This is a VERY special story, as I wrote it for...lovethatignites's birthday! You're so old! I love you!

We came up with a lot of this fic together, as per usual, so I can't take all the credit.

In this particular universe, lovethatignites and I like to portray Rob as a full-on douche. Douches can often be found making fun of people, so in no way is anything he says supposed to be taken seriously. These are not my personal thoughts/feelings, so please, take his lines with a grain of salt. Truthfully, I don't even think he actually hates certain people, he just uses it as an insult.

Melanie Miller was quite possibly the only child of her mother Christine's (and deadbeat father Rick's) that could have actual, normal problems. And, unfortunately for her, one of those issues happened to fall on a humid Wednesday night in the middle of March.

Mel had literally made it all the way from her bedroom, down the stairs, into the living room and through the beginning of, "Mom, I wanna talk to you about something," before all hell broke loose.

"Shut the fuck up, Rib!"

"CHRISTINE."

In from the kitchen came the two "eldest" siblings of Melanie's, Daniel and Rob – or rather, Rib, as of recently. The new nickname probably stemmed from Daniel's friend Andi "Man D" Cruz, or possibly Daniel already having too many nicknames to count on, like, five hands.

Daniel was taking long, lanky steps into the room, showing none of the annoyance his previous vulgar statement had suggested. Rob, on the other hand, looked ready to shit a brick. Christine did, too, upon hearing the very same boy calling her by her first name. Again.

Christine repositioned herself on the couch to focus on her sons instead of the television or Melanie. She had been settling in for a comfortable hump day, exhausted from work and a drunken phone call from Rick, but that clearly wasn't how tonight was going to end. Mel sighed and turned to look at her doofy brothers. Her mother glared hard at Daniel and said, "Stay," to which he semi-obeyed by flouncing around the room. She moved her expression to Rob and began, "Robert. We have discussed, like adults, which you almost are, that calling me Christine is not appropria–"

"Do you know what he did?!" Rob interrupted, posture showing none of the respect Christine was hoping to move toward. "Do-do you know what that douchebag did?"

Daniel snorted so loudly, one look at him and it would've appeared butterflies had flown up both his nostrils and that was the aftermath of a loud sneeze-slash-quite-possibly-exorcism. "You're saying I'm the douchebag? When you're the one calling my friends 'fags' and taking junk pics–"

"You did what?" Christine asked incredulously. She never thought sexting would be an issue in her family, what with Melanie so responsible and Tom too young and Rob and Daniel too…unattainable, for the most part.

"What!" Rob whipped to look way up at his brother, then back to his mother and continued. "Look, that's-that's not the point!" he yelled, steering the conversation back to what he actually wanted to converse about. "That sad excuse for a male printed out pictures of–"

"Oh, for the love of God, Daniel, you better not have printed out his nudes," Christine pleaded, fixing a desperate look on her tall son.

With the face Daniel was making, what with one hand on his hip and his hair in one place for once, he was clearly saying, If anyone had nudes, it would be me.

But Rob was still going as if she had never interjected. "–deep. Fried. Ribs."

Christine blinked. Melanie shut her eyes beside her. "What?" their mother asked, expression wiped momentarily.

Rob pursed his lips and nodded roughly. "Mhm. As-as some kind of sick joke!"

Daniel had moved toward their mailbox which he and his odd group of friends had planted in the center of the living room two weeks prior. The back of the structure was completely missing for unknown reasons, but Daniel took the opportunity and reached a hand around to the front of the mailbox. He stuck his head through the back and opened the door, whispering, "Hey, hey," at his younger brother until he looked his way. "Shhhhhhut the fuck up."

Now maybe Daniel had expected that to make the situation better in some weird way, but of course it didn't.

Rob pointed at him and stared at his mother. "Christine, are you seriously just going to let him swear out of his crusty-ass mouth?!"

Christine's jaw dropped. "Robert!" she snapped, contemplating how her children had ended up like this. "Watch your language, and call me Mom–"

"Don't listen to Rib, Mom," Daniel said from where he was extricating himself from the mailbox. "He's just a little bitch. Trust me. His nudes aren't impressive."

Rob looked ready to go ballistic. "They weren't even full-on nudes, Dankle. You're just pissed because they're better than your full body nudes. You know. The ones that take up three pages, sasquatch."

"Hey!" Daniel had been heading toward the hallway, but now he had stopped and was pointing at his younger brother.

Rob crossed his arms over his chest, glad to finally be getting to Daniel.

Jabbing his index finger into the air a couple times, Daniel announced, "It's pronounced sascrotch. Correct yourself."

