Disclaimer: I don't own Ducktales!

Title: The Bad Summer

Summary: The triplets and Webby move into the houseboat for the summer. Huey is forced to come to terms with the fact that he's facing depression. Louie is on meds. Dewey starts to be concerned about his lack of attention span. Webby fiddles with origami.

Warnings: Depression, mentions of a failed suicide, discussions of both, this is going to heavy stuff tbh.

...

They each carry a box of things out of their rooms, meeting in the main hall. Huey has books. Dewey has toys- the things he fiddles with to focus. Louie has his favorite blanket and pillow set, a few comic books slipped between them, and a small bottle of pills. Webby has blank paper.

"You really don't have to do this," Louie edges out, shuffling the box from hand to hand. "I'm literally five feet from the door. This is a waste of good beds."

"Doc said you need a change," Huey reminds him. "And who is gonna remind you to take your pills otherwise?"

"Huey," Louie says. "You didn't remember to eat breakfast this morning."

Dewey's eyes widen. He smacks his head. "I knew I forgot something!"

"I remembered breakfast," Webby broaches, fiddling with the centaur horn she keeps on a necklace. The latch is a little creaky from overuse. "So that's makes us even on the breakfast-no-breakfast ratio."

"Why the paper, anyway?"

She shrugs. "I'm gonna learn origami."

"Relaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaax," they all hear Dewey say to Uncle Donald as they set their things inside the houseboat. It sat mostly empty in the swimming pool, set up with a TV, couch, and two beds. "We're literally two feet from the door. We're probably closer to the car from here, too, so we're technically better prepared for any possible emergencies."

Louie clutches his blanket to his chest and listens. They all know the possible emergency is him. Huey expects to see a lot of things on his face, but irritation isn't among them as he flails a little and stares at his box.

"This is stupid," he mumbles, seemingly to himself. "I'm not gonna kill myself."

No one thinks that, Huey yearns to say, but isn't sure if it's his place to. After all, wasn't the person who called the ambulance, panicked, you?

The first night, they do rock, paper, scissors. Louie gets Dewey. Huey gets Webby. Louie sleeps like a corpse, still and hardly breathing, and it wigs Dewey out to the point he up and leaves, taking a dip in the pool fully clothed. Webby kicks Huey off within an hour of falling asleep.

Louie's doctor prescribes him four things; pills, exercise, stretches, and to keep a diary. Louie pretends to forget the old black notebook he's kept hidden in his drawer for three months, but Huey pretends to remember for him.

"Dear diary," he muses aloud, turning to the first page with a scowl. "This is an exercise in futility- not to mention mind-numbing. And, no offense, but I prefer my mind-numbing to come from the beautiful box of colors and lights we mortals call a TV."

"Louie," Huey says. "The doctor said it was good for you."

"Oh, yeah? Then maybe you should keep one, then," he snaps.

There's a short pause, Huey staring at his webbed feet, before he finally replies. "Maybe I should."

Webby makes a paper airplane first. It's not origami, but it's hard to resist the allure of a good paper airplane. She aims and fires, hitting Louie in the back of the head. He grimaces.

"Avast, young flyer!" Dewey bellows, brandishing an old lightsaber that doesn't light up anymore. "'Tis a no-fly zone!"

Webby's eye light up with the idea of a challenge. "I do what I want, good sir!"

"Come at me!"

She does, tackling him to the floor. Even at their age, Webby is undoubtedly the strongest and fastest of them, conquering all their games. Huey watches from the couch. Louie watches from the couch. Neither of them leave the couch much, anymore.

"I think mosquito hate us," Dewey says as he puts up yet another roll of netting. It's hard to tell with their feathers, but they all have more bites than they do regular skin.

"Correction," Webby hands him the next to be put up. "I think they like us too much."

Louie squeezes his eyes shut, frowning. "I don't really care about the mosquitoes. It's the heat that I loathe."

"The heat is only deadly if you're out in it." Huey smacks a bug away. "These assholes can make us sick."

"I hate sickness and heat equally. Both are horrible, horrible things."

("Can I say something terrible?" Huey asks while they're out getting the netting.

"Shoot."

"I'm scared," he admits. "That I'm like you, I mean."

Louie lets out a little 'ha!'. "Hubert, I dunno if you've noticed, but we're basically symptom siblings. You probably have depression. Get over it.")

The third night, Louie and Huey share a bed, and that works out pretty well. Huey is a bit restless, but Louie curls up in a little ball and sleeps just fine. Dewey and Webby beat each other up with their kicking and flopping in the night, and it's pretty clear that won't work either.

The next thing Webby learns to make is the typical crane, which she promptly throws at Louie's head, almost taking an eye out. "I wrote in that one!" she chirps.

Louie unfolds and reads it. "Yes, you can ask me about it, Webs."

"Oh thank duck." She sounds relieved. "I'm not going to, since that's a privacy thing-"

"Tell that to my counselor."

"But it makes it easier to know that I can if I need to, y'know?"

"Yeah, no, totally get it."

