[author note] Don't worry, don't worry. For all of you who actually read Jellybeans and Yogurt, I'm working on a new chapter now. So don't worry.

Anyway, this one's based on Jim (of course, I love him dearly) and his family. No, no romance or anything, sorry. But family love is awesome? [/author note]

Gerry Halpert was the prankster of his high school class. Girls were either disgusted by some of his pranks (his most known was had to be the 'accidental' stink bomb in the girls' locker room) or completely in awe that he was a different kind of rebel. Eventually, he attracted the girl of his dreams, a beauty named Betsy with just a very faint French accent. When they got married, Gerry noticed the French accent had vanished.

They had four children: Thomas, James, Peter, and Larisa.

James Duncan Halpert was born October 1, 1979, two years and a few months after his older brother. He immediately adopted the nickname "Jim", and was only referred to as James when he was in trouble (which he often was). He was also immediately a target for his older brother's pranks.

Gerry Halpert felt he did his firstborn a favor when he taught him about pranks; Betsy Halpert thought that it was more of a crime against his other children.

But Jim ended up being the mastermind. Even at age three, when Betsy was pregnant with Pete, Jim was pulling classic pranks that were totally unexpected against both Tom and Gerry – the bucket above the door (how did he even get that up there?), the spilling salt-shaker, and his personal favorite, the pen stuck in gelatin.

It all changed when Peter was born. Jim would always remember that day. But since he didn't understand most of it, it was just getting pulled out of bed at 3 in the morning, getting shoved into the car by his grandfather, sitting anxiously and surprisingly silently next to Tom as they drove to the hospital, his mother looking very pained in the front seat and his father nervously rubbing his thumb in circles over the back of her hand, while Grandpa drove. The two Halpert children sat in the waiting room of the maternity ward with their grandfather, stone silent. Jim wasn't old enough to understand, and neither Tom nor his grandfather would answer any questions, but he knew enough not to wreak havoc, even though his mind stayed occupied by thinking of pranks.

After a very long time waiting (in which his parents were later surprised he could even stay awake the whole time), Jim, Tom, and their grandfather were called into a hospital room, where their mother sat, looking tired and weak but beaming all the same. Their father had run off to the bathroom – he had been holding it for 19 hours. In Betsy's arm, there was a mass of blankets, flailing limbs, and dark hair.

A few days later, Jim found out that that writhing mass was his younger brother, Pete.

Pete and Tom got along obviously well. From the start, Tom was almost always with Pete, supervised by their mother. Gerry found it highly amusing that his son, Tom, who had been a 'tough guy' right from the beginning, was taking an interest in a baby. Jim liked Pete well enough, but as his little brother grew older, the resentment grew. Jim was a calm fellow, though, even for a toddler, and always kept his frustration at his brothers well controlled.

While Pete and Tom were having quality time, Jim and Gerry were talking about pranks.

They were an early passion for Jim. They were the only good-natured way to get Tom back for the chaos that reigned through his life from an early age. Betsy always disapproved of how much their father spurred them on to continue pranking poor, mostly-innocent people, but secretly she loved how creative they got with them.

He was five at the time when Betsy was pregnant with her fourth and last child, and had just started kindergarten. The Halpert parents got quite a number of phone calls from parents, saying that Jim got several pencils stuck in the ceiling on purpose, or that Tom had dunked a kid in a toilet. Gerry got well acquainted with their teachers, and not in a good way.

Then, Larisa was born.

At that time, Jim had a very vague idea of how babies were made, and at least understood what was going on with his mom during the nine months prior to Larisa. When she was born, he recalled more than what he did with Pete. Tom was seven, Pete was two.

It wasn't in the dead of night, but on a school day. Jim was in the middle of finishing up an addition problem on the board when he was called to the office for dismissal. Jim went to the office with his things, utterly confused. Gerry just about ran to the car, son in tow, where he jumped in to find Pete and Tom, both dead silent with unreadable expressions. When they asked their father where they were going, he replied with a shaky voice, "Your mother's having a baby."

They didn't ask questions for the rest of the ride.

This time in the waiting room, their grandfather wasn't there. Only a nurse would occasionally check in on them, but they all stayed silent and still. Jim even watched the news for a while. It was all mind-numbingly boring, but unlike usual, Pete and Tom didn't seem to mind.

And then the nurse called the three brothers into a room. Jim was the first to jump up, and was the one who lead his brothers to see their new sibling.

This time when Jim came in, he saw that his mother was grinning even wider than when Pete was born. His father was in the bathroom again (he really was not good at coordinating with his bladder). This time, the writhing mass of blankets and limbs was calm and still, and not in its mother's arms, but in a plastic box-thing on wheels.

