Chapter Text
He rebuilds the houseboat. He does it slowly, piece by piece, splinter by splinter, and sometimes he’ll see Scrooge standing at the sliding glass door with this look on his face that he knows means come inside, but he doesn’t, can't bring himself to. He’s not sure why he’s hung onto this boat so long, repairing it even after it had sunk to the bottom of the bay during the return of Magica De Spell months ago. The rhythm, the work, its soothes the anxious tension in his shoulders, drawn tight and rigid the moment Scrooge and the boys take off on another Adventure he doesn’t accompany them on. Its steady progress, and it keeps him distracted from the fact he still doesn’t have a job- it's harder now, to track one down. He’d already tried his hand at half the jobs in Duckburg and now everyone was starting to catch wind to his truly awful luck- at least here, working on the boat, he didn’t feel completely useless.
It’s late, somewhere between 2am and sunrise, and he should be asleep, he’d been working on the boat under huge flood lights, insomnia crawling up his spine and nightmares nipping at his heels. He cracks his neck and puts down the hammer, fingers stiff and aching from his grip on the handle, and heads inside for a break and a soda- which, of course, there is none in the fridge. Darn it Louie, he always got to the good snacks first…
He stands in the kitchen for a long moment, mentally deliberating between sleep and the delicious, mouthwatering taste of a fresh pep… there was a convenience store not to far from here… he snaps up his keys and grabs the spare house key for the front door, locking up behind himself. He winces as he starts his car, noticing only how loud his clunker was now that it was the middle of the night, pulling out of the driveway as softly as possible. He doesnt turn on his headlights until he’s faced carefully away from the house. He flips it to some oldies rock station, drumming his finger on the steering wheel along to a song he used to know all the words to.
He snorts, thinking about how he knows the words to more nursery ryhmes than songs he’d listened to since he was in single digits. Such is the way of a man with three kids.
The rundown old gas station he finds is nothing special, he’d seen hundreds of these before with the same peeling paint, flyers and old sale posters held together by yellowed tape, half the light-up sign flickered out. The fluorescent of the store is a jarring transition from the warm-gold street lamps, casting everything in the store into hyper focus, and Donald was half-convinced he had stepped into another dimension- which, while uncommon, wouldn’t surprise him since he was part of the weirdest family ever. If it was gonna happen to anyone, it would be him, right?
There's a bored cashier at the desk, he’s middle aged maybe, a little closer to fifty than thirty, flipping through a magazine. There's one other person in the store but Donald ignores everything other than the coolers lining the walls containing his coveted prize- he stops before his hand reaches the handle, breath catching as his sense catch up to him. The lights above him drone on, hum like a itch beneath his skin, the cashier flips the page of his magazine and the sound grates on his ears.
She sighs, softly, almost too soft for him to hear but he does anyway and there’s no mistaking that voice. He holds his breath, turns his head slowly, carefully, he can't let her know she’s been spotted- the other patron in the store, she’s a woman, with short black hair cut sharply at her jawline. Donald fumbles for his phone, grabbing at air. He curses himself for forgetting it in the car, biting his cheek, because he was in a small enclosed space with Magica De Spell, the one and only, with no weapons, no way to call for help, and an embarrassing novelty hooters t-shirt on. He was really going to die in a gag gift he’d gotten at his twenty first birthday party. fitting.
He turns, braces himself- because if he’s going down he's not gonna go down easy and thats a promise- Shes holding a can of spaghettios. His brain stutters to a halt. Shes holding a can of spaghettios but its the off brand kind, and she's squinting at the price tag, and her hairs oily and unkempt, and she looks the special sort of shitty that he recognizes because he’d lived it too, when money was tight and the triplets had to live off macaroni and cheese and hamburger helper and the got his third rejection email of the week. she's dressed in black sweatpants and a pink hoodie, the kind of garish pink that both caught your attention and made you want to look away at the same time, and there's a line of tension in the curve of her frown, a promise of hardships in the dull feathers beneath her eyes.
damn it- fuck- now he felt sympathetic for her! Fuck! He breathes out his nose hard, cursing himself for leaving his dumb stupid car for a can of Pep and digs his fingernails into his palm for a long moment, trying to decide what to do. Magica rubs her face and there's a worn out slump to her shoulders, and puts the can back.
He takes a step towards her, because he’s the stupidest person alive and is definitely going to be killed and buried in this dumb shirt, and she stiffens carefully. He sees that, the moment she notices him, and then he sees the moment she recognizes who he is. She spins to face him, tense and wide eyed, holding her hands up in front of her defensively. Purple sparks from her fingertips and he feels his feathers bristle, bunching up around his throat, but he doesn't back down. He tries to be casual, actually, forcing his shoulder to slacken, shoving his hands into the pocket of his jacket. There’s a tense silence.
“They inflate the prices here,” He says, stopping beside her to look at the mediocre aisle. There's always one, in every convenience store, that's got canned foods on one end and diapers and motor oil on the other, and it's always ridiculously overpriced because they know if you're buying stuff like that here it's an emergency, “Look at grocery stores and shit first, especially in their clearance section. It’s a life saver.”
She is silent, vigilant, watching him starkly, “I can't exactly be seen in a walmart, now can I?” She responds gruffly, looking away and folding her arms. How long had it been since she’d tried to kill him and his entire family? Why did she look so thin?
He picks up the can and weighs it in his hand and she jerk sharply to face him, eyes narrowed as if she knows he’d been entertaining the idea of smacking her over the head with it, before he grabs a few more, gathering them up into his arms, sweeping up a bottle of soap and a hairbrush too- not subtly, he’s aware, but he doesn’t care much. He Takes them up to the counter, dumping them in front of the man, who scans them without looking up, bagging them absently as donald pays. She's lurking in the corner of his vision, curious and confused and guarded when he holds out the bag.
“Take it.” He says and it feels like swallowing sandpaper, to offer her anything. She stares for a long moment, eyebrows drawing together, “Take it before I change my mind.” He snaps and she reaches for it then, and he recognizes the shame in the tightness of her frown. her fingers come too close and he drops the bag before she can touch him, grimacing as she stumbles to catch it.
She doesnt say thanks and he doesn't expect it, and he notices the green to her feathers had faded, the strange wrongness to her eyes is gone. She looks almost normal. He refuses to pity her, but he still empathizes with her, and hates her a little more for it. She stands beneath the too-bright lights, looking tired and worn, looking entirely unlike herself. They stare at each other. The cashier flips a page on his magazine. There’s nothing to say, really, and she takes a step back, out the door.
She disappears into the darkness just outside the gas stations overhang, bare bulbs and broken lights casting strange shadows across the ground. He stands in the air conditioning for half a second longer before following her outside, ripping open the door to his car, throwing himself into the driver's seat. He breathes for a long moment. Then he promptly throws a tantrum, yelling and banging on his steering wheel, because fuck it all, right? He was so stupid! This was so stupid! AAA!
When he’s done, hes breathing hard, and he can see the attendant peering at him through the windows suspiciously. He puts the car in gear and peels out.
He gets halfway to the manor before he realizes he never got his pep.