Chapter Text
The car was silent as they drove to the beach, the only exception being the songs on the radio that were playing quietly.
Linda frowned as she looked out the window.
She knew that Rick didn't like Eric and Deborah that much, but excluding them from family events was too much.
She let Rick know this.
As soon as he said that it was 'family' thing she got excited, but her excitement stopped the moment when he purposed that they didn't bring the robots. Their argument lasted for a while before Linda finally gave in.
Linda decided she would make it up to the boys once they were home.
They were probably okay with not coming, in all honesty.
She still felt bad about it though.
She sighed, looking back at Rick, his hands were gripping the steering wheel so tightly that his knuckles were turning white.
It was obvious he didn't want to talk to her about it.
She sometimes really wished her family was more like the Posey's.
-
Aaron flipped through his dinosaur encyclopedia for the fifth time, only gazing at the pictures and not bothering to read the words, he already knew the book like the back of his hand.
He looked away from the book and out the window, the scenery blending into a mass of colours as they drove. It made Aaron feel slightly dizzy so he looked away and opted to look at the dog who was strapped to the seat next to him.
Monchi panted and his tongue lolled out of his mouth, it sounded as if the dog was choking on something but the Mitchell's all knew that that was simply the sound of the dog breathing.
Looking at the family dog helped to distract Aaron for a bit, shutting his book with one hand as he patted the dog.
He was looking forward to the trip but now that he was actually in the car he felt kind of sad.
He used to enjoy having roadtrips and being in the car, traveling around with his family, but now he somewhat hated it.
The car felt so empty and quiet without Katie there, and Aaron couldn't stand quietness. It didn't feel right to him, he was always itching to talk about something, - dinosaurs - so that the silence wouldn't be so loud.
When Katie was with him, they could talk for hours. Half the time they couldn't even remember what they talked about after their long conversations but it was fun for Aaron, to have someone who listened.
Their conversations always made car trips funnier, and would also get their parents talking as well.
Now that Katie wasn't there, it was just silence.
Well, it wasn't all that bad.
Eric and Deborahbot had taken her place in the car, rambling about dinosaurs with Aaron, listening to whatever he had to say before fact checking it and getting into playful arguments with Aaron about how this dinosaur would act or how that dinosaur would eat, Deborah and Eric both having different opinions about Aaron's favourite dinosaurs.
But, it wasn't the same. No one could replace his sister.
Though, at least the robots made the car less empty.
Aaron turned away from Monchi and opened up the book again, he tried to think of something to take his mind away from his current thoughts and went to a page that had one of Abby's favourite dinosaurs.
He decided that thinking about Abby Posey's favourite dinosaur would distract him enough from the silence that consumed the car.
-
Deborah had moved from the window and went off to do some task, probably cleaning up the mess that Monchi and Aaron had made in the hallway, but Eric wasn't paying attention to that.
He was staring directly out of the window again, fixated on the road.
He felt different.
He didn't like that they left him and his brother behind.
He knew that Rick had a reason to leave them, and that they shouldn't really be outside because of how people treat them, but he still didn't like the fact they had just left them at home.
Their family had just ditched them.
Eric clenched his hand into a fist.
Why did they just leave them?
That wasn't right.
He-
"Brother!" A shout interrupted his thoughts and he turned his head.
"Yes?"
"What's wrong? You've been staring at that window for a while." Deborah walked towards his brother, tilting his head to the side.
Both of them looked at each other.
The robot brothers shared a moment of silence, before Eric looked away.
"It's nothing."
-
Deborah stared at his brother.
He could clearly see that it wasn't nothing, his brother hadn't acted like this before.
Something was bothering him, but Deborah didn't know what.
Sure, he himself was a bit down about not being able to go to the beach and go hiking, but they'd do something else some other time, right?
Why was Eric so worked up about it?
They were family, of course they'd eventually do something fun with him and Eric, right?
Right?