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Night One: Huey
He thought he was holding it together pretty well, all things considered.
It was their first night apart in, well, forever. They had been sharing a bed since they were born, all squished into the same crib because that was all Donald could afford for three kids he hadn't been meant to parent.
Everything felt too quiet. The crickets chirped outside of his window, and his sound machine roared on from the corner, but it wasn't the type of noise that he was accustomed to. Huey appreciated the large bed and space to move, but there was a chasm in between the words comfortable and lonely.
It wasn't like he didn't know that this was going to be happening. Scrooge had said the there were a dozen or so spare beds in the manor. That meant one for each of them, Donald, and even the pigeon that landed on their boat every so often.
Only three of the spare beds ended up occupied. Donald's pride was too large to accept any of Scrooge's offers just yet, and their rich uncle would surely flip if a dirty street animal was caught resting on his pristine bedsheets.
Even if Huey barely knew anything about Scrooge yet, he could tell that he was not the type for pets.
His beloved Junior Woodchuck Guidebook said that independence was important. Huey had made sure that page was bookmarked the minute he saw it, because he always hoped that he would be able to prove his worth as an individual. Living on the houseboat meant that him and his brothers did just about everything together. While that was nice most of the time, it started to get old once the teachers they had for years couldn't even bother to try and tell them apart.
It was good for them to be apart. Even if it was only for the nine hours that they slept. Well, six for Dewey. Five and a half if they were lucky.
He always was the most prone to fidgeting out of the three of them.
Huey just didn't expect to be able to hear every single thing that peeped outside of his giant window. It wasn't that he was ungrateful for the space. Sleeping in a bed that wasn't surrounded by the smell of sea salt had never exactly been on the table. They had even went without their bed for a period of time, with Donald having to sell it to make some extra cash when the lights got turned off on them and all.
It was during that period of time that Dewey and Louie discovered that they had so-called twinsomnia. It became a thing because of how frequently they were awake, which Huey wanted to tell them was because of the hardwood floors and flimsy blanket—but he didn't want to ruin their fun. They would crack jokes at each other and throw balls of socks until the other yawned and put their head down.
Huey had felt so left out he could have cried, but he supposed tripletsomnia did not have the same ring to it.
He missed the whispering. He felt like it was rare that they were actually allowed to be freely happy at all during that time.
The crickets chirped on, and Huey tried to close his eyes to sleep. It had taken mere minutes for him to move his stuff into his new room, and he kept a close eye on Scrooge the entire time to make sure he did not suddenly retract his offer.
It hadn't set in yet that they were, like, actually financially okay. For now. For now they could live as comfortably as they pleased, and it was all because—
Huey startled immediately when he heard a crash from down the hallway. His hands immediately went to his sides, gripping the forms of the pillows on either side of him that replaced the figures he had expected to be there. He inhaled quickly, sucking in the air that didn't taste at all like the sea, and tried to relax himself from the sudden noise.
He stared almost longingly at the door. The urge to run and check on the two forms that had followed him around since birth was strong, but it would be going against everything his beloved guidebook said. Be independent. Be brave on your own.
Yet, he had left the door to his room slightly ajar in case any specific ducklings wanted to come in and join him.
Yeesh, he really was turning into Donald. Maybe the guidebook was all about making sure that didn't happen.
He decided to roll over and close his eyes for real, and he secretly hoped that Dewey and Louie didn't end up scheming against him next as he did so.
Night Two: Dewey
He was wide awake, just as he had been the night before.
His life was a movie. That was the only true way he could describe it. He had went from living on a dingy old houseboat with his crotchety uncle to sleeping on a real bed in a real mansion. The bubble that he had been living in for the past few days felt like it was going to explode and leave him stranded on the houseboat dock.
How was he ever expected to sleep when adventuring awaited him in the morning? Sleeping had always been boring and hard, which were two things that Dewey hated. It was hard to focus long enough to sleep, let alone actually stay in that state.
His head buzzed with excitement. Not only was he related to the richest duck in the world, but he had escaped several otherworldly evils, collected treasure that people would literally kill for, and made several new friends all in the short time they had known each other.
This was only night two in his new home. He couldn't imagine what night thirty would feel like. Or night one hundred.
Night three even felt too far for his liking.
His feet shook beneath the blankets, and he clasped his hands together and shook them around just to release some of the adrenaline that was built up in his body. One thing about having a bed all to himself was that he could move around as much as he wanted with no complaints from anyone else.