Larisa was the first Halpert sibling to actually resemble one of them. Tom had brown hair so pale it looked blonde with brown eyes, and Pete had brown hair as well, but such a dark shade that it almost looked black with green eyes. Jim and Larisa both had messy brown hair a nice, medium shade of brown just barely touched with blonde, and green/brown/gray eyes. Until Larisa was born, none of them looked like they were related at all, save for their ears, which people always commented on. ("God, they all look completely unrelated except for their ears! Seriously, did they always stick out like that, or did Gerry give you all some good tugs on them?")

Jim always liked Larisa better. She didn't need to be introduced to pranks by her father – Jim took care of that. Even as an infant, she helped Jim with his pranks, with simple tasks such as tripping Tom so he landed with his face in a bowl of Jell-O, or just dripping spit on Pete's face.

All her brothers were protective of her, especially Jim, and made sure she knew what she was doing all through school. While Tom, Jim, and Pete all got averages grades, or slightly even higher, Larisa always blew her teacher's expectations out of water (since all her brothers had experience with at least one of her teachers).

And she was a huge impact on Jim's life. It was a relationship he just couldn't describe, but somehow, she just made him happy. She was and will always be one of his best friends. She taught him responsibility. She listened when no one else did. And he made sure that she didn't grow up to be a female Pete.

Then came the dating age.

Larisa liked a guy. She was in sixth grade, Tom was in college (but home for a break), Jim was a junior, and Pete was in eighth grade. She was paired up with him for a science project, and they got really close in those months that they spent together. This boy's name was John. Jim and Tom knew his brother, who was notorious for getting a new girlfriend every month or so. Naturally, the two eldest siblings were wary, while Pete did what they asked him too and kept an eye on this 'John' character at school.

Eventually, this John asked Larisa out. She gleefully accepted, and that was all she talked to Jim about for a long time. Jim always warned her to keep careful around him, and all those safety things, and she listened, but her older brother always knew she wouldn't take his tips.

There was a knock on the door.

"Jim, get that!" his mother shouted from the other room. Without a word, Jim skidded over to the door in his socks and opened the door.

"Hi, is Larisa there?" the boy asked. He only went up to Jim's chest, his dark hair slicked back with way too much gel and a huge smile on his face. Jim paused a moment, taking in his appearance, before saying, "Sure. And you must be John."

"I am," the boy confirmed as Jim walked off.

"Oy, Rissa!" Jim shouted down the hallway where his sister's room was. She burst out of it, dressed as fancily as ever, hair pinned up in an elegant bun with her curls hanging out of it.

"Do I look okay?" she asked nervously, brushing imaginary dust off her dress and twirling in a circle. Jim just smirked, folding his arms over his chest.

"I think it'd be narcissistic if I said yes, considering how much you look like me."

Larisa just snorted and brushed past Jim, but didn't reply. That was definitely a huge smile on her face, though.

As the young couple left, with Jim leaning against the doorframe watching them, he heard a bit of their conversation:

"Your brother looks a lot like you…except taller, and male."

Larisa just smiled.

"I know."

The relationship ended lasting months, and the months turned into years. Jim left for college, and then Pete left for college, but Larisa remained at home with her aging parents, still getting through high school. She kept all her siblings posted, Jim especially.

One night, Jim was woken up at two in the morning to his sister's cracking voice on the phone.

"Jim…it's over…"

"Rissa?" he asked, concerned, sitting up in his bed. His roommate grumbled and put a pillow over his head. "Are you okay?" Jim started to move into the dorm hall.

"I don't think I am," she said, her voice dropping.

And they talked for hours into the night, so long that Jim fell asleep when his roommate woke up in the morning. Luckily, it was a Saturday, and he didn't have to work that day. It turns out that John met a girl, one of the girls who wore tight, revealing clothes and way too much make up, and John left Larisa for that girl. Jim reassured her that she was better than him, and he definitely did not deserve her.

Larisa refused to date any other boy the even remotely resembled John after that.

At the next winter break, when all of the Halpert brothers came home for two weeks, it was like a big party. Pranks were ranging from prank calls (Pete called Larisa from a payphone, but very expertly disguised his voice) to filling each other's beds with snow (Tom, and Jim didn't sleep well that night) to putting an entire suitcase in Jell-O (Tom was not amused to find Jim roaring with laughter at his yelp of outrage).

Needless to say, the Halpert family remains close. The parents are a bit out of the loop, but the children are all in fine tune of what's happening in each other's lives.