:: A/N ::
It has been eighty-four years...
...but I am back in some capacity.
For those who do not know me, I am ALPHA, the author of the KI FanFiction, Vandals Anonymous. I am so glad to meet you. As planned by xx-onwednesdayswewearpink-xx, on Thursday, October 24th, the Kickin' It archive was overwhelmed with anti-bullying FanFiction in honor of all those who had experienced the pain of bullying through a project titled#ProjectBeautiful. I wanted to post this oneshot alongside all the other #ProjectBeautiful FanFics, but I could not due to some unforeseen circumstances.
I have posted it now and I would love to see some reviews from both old and new faces!
As usual there is a longer A/N at the bottom of this chapter. Happy reading!
DISCLAIMER: I do not, under any circumstances, own the characters or places mentioned in Disney XD's "Kickin' It".
:;:
:: little brothers ::
:;:
When Henry returned home from school without his usual sunny deposition, I knew immediately that something was wrong. I knew immediately that something had happened that day, something that had upset him, yet I could not figure out what it was. I could not figure out what it was that had upset him.
Henry was not one to hide things. Not my baby brother. He shared everything—everything—he possibly could. Dinner time was usually filled with Henry telling elaborate stories about the students in his class. He would go on and on about his classmates until our mom told him that his dinner was getting cold and said that he would have all the time in the world to talk once he had finished his dinner.
The fact that he was so reluctant to share what had happened that day in school worried me and it worried my parents too. We questioned him about his unusual silence, but after a few minutes of the third degree, we realized that Henry would not talk. We left him alone, thinking that maybe he was coming down with something, maybe his throat was sore. We thought that he would be fine by tomorrow, that he would be back to being the usually talkative Henry, assuming that he had not come down with a sudden case of laryngitis.
We thought that it would be a onetime thing.
But the fifth time Henry returned home without his usual sunny deposition, I knew immediately that something was really wrong.
::
"Leave me alone, Kim!"
The words were like a slap in the face. Henry never called me 'Kim'. I had always been his 'Kimmy'. Never his 'Kim'. 'Kim' was what everyone else called me. Everyone who wanted to live to see the next sunrise anyway. But not Henry.
The fact that he had cemented the fact that something was extremely wrong.
"No Henry," I shook my head. "I will not leave you alone. You have been in a bad mood for days. You were in a bad mood when I picked you up from karate practice two days ago. You were in a bad mood when I picked you up from your program at the Seaford Civic center yesterday. Not to mention that, according to Courtney, you were in a bad mood today too."
"I was not." Henry mumbled.
"You were. Courtney said that you didn't talk to her all afternoon. You didn't ask her how her day was, you didn't offer to help her make your afterschool snack, and you didn't offer to help her prepare for her college exam like you usually do. You just moped all afternoon."
"I did not." His voice was weak.
I sighed. "Look, you can be as mopey and grumpy as you want with me, Henry. But you cannot be that way with Courtney. She is the best babysitter you have ever had. She treats you nicely and she deserves to be treated nicely in return. You were not very nice to her today."
"Was I being mean to Courtney? Like a bully?" His lower lip trembled.
A bully? I pulled Henry into my arms, a little surprised by his sudden change from angry to weepy, but rubbed his back as means to calm him down anyway. "Oh Henry. You might have been a little rude to Courtney, but I'm guessing that you weren't actually mean to her. If it makes you feel any better, we can call Courtney so you can apologize to her."
Henry sniffled as he traced patterns on my stomach, long and winding, with his index finger. "Okay, Kimmy."
I sighed again as I rubbed his back. Henry's anger had diffused rather quickly and it seemed as though we were back to 'Kimmy' again. That was a relief. I had always been his 'Kimmy'. Never his 'Kim'. 'Kim' was what everyone else called me. Everyone who wanted to live to see the next sunrise anyway. But not Henry.
Not until today at least.
::
HIYA!