It was funny how much he sunk into the squishy foam of the mattress. He pushed his heels against the texture just to feel how they would bounce back up with the right amount of pressure.
A smile spread on his beak. Everything was cool.
Dewey put his palm on his chest and felt the rapid thud of his heart. He knew he would not be getting to sleep anytime soon. Back when the bed that he occupied was shared with two other people—which had only been about three days ago—he had assistants in making sure that he partook in some sort of shuteye. Louie scolded him with a word he wasn't technically supposed to know and told him to stop moving, which always gave him a good laugh, but it was Huey that always took charge of the situation.
There had always been kind of an unspoken rule between the three of them to not wake Uncle Donald. He did enough for them during the day, making him deal with them while they were supposed to sleeping just felt cruel.
Huey was in charge of the nightmares, irrational fears of the dark, night time jitters, stomachaches, or anything else that plagued them before they were supposed to rest.
He had started a counting system. He would drape his arm around Dewey's shoulders in their shared bed, or even the floor that one time, and he would start counting backward from a thousand. Dewey would follow along, mouthing the numbers as Huey went, and he would make sure to keep his voice as low as he could so that Louie didn't wake up.
Dewey was always out like a light before they reached six hundred.
He almost considered going and getting Huey then. He never minded doing the counting for him before, Dewey was almost certain that he would help him out.
That was, if he wasn't already asleep. He had been gloating for the past two days about how he was finally going to get his independence badge or whatever. He had declared that them being apart at night was the first opportunity he would ever get to do so.
Louie had rolled his eyes and looked like he was biting back some sort of remark. Dewey almost wanted to pull him aside and ask what said remark was, but Huey always got kind of antsy whenever the two of them started whispering in front of him.
He had forgotten about it until right then.
Dewey wondered how the other two were so well adjusted to the idea that they would probably never share a room again. Scrooge had taken them in and insisted on giving them beds, so his hopes had already skyrocketed in terms of the whole thing being permanent. Nobody just gave somebody a free bed unless it really meant something.
Yet, he almost wished they could have spent their first nights in a real bed together. They did everything together.
Maybe that was exactly what Huey was running away from.
Dewey sat upright and practically leaped out of bed. Yeah, it wasn't going to happen. If he couldn't go and get his brothers, he could just go to the next best thing. The houseboat was still an option, and Uncle Donald was still resting on it happily. It even still rocked due to its placement in the pool.
He opened the door to the room and winced when it creaked. He hadn't expected rich people's hallways to be so echoey. He was used to having to be quiet in small spaces, but quiet in a big space? That just made everything so much less fun.
Dewey ran to the end of the hallway, and he rounded the corner as he tried to remember where the door to the backyard was. Scrooge hadn't exactly given them the grand tour in the middle of their super-awesome-super-dangerous adventures.
After a few wrong turns and a run-in with the sensors that were perched outside of Webby's door, he reached the door that he had been searching for.
He smiled to himself. He was great at searching. A true adventurer in the works.
The door didn't creak as it opened, rather glided smoothly to reveal the slight breeze in the summer air. The houseboat remained perched in the pool, the motor that kept the lights and heat on humming ever so slightly. If Dewey wasn't so used to hearing it, he would have missed it entirely. It had become one of those things that lulled him to sleep when Huey was too conked out to count with him.
He shut the door and crept towards the comforting object as quietly as he could. He still didn't want to wake Uncle Donald. Dewey's presence would simply just be a nice surprise for him in the morning. He was sure that he wouldn't mind the company.
The crunch of a stick startled him out of his thoughts.
He whirled around suddenly, fists balled and ready to launch, and he put on his best scowl. It was a pose that he had studied from Scrooge, except he didn't bare fists, rather a large cane.
Dewey would have already stolen himself one of those if it didn't mean looking like a geezer.
"Who goes there?" he whispered with a harsh voice. Uncle Donald was still asleep, after all.
"You suck at action poses," the voice said from behind him.
He abruptly turned all at once, baring his teeth as he did so. He was about to growl out a response about how the pose didn't matter, it was only the action part that did, but he was met with the green hoodie that he would know anywhere.
"Louie?" he said too loudly.
"Keep it down!"
"Oh, sorry," he said, clearing his throat. "Louie?" he whispered.
"Hey."
"What are you doing out here?"
Louie's eyes suddenly widened, and it was only then that Dewey noticed he had a hand hiding behind his back. He tried to peer behind him to see what his brother wasn't sharing, but Louie turned with him and blocked the action.
