Chapter Text
The Jon was walking into Walter Manor after a long tour with his brothers and the humans. But he did not smile as he usually did when he returned home. The Jon hung his head as he walked out of the Steam Powered Giraffe tour bus. He felt like crying, but he had already cried so much that day, his oil reserves had probably run dry.
The Jon knew he had messed up. He had almost gotten Michael killed. Michael, his best friend in the world.
The incident had happened right after a show that had gone particularly sour. Nothing had really gone wrong per se, but no one was really into the performance that day, and they were all pretty grouchy. The Jon had decided to try and cheer everyone up by making them laugh. Laughter was the best medicine, right? He had decided to use his super robot strength to juggle all of the instruments at once. And he had managed to do it too, at least for a little while. He managed to juggle a guitar, a drum, a mandolin, an accordion, and a kazookaphone all at once. While he could do it, he looked rather silly. Everyone was laughing, and The Spine was shouting his usual "Be careful!" when it happened. The Jon tripped over a rope and broke all of the instruments (save the kazookaphone, which was made of plastic). He knew he was already in big trouble, but it only got worse when he realized that the rope he had tripped on was one of the ropes that was holding up the large lights hanging from the ceiling of the stage. A light that just happened to be right above the one-man-band himself, Michael Reed. The Spine, with his extremely fast reflexes, managed to push Micheal out of the way before the light could squash everyone’s favorite human. The light did however, fall on The Spine. And despite not being damaged, everyone could tell that The Spine was, literally, steaming with anger. He cracked his jaw and pointed at The Jon.
"Bus. Now.”
The Jon stumbled to his feet and walked slowly to the tour bus, head hung low. As soon as everyone finished packing up, The Spine called The Jon into the back of the bus to give him a stern talking to. In all of The Jon's 115 years of life, he had never heard The Spine sound so disappointed in him. The Jon rode out the remaining hours on the bus in an unusual stunned silence, occasionally letting black oily tears fall down his face. No one dared acknowledge him, despite a few pitiful, and slightly annoyed, glances.
When the band finally arrived back at Walter Manor, The Jon was the first one off the bus. The Spine and Michael shoved their way past him to unload the gear, Sam followed soon afterward, shaking his head sadly. The Jon remained where he was, seemingly frozen in place.
Steve Negrete, getting off the bus, noticed and walked over to the golden bot. He put his hand on The Jon's shoulder. "Don't let it get to you, pal. The Spine and Michael...they're just upset. They're still your family.”
The Jon nodded slowly in acknowledgement but his glum expression didn't change. Steve looked a little disappointed and walked over to Rabbit.
"I'm worried about him." Steve said.
Rabbit looked at his younger brother. "Who The Jon? Nah, he's just pouting. He’ll go back to being his goofy annoying self by tomorrow. T-t-trust me, I've been his brother for over a hundred years, I know how he works."
"You sure? He just spent the entire trip in silence, like he was in some sort of depressing trance. He didn't even ask 'are we there yet' at all!"
Rabbit looked over at his brother. He was still just standing there, just staring at the exterior of the manor. Steve was right, he did look particularly upset today. "All right, I'll talk to him."
Rabbit walked over to his brother. "Hey Jon, how ya holdin up?"
The Jon looked at his brother, with empty eyes. Rabbit felt a deep sense of pity, but also felt deeply uncomfortable. "So ya m-m-messed up and The Spine yelled at you, so what? If I had a dollar for every time that had happened to me, I'd have...a lot of dollars."
The Jon nodded "Okay." he said as walked into the manor and up to his room and went straight into stasis. Rabbit watched as his brother left and then walked over to The Spine.
"Hey," Rabbit nudged him.
"Not now Rabbit. I'm not in the mood."
"What did you say to The Jon? He seems pretty upset..."
"I just told him what anyone would tell someone who broke four instruments and almost killed Michael."
Rabbit scratched the back of his head. "Yeah...but you can be kind of harsh, and it was an accident..."
The Spine gave Rabbit a chilling glare with his bright green photoreceptors.
"What he did was dangerous. Michael could have died!"
"Aw don't get your c-c-circuits in a twist, nothing happened." Rabbit lightly punched The Spines arm. "That's why Pappy put those lightning fast reflexes in ya anyway."
"Pappy didn't give them to me. I got them in my government upgrade in 56'."
The mood suddenly turned a bit awkward. The conversation always did when Spine talked about his 56’ upgrade.
"Oh." Rabbit gave him a worried glance but let it go and walked away.