The training dummy hit the ground as my feet hit the mats. Its thud was significantly heavier than my own, not only because of its weight, but also because years of gymnastics had taught me how to land with minimal noise. Very much unlike Jerry and Eddie, who still came down like gorillas on a rampage in Planet of the Apes or something.
"Nice hit, Kim." Milton commented as he stretched in preparation for his sparring match with Eddie. He did one of those weird yoga poses that often led to him either ripping one or being stuck for hours. Why he continued doing these poses despite the consequences was beyond me.
"Thanks," I grinned briefly as I retied my ponytail. I pulled the escaped tendrils off my sweaty neck and tugged them back into my ponytail. "Might as well refine my techniques since this is the only legal way I can get my frustration out."
I pulled the training dummy back into position and was about to go for another round when Jerry stepped in front of me.
"Whoa chica, why so frustrated? You've been attacking that dummy for quite a while now. Even before Milton, Eddie and I came in from Falafel Phil's."
With a frown, I dropped my stance, unsure of what to say. "It's Henry."
Eddie closed his locker, turning towards me in confusion. "Henry?"
"Yeah," I paused, contemplating my next words. "Henry has been beyond frustrating these past two weeks."
"Really? Henry?" Milton gazed at me in disbelief. He had spent quite a bit of time at my house and as a result had spent quite a bit of time with Henry. He could not believe that Henry would annoy me to the point of punching out dummies. That was usually what Eddie and Jerry did. Not Henry. "What on earth did he do?"
"Nothing," My fists clenched and unclenched. "It's what he hasn't been doing that frustrates me. Henry has been in a bad mood for three weeks now, but he refuses to tell me or my parents what's bothering him. He just mopes around all day. It is just so frustrating. I want to help, but I can't because I don't know what's going on. I feel like a bad sister!"
The guys were silent for a moment before Eddie cleared his throat and finally asked, "Why do you think he is so upset?"
Hands on my hips, I shrugged. "I don't know. I think he is being bullied."
"Bullied?" Jerry repeated with a seriousness we were unaccustomed to. Jerry never took anything seriously. Seriously.
"Yep." I nodded, "He made a few vague references to bullies and bullying over the past couple days. Nothing specific but enough to make me suspicious."
"Hm." Milton finally stopped his stretches. "Doesn't Seaford Day have an extremely strict antibullying policy? They have absolutely zero tolerance for it?"
I nodded. Seaford Day School was the most prestigious school in the area aside from Swarthmore Academy. I had attended Seaford Elementary when I had first moved here from Tennessee, but my parents had fought to get Henry into Seaford Day and they had won. Part of the reason they had fought so hard was because of the Zero Tolerance policy the school supposedly upheld.
"Yeah, they do."
"Then have your parents tried contacting the school?" Milton asked. "The school would put an end to the bullying in nanoseconds."
I nodded again. "My parents tried contacting the school, but the teachers and the lunch monitors seemed unaware of any bullying between Henry and his classmates, so they weren't able to do anything about it even if it was happening."
Eddie frowned apologetically. "That's too bad."
"I know." I said quietly, more than well aware that my temper was steadily rising. "The only person who can tell us what exactly is going on is Henry and he won't talk."
"Kim," Milton could sense that I was losing grasp.
"I'm fine!" I snapped, eyeing the training dummy with temptation. "I'm fine! I just feel like bad sister! I know that something is wrong with my baby brother, but I can't even figure out what that something is! What kind of sibling struggles like this?"
"Every sibling relationship is different, Kim. It's not your fault." Jerry shrugged. "It took a while before the twins finally told me that the guys in their class were giving them a hard time. Said that they didn't want me I getting suspended again because they knew that I would get back at the troublemakers."
"Really Jerry? That is the story you're going with?" Eddie snorted. "You were just as oblivious as rest of the teachers back at Seaford Elementary. The only reason you knew about the bullying was because Miss Playground Vigilante caused a scene during recess when some boys were making rude comments to your sisters."
"Kim did, didn't she?" Milton mused.
