Work Text:
“Uncle Dan! Uncle Dan! Wake up!”
Uncle Dan groaned and cracked his left eye open. Oh, it was Gwen. “What is it? Did the pond burn down?” He questioned his niece, hoping she’d just found an interesting bug and he could go back to sleep in a minute or two, after she showed him and explained why she found it pretty or interesting.
“Dax heard about this human place called a movie theater! And I want us to go because they show something called movies there!” Gwen answered excitedly, jumping around and being far too loud for whatever time it was, in Uncle Dan’s opinion. “Also, water can’t burn silly!” She paused for a second, “Can it? I thought you put water on a fire so it'd create lots of smoke! Like Dax did last week while trying to impress Kim!”
“Yeah, that certainly made a mess. Alright, so did Dax also hear where this movie theater is located?” Uncle Dan asked, giving in to the inevitable and standing up, creaking his back as he did so. Another year, another creak or so his granny had always said, usually right before she scared the entire pond with a cacophony of creaks, pops, groans and sometimes swears. He’d learnt a lot from his granny. Sure, A lot of it he could ever repeat near his mother, at least without getting in trouble. He idly wondered what Mack and Pam would say if he started swearing for his morning creaks.
“And I know that water can't burn, but your urgency implied an emergency and since we don’t have a house down here, I presumed that maybe the humans had done something stupid.” Gwen appeared to be thinking, hopefully about something other than this movie malarkey. Maybe he’d be able to spend some time with Del. You know, aside from when one of his family members panicked the entire pond!
“I don’t remember!” Gwen piped up at last, to Uncle Dan’s relief, which was short-lived, because she proceeded to grab his wing and started pulling him toward the pond that Kim’s family and theirs was staying near. “Let’s go ask Dax! Also, it IS an emergency! Dax heard that movies are only shown for a limited time!”
Fantastic. First he was woken up early, early being any time before noon, by Uncle Dan’s clock. And then he was hustled through the jungle, also before noon. What a way to start the day. Uncle Dan tried to remember if he’d been this disrespectful to his elders when he was a chick. Nope, nothing came to mind. But his grandma had been insistent that taking care of him and his cousins had been punishment for whatever she’d done as a young’un, so maybe he just didn’t remember most of his mischief. Aside from the candy cane incident, but he'd only acquired the cane, not used it!
“Did my darling nephew happen to mention what the humans do at this movie theater? Besides stare at a ‘movie’? Or is this just an excuse for another adventure?” Uncle Dan grumped, barely ducking his head in time to avoid being knocked out by a discourteously low hanging branch. How rude, back in his day, trees didn’t have their branches so low as to knock out poor old ducks being hauled through the jungle by their overly enthusiastic niece.
“But Uncle Dan, there should always be time for adventure!” Gwen exclaimed, before putting on more speed as the pond came into sight.
“Maybe so, but my old bones prefer adventure to come sometime in the afternoon.” Uncle Dan muttered, dodging a huge leaf that Gwen had scampered under. It was one of those odd island leaves, palm fronds or something. “Preferably with a map, a tour guide and lots of snacks.”
“I love snacks too, Uncle Dan! Maybe they have them at this movie theater?” Gwen had a point, humans had food everywhere, and sometimes they even gave it away. Or left it where a duck could eat it.
Finally they arrived at the edge of the pond, where Uncle Dan saw that Delroy was already there with some of his family. Well, this day was looking up. At least there would be some quality company.
*
“Please, Uncle Dan? Please?” Gwen begged. “Please please please please please.” Uncle Dan’s left eye twitched.
“Mom and Dad would definitely agree to let us go if you and Delroy were taking us,” Dax said hopefully, and Uncle Dan groaned. But before he could crack like an egg and agree, Delroy spoke up.
“I think it's a fantastic idea! Those humans make some questionable decisions, but moving pictures are one of the better things they’ve invented!" Delroy gushed, flapping his wings about as he spoke, “Why, according to my family, they even made a movie about a PARROT a few years ago!”
“Alright, we’ll talk to your parents,” Uncle Dan conceded, if Delroy thought this highly of it, it might be worth the trip. And it saved him from just agreeing because he loved his niece and nephew.