"What the hell?!"

"Robert!"

By that point Daniel had made it into the hallway and had turned around once more. "You gotta learn, Rib. Nudes might actually have at least a five percent of a chance for working for you if you do this," he stated, thrusting his groin into the air.

Christine's mouth was agape, flabbergasted.

Melanie was rubbing her eyes next to her mother. This was all too much.

Rob headed after him. "Ohhhh, that is just RICH. Coming from the man-whore of Iridium High who's also gay, I'd expect you to be a little more submissive."

Rob tried to shove past his brother, but Daniel bent his leg at an odd angle and tripped the younger boy, who almost dropped to the floor.

Daniel shook his head as Rob regained his footing. "C'mon, Rib. I'm dating Mia. This is how you do it–"

"I don't want any dorky tips of yours–"

"No, this is so you can explain what actual sexual intercourse is like to your dork friends." Daniel thrust into the air.

"Dude!" Rib exclaimed, face contorting.

"And again." Except, this time, Daniel pushed his crotch against his brother.

"What the fu–"

"Rob–"

Daniel thrust again. "Come on dude, you're being a dick."

"Don't rub yours against me!"

"Then don't act like a bitch!"

"BOYS!"

Christine's voice commanded their attention. From the other living room exit, Tom, their youngest sibling, was just entering from their second set of stairs. Rob looked as if he was going to protest, but Melanie cut him to the chase.

"Jonathan and I broke up."

Daniel and Rob immediately went to push each other away, seeing as their sister needed the attention, but they were drawn back together. A quick glance downward confirmed that their pants zippers were stuck.

Christine whipped her head around to listen to her daughter. "Oh, sweetie, I am so sorry. What can we do to make you feel better? Kick the boys," her eyes cut to the joined-at-the-crotch brothers, "out of the house for the night? Make it a girls' night?"

Melanie shook her head, sniffling. "No, that's okay. You have some…weird things to deal with anyway." She pushed a lock of hair behind her ear and went to move past the hallway-boys. They awkwardly attempted to maneuver their bodies into a small enough space so she could pass undisturbed.

Christine had gotten up off the couch, her extended arm falling back to her side as her daughter went back upstairs. She fixed a harsh look on the two boys, ready to chew them out.

Tom chose that moment to speak up, fully walking into the living room. "Um…I was going to ask about the fake ribs in the kitchen," he began, to which Rob's annoyance flared back up on his face, "but is Mel okay?"

Christine turned to her sweet, tiny, young little boy, and sighed loudly, putting her face to her palm. This was way too much for the middle of the week.

DELETED SCENE

"I cannot believe you would make your sister even sadder like that!" Christine had been trying to knock some sense into the boys for the past ten minutes, starting right after she had gotten Tom up to speed. She might not have ever dreamed of dealing with this kind of issue, but it seemed she had no other choice but to try.

"Really, Christine? Can't you?" Rob asked condescendingly, cocking his head at his mother.

"Robert!" she snapped.

Rob immediately looked down at his feet, but they were right next to Daniel's. "Dude," he muttered quietly. "Why are your feet so gross?"

Daniel was wearing shoes.

Christine let out quite possibly the loudest sigh ever made. "Okay. Alright. Yanno what?" She rubbed her eyes with the heels of her palms roughly, groaning – or maybe growling.

Daniel blinked loudly. "What do we know, Mom?"

"Daniel, I–ugh!" Christine did growl then. "You two," she began, pointing a very accusing finger at her sons. Well, the troubled ones. Tom was patiently sitting on the couch behind her, probably waiting for the boys to get their acts together.

He would be waiting awhile.

"You two are going to apologize to Melanie, and-and, bring her some kind of comfort food or something," Christine continued, hands flailing around.

Daniel nodded, his chin hitting Rob's head harshly. "Sure thing." Rob made an unpleasant noise, to which no one cared.

But apparently Christine wasn't done speaking. "And I want you to hug," she rushed out, eyes set on the gap between Daniel's nose and Rob's forehead so as not to make eye contact with either one of them.

Rob's mouth dropped in disgust. "Ew, no. Daniel's so gay he might take that as incest or somethi–"

"Talk to me when you don't have some nerd dick in your mou–"

"Boys."

There was no wiggle room for the two so-called "men." Rob's downright horrid facial expression stayed in place, but he slowly slipped his arms around Daniel's torso. Daniel made everything more awkward by lifting his shoulders and pointing his elbows like Emma's driving position, simply patting the younger boy's hair.