Back in the day I was known as the Playground Vigilante because I was constantly saving the weaker kids from the bullies on the playground and constantly serving lunchtime detention in my third grade classroom because of my lack of filter when calling out the bullies.
I couldn't believe that the guys even remembered that I had done such a thing. Eddie hadn't even been in any of our classes back then, yet even he remembered my crazy outbursts.
"You were amazing, Kim." Eddie gazed at me with sincerity. "You were my hero back then."
"If you spent even half the effort trying to protect Henry as you did trying to protect all the little people on the playground way back when, you are not a bad sister." Milton said firmly.
Jerry and Eddie echoed their agreement as a small smile tugged at the corners of my lips.
"Henry will come around soon." Milton added. "I promise. Just continue asking him what's bothering him and he will eventually tell you. Henry doesn't feel safe right now and he needs to feel safe. He needs to know that you care about his feelings and that you won't make fun of him if he tells. I used to feel that way when I was bullied."
"I know." I sighed as I regained my stance in front of the training dummy. "I just wish that there is some easier way to convince Henry that it is okay for him to speak up."
HIYA!
::
"Jack, you need to talk to Henry. He will not talk to me, but I am almost certain that he will talk to you. He idolizes you and he takes everything you say to heart. If you tell him that everything will be okay, that he can trust you with all his fears and worries, he will believe you."
::
On Tuesday, Jack accompanied me home because we were in desperate need of a study date.
Earlier that day, we had been alerted that we had a history test coming up in a few days and we had come to realize that neither of us had taken enough notes during class to get us through the first set of multiple choice questions, which was bad. Really bad.
It was not our fault that we had taken so few notes though. Our current history unit was insanely boring. Seriously. As the teacher or the video or whatever we were listening to had droned on and on, I had absentmindedly doodled in the margins of my notebook, while Jack had subtly texted every person in his contact list.
We hoped that if we compiled our scantily written notes, we would have a sufficient amount of information to study from. Otherwise, we would have to harass Milton for answers.
Notebooks and textbooks in hand, Jack and I laughed as we made our way up my driveway, animatedly discussing and joking about the events of the school day.
"Skipping lunch may have seemed like a good idea at the time—especially since the three bean chili they were serving looked more like something that came out of me when I had the stomach flu—but now I am starting to regret not eating. The hunger cramps I am experiencing right now are killer." I said as I slid my key into the lock and opened the door.
"I know. I am starving." Jack groaned. His eyes glimmered teasingly as he said his next words. "Go to the kitchen and make me a sandwich."
A smile played on my lips as I rolled my eyes. "If I wasn't craving a sandwich so bad right now, I totally would've punched you in the face for that overly sexist comment."
Jack laughed as he tugged on one of the curls that had escaped the confines of my bobby pins. "My favourite feminist is at it again."
"Shut up!" I exclaimed, pushing him through the door.
We were greeted by my mother as we entered the house. She was all dressed up and ready to go to her appointment with her obstetrician. She had been waiting eagerly for our arrival so she could leave because Henry had come home 'sick' today and she couldn't leave him home alone for obvious reasons.
"Henry is colouring at the kitchen table right now." She said, running a hand through her long blonde locks. "I took his temperature earlier and unsurprisingly it was normal. But he refused tell me why he told his teacher he was not feeling well. Could you please talk to Henry for me, Kim?"
My smile faded as I sighed loudly, already feeling exasperated even though Henry and I still had yet to talk about him faking sick. "Yeah, I'll try."
My mom smiled thinly. "Thank you, sweetie. Trust me, I know that it is frustrating, but we have to keep trying." She pressed her lips against my forehead. "Have a good afternoon, Kim. You too, Jack. No touching, only studying."
My mom shut the front door before either of us could say anything.
Jack and I exchanged a glance before shrugging and pressing our lips against one another's as an act of rebellion. We pulled away with a smirk and allowed our fingers to intertwine as we made our way towards the kitchen.