*
It was not going to be worth the trip.
While Pam was willing to let them go and Mack seemed only mildly panicked by the prospect of them being in the city all by themselves, Gwen had suddenly decided that they had to bring along Toothpick, her pet alligator.
“Gwen, a few birds aren’t likely to alarm the humans, but Toothpick is um,” Uncle Dan struggled to figure out how to explain the dilemma to his niece. Without saying that her pet was a monster and should not be anyone’s pet, let alone a duckling smaller than its foot.
“Humans have this thing about alligators Gwen,” Delroy explained while Uncle Dan struggled to find a way to persuade Gwen to leave Toothpick home. “They get like your dad used to about traveling, all panicky and screamy, it would really disrupt the movie.”
“So we keep Toothpick out of sight!” Gwen exclaimed, beaming at them, “Problem solved!”
Uncle Dan and Delroy shared a look and sighed; this was going to be a long afternoon. Uncle Dan wondered if the humans had a word for a day that already felt like it’d been a week already.
*
Keeping Toothpick out of sight was not in fact problem solved. It simply moved the problem to keeping Toothpick unseen. It turned out, keeping a giant reptile out of sight was very difficult. Who knew? Oh right, everyone except Gwen Mallard.
“I’m going to try and find a route that doesn’t go through the city,” Delroy said after an hour of brainstorming, taking flight and heading in the direction Uncle Dan presumed held this movie theater. Two words he was rapidly coming to associate with headache, bother and nuisance.
“I still don’t see why we can’t cover him in reeds and just walk him there!” Gwen yelled, stomping her foot.
“The humans are dumb, but even they’d get suspicious about a giant moving pile of reeds in the middle of the city.” Uncle Dan grunted, beginning to question the sanity of his past self in agreeing to this horrible idea. The only good part had been spending time with his favorite parrot. Speaking of whom, Delroy was back already. That had been fast, had he already found a route?
Delroy landed and shook out his feathers. “I don’t know why we’re talking about going to the movie theater in the city, when there's a drive-in theater near the jungle that I just spotted!” Delroy announced, glancing around at the group.
“Wait! There's a movie theater near the jungle?” Dax yelled. “That’d be loads easier to get to and that's not even counting how much easier it’d be to bring Gwen’s monster!” Oh dear.
Gwen gasped and clapped her wings over where she presumed Toothpick's ears were. “Dax! No calling Toothpick a monster! You’ll give him a condition!” She frowned at her brother, who rolled his eyes at her.
“Yeah right, I'm pretty sure he already has one from you making him follow you around all day Gwen!” Dax retorted, sticking out his tongue.
“Enough you two!” Uncle Dan snapped, grumpily fluffing his feathers. “If you keep it up, I’m going to need those blood pressure things we heard the humans complaining about the other day.” He sighed and looked at Delroy, their eyes meeting, which had both of them looking away and blushing.
Delroy cleared his throat, “Alright!” He announced, interrupting the staring contest Gwen and Dax were having, as they both turned to look at him. “We’re leaving for the drive-in theater in an hour, so go get ready and meet us near the crooked tree at the far pond, ok?”
“Yay!” With that, Gwen and Dax were off to get the binoculars they’d found last week. Kim shook her head and flew off to keep an eye on them.
“We’d better start heading that way, considering how fast those two can scamper and that we have to walk Toothpick there.” Uncle Dan sighed, turning towards the crooked tree. “Come on Toothpick, we wouldn’t want Gwen to get mad at us, would we?” The alligator had been reluctantly following but sped up at the mention of Gwen.
Meanwhile Delroy hopped over to Uncle Dan’s side. “Mind if I accompany you, Dan?” Delroy asked, shaking out his feathers.
Uncle Dan chuckled, “Of course I don’t mind Del; I meant for us to go there together anyway.”
“Oh!” Delroy exclaimed, beaming at Uncle Dan. “Fantastic!” Uncle Dan bobbed his head and kept moving. The alternative was babbling something about how pretty Delroy looked this morning.
*
“Keep your pet quiet Gwen or we’ll get caught!” Dax hissed as Toothpick stepped on another patch of gravel.
