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Nick was sitting in his normal spot at the kitchen table, eating some cereal for breakfast. Before Nick could eat another spoonful of his knock-off Cheerio’s however, his mother walked in, immediately beelining to the toaster and putting 2 slices of bread into the worn-out machine. Nick could see her tail twitching between her legs, which if he remembered his biology class correctly, meant that she was nervous. He didn’t speak up on it though, just keeping quiet and minding his own business.
He watched her calculated movements as she put two slices of toast in the toaster, setting it to level 6 to make it practically burn the toast. Nick’s mother then went to the fridge and grabbed the egg carton with both hands, putting it on the counter and opening it. She then took out an egg and a pan, starting to fry an egg on the old pan.
It was a bit weird that his mother was only frying one egg, compared to the usual two, but Nick didn’t question it. His mum did say that there was an egg shortage...
Nick eventually finished his breakfast and picked his half full bowl up, bringing it to the sink and starting to pour the soggy cereal and milk down the drain.
Nick’s mother almost immediately intervened, grabbing the bowl and ushering him away. “No no, you don’t do it like that…” She muttered, shaking her head as she poured only the milk down the drain. Nick was never good at that, so he made sure to try and figure out how to do it.
“How do you do it?” Nick quietly asked, watching his mother chuck the remaining soggy cereal in the bin. “I Just pour it slowly.” She simply replied, looking back down at her wide-eyed son.
The moment was quiet, almost peaceful…Until the toaster finished and scared the hell out of the both of them. The mother sighed and quickly ushered the younger one out of the room, sighing as she went to the toaster and pulled the hot pieces of toast out of the toaster.
Nick grumbled under his breath and stomped back to his room, only to be interrupted by a broad figure that smelled like the special drinks that his mother had.
His father.
The young boy quickly scrambled out the way and looked to the ground, awaiting his fathers gruff voice to start berating him. Instead, he got a drawled “Good morning.” And a lousy pat on the head before his father walked away.
Nick blinked in surprise before quickly padding away to his room, not wanting to ponder on his father’s weird behavior for long. When he did he would always get nervous.
A couple days had passed since that morning and things had gotten tense. His mother had become more and more quiet towards everyone, and his father had become loud and scary again.
Nick almost wished that his father could go back to being all calm and mellow, like he was a couple mornings ago. Of course, though things never went Nick’s way. If anything, his father had become more aggressive than normal. He just shoved nick out the way if the older man needed him to move, yelled at him when he done something wrong, and wouldn’t help him when he needed him to.
Nick had heard about this kind of behavior at school. They called it harmful parenting and to tell a trusted adult if it was happening to him. He didn’t tell anyone though, keeping it to himself. His parents weren’t harmful to him! Yeah his dad might ignore him or shove him sometimes, and even his him on the butt one time because he flunked some math test on perimeters, but that wasn’t harmful!
And his mother didn’t even raise her voice at him! She didn’t really even acknowledge him that much, so how could that be harmful? She always had a quiet voice with her family, especially with nick’s father. She never spoke up, or argued, and that’s just how it was meant to be.
But unfortunately, no matter how well built a bridge can be, it’ll always collapse under enough weight.
It was a cold Tuesday night and the family was sitting at the kitchen table. There was a bowl of tomato soup in front of each of the three foxes, homemade by Nick’s mother. Everyone was silent and the room felt like it was being filled with more and more tension.
The soup took around 2 hours to make, with freshly picked tomatoes from the nice lions next door roasted for an hour with a creamy taste. It was delicious. It was a tad cold, but the microwave was always an option.
Nick’s father however, was set on finding some problem with the meal. “The soup is cold, Mary.” He said, mixing the soup with his spoon before slurping a spoonful of it and grimacing.
The use of Mary’s name and not the normal affectionate nickname like ‘Baby’, or ‘Darling’ Caught her off guard as she responded. “I’m sorry darling, it took so long to make and I didn’t want to keep you two sly foxes waiting.” She said, attempting to lighten the mood.
“I would have rather waited then eating this cold tomato paste.” He spat out, glaring at his wife as he pointed at the soup with his spoon. He had a bitter look on his face, like if his soup had a whole lemon squeezed into it.
Nick being a clueless child, butted into the conversation. “Dad it’s tomato soup, not tomato paste.” He said matter-of-factly, glancing up at his father.
“Shut it Nick, I didn’t ask for your opinion.” The man snarled, his penetrating glare shifting to focus on his son. Nick could see how mad the man was getting, his body language turning more hostile.
Nick backed off, his gaze dropping to the ground. “Sorry, Dad.” He squeaked, shamefully taking another sip of his soup. He didn’t like dad getting angry, it always resulted in yelling and crying and fighting.
“You should be sorry.” The older man chided, pushing his bowl to the side and standing up. The soup sloshed around in the bowl with how aggressively he pushed it, a drip of it sliding down the side of the bowl.
“But your soup —“ Mary started her sentence before she was cut off.
“I don’t care. The soup tastes horrible anyways.” The man interrupted, storming out of the room and to his and his wife’s shared room.
For the rest of the night locked in his room out of fear, Nick could hear yelling and arguing, until the front door slammed shut.Everything went silent and peaceful. The only noise nick could hear being the sound of his nervous heartbeat. He couldn’t even hear his father for once.
It stayed like that for the rest of the night, even when Nick tucked himself into bed and went to sleep. Even when he woke up the following morning. Even when his mother avoided the topic. Everything finally stayed quiet.