"Hey Henry," Jack said cheerily as we both separated. I dropped my bag by the kitchen table and made a beeline for the fridge so I could get started on our sandwiches—the legendary Crawford Family BLTs—while Jack settled in the seat across the table from Henry.
"Hey, Jackie." The blond boy said rather glumly, not even bothering to look up.
Jack and I exchanged a worried glance as he cleared his throat and tried again. "Well that definitely didn't sound very peppy and you're usually peppier than your sister during a pep squad halftime show. Did someone drink your 'Pep-si' again?"
My boyfriend's ridiculously pathetic attempt at humor elicited a small smile from my younger brother as he shook his head. "No."
"Then what's wrong?" Jack pressed. "Where did all your pep go?"
Henry didn't respond.
Jack took a marker from the colouring box next to Henry and took a blank sheet of paper from the center of the table. They doodled in silence as I ripped open a new bacon pack for our BLT sandwiches. The kitchen was quiet for a while until Jack spoke again.
"Henry, I know something is wrong."
"Nothing is wrong, Jackie." The younger boy replied after a couple moments of tense silence passed between them.
Jack stopped doodling and studied Henry for a moment. "Little man, you don't have to lie. I know that something is wrong. The only reason why I'm asking is because I want to help you solve the problem. I won't laugh or call you names. I just want to help you so please don't lie to me. Pretty please with sugar and karate on top?"
There was a pause. I turned away from the stove as our bacon burned, my breath caught in my chest. I watched the two boys, anxiously waiting for my younger brother's response. There was a long unsettling silence and we were all frozen in wait. Although his eyes kept drifting towards mine, Jack somehow managed to keep them trained on Henry, inviting him to talk. Inviting him to finally confess that something was bothering him.
"Okay," Henry finally said.
"Okay?" Jack repeated.
"I don't wanna lie much anymore. You're right. Something is a teeny, tiny, itsy, bitsy, teeny, weenie wrong." The last word was said softly, almost inaudibly, but it was said none the less.
Yes. I could finally breathe again.
Jack released the breath he too had been subconsciously holding. "Okay. Do you want to tell me what's wrong now? Or," He caught my eye and I gave him a reassuring nod, "do you want your sister to leave the kitchen first?"
The way Henry was eyeing me, as if he were judging whether I was worthy enough of hearing his troubles, made me feel obligated to say something.
"I will leave if you want me to!" I exclaimed, turning briefly to yank my black bacon off the stove element before redirecting my attention the boys. "Just say when."
After the umpteenth moment of silence, Henry shook his head. "No Kimmy. Stay."
"Okay," I nodded, somewhat pleased that my brother still wanted me around.
"Now that that is settled, are you ready to tell us what is going on?" Jack asked, his voice unusually soft. I had never heard him use that tone of voice before. "Are you ready to tell me what's going on now?" He asked and the younger boy nodded shyly. "Okay. Whenever you feel ready, you can start talking, little man. Kim and I are listening."
Henry stopped colouring, his face growing pale as he took in a deep breath. "Okay…some…meanies…in my class are…teasing me…and it hurts my feelings. They say lots of mean…stuff…about me all the time…and when I try to get them to stop…they…they don't. They only stop when Mrs. Brookes comes to our row to tell us to be quiet. They say mean stuff again about me when she goes away. Nobody…nobody plays with me anymore at recess because of what the meanies say…so I have to play all by myself...every day."
My heart broke as Henry sniffled. I had had no idea.
He began furiously swiping at his eyes, although no tears had fallen, as Jack frowned.
"Hey, it's okay, Henry. You can cry if you want to." He said gently, "What they did to you was very mean so it's okay if you feel hurt."
"Sometimes I do cry." Henry confessed somberly. "But I cry really quiet at night so nobody can hear me. Big boys aren't supposed to cry lots. Only babies like the one in my mom's tummy do."
I swallowed hard, exchanging yet another glance with Jack. "Who told you that?"
Henry didn't answer.