DELETED SCENE

Apparently, the Miller household was not currently in possession of ice cream; any kind. No frozen yogurt. No sherbet. No popsicles. Basically, nothing known as universal "comfort food," or anything appealing, really. And not just in the food sense.

Obviously, the next step for the eldest boys was to steal ice cream out of their neighbor's fridge. Their neighbor just so happened to be their principal, and Daniel's ex-girlfriend's father. Honestly, that didn't even deter them for a second.

They had made it into the house (through the front door, due to their current junk-rubbing situation), grabbed the ice cream, along with a utensil Daniel had promptly shoved in his back pocket, and were just beginning to cross the street back to their house when Daniel spoke.

"I don't think he saw us," he commented, sounding fairly pleased with his self. His tongue was out, swishing back and forth in the early night's air.

Rob, who was walking backwards so no further damage to their genitals occurred, glanced around Daniel's shoulder and caught Francisco's eye. The tired man had his arms crossed and was watching the boys shuffle across the road from just outside his front door. He hadn't said a word the entire time they'd been stealing from him, and Rob couldn't possibly imagine why.

The absence of cops coming for Daniel was due to the latest rumor flying around Iridium High, which, really, probably made the most sense in comparison to everything else. Whatever. Francisco didn't mind Rob stealing ice cream, since he was dating his daughter, Emma. Francisco had always loved Jax, but that poor boy had enough to deal with. Besides.

Mr. Novoa was currently residing underneath his living room coffee table.

Melanie had went right up to her room as fast as if she had been grounded, and was lying down on her bed, not even trying to stop her thoughts from consuming her.

She didn't know what had happened to make Jonathan break up with her. He had been really kind about the entire ordeal, but it still stung. Every once in awhile she would remind herself that they had broken up before, that people broke up all the time and then got back together. But the thought wasn't comforting, and she was still dejected.

She was taken out of her thoughts – thankfully – as her ears tuned into the noises coming from just outside her bedroom door. There was some shuffling, loud whispering, and "shhhhut the fuck up" was said before a throat was cleared and the actual knock on the door sounded.

Mel had rolled onto her side by then and rubbed her temple. "Yes?" she called out, not particularly interested in another screaming/that-was-not-molestation match from her – it was troubling that they were older – brothers.

"Mel, can we come in?"

She actually couldn't quite tell if Rob or Daniel had said that. She sniffled. "Sure."

There was a loud bang on the wood. Mel sat up, alarmed, because that definitely sounded like a head had just hit the door. One of the boys whispered, "Oh shit."

Daniel presumably cleared his throat, as he was the one who spoke next. "Uh, Mel, the door's locked."

She sighed, forcing her feet to swing off her very enjoyable bed and onto the floor. Maybe she should have told them to go away. She padded over to the door and spun the lock, swinging the door open.

Rob was rubbing his head, and she took that as a sign that he had been the one to hit the door. But that didn't even make sense, unless Daniel had pushed hi–oh dear Lord. Mel made eye contact with both of the boys in her doorway. "Oh my gosh, why are you still conjoined at the crotch?" Daniel must have moved forward to open the door with Rob following, but when it didn't move, Rob had to have slammed into the structure.

Daniel snapped and muttered, "Damn, that's a good band name," while Rob groaned at his comment.

"Seriously, that is like the worst band name ever. Give it up, dude."

Daniel glared down at him. "Hey, have you heard the kind of shit band names Andi's been pulling out of her ass?"

"But you're a dork."

"The BFs?"

"Hey, I actually like that one. My friends like to imagine the scenario she was in when she thought of it, ya know, with Jake–"

"Your friends are actual five year olds and need to stop thinking about Andi, period. And no more sneaking into the bathroom after her."

Rob snorted, glancing away from his brother. "You're the one who's friends with a fag."

Daniel forced him to look right at his face – or up his nostrils; whichever, it wasn't important. "Shhhut the fu–"

Rob had looked at Melanie for a split second beforehand, and, seeing how she was rubbing her face patiently, pushed Daniel's chin away.

Daniel composed himself, and they both cleared their throats this time. Except it wasn't in unison, so there was one manly grunt and then another, slightly overlapping one.

Rob began first. "Look, we just wanted to apologize for…" he trailed off, looking down at his pants zipper stuck to Daniel's. "Well, this, first of all," he said, motioning downwards.

"But really, we're sorry for interrupting your talk with Mom," Daniel said, scratching his upper ribcage. Rob caught this movement and tried to breathe steadily through his nose.

