Chapter Text
Eric and Deborah sat next to each other, both of their metal fingers covered in paint. A large canvas was infront of them, colourful paint covered nearly all of it. There was no real pattern or idea behind what the robo-boys where doing, but it didn't matter, they just were having fun.
-
The boys were in Katie's old room, she decided to let them have it when she went to College. Of course, her father wasn't too happy about that, the room was his daughters after all, but Lin and Katie persisted.
Life had changed a lot for the family after Katie left for College, and after the whole, y'know, saving the world thing. The family was showered in pubicity and people wouldn't leave them alone, but after a while it died down. It did make Katie more popular though, which gave her more friends, this also happened for Aaron though many people quickly stopped talking to him after he kept bringing up dinosaurs. Linda and Rick also gained new friends after saving the world, Linda had a much funner time teaching, as so many people wanted to be her students, or to have their kids be her students, and Rick also gained a lot more friends who were intrested in camping, and other outdoor activities. Monchi even got more dog friends at their local dog park.
The only people in the family who were excluded from this rise in popularity and who didn't gain new friends, were the newest additions to the Mitchell's family.
Eric, and Deborah(Bot5000, but we'll just call him Deborah or Deb for short).
The robots were shunned upon by almost everyone.
People didn't like or trust the boys, even though they were defective and wouldn't pose a threat to anyone, people had a deep hatred for them, as they were apart of Pal's plan to kill the entire human race.
When Eric and Deborah went out, which was rarely, they would get picked on by people. Getting called named, they got pushed around and even got things thrown at them.
This of course, worried the Mitchells, well, some of the Mitchells, mainly Linda and Aaron. So, they restricted the boy's time outside and told them not to go to crowded places so that they wouldn't get treated as they usually would.
This didn't bother Eric and Deborah that much, they were quite intent on staying inside. There was a lot of fun things to do inside, with Linda supplying the boys with fun activities.
Though the boys didn't get treated that nicely at home.
-
Deborah turned away from the colourful canvas and to his brother.
"Brother, I think I'm done painting!" Putting his paint-covered thumbs up at his brother.
Eric turned, and nodded, also putting rainbow-coloured thumbs up at his bother. "Okay! Mother will be very pleased!"
They both stood up, and look at the colourful painting, the paint had been smeared on, very evident by the handprint shapes that took up the canvas.
They both picked up each side of the painting, and walked out of their room, paint dripped behind them. They walked into the living room, and they looked around.
They could not spot Linda, and Eric turned his red-marker face to Deborah.
"Brother, I think Mother might have gone out."
"Oh." Deborah responded, sounding disappointed. There was a pause, before Deborah continued, "Perhaps Rick-Dad is home? I didn't hear him leave."
Once Linda purposed that the boys called Rick "Dad", much to Rick's protests. The boys latched onto the idea though, but still kept calling him Rick because of Rick's complains, thus Rick-Dad was born.
Eric nodded, "Maybe. Let's go check."
They started to move again, paint forming a trail behind them.
The bot-brothers then moved into the kitchen, looking for the father.
Rick was found laying on the floor, top half under the kitchen table. He was putting new screws into the table, as it was getting wobbly and screws were falling out thanks to Monchi ramming himself into the table head first.
The two robots stopped about a metre away from the table.
"Rick-Dad!" The two robots announced simultaneously, causing the man to jump and hit his head on the table. After a loud Ow, he pushed his body out from under the table and rubbed his head, staring at the two boys.
"What is it, Eric and Deborah? You shouldn't disturb a working carpenter." The man tried to joke, but the robots clearly did not understand.
"Rick-Dad! Look!" Deborah began, before his brother began to talk, "Yes, Rick-Dad, look! We have painted!" Both of them pointed with their free hands to the painting that they were holding.
Rick looked away from their faces and followed their fingers down to the painting. To Rick, it was far from a masterpiece. It was a mess of random colours and shapes, made up by the boy's handprints. Further more, it was dripping all over the man's hardwood floor and forming a puddle. Behind the boys he could even see a trail of paint that followed them.
Rick sighed.
"Yes, yes, it's a uh, wonderful painting," He tried to compliment the boys but he could only think about what a mess the robots had formed.
"You don't seem very happy with our art." Eric inquired, and turned to his brother, before looking back to Rick.
"Well, yeah, I like your art but you guys made such a mess." Rick scratched his head, sighing again. He was trying to fix the table and couldn't deal with this. "Plus, I was kind of busy."
"Oh." Deborah said again, he sounded somewhat sad.
"Sorry, Sorry." Rick hurriedly said, noticing the tone of voice. "How about- Look, I'll go put the painting somewhere where it can dry and you guys go and clean that up."
The boys titled their heads to the side and their screens flashed green.
"Okay!" They both exclaimed in unison.
Rick felt bad in almost an instant. The boys had been taking their own orders ever since the apocalypse, though they still listened to other people and even though they said they wouldn't take orders from others, their busted defective programming still made it hard for them to not take orders.
Linda had been trying to make the people around the house use less commanding language to prevent the boys from doing things they didn't want to, but it was hard for Rick.
The boys handed the canvas to the man and went to go get mops and rags.
It took a matter of minutes before the paint had been cleaned up and their hands now clean as well.
Rick quickly went back under the table to fix it after putting the painting out to dry.
The boys now were left bored, as bored defective bots can be.
They looked around the house for things to do, but now Rick wanted nothing to do with them.
Rick was never that found of them anyways, I mean, of course he liked them, they had saved his life, but Rick still didn't like technology. He always disliked it before the machine apocalypse, he just couldn't figure it out and he didn't understand why his family liked it so much. His dislike was fueled more after the apocalypse, and sure he made an effort for his children to understand it, he wanted to connect to his children, especially Katie, through it. And by learning how to use it, it would show that he cared.
Still, his distrust of machines was strong, mainly from almost dying and being kidnapped by a phone, and so he was always seemingly on edge around Eric and Deborah, even though they were considered part of his family, despite his wife's best efforts.
Atleast Rick apricated what the boys did around the house, doing chores and fetching things for him.
Eric and Deborah searched for things to do in the house, Linda was usually their source of entertainment, she would always bring things from the shops or from the school that she worked from for the boys to play with or interact with. Lately, she's been trying to teach them new things, though it was tiresome, and she couldn't keep up with their antics.
Since their mother was out of the house for some reason beyond them, they had to look for something on their own.
The boys went to go ask Aaron if he wanted to hang out with them, but he was busy playing with dinosaur toys (in a scientific accurate way, of course) with the girl from next door. The boys didn't know her name, because every time they tried to ask Aaron about her, he would panic and pretend that he didn't know her, and that he didn't know what dinosaurs were, so it was no use.
Eric and Deborah tried to face-time Katie, to see if she wanted to talk to them, but she said she was busy, working on an up and coming project her group was making. Apparently it was something about two female sock-puppets who were in love, but their date got interrupted by evil giants and they had to defeat them before they could continue to date. Eric and Deborah didn't really understand it, but tried to encourage her anyways.
They even tried to see if Monchi wanted to play, but the dog-pig-bread-thing was to busy with his head in a bin to bother with them.
No one wanted to be around them.
The boys were now alone, sitting in their room. And for the first time in a while, they were silent.