This fic has mature themes for DuckTales. I'm putting it here instead of Quack Pack, because I didn't want to run totally with the QP personalities, wanted Duckburg to be full of anamorphic animals and no humans, and wanted to involve Scrooge and Webby. Dewey and Louie will probably borrow from their QP personalities quite a bit, but Huey will probably not match his QP personality so much. Drugs and other possible...mature situations. Webby is not considered a "real" cousin, but does still reside with Scrooge. Fixed formatting! Bit of a pain, but got it done! Most of this I typed up around four years ago and I forgot what I originally formatted it on, but clearly it wasn't good, lol!

the Fray

Huey glared menacingly at the female duck behind the counter. She looked to be about in her mid-thirties and returned his stare through narrowed eyes of her own. "I'm sorry, but I refuse to believe this I.D. is authentic," she repeated. "We cannot sell tobacco products to underage minors," she coolly informed him, her eyes alight with challenge, asking him to just try to do something about it. He crossed his arms and frowned, finally breaking the gaze he had held so firmly. Obviously, she would not budge as he'd tried almost everything in the book by now. Usually, this gas station was employed with a younger man, who was a high school dropout and didn't ask questions. Huey was pretty certain he was doing some hardcore drugs and was probably the reason he'd been replaced with this woman who refused to sell him cigarettes. After a couple more moments of silence, she spoke again. "Shouldn't you be in school? How old are you? Thirteen?"

"Almost eighteen," Huey replied breezily. At her hard look, he reneged and answered, "Fifteen."

"I see. It's not even noon. I'm pretty sure school is in session because last I checked it definitely isn't summer."

Huey snarled at her and turned on his heel, exiting the store without another word. He didn't want any lectures from some stranger who didn't give two rats about him. He pulled out the pocket watch he carried with him and checked it with a resigned sigh. The woman had been right; it was before noon and getting awfully close to the lunch bell at Duckburg High, where he and his brothers attended. He stuffed the watch back in his pocket, vaguely wondering who had thought of pocket watches in the first place. Still, it had been a gift from Uncle Scrooge a few years ago and Huey had been infatuated with it then and now he just couldn't bring himself to chunk it and get a wrist watch; it reminded him of when he and his brothers and his great uncle got along better.

He usually tried to show up on certain days around lunch because every other day, with the way his and Dewey's schedules fell they had lunch together and Huey found his life to be much less difficult in the afternoon if his more gifted brother saw him at school. Otherwise, he'd face an afternoon of questions, demanding to know where he had been and wasn't he worried about failing the grade? What on earth could possibly be more important than school, anyway? Huey shook his head after a couple moments of inner debate. Honestly, he couldn't remember if today he had lunch with Dewey or not. Why did Dewey have to get such a darned confusing academic schedule, anyway? After several more moments of inner conflict, he finally made up his mind and decided to seek out another store he could possibly sucker the cashier into allowing him to buy cigarettes. After carefully wracking his brain and finding a store he thought had potential, he sucked in a frustrated breath before letting it out and hitting the bangs that hung in his eyes. "Damn. I forgot my I.D." He wondered if the woman had confiscated it on purpose.

Stabbing at the mess of food on his cafeteria plate, Dewey silently stewed as he listened to a few friends chatter around him. He had only taken a couple sweeping glances of the cafeteria to determine that his older brother was most definitely absent...again. Why can't he just come to school? I know he's not stupid! Dewey thought as he brought the fork down hard into the meaty stuff on his plate. The fork flew out of his hand and hit the duck sitting across from him. Four pairs of curious eyes studied him, waiting for an answer. Dewey stared in shock before recomposing himself and standing up quickly. "Sorry," he mumbled. "I, uh, gotta do something," he said hurriedly and rushed out of the cafeteria before any of them could protest. After ungraciously dunking his food into the trash, he sought solace in an empty classroom. It was his biology class and the next one he had. The teacher had left the doors opened, but couldn't be found anywhere.

No one else was there, so he simply sat with his thoughts, trying to clear his mind and determine the best course of action to take. Naturally, he could approach his brother after school and try to get him to talk, but Huey always seemed to find this offensive and usually snapped at him. Uncle Donald was aware of these absences which were becoming more frequent and Dewey would definitely prefer not to have those two argue anymore; it was just downright scary with both tossing things at each other and screaming at the top of their lungs. Uncle Scrooge had been informed of the issue and tried his own approach and Dewey had no idea what had exactly transpired between the two, but ever since there had been a definite rift between the two. Daisy had attempted talking to Huey and it had actually seemed to help for about a week or two.