She leans forward a little bit, brows furrowing. "Okay, I lied. I have to ask. Did it hurt?"

"Yup."

"Like, one to ten."

"Probably an eight."

"Ow. Does it hurt now?"

"Nope." He held up the arm, showcasing a decently sized scar. "All healed now."

"Oh." Webby hesitantly reaches out to brush it with her finger. "I'm not going too far, am I?"

He shrugs. "We all deal with stuff differently. I make it into a joke. You make it into a science project."

"You're not my science project," she argues.

"If you say so, Webs."

Louie and Dewey argue which side of the bed is best and who should get it, eventually leading to Dewey taking the couch, and Louie sleeps alone and comfortable. Huey and Webby wake up bruised and sore. It's not like it would be any different if they switched.

Uncle Donald visits every other day. Scrooge visits on the off days.

Donald fusses over Louie, then Huey, then Dewey. He checks to make sure he's taking his pills and that Huey is eating and Dewey did his laundry. Then he helps Webby fold her paper project of the week. He doesn't read Louie's diary, but he does ask if he's been writing in it at all. He usually says yes. It's the exercise and stretching he's failing at. He gives them all big hugs and kisses.

Scrooge stands in the doorway most of the time. Clears his throat. Checks his watch. He surveys the (empty) pill bottles and soda cans on Louie's table, the ancient woodchuck guidebook on Huey's, and the general disarray of the floors, covered in paper animals and Dewey's general inability to sit still for more than a few seconds. They leave him bowls of small foods to snack on as he runs about.

(He starts to liven up when Webby bonks him on the nose with an origami turtle.)

Huey goes through spells of insomnia. He always has. He also binge-eats snack foods. This is a newer habit. Louie wakes up early one morning to find him with a pile of wrappers nearby and his head in his hands, bags so deep under his eyes you might think he had spots.

"I should talk to Uncle Donald," he admits.

"You should talk to Uncle Donald," Louie agrees.

"I think my level of focus is bad," Dewey says while twirling a spork, laying flat on the floor. If it falls, it'll land in his mouth.

"What level of focus?"

"Exactly. I should be better than this, right?" He sits up. "I can't pay attention most of the time. It's not because I don't want to, either. I just can't."

"You usually do fine on adventures," Webby volunteers, brow furrowed.

"Those are easy." Dewey waves it off. "We get the thing and try not to die. Straight line. But grocery stores? Grocery stores are straight-up satan."

"I concur," Louie says. "But I think that's mostly my laziness talking."

("Would you be mad if I said I'd thought about it?" Huey asks one night, before the insomnia incident, the TV droning on in the background. Dewey and Webby have both fallen asleep. "Before. After? Both."

"It'd be a bit hypocritical if I was, don't you think?" Louie replies. "I think you should talk to Uncle Donald, though."

"You didn't."

"And clearly that was helpful." His face softens. "It kinda feels like drowning, doesn't it?"

He nods quietly.

"It's hard to talk about it," Louie adds, eyes fluttering closed. "But, honestly? I'm starting to feel better. I haven't been this comfortable in- god, I think it's been years." He opens his eyes and looks at him, frowning slightly. "I won't tell you what to do. It's your head and your heart, and it's all on you what you do with it."

Huey bites his lip. "I don't think I've been treating them very well."

"Does anyone ever?"

"I dunno. It'd be nice to be them, though.")

Webby doesn't feel up to getting up one morning, so they leave her to it, setting a cup of coffee on the nightstand. Huey peeks in on her later to find her curled in a ball under the blankets, surrounded by origami cranes she's using as guards. He quietly shuts the door and lets her sleep.

That night the trio take the spare bed, almost like they're ducklings all over again, and sleep pretty good.

"You probably get it from me," Donald says when Huey comes to him, shrugging in that self-defeated way he does. He's got bags under his eyes too. "It runs in my side of the family."

(Which also includes mom, but they don't usually bring up mom.)

"Have you..." Huey starts, then stops, clamping his beak shut. It's hard to ask these kinds of things. It's admitting there's a lack of control here. That he can't say he knows.

Donald ruffles the feathers on the side of his cheek and slowly nods. "I've been off and on meds for most of my life."

"I never saw any pill bottles."

He laughs. "Of course not. You boys were too smart. You would've found a way to open them."

"You didn't ever have to go without, did you?" he asks tentatively, sitting down on the arm of one of Scrooge's many couches. Huey has to tilt his head to meet Donald's eyes. "Because of us?"

"You boys never made me go without anything," Donald answers firmly. "But no. My prescription is pretty cheap. I just have a bad habit of deciding I'm 'too good' for them and going without, only to sink into a low and start back on them again." He let out a bittersweet chuckle. "I'm pretty sure my doctor hates me."

Huey hugs him, pressing their heads together. "We love you, Uncle Donald. We want you to be happy."

"Thank you, Huey." He sounds tired. But he smiles too. That's enough for him.

"Hey, d'ya think if you combined your meds you'd make, like, a mega anti-depressant?"

"I think we'd make ourselves sick," Huey offers.

