A little bit of hesitation at the door, my hoof went stiff at the thought of knocking on his door. Rumble was having a good day, I didn’t wanna ruin that with my ‘good news’. The fact of the matter is that he’s a smart kid, I knew he would instantly work out what it meant to go on a family holiday. Yet, the decision was made, the relationship maintenance mission was a go and Rumble and I were every part involved as they were.
Rumble was at my place again, he’d hung out with Pip for a while after school and came back here, I can’t blame him for wanting to come here. Mum and Dad were having a riot trying to sort out the details. That one there is mum’s fault. Based on what I had seen it was issue after issue, like she didn’t even want to give dad a chance...
Walking into the spare bedroom it seemed to have more Rumble than spare at this point. Comic books of his littered the floor, his school bag against the little desk I had, unopened homework which I would have to probably tell him to do later, he even had a poster up on the wall at this point, not that I minded. He is my brother, and he loved spending time here. If anything I knew I was a good brother, and that always gave me a smile.
“Hey Bro.” I walked over to the bed, sitting on it. He put his Daring Do book down and smiled when he knew it was me.
“Hey Thunder, what’s up?” Scooching closer he whacked a bookmark in his book and somewhat gracefully dropped it on the floor with a thud.
“Well I was gonna ask you the same question bro, but it wouldn’t take a genius to work out.” It was time to rip off the bandaid and ripped I really did. “Alright well, I was gonna talk to you about the… good news,” I didn’t wanna call it good news. It didn’t matter because he would see through my fake optimism in a matter of seconds. Mum and Dad told him today, he probably had mixed emotions with it then, now that he has thought about all the time with Mum and Dad mere meters apart, it would probably look about a thousand times worse in his head.
“The family holiday. Just you, me, dad and mum.” The look of horror on his face said it all. “We’re going to manehattan aren’t w-oof!”
He buried his snout into my stomach, clutching me tight and ripping the air out of me. “Let them go! Please Thunder, let’s stay, just you and me, I thought about it and I don’t want to go.”
I wanted to melt. I wanted to stay too, I wanted to just tell him that it’s okay, that we could stay and let them deal with their own squabble.
“Hey, it’s alright bro. They’ll keep their business to themselves, we’ll just go off and do our own stuff. I know, it sucks but we’ll all push through.”
His ears dropped the second he realised there was no getting out of this. He was a kid; family holidays were an inescapable imprisonment bounded by the unbreakable laws of guardianship and family. It was a mandatory yes and Rumble knew it, but he didn’t have to be happy about it. He buried himself further into my coat, it was actually starting to kind of hurt but he had to let it out somehow, I was just glad it wasn’t on vase or something. It broke my heart seeing a colt I helped raise and spent so much time with looking so upset. Things must have gotten really bad between the two, and in their blind disputes, forgotten that they had him there watching. To be honest I really wasn’t happy with either of them because if it wasn’t bad enough that this was happening, this whole holiday was dragging us into it too.
“Rumble, dude… look. I’m gonna make sure that we have the best Celestia-damned time on this
family holiday with or without Mum and Dad’s couples counselling. Don’t be so discouraged by all that man, we are in this together,” I smiled down at him, giving his mane a ruffle and gently prying him from my now partly permanently constricted bladder. “Now, come on dude, let’s get you home, you got the weekend ahead, we aren’t leaving ‘till Friday so you can come ‘round tomorrow if you want.”
“Thunder, Ca-can I stay tonight?” He looked up at me with those stupid beady eyes and I couldn’t say no. I know, bad parenting, giving a kid everything they want or whatever but he did not wanna go home and I wasn’t gonna be the stallion to tell him to be where he is going to be scared or lonely.
I sighed, I already figured he was gonna ask and I was already gonna say yes, but I wasn’t gonna let him make a habit out of it, Mum’s cooking was a lot better. “Alright little dude, hang here for the night. You gonna hang out with Pip again tomorrow?” I smiled, getting up from the bed.
“Heck yeah, we only got halfway through our scary movie night, we’re gonna finish it tomorrow!” Rumble beamed, jumping after me and heading to the bathroom.
“Alright, but don’t watch too many of those, it’s bad enough you’re watching that one in the first place.”
“Pfft, whatever, we’ll be fine! We made it this far,” He shot back at me, shutting the door to the bathroom. I shook my head and headed to the kitchen to get another bowl ready for dinner.
Knock Knock Knock
I took a step back and shuffled my hooves, waiting for whoever was home. I heard slow lumbering hoofsteps and the click of a door latch, it was Dad at the door.
“Thunder? Hey! Son, what’re you up to?” He asked, sticking his muzzle outside and opening the door wider at the sight of me. He went in for one of those awkward father-son hugs which I returned in an equally awkward way, he never was much of a hugger. Part of mission ‘save the family’ I could only really assume.
I was really good at assuming the worst.
“Well, uhh, I just wanted to let you know that Rumble wants to stay at my place, I’ve got him doin’ his homework right now but he’s bent on spending a night with me unno? Get some.. Brotherly plans going for the vacation on Monday.” I was being way too over the top, I don’t know. I was selling it, but I think that was the last thing on his mind at the time. The… location of his… son… I mean, sounds harsh but, well, unno.
He gave me this huge blank stare that lasted way too long as he continued to hold the door open. “Great! Yeah! Sounds good to me-”
“Okay! Thanks Dad.” I began walking away, but I was quickly stopped.
“Wait! Thunder! Wait a sec.” He quickly called out, forcing me to turn around and continue on with the conversation. His eyes lit up when he kept my attention, quickly but silently closing the door. “I need to talk, about this whole thing.”
Here we go.
“Look, you know how your mum can be like, her blood pressure goes through the roof, she gets stressed and mad and you end up copping it when she storms out of here.” He looked dead at me as he said these things.
“Yeah, I know Dad, she can overreact at times. You guys need to talk but she can’t handle it, I know the story.” I rolled my eyes and humoured him.
“Yeah well, just… don’t let her boss you and Rumble around on this vacation.”
“Okay Dad, will do.” I gave him a smile with my lips pressed firmly together. I began to turn around, but once again I was stopped by a hoof on my shoulder.
“Look… Thunder… I’m not good at change. Y-you know that, but. I try, for her and for me but for you two most of all. Please, have fun on this trip, and I’ll show you all that I can change.” He gave me this big smile, this puppy dog smile where all the bunny rabbits in the world could have been no match. He was a sweet guy and to admit something like that wouldn’t have been easy. This time I went in for a much more liberal hug this time.
“Dad…” I broke the hug and smiled at him, I had a lot of love for the guy and despite his… issues, we meant the honest world to him. “That means a lot. And for you? We’ll have a blast.”