Dewey propped his elbows on the table and rubbed his palm down across his face, trying not to let the stress get the best of him. He would have to help Louie with his school work later. That was another rift he constantly worried about; the one between his two brothers. Louie had failed a grade; the last grade of middle school despite trying very hard to pass. Both Dewey and Huey had tried to help, but there seemed to be some sort of block that Dewey couldn't quite figure out. His brother had been tested and didn't have any known learning disabilities, but he just couldn't seem to retain information, especially when it related to the core academics, such as mathematics, language arts, science, and history. He had to repeat the grade while Huey and Dewey moved onto high school without him.

Dewey wasn't sure if Huey saw it as them abandoning Louie, or Louie abandoning them, but whichever it was, it had seemed to trigger a lot of angry emotions within Huey and even now, a year and a half later, he still seemed to be struggling with the dark emotions. To top it off, Louie had barely passed the grade the second time around and seemed to be constantly on the verge of failing his freshman year now. Adding more flames to the fire, Louie had decided to join Duckburg's High JROTC with plans to eventually join the Navy like their uncle had. This had also seemed to set Huey off and he had become snappish and rude with their younger triplet. In turn, while Louie sometimes argued, his struggles with academia had seemed to knock some confidence out of him and he generally tried to avoid Huey altogether, not wanting to "argue in circles" as the two usually did.

Dewey himself seemed perpetually stuck in the middle, though he tended to side with Louie, which further aggravated Huey. In all honestly, Dewey really couldn't entirely see where Huey was coming from. His brother just seemed so bitter and angry and hard to talk to. On the other hand, Louie was mellow and much easier to hang around with, so it was only natural that he would understand the person he spent more time with better. Huey was rarely around at home and when he was, if he wasn't razzing Louie over academia, he was snapping at Dewey to mind his own business, or arguing with Uncle Donald. Huey's constant heckling of their brother over his academic struggles irritated Dewey to no end and pushed both him and Louie further away. It was something Dewey had tried to understand, but just couldn't figure it out for the life of him.

"Hey, anybody home?" A familiar female voice and nudge pulled him out of his reverie. Glancing up, he felt a smile on his lips and his heart felt much lighter than it had a few moments ago. Webby returned the smile and took her seat to the right of him. She had proven herself to be rather smart, skipping a grade and then deciding to take biology her freshman year instead of waiting until her sophomore year. Dewey had also had that option, but wanted to take as many classes as he could and had opted for a different science course his freshman year.

"How are you doing, Webby?" he asked conversationally.

"I'm doing pretty good. How are you doing?" she asked, concerned. "You looked pretty lost in thought just now."

Dewey's expression darkened and he sighed, drumming his fingers lightly on his desk. "Huey's absent again from school and I was trying to figure out what to do with that."

"Not again," Webby said sadly, glancing downward. She was familiar with the situation, still living with the boys' great uncle. Her grandmother now mostly helped Duckworth and that was fine with her. She liked being able to stay in touch and had worried she and her grandmother would have to move far away permanently. It looked as if she might be around for a long time and that made her happy. She liked that feeling of security.

"Yeah, I don't know what he's thinking. Sometimes I wonder if he's a lot smarter than he lets on."

"What do you mean by that?" Webby asked, curiously. "If he were, wouldn't he be here."

"And that's what stumps me. I think maybe he's bored with the classes, but then he gets mediocre grades. And if he was really smart wouldn't he know this would reflect badly on him? Maybe he just doesn't care?"

Webby remained silent, unsure what to say. After a few moments of silence, she sighed lowly. "This probably isn't the best time, but I just got out of English with Louie and he barely passed the test we took last week."

Dewey groaned and rested his head on the table, feeling utterly defeated. "I don't understand. Why doesn't anything sink in with him?"

Webby set her things down at her desk and offered an encouraging smile. "I'm sure it will. It'll just take some more time."

"Right," Dewey muttered unconvinced, running his fingers over his eyes and down his face in a sign of defeat, "I've only been tutoring him for a couple years, two more and he should be a 9th grade expert."

Webby giggled unable to conceal her amusement. "At least he keeps trying?" She offered up, not really able to think of any better encouragement. "And he has you! I think it's pretty great you don't just give up."

"He's my brother, I'd never give up on him."