“But Toothpick isn’t making the noise! It’s the rocks he’s stepping on!” Gwen protested, trying her best to steer Toothpick around the next filled in spot on the road. Uncle Dan shook his head, the two of them were making more noise than Toothpick was.
“We’re almost there, a few more minutes and we can relax for a couple of hours.” Delroy said, trying to encourage everyone. Or maybe just himself, who knew that going less than a thousand wing beats into the city could be this exhausting?
“I can’t wait to see what kind of story they're going to show.” Dax wondered, glancing shyly at Kim.
“My cousin said it’s about a family with something called magic and their special, also magic, house.” Kim smiled at Dax and he blushed but smiled back.
Delroy shook his head, “Not sure why the house needs to be magic, considering the family already is, but humans always feel the need to complicate things.” Uncle Dan snorted, did they ever! All these buildings and loud noises and ugh, cars! He shuddered, remembering that damn flying machine that crazy human had trapped them in.
“Here we are!” Dax exclaimed. They were indeed here, on a pathway of sorts behind the main field the humans put their moving death traps in.
“This is awesome!” Kim cooed, “It was a great idea to come here, Dax!” Dax fluffed up his feathers proudly at the praise.
“Oh wow!” Gwen marveled at the giant sheet on the far side of the field “Uncle Dan, can I go play with that?” She pointed excitedly across the field.
“No, for one the humans might get upset and 2, you promised to watch Toothpick if we brought them.” Uncle Dan reminded her.
“Oh, right. Guess I’m staying here with you Toothpick.” Gwen pouted but hopped back onto Toothpick’s head. The alligator only twitched a little, the bow on his head bobbing.
“Meowdy folks! Might I see your tickets or whatever items you intend to pay with?” They all startled at the raspy voice from a nearby bench.
“Who are you?” Gwen asked. A shadow detached itself from the bench and grinned, or at least, that's what Uncle Dan hoped it was doing by showing its teeth. Great, a cat, humans murder-friends.
“Why, allow me to introduce myself! I’m Cinder! One of tonight’s ushers! I check tickets and collect the fees from guests attending the movie!” The cat said, running their eyes over them and counting under their breath.
“What's a ticket?” Gwen asked, cocking her head to the side.
“It’s a slip of paper that allows you to see the movie, darling!” Cinder purred, licking their paw.
“Oh!” Gwen frowned, “But we don’t have any of those! We’re visiting the island and just learned about the theater; how do we get tickets?”
“Well, you can buy them from me of course! Do you have any money?” Cinder replied, their grin still unsettling to Uncle Dan. He wondered if Cinder knew it unsettled people and did it on purpose, or if it was a by-product of being a predator.
“What's money? Uncle Dan asked, “Some human invention I presume?”
“Why yes indeed! Is that a no? I also accept food.” Cinder licked their lips and seemed to notice what Gwen was standing on, thereby seeing Toothpick for the first time. “What is that!?” They hissed, their hair standing on end. Uncle Dan realized that he’d never been grateful for Toothpick before, but he’d made the grin disappear from Cinder's face, so there was a first time for everything.
“Oh! This is my pet! His name is Toothpick!” Gwen beamed, “Do you want to say hi? Oh! Do we have to get a ticket for him as well?”
“Uh,” Cinder seemed to be at a loss for words. “You know what, how about you just watch the movie this evening free of charge? On the house as it were! First time guest gift!” They didn’t even wait for a reply but scurried off, seemingly in a hurry to check somewhere else.
“Well, that's settled, but we’ll have to look into money for next time” Delroy said after a moment.
“Or just bring Toothpick every time,” Dax smirked, “That cat seemed really scared of him.”
“Or just of whoever could tame him,” Uncle Dan muttered.
“Oh come now!” Delroy beamed, “We’ve been cleared to take out seats! And those right there in front of us look perfect!”
They settled in to watch the movie, Dax sitting next to Kim on top of a bin, Gwen on top of Toothpick and Uncle Dan next to Delroy on an old couch. As Uncle Dan settled in, he and Delroy accidentally brushed wings and both of them blushed, but didn’t pull away. Uncle Dan decided that maybe, just maybe, humans had invented something really, really awesome.