Melanie shook her head slowly. "You guys didn't know what was going on. If you didn't have that…weird fight tonight, it would be tomorrow. While one of you was in the shower, probably." The situation wasn't hypothetical at all. That had happened last week. Daniel had let Andi barbeque one of Rob's, quote, "action figures," and the reveal of the now-deformed glorified doll led Rob to practically knocking down the bathroom door while Daniel was in the middle of his morning shower.

Honestly, it was one of their tamer fights.

"Still," Rob insisted, eyes boring into hers. "We were dicks, and we're sorry."

Daniel let out a low snort-chuckle combination. "Now karma put our dicks together." He grinned to himself.

His younger siblings just looked at him, blinking quietly.

Daniel looked down and cleared his throat yet again. "Yeah, so–"

Rob picked up his trail of thought. "Yeah. To try to make you feel better, we went and got you some ice cream." As he finished the sentence, the boys moved their arms farthest away from Melanie forward, showing her the carton they had kept hidden behind their backs.

Daniel grinned and nodded his head in a slightly-pervy manner. "See. Mint chocolate chip. Your favorite." He glanced down at the product and elicited a noise of recognition. He moved the carton around so the brand name showed.

Rob pushed the carton toward their sister, waiting until she had hold of it to let go. The last thing they needed was to drop that ice cream, because, knowing their luck, the lid would pop up and the entire thing would explode or something, giving someone an allergic reaction. Daniel was only allergic to butterflies, but Rob had a suspicion he was just a creep allergic to everything.

Melanie cradled the carton in her hands, then sheepishly looked up at her brothers. They were really trying. "Gee, thanks guys, but…" She bit her lip, sighing involuntarily. "I'm really not a fan of mint chocolate chip."

Rob's face fell for a fraction of a second. They had gone through a lot of shit to get that ice cream, and it wasn't even the kind she liked? Oh, he was so blaming Daniel's face for this. In fact, it was his fault. He looked at his brother and muttered lowly, "You said that was her favorite."

"Obviously I thought it was," Daniel bit back quietly, scrunching his nose up as if Rob smelled.

Rob hated that overly grown manchild.

Daniel, deciding he should attempt to salvage the situation, let his hand fly to his behind. "But-but we got you a spoon – oh crap," he cut himself off once he held up the utensil that had been stored in his back pocket. Rob was making a face at the scene. "This is a fork!" He looked really flustered. He glanced at Rob and then back to his sister, ready to explain. "See, we stole the ice cream from Francisco–"

Mel shook her head. "No, no, it's okay." She reached her hand out and took the fork from her tall, lanky brother. "Thanks guys."

Rob nodded once. "Hope you feel better soon, sis."

Daniel nodded loudly. "Yep." They began to turn to head back down the stairs when Daniel put a hand out and smacked the wall, forcing Rob to lurch forward awkwardly. "Just remember, Mel," Daniel started, looking at her dead in the eyes. "It's the gross people who are always the ones to break up with the pretty people."

He had made a very lucky estimate, as Jonathan had been the one to end their relationship. But Daniel hadn't known that, and just barely dodged calling his own sister ugly.

Rob yanked his groin toward the stairs and Daniel followed. Mel was closing her door when she heard them tumbling down the stairs, along with an attempt to muffle, "Shhhut the fuck up, Rib!"

The boys had only been gone five minutes when there was another knock at the door, this time much quieter, and a tiny face appeared as the door popped open.

"Hey, Mel," Tom began, and his cute, careful smile made Melanie feel a little bit better already. "Mom and I went to the drug store and bought you some discount romantic comedies," he said, entering the room with an armful of DVDs.

Mel let herself smile for a moment. "Awe, Tom. Come on in." She got to her feet and motioned him towards her bed as she walked around him to shut the door. DVDs barely weighed a thing, but he was carrying quite a few.

"We…also got…" he continued, pausing while he set the discs onto her bed, "some wrestling DVDS…Mom thought we should, in case you didn't want to see something romantic." Tom pushed a curly piece of hair out of his face and turned to Mel, holding up a specific DVD. "This one's called Lover's Quarrel. It says." He squinted at the back of the cover. "'The lady's always right.'" He looked back up at his sister. "Does that make any sense to you?"

Melanie laughed and grinned. "Yes, yes it does, but don't worry about that." She looked at the plethora of movies laid out on her comforter and inquired, "Do you want to stay and watch a badly filmed Hallmark rom-com from this selection right here?"