"I dunno," Louie prompts. "We might get super powers."

"Or we'll die."

"It's not a true origin story if you don't barely make it out alive."

"So, Webby darlin'."

"Uncle Scrooge." Webby still stumbles a bit when she says Uncle. It's not uncommon for her to say 'Mr. Uncle', either. Years of repetition have ingrained it in her mind.

"Why origami?"

Webby looks up from her paper fiddler crab, whom she intends to have captain the cranes. His name is Bitey. Captain Bitey. She shrugs. "Why not? I always pick a new hobby for summer."

"Well, yes," he agrees, holding one of said cranes curiously. He looks like an overgrown child next to her, watching his adopted niece fiddle with printer paper. "But this year's been... different."

"You can say bad."

"I'd rather say fucked up. But Donald would rip me beak off if he knew I was usin' that kind of language 'round yew, and Beakley would burn the remains."

"Yeah, that sounds about right." Webby holds her crane up to the light. "Well, the way I see it, I haven't been much help on the family front lately, and I can't fix that. But I can fix these little guys. I can unfold and refold, erase weird pencil marks; honestly, the only way you can mess up with origami is to run out of paper or patience, so... It's nice."

"I know how ya' feel, lass." Scrooge picks up a piece of paper with a sigh. "Maybe I oughta get inta' origami meself."

"Can I ask you the ultimate rude question?"

Louie wipes his face of sweat. Even in the shade of the overhang, the heat is killer. "You're going to ask me why I didn't go through with it, aren't you?"

"If you're okay with me asking."

He slips his hands into his hoodie pockets, contemplating. He probably wouldn't be so hot if he stopped wearing the stupid thing, but it's comfy. "You're going to think it's stupid."

"Louie," Huey says as he cracks open a can of soda. "I don't think it's possible for me to find the reason my little brother decided against leaving this Earth stupid."

"Touché." He blows a raspberry. "If you must know, I remembered a TV show I wanted to watch."

"A TV show?"

"See, you think it's stupid."

"I don't think it's stupid, Louie. I'm just trying to understand how the TV was enough to make you want to stick around."

Louie shrugs, eyes half-lidded and murky. "When you get to that point- actually, no, that's projecting. Not everyone is as awesome as I am. When I got to that point, I couldn't find a point in staying. So I focused on the little things, y'know?" He holds his hands out like he's opening an invisible map. "I made little goals for myself. Sure, I could die today, but then I wouldn't get to have some of my favorite soda with lunch. If I left next week, I wouldn't know how Ottoman Empire ended. That type of thing. It kept me going. Some days, it still kinda does."

"I thought about Uncle Donald and Uncle Scrooge," Huey admits quietly. "Just... them finding me, I guess. That'd be so horrible to do to them."

"It's scary when it sinks in, isn't it? When you sit back later on and you're like 'holy crap, I was this close.'"

Huey nods, sniffling a little. He's not crying. It's allergies. He feels decidedly numb about the whole thing. It feels distant from him, even though it's only been a month or so. That's probably the pills working. "Didja ever watch that show?"

Louie shakes his head, frowning. "I don't think I can. It's just one of those things."

He shifts over so he can wrap an arm around Louie's back, squeezing. "You know we'd miss you, right? That's not me saying it out of pity or anything. We really would miss you."

"That's the scary thing." Louie crammed his head into the ridge of Huey's shoulder, eyes wet for reasons beyond his comprehension. "I do know that. And I did it anyway."

Huey plants a huge, sloppy kiss on his forehead. The kind you see cheesy Grandmas do in the cartoons. "We're all here now. We're getting better. Dewey's already talking about seeing the doctor for his focus issues."

"What're the chances all three of us end up on meds?"

"We share everything else- we might as well share doctors and the need for medications."

Louie lets out a little snort. "We'd miss you too, you know."

Huey swallows. "I know."

The mosquitos buzz on, preparing their next attack.

Author's Note: I think this is the most bittersweet oneshot I've written since that one where Stan died.

Some backstory for ya'll- I've been dealing with depression for, dang, I dunno, probably since I was a teenager? Anyway, I had a lot of responsibilities leave my shoulders lately, leaving me with ample free time, so I kinda downspirialed for a couple of months. Dealt with some bad thoughts. I'm on meds now, though, and getting better! I've been feeling so much better since I got a prescription that works for me.

Anywho, the doctor told me to keep a diary (which I am), but I have a habit of spilling my emotions better through fictional writing. When I was dealing with grief, I wrote about grief. When I was dealing with moving, I wrote about moving. It's usually a subconscious thing- I notice it, but it's not necessarily something I do on purpose. But this time? This time I was working through it via ducklings.

And this stuff won't click with everyone! I don't expect it to! Depression manifests and is dealt with in an infinite amount of ways. But I'm posting it for the folks who it will click with. If there's anyone out there going through something like this; you ain't alone, fam.

Is it perfect? Nah. There wasn't much focus on Dewey or Webby, or anyone outside of Huey and Louie, really. But I enjoyed working on it nonetheless. =)

-Mandaree1