"Was looking for the bathroom. You know how hard it is to find anything in these rich people houses," Louie answered cooly.
"Huh," Dewey answered simply, because he knew the feeling.
"You would think with how old Scrooge is he would keep one of those handy scooters that just transports you to the bathroom. But, alas, he's too senile to think about it. Say, you think we've been here long enough that my name could have made it into the will?"
Dewey snorted. "I don't even think Uncle Donald is in the will."
"Yeah, well, I could be a better nephew than him. Say, you never said why you're out here."
Dewey's hands clenched together, his fingers tapping against the backs of his hand, and he knew that Louie noticed the fidget immediately. Whatever he said next was going to have to be convincing or else Louie was going to know something was up.
He decided to draw out a long, exasperated, and totally fake yawn.
"I was also looking for the bathroom. I guess I should go back to bed now! Er—my bed, obviously. The one I'm staying in."
"Uh huh," Louie said.
"Yeah, so, I'll see you tomorrow! Night, Louie!"
Dewey turned around with a wave, and he made a beeline for the sliding door. So much for any sort of comfort from the houseboat or giving Uncle Donald an exciting surprise.
He just hoped that Louie didn't notice how fast he started sprinting once he got inside.
Night Three: Louie
Alright, so he stole Huey's stupid flannel sleep shirt. It was his fault for leaving it on the stupid houseboat to begin with. That basically meant that it was up for grabs.
Running into Dewey the night before had been a close one. The stupid pilled fabric had been clutched between his fingers so hard that he almost thought an imprint of his hand would be marked on it after. He was lucky that his brother was so predictable and uncoordinated with his movements, otherwise he would have been busted.
He couldn't sleep without the sea salt or the rocking. Huey's sleep shirt at least smelled like home. He had started to even miss stupid Dewey's stupid kicking.
He had tried to get Uncle Donald to sign him up for karate or wrestling back when he started doing that. At least that way they could all take bets on him and maybe earn a little extra green. Dewey had excitedly nodded along with him as he proposed this idea to Uncle Donald, but it had been shot down immediately with the simple word concussions.
Louie hated not sleeping. Doing nothing was supposed to be his speciality. Huey had his dumb woodchuck-ness, Dewey had his weird desire for a call to action, and Louie had his laziness.
They were matches made in heaven.
The funny thing was, he could tell that the others weren't sleeping either. He wasn't stupid. Dewey had somehow always run better on no sleep at all, while Huey needed a full nine hours or he would wig out. Considering the fact that Huey had mistook orange juice for milk, the most cliché reveal of being tired in the books, and that Dewey had been basically bouncing off the walls, Louie knew they weren't sleeping at all.
He could blame it on the change of scenery, but he knew it was because they needed each other. It was gross and mushy sure, but it didn't make it any less true.
Louie was just not going to be the first one to admit that he couldn't sleep without them.
Every night since they had officially moved in had just been a try-not-to-open-your-eyes challenge. The best way to sleep was not focusing on anything else that could be happening.
He tried the same strategy that night, too. He closed his eyes tight, and he forced himself to not think about how he secretly wished they were poor again so they could have their old sleeping arrangements back.
A sound from outside of his door disturbed the fake peace he was trying to create.
He cracked one eye open and waited to see if it would happen again. Strange noises could mean just about anything in the mansion, as he had learned. It could either be a headless man horse or a cranky old man trudging his way to the bathroom.
One was definitely more horrifying, and it wasn't the headless thing.
The sound repeated itself, and it sounded like a muffled whisper accompanied by the light footsteps of webbed feet.
Well, it was either one of his family members or a murderer.
The door slowly began to creak open, and Louie sat upright. He had no weapons, no combat skills, and no cursed object to protect him from the potential killer. The only thing he had ready to go was the stupid McDuck Enterprises notepad that was conveniently placed on every single end table in the place.
"You need to not be so loud!" a voice scolded from the doorway.
Okay, so the murderer was Huey.
"I'm not being loud!" came another voice.
The murderer's accomplice was, of course, Dewey. Louie wasn't shocked at all that he had been the first to crack.
"Uh, hello?" Louie said finally.
Dewey tumbled in suddenly, doing a forward roll onto the rug that rested on Louie's floor. He stuck his hands up to mimic a gymnast when he stood up, and he then proceeded to wave at Louie before crawling like a bug to get up next to him. Louie quickly removed the sleep shirt from underneath his arm and forced it under the pillow.
