didn’t mean to,” Dewey snapped, narrowing his eyes and crossing his arms, “There’s no reason to be mad.”

Louie turned to him slowly and Huey winced.

“She’s why we didn’t have a mom OR A DAD!!” Louie shouted angrily. “She’s why people treated us differently!!I HATED being the kid who didn’t have parents in school!” He all but whacked a wild hand to his chest, tears filling his eyes. “Didn’t you?!” Desperation seeped into his tone as he violently pointed at Dewey, anger turning to hurt—begging for solidarity.

Dewey slumped. He could understand that. He did understand that. He got where Louie was coming from now, but…

“I… I wanted a mom,” he breathed, hanging his head, “I wanted a mom to sing us lullabies, and give us hugs, and play with us.” He looked at his hands and hugged himself, looking up at Louie with his own glassy eyes. “That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

And the tension in Louie loosened, understanding in his gaze. He got where Dewey was coming from now.

Huey blinked at the silence that filled the room, for once not venomously bitter or heatedly charged. He smiled, his chest feeling lighter than it had been in a long while. “I’m glad you can understand each other now,” he said.

“…So then…” Louie started uncertainly.

“What now?” Dewey, seemingly finishing, asked, just as uncertain.

“Simple,” Huey replied, grabbing his toothbrush from his nightstand. “Del can be your mom. She can be my friend. And she can just be Della to you, Louie. Or nothing. I’m sure she’d understand,” he said.

“I… I guess so,” Dewey agreed slowly.

And Louie mumbled a quiet ‘yeah’.

Huey smiled. “Good.”

And with that, he knew what to do and that everything would be alright. He left to go brush his teeth before he went to bed, giving Dewey and Louie some time alone together.

It was quiet at first

Dewey cast his gaze been Louie and the floor. He rubbed his arm. “Sorry…” he began, “…I didn’t know you were angry because you were hurt.”

Louie uncrossed his arms, letting them rest across his stomach without tension. He glanced over his shoulder at Dewey, then looked at the wall. “I didn’t know you were hurting either because of how much you wanted her in our lives…” he said softly.

Dewey nodded and laid back, gazing at the ceiling. “…So if she’s my mom but not yours,” he turned his head to Louie, “are we still brothers?

Louie was quiet a moment. He thought. Then he looked at Dewey. “I can do that,” he said with a nod. “…Can you?” he asked.

Hope and vulnerability inside his gaze.

Dewey gave him a crooked smile, which Louie slowly returned at the sight of.

“Yeah,” he said.

Notes:

Kudos are appreciated and I’d love to hear what you thought!