"Dewey! Are you nearly ready?" Huey calls as he sticks his head into the bedroom. He frowns. Dewey isn't there. And Dewey's backpack is laying on the floor. Huey runs over and picks it up before leaving the room and hurrying back down the hall. "Dewey! Where are you- omph!"
Webby's bedroom door flies open, almost hitting Huey in the beak.
He stumbles backwards, falling over as Dewey flies out the door and lands in the hallway, striking an action pose.
He blinks when he sees Huey sitting on the floor. "Huey! What are you doing there!?" He gasps, startled.
Huey frowns and tries to hand Dewey his backpack. "I was looking for you." He says. "We're going to be late."
Dewey's eyes light up in sudden realization. "Oh! Right! " He and Huey were supposed to be going on a Junior Woodchucks field trip today. "Oh man, I totally forgot!" He slaps his feathered hand across his forehead. "I'm gonna have to take a raincheck, Huey."
Huey stares at him, still holding up his backpack. He slowly lowers his wings and puts it back on the floor. "You're not coming?"
Dewey cringes, looking guilty. "I'm real sorry Huey. Something just came up. I'll come next time, I promise!"
"Yeah… of course. Next time. Alright." Huey nods quickly. "I'll just…" Huey trails off. He'll just… what? Go by himself? Stay and help Dewey with his sudden emergency? (Because it had to be an emergency, right? Why else wouldn't he come?)
"I'm ready!" Webby springs out of the room after Dewey, holding her backpack aloft in the air.
Dewey cringes and stiffens, shaking his head rapidly and looking from Webby to Huey.
Huey's face falls. "Oh. You're hanging out with Webby again?" He asks, nervously. His voice warbles, but he thinks he does a pretty good job of keeping any resentment out of it. The anxiety is loud and clear, but the resentment? That's buried deep.
Dewey sighs, looking guilty. "Why don't you come with us?" He offers.
Webby squeals. "Yeah! You can help us solve the mystery of-!"
"It's okay." Huey says softly.
Webby stops. "What?"
Dewey frowns, concerned.
"It's okay." Huey repeats. He looks at Dewey with an approximation of a confident smile. "I can go on the field trip… alone." He nods. His eyes are wide, and Dewey knows him too well not to see the anxiety shining there. But there's resolve in Huey's voice under the waver, and Dewey can tell this is important to him.
"O-okay…" Dewey agrees hesitantly. "But you'll text me if anything goes wrong, right?"
Huey nods.
"And you're sure you don't want to come with us?"
Huey hesitates, takes a deep breath, and nods. "Yeah. I can do this."
.
Huey isn't sure he can do this.
It's hard sometimes, really loving something. At least, loving something the way Huey does.
Because he loves Junior Woodchucks. He loves it in a way neither of his brothers do, and in a way none of the other Woodchucks seem to either. There are kids who have been here way longer than he has, and they have half as many badges. They don't even know the chapters of the JWG, let alone the content of those chapters. They don't follow protocol for orienteering, or pitching tents, or foraging, or… or anything.
And none of them like him. He's never really noticed before, since he always had one of his brothers by his side anyway. He's a Woodchuck, he's part of a club. A community . It's easy to see himself as part of the group, because he quite literally is. On paper, he's a Woodchuck. On paper, he's probably the best Woodchuck. But in all the ways that matter…
Huey lags behind the group, dragging his webbed feet in the dirt. He had tried to pair off, but everybody was already buddied up, and nobody really wanted him in their group. He's good at earning badges. He isn't so good at making friends.
He never thought it mattered. Who needs to make friends when you're a triplet? It doesn't matter if he is awkward and annoying, if he talks too much and gets too excited, and doesn't know how to talk to people. He already has two best friends who love him despite all his quirks, and that's all he'll ever need.
He's one of three. Part of a matching set. That's how the world makes sense to him.
He fidgets with his phone, unsure. He types out a message to Dewey; How's your mystery going? And erases it. He wants to make friends, he just… isn't sure how. If he knew why nobody wanted to talk to him, then it would be a problem he could fix. But right now, it just feels like a … like a mystery.