Ugh. Perhaps it was the hunger, or perhaps it was the smell of burnt bacon, or perhaps it was the disturbing information Henry was giving us, but either way, I felt nauseous. I felt extremely nauseous.
This was such a mess. This whole situation was such a big mess.
"That's not true." Jack said loudly and Henry looked up to meet his gaze. "Whoever told you that big boys aren't supposed to cry is a big fat liar because that is not true at all. Big boys are allowed to cry whenever they want."
"Are you sure?" Henry asked, his lower lip trembling.
Jack nodded. "Yeah, I'm sure."
"How do you know?" Henry was so desperate for confirmation that my heart broke all over again.
Jack shrugged, shooting me small glances as he spoke. "I know because when people used to make fun of me all the time, I used to get really mad because being mad was easier than being sad. But one day I felt so mad that I started feeling sad so I started crying. I was a big boy but I cried because I was really hurt."
Henry gasped, gazing at Jack incredulously, eyes glistening with unshed tears. "People used to make fun of you? But Jackie, you are so cool! You do karate, and you skateboard, and you're nice, and you're funny! Why would anyone make fun of you?"
Jack shrugged again, a wistful smile crossing his lips as he toyed with the marker in his hands, capping and uncapping the pen."That's a pretty good question. I don't know why people made fun of me all the time. I just know that I was very uncool when I was a kid."
Henry studied Jack for a moment, trying to assess whether what his idol was telling him was true, whether it was possible for someone as cool as Jack to have been bullied before. "When did people start making fun of you?"
Jack paused for a moment, recapping the pen with a loud pop. "About halfway through first grade, maybe, when I moved to a new school."
Henry nodded.
"Moving away from all my old friends made me upset." Jack uncapped the pen. "Being made fun of at my new school made me even more upset." He recapped it. "People were saying mean stuff about me even though they didn't know me." He uncapped it. "I just didn't understand why." He recapped it.
"What did you do?" Henry asked. I could already see the wheels turning in his head. Surely if Jack had defeated his bullies, he could too. He just had to learn how Jack had done it.
Jack hesitated, shooting me a look, his discomfort clear. I turned away, pretending to busy myself with the sandwiches, deciding that maybe I should replace the bacon with ham to prevent any further stove fires. Remembering the bullying must have been hard for Jack and I didn't want my presence to make it any harder than it was. Jack liked maintaining his strong front. Showing weakness just wasn't his style.
I distractedly rummaged through the fridge, pretending to search for the lettuce or ham or something, waiting for Jack to speak. I was pretty sure that he heard my sigh of relief when he finally began to speak again. "Well, at first I did what you did, Henry. I kept the bullying a secret. My mom used to be worried about a lot of things so I didn't want to make her feel even more worried. Instead I tried to deal with it all by myself."
"But you couldn't?"
"No." Jack said, "I couldn't. I tried really hard to get them to stop making fun of me but they wouldn't stop. They just started making even more fun of me. They said meaner things and started playing meaner pranks. I just felt bad about myself all the time. I thought that things would get better when I moved again later."
"But they didn't?"
"But they didn't. They didn't get better the next time I moved either. They actually got worse."
I glanced up from my mayonnaise spreading to make sure that my two boys were alright. While my boyfriend hadn't broken down yet, my baby brother appeared extremely distressed. The story wasn't going how he had hoped at all. "But then Jackie, when did everyone finally stop bullying you?"
Jack sat back, popping the lid off the marker one last time. "People stopped bullying me when I finally decided to tell my mom."
Henry was taken aback. "When you finally decided to tell your mom?"
"Yeah," Jack nodded, recapping the marker. "Things finally started getting better when I told her that I was being bullied. I mean, really, things were so bad when I finally told her. I felt sad all the time and I didn't like recess—I know! Crazy right!?—because people would always bully me on the playground. I stopped trying to defend myself because everything I said was used against me. Things were just bad."
"But you told your mom and things got better?" Henry asked.
