A/N: For Bookworm Gal who asked for the song (though I'm the one who chose to use My Chemical Romance's version). I hope you like it and thanks for your wonderful support through all of this!
To say that he was freaking out would be an understatement.
Negaduck was absolutely positively 100% losing his mind over this.
Christmas.
With Dipwing Dunce, Launchbay and Gosalyn.
In their house.
It was so normal.
What did normal people even do on Christmas anyway?
No, he was actually asking.
Because Negaduck's experiences with the holiday were far from normal. Cowering underneath furniture to hide from his drunken enraged father. Going into town with his parents, the city decorated within an inch of its life, and trying to act like they were normal. Hiding the fact that they were falling apart so rapidly that the cracks in their carefully constructed wall of normality were busting apart, bleeding out their pain and suffering.
Standing in his living room, looking at the Christmas decorations Gosalyn had helped him put up a few weeks ago, Negaduck wondered what he was supposed to do.
When he went to spend Christmas with her and Dipwing Dork and Lilypad.
Because he didn't deserve this. To celebrate a normal Christmas.
This was what he'd earned: an empty broken down home with a busted heater and the lingering threat of a panic attack just on the edges of his sanity. He'd been the one that had isolated himself. Built his empire to run on fear. His rules were law and he had never needed any backup or support.
Until Gosalyn.
She deserved happy Christmases.
Without her, he was nothing. A washed up villain who didn't have the sense to die. Not from being stranded in Oblivion. Not from Paddywhack blowing him to kingdom come with a tron-splitter. Not from Stellar's torture or his attacks in Oblivion.
Negaduck was too damn stubborn and look where it got him.
Recognizing his racing heart, quick gasps for air, and mounting fear as the panic attack come in full force, Negaduck turned to go upstairs. To hunker down and wait for it to pass.
But on this way up, his clumsy shaking fingers got tangled in the garland wrapped around the banister. He jerked away, intending to free himself, but managed to rip some of the garland down instead.
He froze, eyeing the decorations on the floor before leaping down and grabbing the garland up in a rush.
He had to put it back. The exact way it had been.
His fingers shook harder as he tried to weave the garland around identical to how he'd seen it. But he couldn't get a solid grip on it. It kept sliding through his feathers, not willing to weave through the railing.
Damn it! He had to make sure there was no sign he'd been here. No indication whatsoever that he was upstairs.
That way when Stellar came by, the old mallard would just think the house was empty and not bust through the front door searching….
Wait.
That's right.
Negaduck wasn't in Oblivion where any little noise would alert Stellar to his location. Where he had to cover his tracks, make it look like he didn't exist, so his father wouldn't be able to find him.
He was in the Negaverse. Where he was in charge.
Grabbing the garland, Negaduck yanked, a feeling of satisfaction easing the tightness in his chest as he watched the entire string fall into a pile on the floor.
Looking toward his living room, a wicked grin spread across his beak as he walked toward the tree, rolling up his sleeves and letting his panic take over.
It wasn't until he stood in his front yard, flamethrower in hand, that he realized he'd gone too far.
Luckily, he kept a fire extinguisher in the garage for instances such as these.
Grabbing it, Negaduck barreled back inside, coughing at the thickness of the smoke as he extinguished the flames that had licked around the interior of his house.
His living room was gutted. So was his bedroom and kitchen. Gosalyn's room was untouched, but the house creaked dangerously when he tried to go inside and reclaim his sanity.
This would do it. Negaduck setting fire to his own damn house because he couldn't deal with Christmas. Gosalyn would see how hopeless he was and leave him. All he would have left of her would be his mostly destroyed house and a bedroom filled with her belongings.
Negaduck collapsed onto the charred floor, tossing the spent fire extinguisher aside and trying to catch his breath.
Gosalyn had only ever been the one thing Negaduck wanted.
But Negaduck didn't get what he wanted.
Only what he brought on himself. What he deserved.
And he sure as hell didn't deserve Gosalyn.