He then glanced back at Huey, who was standing by the door shaking his head. He looked like he was one more Dewey-ism away from losing his temper completely. That wouldn't end well. He had been the one to inherit Uncle Donald's anger issues, after all.
"You can watch him for the night!" Huey declared when he noticed Louie staring.
Louie did not understand what was happening. Dewey had already made himself comfortable in the space next to him, and he was staring at both of his brothers with a dumb smile plastered on his beak.
"This sucks. I'm tired of being tired," Dewey muttered.
"Yes, which is why you'll get some sleep here," Huey said firmly. "I'll see you all in the morning."
"Bye, Hubert! Don't let that blood vessel burst in your eye again!" Louie called cheerfully.
"Hey, isn't this Huey's?" Dewey said curiously.
Louie glanced over to see him fiddling with the sleeve of the sleep shirt that was stuck out from under his pillow, and suddenly he wanted to die.
Huey had glanced over when his name had been said, and he walked closer once he saw that Dewey was holding something. Louie shut his eyes and tried to pretend that it wasn't happening, but everyone had just decided to be randomly quiet, so he almost felt inclined to see if they were too carried away in silent laughter to say anything.
They weren't. Dewey was still poking at the fabric curiously, and Huey looked sad and far away.
Louie cringed.
"Are you sure you don't wanna just...stay?" he said finally.
Louie watched his older brother carefully. He had his guidebook clutched under his arm, and he noticed the way that Huey turned his head to look at it longingly. Louie knew that he had been trying to prove something because of that book, but he didn't think Huey had it in him to let it keep him away from his brothers.
"Oh, this is so dumb!" Dewey cried suddenly.
He reached over Louie with a clumsy hand to grab at the dumb and unnecessary pen and paper that rested on the nightstand. Huey's gaze immediately landed on Dewey to see what he was doing, and Louie cautiously peeked over to see what he was furiously scribbling on the pages.
"Don't tell me you've chosen now to discover your artistic talents. We could have gotten rich over this," Louie sighed almost nervously.
Dewey ignored him and ripped off his work with a triumphant smile.
"Here! Now your stupid guidebook has to let you stay!" he shouted, holding the picture out for his brothers to see.
Louie squinted at the badly drawn image to make out whatever Dewey had tried to illustrate. The tiny piece of paper depicted three badly drawn blobs with what appeared to be beaks, and they were all in poses that would be impossible to achieve in real life. Dewey's horrid handwriting spelled out a sentence that he could just barely make out. It read, "Be indipendint unless your sleeping without ur brotherz."
Well, he had never been the speller of the family.
Huey took the paper from his hand before Louie could even laugh at how stupid they all looked in the drawing. He smiled at it almost wistfully before opening his guidebook to the bookmarked page and placing the picture on the other side.
"There. Now it's official," Huey said.
"Woohoo!" Dewey hooted.
Huey made a motion to Louie that meant scoot over, and he climbed into bed with his brothers. Louie only settled down when Huey placed the guidebook on the nightstand, meaning he was done with looking at it for the night. He made space so that he was in the middle and Huey was on his right side, which was the way they had slept since they were kids.
Louie felt Huey's arm drape around him before he could think to ask for it. Dewey let out a content sigh from next to him, and Louie could almost groaned at the mush of the situation. He did admittedly roll his eyes a bit when he reached under his pillow to grab the unneeded sleep shirt. He chucked it to the ground before allowing his eyes to close.
He didn't even complain when Dewey's knees settled into his ribs.
Night Four: Donald
When the kiddos slept in past Scrooge's war horn of an alarm clock, Donald knew something was wrong.
They were light sleepers. All three of them. Even Louie, who liked to pretend that he could sleep through goodnight kisses or morning hugs goodbye. They had unfortunately inherited that from Donald himself.
As soon as he saw Mrs. B and her strange granddaughter at the breakfast table without his three perpetually starving kids, he knew something was wrong. He practically ran down the long corridors of Scrooge's manor to the rooms that the triplets had each claimed. The creaky doors could not open fast enough.
Dewey's bed being empty wasn't abnormal. He always seemed to be the first awake in the mornings. Huey's being empty, however, was worrying. The kid was extremely adamant on his woodchuck-ruled nine hours of healthy sleep for a growing boy.
Donald practically launched himself at the door to Louie's room.