*
Humans had not invented something awesome; they’d just invented a new way to torture uncles. The movie had been fantastic, however Gwen, Dax and Kim hadn’t stopped singing that infernal song since they’d left the theater!
“We don’t talk about Bruno no no no, we don’t talk about Bruno!” Uncle Dan was pondering whether hearing was something he wanted to keep, as Gwen and Dax sing together on Toothpick’s back with Kim singing along on Toothpick's tail. It’d even sucked in Delroy a couple of times! And once, to his great shame, Uncle Dan himself!
“Is there any chance you could sing something else?” Uncle Dan begged, forsaking whatever shreds of dignity he still possessed. “Maybe ‘Surface pressure?’ Or ‘What else can I do’? Anything? Please?”
“Sure thing Uncle Dan!” Gwen peeped. Uncle Dan sighed with relief.
That relief lasted for about 10 minutes, at which point they’d looped back to singing about Bruno again. Well, it’d been nice while it lasted. Maybe they’d forget about it after a day? Surely even a brainworm like this couldn’t last more than a day, right?
*
They hadn’t forgotten about it after a day. For weeks, Uncle Dan was unable to get ‘We don't talk about Bruno’ out of his head. And when it did get out of his head, Gwen put it right back in with her singing of it! almost as if she knew and was in cahoots with the evil gremlin who was surely possessing the song. It got to the point where he was never sure if it was still going in his head or if Gwen was singing it again.
If there was one upside, it was that it kept her busy and left her unable to try and collect another pet like Toothpick. However, just when it seemed like she was starting to get bored of it, she started making her own version of it called ‘We don't quack about Dax’. Which Dax started to get annoyed with until Kim pointed out that would make him the hot recluse and then he suddenly seemed ok with the song.
Uncle Dan was at his wits end, until he had a brilliant idea; go back to the movie theater and get a different brain worm song! When he mentioned this idea to Delroy however: “You do realize that would just start an endless cycle, right Dan? Pretty soon you’d be sick of whatever song she picked up from that movie and we’d have to go back.”
“It’s been 12 days Del.” Uncle Dan groaned, throwing himself onto the ground next to Delroy. “I’m starting to go crazy,” He thought for a second. “Crazier anyway, how long can that damn song stick around?”
“You have to admit it’s catchy!” Delroy chuckled, humming that damn tune. It had everyone in its grasp!
“Oh I admit it; catchy like a damn cold or someone yawning! I had a dream the other day where everyone in that scene was replaced by our family!”
“Sounds fun.”
“Oh sure, except I was the damn house!”
“Heh, you as the house, that's good.” Delroy chuckled for a moment before catching sight of Uncle Dan’s scowl. “I mean, that's terrible!”
Uncle Dan rolled his eyes, “Laugh it up Del, just wait until you have a dream about it!”
Delroy shuddered and sighed, “Fine, if you’re really convinced it would work. we can go browse this thing my great nephew found! It lists all the movies they’re going to show at the drive-in theater and see if any of them look like they’d knock Bruno out of Gwen’s head.”
“Thanks Del, you’re the best.”
As they flew towards where Del’s nephew lived, Uncle Dan reflected on what might have been if he’d resisted Gwen's request that he join them on their migration. He shuddered, it sounded horrible. He’d never have helped the family; they might even have been eaten, and he certainly never would have met Delroy. He flapped to catch up to Delroy as the light caught on Del’s feathers and he marveled at how beautiful they looked.
Uncle Dan resolved to ask Mack about how to ask someone on a date. The sunsets here were beautiful, almost as pretty as Delroy in fact and he just knew a sunset picnic would be amazing.
TimberedFir2048 Thu 09 Jan 2025 11:49PM UTC
Comment Actions
ThornChaosPHD Fri 10 Jan 2025 02:05AM UTC
Comment Actions
Zim_waitwhat Wed 04 Jun 2025 03:37AM UTC
Last Edited Wed 04 Jun 2025 03:37AM UTC
Comment Actions
ThornChaosPHD Wed 04 Jun 2025 04:56PM UTC
Comment Actions