He smiles slightly. If it's a mystery, then it can be solved.
He slips his phone back into his pocket.
.
Huey runs up the front steps, relieved to be home. His day wasn't as bad as he had expected. It was not the best, but… it wasn't the worst either. He didn't make any friends, but he did manage to collect a new badge. He also spent the day carefully watching the other kids, and now had a long list in the back of his JWG of "normal conversation topics."
He throws the door open and runs inside, shouting his brothers names. "Louie! Dewey!"
"In here!" Louie calls, and Huey follows his voice to the living room. Louie is on the corner of the couch, curled up against the armrest. His phone is in one hand, and his eyes drift back and forth between the television and his phone screen. They flicker briefly to Huey as he runs in, and he raises his free hand a few inches in a wave. "Hey." He smiles
Dewey is sitting beside him, leaning forward, eyes glued to the tv. "Hey." He says as well, but he doesn't look away from the action movie playing out on the screen. Huey waits in the doorway, mentally counting the seconds as he watches Dewey's brain process, and his brother's eyes widen. "Huey! You're home!" He leaps off the couch and barrels into Huey, knocking him to the floor. "How was your day!?" He demands. "Louie almost got killed by a giant robot!"
"What?" Huey's excitement drains in a heartbeat and his eyes dart to Louie. "Louie!? Are you okay?"
Louie's eyes flicker back to his phone screen. "I'm fine." He shrugs. "Dewey's just being dramatic."
Dewey frowns and narrows his eyes, but Huey interrupts before they can start arguing. "I… I got my cartography badge." He says softly, trying to distract his brothers. It works.
"How did you do that?" Dewey asks. "I thought it would be like, super impossible, since you didn't manage to map out Mt Neverrest."
Huey looks at the floor, embarrassed. "Well, I guess… I didn't really need to chart the uncharted…" He sighs. "We went on an orienteering field trip. All we had to do was read the map. Everyone who made it to the finish got the badge." He walks with Dewey back to the couch, and clambers onto it. He huffs in frustration. "It feels like cheating when it's so easy." He glances at Dewey. "You could have gotten one too." He says quietly. "You know, if you'd come. Cause you would have been on my team."
Dewey winces and apologizes again. "I'm really sorry Huey. I'll come next time, I promise."
Huey smiles.
"So, who did you team up with anyway?" Dewey asks.
Huey winces. "I uh… didn't. Everybody was already paired up, so I did it without a partner. But that's fine, I still came in first! In fact, I think the other teams were so busy arguing that it slowed them down. So really, it worked out in my favour." He speaks too quickly, and grins too widely.
.
Louie is missing dinner, again . It isn't like him.
"I'll go get him." Huey offers, slipping out of his chair. He's surprised when Louie isn't in their bedroom. He finds him in the living room, still curled up on the couch where they left him. The television is off, and so are the lights, but Louie isn't asleep. Huey can see the flickering light of his phone as Louie watches some reality tv show.
"Louie?" Huey calls, stepping in. "You know dinner's ready, right?"
"Eh, I'm not hungry." Louie lies. "Just… leave some aside for me, please?"
Huey shakes his head and narrows his eyes. "No way. You're always hungry. Don't you lie to me, Louie. You know you can't fool me." Huey warns seriously as he climbs up onto the couch with him.
Louie winces as the couch shifts. "Urgh, fine. I can't get up."
Huey blinks. That wasn't the answer he was expecting. "What? Why?"
Louie groans and rolls his eyes. "Because I did about six-thousand stairs today, Hue. My legs feel like they're going to fall off and I can't stand up."
"Oh. Okay!" Huey hops off the couch and scampers away again, leaving Louie staring after him in baffled confusion. After a second, he shrugs and pushes play on his video.
Before he knows it, Huey and Dewey are dragging in chairs from the dining room, and using their Woodchucking tent-pitching skills to make a canopy from their bedsheets.
Louie watches in bemused wonderment as his brothers erect an impromptu blanket fort around him.
Dewey's face appears in front of Louie, shoving a tupperware container of leftovers into his hands.