He breathed several large breaths of relief when he saw them huddled together in Louie's bed.
They were so tiny that the bed looked somehow bigger, and the way they clung onto each other made something pull in Donald's chest. He knew that they wouldn't be able to sleep without each other. He didn't understand why Scrooge had insisted on one bedroom for each kid when he barely even knew their names. He still insisted on calling them Huey, Louie, and the third one as a stupid gag, but Donald knew that they didn't find it funny.
The kids didn't know Scrooge well enough to stand up to him yet. Luckily for them, Donald did.
He marched himself right down to Scrooge's office, the same one that he had played in as a child, and he tried to restrain himself from kicking the damn thing opened. He didn't care what kind of terms they were on, if the kids needed something, he was going to make sure it was done for them. He was rich enough that he could have bought them all of Duckburg if he so wanted.
"The kids need a bunkbed with three spaces. Don't argue with me," Donald said immediately upon entering.
Scrooge looked startled, and he dropped the gold coins he had been fidgeting with at once.
"Eh?"
"You heard me. They can't have separate rooms anymore. They need a triple bunkbed. With sheets."
""We’ve got plenty o' bedrooms. Theres really no need," Scrooge responded causally.
"It has nothing to do with that! They've been sleeping together since they were hatched! You can't decide they need to be separated because of your rich pride! They need each other!"
A look of understanding crossed Scrooge's face at once, like he was looking at a Donald that experienced the same feeling years ago. Donald kind of wanted to smack the look right off of his face, because he really did not want the pity when he was just trying to keep his kids safe, but if it meant that he would get his way, he would let him look for however long he wanted.
Look on he did, indeed. They had a triple bunkbed with color-coded sheets set up in one of the bedrooms by noon.
Once the boys had finally pulled themselves out of bed and into the land of the living, they nearly collapsed into each other with excitement upon seeing their new space. Dewey started to randomly break dance which caused the other two to roll their eyes, but Donald was just happy they were so delighted in general.
Moving their stuff from one room to the other was easy. It wasn't like they had much to move. That still sent a pang of guilt through Donald's heart, but he figured that this was the start of something new for them. He could give them whatever they wanted on Scrooge's dime now.
It was the least Scrooge could do.
The triplets announced it was snack time after setting up their new room for an hour. That left Donald in charge of carrying over the finishing touches to the room, such as the basket of coins from Funso's and toy robots he had given them for one Christmas. He had expected to find a place for those items easy with the new space that the three of them had for personal items.
What he did not expect, however, was to see Louie hurriedly stuffing something under his pillow. The red flannel of a shirt that Donald recognized stuck out from under it, and Louie continued to look from side to side as he tried to fit the article of clothing under his pillow completely.
Huey's sleep shirt. The one that he had bought him for their birthday.
"If you wanted one like that, I could have just gotten you one," Donald said smugly.
Louie nearly jumped out of his skin upon hearing his voice. He turned around almost sheepishly, and Donald sent a genuine smile his way. He knew exactly what Louie was doing, and it warmed his heart to see it. He would always make sure that his boys were holding onto each other, even if it wasn't necessarily physically.
"Please don't say anything," Louie pleaded.
"I promise."
Donald knew that he had no room to judge, as he still kept a certain scarf under his pillow too.
"You know, there's something awesome about apples," came Huey's voice.
"I never knew pears could taste not like mold!" Dewey chirped.
Donald greeted them each with a kiss on the head. "Oh, hi boys! I'm happy to see you're enjoying your new space."
"Oh, our new space rules. Webby said she has extra glow stars from when she put them on her ceiling that she's gonna give me," Dewey said happily.
"I hope one falls on your face in the middle of the night," Louie replied easily.
"You know, Uncle Donald, we were thinking," Huey started.
Donald cocked his head. "Well, that's never good."
"No, this is actually a good one," Louie added.
Dewey walked up to him then and leaned his head into his waist.
"We were thinking that if you ever miss the comfort of the houseboat, you could just come sleep on our floor."
Donald almost laughed at what his nephew had just said. He couldn't, and he would never, because it would crush the three excited faces that peered up at him. He had raised such sweet kids. They really did think of everything when it came to their family.
"While that's very nice, boys," Donald started, reaching over to ruffle the tops of Huey and Louie's heads. "I still stay on the houseboat."
"We know!" Huey replied eagerly. "That's why he said the comfort of it."
Donald couldn't have loved them any harder if he tried.