Work Text:
Wakko never thought of himself as a worrier. He always held out hope that somehow, someway everything would work out- that Good would prevail and Evil would fall. He believed with all his heart it was his and his sibling’s destiny to defeat Salazar. He knew Dot was going to get better, and that Yakko would finally be able to relax for more than just five minutes.
However... being on his own for the first time challenged that.
He had taken the baker’s advice and went straight to the apprenticeship with the blacksmith. It had been excruciatingly difficult, and Wakko put a lot of blood sweat, and tears into the work he did. He had been revolted to find out that he was only paid a ha’penny a week. Sending letters had cost at least three ha’pennies so by the end of week one, he had had to get crafty.
He ‘borrowed’ paper from the blacksmith and wrote as neat and concise as he could manage before putting in the one ha’penny and the letter in an envelope (also ‘borrowed’ from the blacksmith) and snuck it into the mailman’s bag when he wasn’t looking. As for how he got food, he would take a piece of fruit or bread from the man when he wasn’t looking.
It wasn’t easy to do though, the blacksmith was a good person; he was stoic and old, hardly ever talked, except the occasional warning to Wakko that he shouldn’t touch or eat something, despite how delicious it looked. He was patient, though at the same time very distant. It was hard for Wakko to read him.
However, Wakko had gotten too comfortable too fast, as he had gotten caught stealing the blacksmith’s food and he fired him, said it was “a betrayal of his trust”. His words had stung Wakko, and he left without fighting, but not without taking a few pieces of paper and envelopes- Yakko and Dot would kill him if he didn’t write.
The letters.
Wakko thought he would love writing them, but it got harder and harder the more time passed. Wakko embellished how he was doing a lot, but he could tell Yakko wasn’t being entirely honest either. His words were fancy and he tended to dance around questions Wakko had asked. Wakko wished he had the energy and paper to argue with him, but he didn’t. He hated being lied to, but they quite literally couldn’t afford to bring it up.
After he got fired, he wandered and worked as an errand boy for a senile, but wealthy woman. He didn’t like it though- she was rude and she constantly spat on him, or hit him with her cane, which left him with nasty bruises.
He was almost thankful when she dropped dead one day.
He stole as much silverware, stamps, papers, and envelopes as he could fit into his hat before he alerted anyone of what had happened.
Still- seeing a corpse hadn’t been... pleasant.
It reminded him that, yes, death was a thing and was inescapable and could happen to his little sister at any moment while he was gone.
Needless to say, he did his best not to dwell on that, and sold all of the silverware as soon as possible and gave almost all the money to Yakko in the letter he wrote.
That should help delay Death for a while... hopefully, Yakko could buy her a new blanket, or a shawl. She always got so cold in the winter with just her skirt.
Wakko then went to work as a berry picker at the farm of an old cat couple with a few other children his age, though none of them liked talking. However, he only worked there for the month of May because he had gotten fired once they found out he had been eating more berries than he turned in. Wakko was hungry, and the farmers didn’t pay him enough for him to afford enough food anyway, Wakko thought that was bull.
However, he quickly regretted that decision when he had gotten a letter from Yakko that admitted that Dot was going through another rough patch. His brother wrote that he and Dot missed him a whole awful lot, but that they weren’t giving up yet. At least that was nice...
Still, Wakko couldn’t help but feel guilty. His selfishness had gotten him fired from two jobs, and because of that, his siblings were suffering. Sometimes he wished he could just magically fix everything with the snap of his fingers, but he knew that wasn't how it worked. If it was, he would’ve done it already.
After that, he was determined to find a job that would stick. Unfortunately, that was only getting more difficult, as the town that had once been not quite prospering still functioning well enough was starting to fall apart due to the King’s taxes only rising. The only good thing that came out of that was that prices were starting to lower which meant that if he could find a spare coin on the ground, he could probably actually afford something. However, that also meant jobs were going down, and so it was damned near impossible to find something to do.
Wakko had spent a whole month without a job. He lived on the street and picked up fallen coins and didn’t write- couldn’t write- a single letter. The last one he had sent had been about the farm, and he had lied and told Yakko it had burned down so he couldn't write to there anymore. Wakko could imagine how worried Dot and Yakko must’ve been. The thought of their worry kept him up at night.
Still.