She didn't really need to ask; Tom was already pulling himself up onto her bed. She knew he was still short, because of his age and the fact that he hadn't hit puberty yet, but he was growing a little bit. The Miller family height curse may have only struck Daniel. That would be rather fitting.

She smiled again as her little brother got situated in a comfortable position with her many pillows. He politely didn't say anything about the tear-stained ones.

Mel's eyes caught on the carton next to her bed. "Oh, Tom, do you want some mint chocolate chip ice cream?" She picked up the treat and held it up to show him, as if he needed proof she had it in her possession. "You're gonna have to use a fork from Daniel's back pocket, though."

Tom merely shrugged. "That's where all of our utensils come from anyways. Sure!" He actually looked excited to spend the night with his – possibly crying – sister watching bad movies and eating weird, stolen ice cream with the wrong utensil from a pants pocket.

Melanie made her way up onto the bed and handed the ice cream carton and fork to her brother. She began looking through the DVDs that were spread out, feeling a small smile tugging at the corners of her lips.

Maybe Daniel was right. Maybe the ugly people really did break up with the pretty people. (The fact that he had broken up with both Emma and Maddie a number of times just flew right over his head.) And this pretty person would be having a nice time with her brother that night.

Later that night, the two weirdest brothers of the family were on the living room couch, Christine having retired to her own room for the night long ago after the...events.

Daniel was quite a bit taller than Rob, but, against all common sense, he was the one lying down on his younger brother. Their zippers hadn't been undone, and there really was no other way to watch television. Unfortunately, Daniel had broken the TV slightly in the past, and the only channel upon which they could agree on was showing The Real Housewives of Dallas.

Daniel was in the middle of grumbling about how his favorite series in the franchise was, rather obviously, the Miami one, and Rob was trying to tune him out, when their front door could be heard being shut. A loud grunt was followed, and soon Man D had entered the room.

"K, so I heard about the whole Jonathan thing and–" Man D, who had been lifting her shirt up and almost off, noticed the younger boy underneath her friend. "Oh, hey Rib." She turned to Daniel. "I see you got the fried ribs printed." She was beaming, seemingly proud of this harassment.

Rob's eyes widened at the sentence. "You told him to–"

The door clicked shut again, and in came Daniel's girlfriend Mia Black. She was flipping a section of her hair over head, saying, "Daniel, I'm ready, let's go–" She reached the scene and promptly blanked, hand stilling.

Daniel's eyes traveled over to her, her beauty striking him once again so that he couldn't speak right away. "Oh, ya see, our zippers got stuck–"

"Yeaaah," Mia stretched the syllable out, showing no wish to stay put, "we can't have sex tonight." She made eye contact with a smiling Man D and began to leave the room.

"See ya tomorrow babe!"

Man D threw her hands up and conceded, "Awe, well I'll have sex with ya, D-Ho!" She gripped the bottom of her already-ridden-up t-shirt and fully took it off, beginning to pull her shorts off as well.

There was an outburst of fierce protests from the guys, never so scared before to see a woman undressing.

Mia, however, was unperturbed. She hadn't even made it out of the kitchen before noticing something. Reentering the room, she asked, "You guys realize you can take your pants off, right?"

Daniel and Rob went still. They turned to look at each other, then, seeing how uncomfortably close they were, quickly twisted away. The simplicity of the situation was just setting in.

DELETED SCENE

The next day at school, Francisco wasted no time and made sure to drop by Rob's locker before homeroom.

He had timed it so the usually, nerdy throng of geeky teens Rob generally hung out with had already left for class, leaving the Miller alone – to check out his hair in the mirror, the big mirror, hung inside his locker door. Francisco shook his head free of all patronizing thoughts, and headed over to the teen.

"Ah, Mr. Miller, hello again," Francisco greeted, flashing a smile at the boy.

Rob's eyebrows knit together as he focused on his principal through the mirror he was looking into. He awkwardly turned around. "Uh, hey, Principal Alonso." He nervously checked the hallway. No one he cared about seeing him with the principal in a – friendly? – conversation was around to see this.

Francisco nodded, acknowledging the boy's response. "Yes, well." He clapped his hands together, then hiked up his pants. "I just thought I should let you know that, you're welcome to take ice cream from my house any time."

Rob's eyebrows were practically a unibrow by that point in the short talk.

"Think of it as a courtesy, for, you know, being my future son-in-law." Francisco bobbed his head once to emphasize the point.

Rob merely parted his lips and asked, "What are you talking about, old man?"

Francisco sighed loudly, then turned and left the premises. And not just the hallway.

He went home.

You should review. If not for the weirdness, but for lovethatignites's birthday !