Chapter Text
Dewey is sixteen when she comes to terms with being transgender. Most of her research was done online, when there was nobody to look over her shoulder and question why she wanted to know about these things. She’s still not ready to tell anyone.
She tried to tell her brothers once, but it didn’t go well. Huey went out of his way to avoid the subject, while Louie failed to understand what Dewey was hinting at. Maybe that was her fault for not being more upfront.
She plans to wait until she goes to college. She’ll move somewhere that’s open minded, start transitioning, then she’ll come back to Duckburg as a girl. Until then, she just has to wait out the next two years.
Dewey is smart enough to know that’s not realistic. People are going to ask questions, they’re going to judge her, and she doesn’t know if she’ll ever be ready for that.
Still, she likes to imagine how it’ll be. She’ll go somewhere where nobody knows her. A difficult task considering she’s related to the richest duck in the world. She’ll grow out her hair. She won’t change her name. Nothing suits her as much as Dewey. If someone asks why she has a ‘guy’s name’, she’ll tell them that her full name is Deuteronomy, and Dewey is just easier to say. She figures Deuteronomy might as well be gender neutral.
She keeps a journal on her computer. She needs to be able to tell someone about this, but she doesn’t know how her family would react. As embarrassing as it is, she also doesn’t have many friends to turn to either.
So that’s why she brings it on this trip. She asked if she could stay home only for Uncle Donald to tell her no.
Dewey takes a break from typing to close the blinds. She doesn’t want to be seen, even if there’s nobody around to see her. It’s bad enough feeling trapped. She doesn’t need anyone to encroach on what little space she does have.
Slam. Huey runs past, with Louie hanging onto him. Dewey moves her computer out of the way before they can see what she’s writing, then closes her journal just in time for Huey to ask what she’s up to. He calls her “Dew-man”, unaware of how much she hates that nickname. She doesn’t tell him.
It doesn’t get any more bearable. Her brothers destroy her belongings, without even asking if they could borrow them. They ignore her attempts at personal space. She’s going to be stuck with them for the rest of her life.
Dewey slips into a daydream of the three of them in their old age. She’s an old, mostly bald man whose voice is too deep. Please don’t let that be her future, she thinks to herself. She can’t turn out like that. She moves her hand up to her hair, tugging at it as if that’ll make it grow longer. If she stays with Huey and Louie, she’s never going to be able to change. Before she knows it, she’s yelling at them to keep their hands off her teeth. Not the most eloquent statement.
Huey and Louie stay nearby, able to sense that Dewey is upset about something, but not what that is. Dewey is on edge the whole day, and they don’t want her to be alone. Louie is usually the first to reach out, with Huey close behind. Any attempts at escape are quickly foiled.
She wakes up first the next day, and starts hiking until she reaches a cave. She looks down at her reflection in a puddle. “Looks like it’s just me… and myself.” It’s not the version of herself that she wants, but she’s glad to be alone for once.
Cue Huey and Louie’s arrival. Dewey pulls away from them. She snaps. “So we’re brothers!” It feels wrong saying that, but she really doesn’t want to have this conversation with them yet. She wants to be able to keep at least one thing to herself. “Does that mean I can’t spend time alone?” She backtracks. “I’m not your brother. Would that get you to leave?”
“You’re always going to be our brother.” Louie tells her, under the mistaken belief that it would calm her.
“I don’t want to be.” Dewey glares. She ignores Louie’s hurt expression.
Huey tries to mediate. “Look, Dew-man—“
“Don’t call me that!” She interrupts. “I’m not a man. I’m not your brother. I’m a girl.” Shit. She wasn’t supposed to say that.
Huey and Louie look at each other. Damnit. They think she’s gone crazy. Dewey runs off.
Huey and Louie argue about it afterwards. “He’s doing this for attention.” Huey says. “He doesn’t really think he’s a girl.”
“I don’t know. If this was for attention, why hasn’t Dewey told anyone else?”
Huey doesn’t have an answer for that. “He’s always wanted to be different from us. This is just a phase.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because I would know if Dewey was queer. I figured out you were.” Huey says. “And how come you didn’t know? You’re always in his face, but you didn’t notice anything?”
Louie is dumbfounded. “What makes you think I’m queer?”
“…You’ll figure it out, Lou.”
“Maybe she didn’t tell you because she knew you couldn’t handle it.” Louie accuses.
“Maybe she kept avoiding us because you refused to leave her alone.”
“So did you!” Louie pauses. “Hey, you called Dewey a her.”
“I guess I did.” Huey looks at his brother. Well, now he’s not sure what Louie is. Maybe the triplets do spend too much time together. It took until they were preteens for them to stop dressing identically. Huey wonders if Dewey would’ve figured out who she was sooner, if the triplets hadn’t built their identities around being identical.
Things aren’t going any better for Dewey. She fell off a cliff, got held hostage by some crazy guy (she really ought to be more concerned about how often she gets kidnapped), and she found that she didn’t like being alone as much as she thought she would. Just as she thought she was going to be trapped down there forever, who else should show up but her brothers.
“Alright! You guys came to rescue me!” Dewey is overjoyed. She doesn’t know yet if they’re okay with her being transgender, but she assumes they must not hate her completely.
“No way.” Huey and Louie deny any good intentions, yet immediately help Dewey escape.
“So you’re cool with me being a girl?” Dewey asks her brothers once they’re back on the road.
“Mhm.” Huey answers for both himself and Louie.
“How come you freaked out when I tried to tell you?”
“Because I don’t know anyone else that’s—“
“Transgender?”
“Right.” Huey drums his fingers. “Are you going to tell Uncle D?”
“After I tell Daisy.”
“What name are you going by?” Louie asks.
“Still Dewey.“