A little voice in his head told him not to give up, that he come to far to call it quits now. He promised he’d return in a year, and that’s what he’d do.
“Bravery is not the absence of fear, it’s doing something in spite of it.”
Wakko had a vague memory of someone telling him that a very long time ago. The voice was deep and soothing, but he couldn’t recall who it was exactly.
Wakko carried on.
During the late summer, he had worked different jobs every day. Some days, he’d deliver packages for a fraction of what the king’s mail delivery costed, others he’d return library books, and on some, he’d shine shoes. It was exhausting to run around for days on an empty stomach, but somehow he managed to scrape on by with just enough money to send to Yakko and Dot and survive.
Despite the feeling that summer would last forever, autumn arrived and it was the harvesting season. Wakko had heard that farms were in need of help, and he went off to go work at the pumpkin farm that was just a few miles out from town. Wakko had been delighted when he heard about the opportunity and had run seven miles to get there before anyone else. The farmer, a middle-aged Rabbit, had been pleased with his enthusiasm but warned him that he couldn’t pay much and that most of his payment would be in food and shelter, but Wakko didn’t care. He hated sleeping in alleys with a passion and swore never to do that again. Plus, he knew Yakko and Dot were probably pissed at him for not writing for several months, not giving him an address to write to, or anything. Plus, Wakko was not going to pass up on an opportunity for someone else to pay for his food.
However, he had thought working on a farm during the spring was hard, autumn was much, much harder. The town where he worked somehow managed to get more snow than Acme Falls, and earlier, so he often had to wake up before the sun rose and attempt to “fight off the freeze” as the farmer called it. Wakko didn’t care what it was called, it was agonizing. He ended up with blisters and sore arms and had even cut himself on the ax he used to chop branches quite a few times.
However, none of that mattered when he read the letters Yakko and Dot sent. Wakko hadn’t realized just how much he had missed them until he saw their handwriting on the paper in his hand.
Dot had apparently gone through another rough patch during the time Wakko couldn’t write but had gotten much better, even being able to go out of the ‘house’ and take walks by the river. Yakko wrote that Dot still missed him terribly, and was really mad that he hadn’t written in forever. Yakko then went on a tangent about how much it had worried him, but that he was still relieved and happy that Wakko was safe and okay.
Wakko’s reply had been full of apologies and embellished about his current situation (saying things like ‘i have an actual bed and it’s really comfortable’ and ‘the food is amazing’ and ‘i barely have to work at all’ and ‘I haven’t even hurt myself once!’). He didn’t want to worry Yakko any more than he already had.
In truth, the farmer wasn’t a very nice person, though he was nice enough to provide shelter and food for Wakko and the few others that worked alongside him. However, he did get annoyed when Wakko injured himself, and didn’t provide bandages, so Wakko would have to make do by tearing up pieces of his pillowcase. Soon enough, he tore it all up and there was no more pillow, which hadn’t been fun for sleeping. He also shouted and swore a lot, but Wakko mostly tuned it out, having had good practice after the senile dead lady.
Still, a job was a job, and Wakko wouldn’t have traded it for anything in the world. He was able to keep up his promise with one ha’penny being sent home every two weeks, which Yakko noted was becoming “more and more useful in Acme Falls, as the economy was clearly in shambles”, whatever that meant.
Unfortunately, the harvest came to an end sooner than Wakko had hoped and he was back on the streets in the blink of an eye. He had a few survival strategies he had picked up from observing his older brother over the years, but surviving on the streets in the snow was a lot, a lot harder than surviving on the streets, not during the snow.
And even more unfortunately, there were little to no jobs available anymore. The only ones that were available required him to walk far distances in the snow even during snowstorms. Of course, he took them, but they were grueling and made every muscle in his body ache.
And so he resorted to his least favorite solution: stealing.
Whenever he’d walk past the market, he’d snatch an apple or a loaf of bread if he could manage and hide it in his package until it was safe and he could eat it. He stole matches so he could start fires in the garbage. He stole books that belonged to the library for kindling for said fires. He felt insanely guilty every time, but no matter what way he looked at it, there was no other option.
His main motivator had been survival. He knew he needed enough money for a ticket home in December, but knew that that’d be near impossible if he attempted to pay for his own things- especially with the taxes taking nearly all of the money he had earned with doing the jobs- and god only knew how guilty he had felt that he hadn’t been able to send any money home for Dot. Still... he figured coming home would be an at least okay replacement.
