Archive of Our Own ^beta

Donald has never really liked watermelon. Maybe it’s the texture, or the fact that to him it literally only tastes like water. Every time, his sister would gasp, offended, “how could you not like watermelon?” she’d say, between bites of the stuff, “it’s the perfect summer fruit!” and Donald would always shrug her off, and say it just meant there was more for her.

It’s maybe two weeks into Donald’s castaway vacation (about 2 days spent in and out of consciousness after the crash, another 2 days trying to patch himself back up, around 10 days searching for any form of food or water) when Donald finally finds something edible. He stumbles toward it in the brush, almost falling onto it when he trips on a cluster of vines. A watermelon. 

He laughs, because finally, there’s something he could eat and it’s the one fruit he doesn’t like . He pulls it out of the leaves and finds there’s...two smaller melons attached to the top of it. A Triplemelon he thinks thickly in the back of his mind. He lifts it up and another laugh rips its way out of his throat. If you hold it the right way, it looks like… It looks like.. He laughs so much he almost drops it. In the very back of his mind he remembers...something. He remembers that this melon resembles...what was it? It was something… He was sure.. Somewhere else in his head though, cutting painfully through his hysterics, he remembers that he’s hungry. He had already got used to the sharp pangs in his stomach, but the swimming of his vision and the lead in his limbs still remind him. You’re so hungry, Donald. You’re so so hungry.

So once he’s able to suck a rattling breath back into his lungs, and the pressure on his ribs eases up, he carries it back to his little “camp”. A collection of long flat leaves he tried to tie to a tree like a hammock, which now lie on the rocky ground because it kept ripping in the middle of the night. A long extinguished fire he hasn’t managed to relight since his fourth day here. A ton of makeshift water containers, just in case those storm clouds he always sees on the horizon decide to come and gift him some fresh water… And gold. Chunks of warped, torn, half-melted gold, shining harshly in the sunset. Alien gold which cut through the vegetation and scarred the earth when they fell down to it.

He sets the melon down and ambles over to a small, but particularly sharp piece of shrapnel. He tugs it roughly out of the ground, only shaving off a few of his hand feathers, only cleaving the skin underneath a little. He tosses the piece aside as his palm becomes slick, and he quickly forgets about his perfect summer fruit as he tears another ribbon from his uniform to bandage himself with. Eventually, the unwanted sluggishness of his limbs, and the darkness creeping into his vision prompt Donald to finally collapse into his ground-hammock, squinting at the stars which start to twinkle through the shroud of night, before he finally falls asleep. 

The next morning has him sitting up violently, something akin to a shout tearing itself from his throat before the dream is chased from his mind. He remains there for a moment, the trembling not yet gone from his limbs and the sweat not yet dry on his forehead. He’s only removed from his stupor when a jolt in his stomach rudely reminds him You’re hungry. He drags himself to his feet, pressing his eyes closed for a moment as his vision dances before his eyes. 

He shuffles over to the discarded piece of shrapnel and he picks it up again, remembering to be more careful this time. With the most focus he’s had in days, he carefully cuts into the watermelon… Removing a slice and putting it up to his beak… He cringes a little, not liking it any more now that it’s also warm, but he eats it anyway. He’s about to dig in completely when he looks at the melon again. He managed to cut what looked like a mouth hole on it. A big, wide, watermelon smile that reminds him of the person he doesn’t remember the melon resembled. He’s already shaking with laughter before a sound comes out of his mouth. He doubles over on himself, grabbing helplessly at his ribs as he laughs so much tears would have leaked from his eyes if he had any tears left to shed.

Somewhere during this fit of feverish hysteria, he dragged himself over to his fire pit and lovingly gave the melon charcoal eyes. He holds it in trembling hands and he laughs and somewhere in his head, it laughs with him. In the days that follow (he no longer remembers how many) it becomes his friend. He gives it a voice, something cheery from the side of his mouth, he hardly realizes he’s doing it. It promises that of course they got your message, of course they’re looking for you, they’re your family! How could they not notice your disappearance? And he always believes it.

In the increasingly rarer moments his mind becomes clear, he almost screams himself raw. There’s no way they’ll find me, there’s no way I’m going to live long enough. And guilt tears at his insides (or maybe it’s hunger?) every time he considers eating his...his friend.

It’s maybe a month when Donald realizes maybe he didn’t eat the melon because…because he doesn’t like watermelon. It’s not because he’s so lonely he’d rather have company than sustenance. It’s not because he has a horrible feeling in his gut that he’ll never see his family again, that he’ll never see his sister. (And it’s definitely not because he really doesn’t want to be on this island anymore. And if he… if he gets hungry enough he won’t be here anymore).

Now all Donald can do in the recent days is lay in the cool underbrush, staring blearily at the sky, as the world continues without him. He drags himself to the sea, and he pretends that drinking ocean water and shoving sand down his throat is a good idea, because his family will come for him. Because that’s all he has left to cling to. The only reason he clings to his life.

He’s not really sure how long has passed (or how he’s still alive) when there’s an awful crash, the sound of crunching and tearing metal almost throwing him into a panic as his mind reminds him of the last time he heard the sound. With an energy he’s almost certain he doesn’t have he runs to the opposite side of the island and stares at the Sunchaser as his family clambers out of it. He holds the melon tightly in his hands (when did he take that with him?) and he slowly reveals himself from the bushes. 

He realizes with a delay that he speaks to them through the melon. That he refers to himself in the third person… But he doesn’t stop. Now his voice is understandable, now his family could finally hear what he was saying... (It doesn’t occur to him that Della could always understand him, and his nephews always tried to.) He still treats the melon like his friend, despite the looks he gets from them. 

He pretends he doesn’t hear when Dewey reveals they didn’t actually know he was missing. That they didn’t look for him. He pretends the only reason he didn’t actually let himself slip away wasn’t a lie spoken to him by a sailor hat wearing watermelon. He doesn’t let himself think about how just this once, he’s technically so lucky. To be alive, to be found by his family when they weren’t meaning to find him. 

When Della kicks his melon into the sea, and then Gladstone shows up and eats it in front of him, Donald feels like he’s just been doused in frigid water. Of course having a talking melon as a friend is crazy and stupid. Donald doesn’t even like watermelon. When Gladstone drags him into his blimp to get a haircut and an outfit change, Donald wants to laugh about it, but he can’t.

After the Moonvasion has ended, after he successfully did nothing to help, Donald still wants so badly to laugh about it, but he can’t. His ribs still get tight and he still can’t breathe, tears fall from his eyes this time as he’s finally becoming hydrated again, but it isn't because he’s laughing. He doubles over, backed into a corner somewhere, his vision is blurry and he grabs uselessly at his ribs as he begs for his lungs to fill again. Eventually though, his fit ends, and the pain under his sternum eases, he draws a long shuddering breath, but he still can’t seem to laugh about it.

It takes such a long time until he can laugh about anything, actually. When his family cracks jokes, he does feel amusement, he does think they’re funny, but the joy dies in his throat. He stays silent. He talks less, because he’s afraid he won’t be able to bite his tongue before he speaks out of the side of his mouth. He eases himself into this new life with the moonlanders, he convinces himself he isn’t afraid of them. He convinces himself he's not afraid of anything . Not the scent of the sea and the feeling of sand beneath his feet (or the feeling and taste of them between his teeth). Not the bright, shiny gold he sees so often in the mansion, especially not the gold crumpled and shredded remains of crashed alien rockets. 

And most of all, he’s not afraid of watermelons. He just doesn’t like them. He’s never really liked watermelon.