"Yes. Things got better." Jack assured him. He placed the marker down. "My mom went to my school the next day to talk to my school principal about it. She knew that I was really hurt and she knew that she had to deal with the problem right away. The bullying didn't completely stop overnight. It took some time. But by the time I went to my next new school, I felt happy again."
"Henry," Jack paused as he straightened up in his seat. "You need to tell your mom and your dad about the bullying. Hiding the truth from the people who love you most will not help you stop the bullying. I know that if I had told my mom what was going on earlier, things never would have gotten so bad. I don't want things for you to get any worse."
"Me either." I finally said, making the two boys jump. They had forgotten that I was still there. "Henry, you know how much we love you. Me, mom and dad. You know how much we care. We kept on bothering you because we could tell that you were upset but you wouldn't tell us why. I love you. Mom and dad love you. You need to tell them what's up."
Henry shrunk into his seat. He appeared extremely overwhelmed. His reluctance to speak had never been so clear. The fear Milton had suggested days earlier had never seemed so real to me until now. Even though he knew we loved him and we wanted to help him, Henry was still so unsure about sharing details about the bullying with my parents.
Ugh. The bullying had really gotten to him.
"They will help you." Jack said suddenly, jolting me out of my thoughts. He reached across the table, his eyes warm, his pinkie outstretched. "They will help you. I promise."
If there was one thing anyone knew about Jack Brewer it was that he never broke any promises.
A long silence followed. One thick with tension and even fear. Jack and I waited anxiously as Henry stared at the outstretched pinkie. He stared at it for the longest of time before finally linking it with his own. The tension dissipated as silent sighs of relief intertwined in the air.
On Tuesday, for the first time in weeks, although he was on the brink of tears, Henry smiled.
::
I hugged him and then I kissed him, and then I hugged him and then I kissed him some more.
Although happy with his swollen lips, knowing what had caused them, Jack looked completely taken aback as we broke apart. He stood silently for a moment before finally saying, "As much as I love kissing you, what was that for?"
I smiled. "That was to say thank you—for everything. I know how hard it was for you to tell Henry—tell me—about the bullying you experienced. I know you probably didn't want anyone to know that the Great Jack Brewer ever cried."
"Wait a minute. The Great Jack Brewer crying? What? Who said anything about crying? I don't remember that."
"Jack!" I exclaimed, laughing as I smacked him in the shoulder. "Seriously! I just wanted to thank you for doing what you did for Henry because I really and truly appreciated it. Henry was really struggling and the fact that he was able to open up to you was a major relief, not only for me, but for my parents, and his babysitter, and his teachers as well. As clichéd as it sounds, I honestly wouldn't know what to do without you."
Jack smiled, his eyes bright with glee. "Apparently not this."
He hugged me and then kissed me, and then hugged me and then kissed me some more.
:: A/N ::
FIN.
Ugh. Please excuse the awful writing and characterization. I have been running on three hours of sleep a day for the past week. I need a break. And a nap.
It has been an extremely long time since I last posted into the Kickin' It archive. An extremely long time. I apologize for that. I have just been so busy planning out the next four years of my life - no, not high school, silly - college. The struggle to meet all deadlines is real, folks. The struggle is real. But I am back now and I hope to update again soon.
Anyway this story, to a certain extent, took place in Vandals!Verse since it did feature Henry, the younger brother I had included for Kim in Vandals Anonymous. Although I view this oneshot as a standalone, chronologically, this story would take place after VA (maybe one year therefore making Henry about 6 or 7) because of certain mentions I made. Teehee! Spoiler alert!
Ha! This FanFic contained many different parts that generally became longer as the oneshot went on. Within them was secret keeping, behavioral changes, sibling sympathy, failed school policies, playground vigilantes, faked sick days, and the whole bullying shebang.
My friends, trust me, you will never be alone. There will always be a "Kim" out there who cares deeply about how you feel and will stop at nothing to find out what is wrong. There are always people to talk to. I'm here for you and there are many people within the archive that are here for you as well.
Remember to Smile on Tuesdays!
- ALPHA