He hoped.
He wrote letters but didn’t give return addresses, fearing what Yakko would say again. He knew he must’ve been outraged that Wakko hadn’t written or sent money in awhile, and he prayed Dot was doing okay and that they didn’t need the money he wasn’t able to get.
He didn’t have the heart to write about his worries about not being able to come home after all...
Wakko shivered as he thought of that, before snapping back into reality realizing where he was. He had an awful tendency of getting distracted while he was doing errands, it was a problem.
Especially if he was trying to focus on nabbing some food. If he didn’t focus, he was likely to get caught.
Shaking his head to get back to the present, he looked around and saw an empty stall selling some type of fruit he hadn’t seen before, but figured it’d be enough. He casually sauntered on over there, and began to walk past before snatching one with his tail and quickly putting it into the box of books he was returning to the library for an old dog man.
“Hey! Kid!” Wakko froze when he heard a voice behind him. He peeked over his shoulder and saw it was the man who owned the booth.
“Stop right there!” He shouted. Wakko bolted.
He ran through the crowded market, but unfortunately for him, he slipped on some ice on the path and came crashing to the ground, books going flying everywhere, and his fruit was squashed to a pulp.
“Hey-! Kid- are you alright?” The man’s anger faded into concern and Wakko muttered to himself and trying to gather his stuff, ignoring the throbbing in his head, and stinging in his-likely scraped- knee. Eventually, he heard the man approach him, but to his surprise, he started helping Wakko put the books back into the box. Wakko didn’t look at him much, but could feel the man giving him pitiful looks.
“Look- I know what you’re gonna say and you’re wrong. I-i... I swear that I’m a good kid, okay?” Wakko sniffled as he put a blue-colored book down.
“I wasn’t going to say anything of the sort,” the man replied, handing Wakko a green book. Wakko took it hesitantly, still not willing to look him in the eyes.
“I was going to offer you some more of that fruit you took, but you ran in such a hurry, I couldn’t get my words out,” He said. Wakko didn’t know if he believed that.
“I-i just need enough money for my sister and a train ticket...” Wakko mumbled. The man nodded.
“You got family?” He asked. Wakko nodded.
“Sister and brother in Acme Falls,” he said.
“That’s quite a ways away. I suppose you came here for work but that ain’t working out well, is it?” He asked. Wakko frowned and didn’t answer. He wasn’t liking his tone...
“Here, I’ll give you a bag of clementines if you’ll let me. I can even help you with those books if you need,” The man said, standing.
“I can take care of myself,” Wakko scowled, but realized that was probably a really stupid thing to say. He was starving...
“B-but I’ll take the clementines...” Wakko added. The man nodded, and stood up, and headed back to his booth. Wakko did his best to ignore the looks the crowd was giving him as he followed.
“Here you go, sixteen clementines. That should do you good for quite some time. Oh- and here,” The man dug under his booth and Wakko stood awkwardly with his tongue sticking out.
“This should get you a train ticket, and hopefully enough left over for those siblings of yours,” he said, handing Wakko a little brown sack. Wakko gawked at it.
“I-i can’t accept all this. I’m sure you need it,” Wakko refused.
“Nonsense. I got all the clementines I could want. And besides, I don’t need to ride on a train to return to my family any time soon,” He waved it off.
“B-but the king’s taxes-”
“I know how to make due. I know you need the money, and if you know what’s good for you you’ll accept,” He pointed at Wakko, and Wakko realized he wasn’t wrong. He just wished he could do something for the man in return, but knew he couldn’t.
“Th-thanks mister... it’s been a really long time since someone’s been this nice to me,” he looked at the ground.
“No problem kiddo. Stay safe out there, winter is a dangerous time. Might want to bandage that knee of yours,” He pointed to Wakko’s bleeding knee. Wakko nodded.
“Thanks, will do, mister,” he said, grabbing the sack of clementines, putting it in the box with the books, and put the little brown bag of money in his hat. He then waved goodbye and headed on to finish his task, get paid, them immediately lose said payment to taxes, but smiled internally. The tax collector didn’t know about the money in his hat, so he didn’t collect it.
It looked like Wakko was going to be able to come home after all.