Disclaimer: I don't own Malcolm in the Middle. So don't sue me, please.
A/N: This takes place after the season 5, episode 4, "Thanksgiving" episode.
After the Thanksgiving incident, Reese didn't talk to Malcolm for three weeks.
It was one of the longest periods that they'd have ever gone without speaking.
It's not like Malcolm hadn't tried. He spoke to Reese right after he sobered up; trying to relay the events of the night like he had done with Francis, but Reese wasn't having it. And every time Malcolm had try to coax Reese into conversation, tried to antagonize him into a bout, a fight, anything, Reese would just leave the room. It had taken a whole a week before Reese even acknowledged that Malcolm was still a part of his family. And Malcolm did not understand why.
'It's not like it was even that big of a deal', Malcolm thought sullenly as his attempt to talk to Reese at dinner was, once again, rebuffed. 'He's done way worse stuff to me! The black eyes, the broken noses, the time he set my bed on fire. Those things are way worse then me ruining a stupid dinner.'
The lack of communication had gotten so bothersome to him that he had even taken to asking his family about it.
His mother had said, "Well I wouldn't be talking to you after the way you were behaving. It is a miracle that any of you are even alive after everything you've done." His father had told him to "Give Reese time. You need to let him go at his own pace." Francis had told to him to "Leave it alone. He's just pissed off right now. In a week, you guys won't even be thinking about this." Dewey thought that maybe he had hurt Reese's feelings.
It would have contented Malcolm to think it was any of those things if he hadn't have known Reese so well. But he wasn't acting in a way that Malcolm was used to.
Angry Reese he could deal with. Angry Reese was all hard lines, and loud tones and usually ended with you getting hit, you getting yelled at, or a combination of both. Angry Reese was all physical, a pile of steaming aggression who came charging at you when you least expected it.
Sad Reese he could deal with. Sad Reese was just as loud, just as physical as Angry Reese, but with more of a "feel bad for me" vibe. Sad Reese was all about performance, as if he was so overcome by his sadness, that he needed to let everyone in the house share his sadness with him.
These aspects of his brother Malcolm could deal with, but what he had in front of his was different.
He wasn't getting hit, he wasn't getting yelled out. There was no loud wailing, no "swan song" following him every time he went into a room.
This Reese was somber; this Reese was silent; this Reese seemed genuinely upset with him.
And Malcolm, despite his own internal pride telling him that 'this doesn't matter, this will blow over, this is not a big deal', did not like that idea at all.
Malcolm got up from the dinner table and made his way over to the room he and his brothers collectively shared. When he opened the door, he saw Reese lying on his bed, bouncing a ball against the celling.
It is a scene that Malcolm had seen in his room many times. If it had been any other day, Malcolm would have dismissed his brother's actions completely.
But today, there is something off about Reese bouncing a ball in their room. And suddenly, Malcolm's mad.
"Look," Malcolm said, marching towards Reese's bed, until he was directly in front of him. He speaks before his mind has words ready for his mouth, because, despite his GPA, despite his large vocabulary, despite his IQ of 165, Malcolm had always been the most impulsive of this brothers, " I don't know what your problem, but you need to knock it off. Yes, I know it was Thanksgiving. I know you cooked all the food. I know you spent all day making it. But that doesn't give you any right to treat me like this. No one has ever made a big deal about Thanksgiving in this family! Thanksgiving has always been horrible! You know that! You want an apology? I already said I was sorry. But here! I'll do it again. I'm sorry. There? Are you satisfied now?"
Malcolm stopped talking, breathing heavily, his face warming to a pinkish color. Despite his rambling speech, Reese was still quiet, looking at the ball lying in his hand. Then he sat up and turned to face Malcolm.
Malcolm, despite his thought that his words to Reese were completely justified, involuntarily tensed up. This behavior from Reese was new, but it could easy shift back to the forms he was familiar with. And Malcolm was really not looking forward to getting a fist of Angry Reese in his face.
Reese looked down at the ball in his hand, observing it, as if he was taking in all of the lines and dents that it contained. Then he looked up at Malcolm.
"This was my thing." He said, calmly, looking at Malcolm straight in the eye, the ball still moving around in his hand.
"This was my thing and you ruined it." Reese said and, suddenly, Malcolm felt extremely uncomfortable. Usually, he was the one speaking calmly with words, while Reese ran around, yelling away his frustration. But now Reese is speaking and he's been yelling and Malcolm wants to hit him just to get things back to normal.
"I don't get to do this a lot," Reese said, focusing his attention back on the ball, "I don't get to show off the thing that I'm good at. This was the one time this year that I got to show everyone. Francis' is gone, Dewey has his thing, Jamie's a baby, you're a genius, and I'm just …me"
Reese paused for a minute, still looking down at the ball in his lap, before looking up to Malcolm's face.
"You get to be special all the time. You get to have people look at you and think "wow, he's great" all the time. And the one time I get just a little bit of that and you ruined it. "
Reese stopped and continued to stare up at Malcolm's face. The ball in his hands had completely stopped moving and Malcolm felt foolish.
Malcolm moved back from Reese and sat down on his bed, his head looking down at his hands.
He had known that this meant something to Reese, but he didn't realize how much so. Or maybe, he had, but had been caught up in his own feelings about Reese ignoring him, that he completely blocked that idea out. He lifted his head and looked up at his brother.
"I'm sorry", he said, and this time, he meant it.
Reese looked at him before smiling slightly and laid back down on his bed.
"It's ok." He said and he threw the ball back against the celling.
The next day, it was like nothing had happened. Reese was talking to him like he had never stopped. But through the course of that week, Malcolm still felt a bit guilty about what he did, despite not feeling it when he actually did it.
He felt it so much so that, when it was Reese's turn to cook dinner the following week, he ate everything on his plate and even took up eating seconds, in an internal effort to make up for the meal he had ruined.
Because despite his genius, despite Reese's claims that he was special "all the time", Reese had always had a way of making Malcolm feel like he was an idiot.