A/N: Oh, lookit! I have written something! It's kinda short and crappy, but it's something! Hopefully it'll be enough to make up for all the time I've been gone.

And dang, look, it's been nearly a year since I first started this thing.

By the way, before you read this, as it's not explicitly mentioned, the bed in question is Malcolm and Dewey's. Dewey... Well, Dewey is not here right now; please leave a message after the beep.

BEEP!

Content

It's probably around two in the morning one night when something makes Malcolm wake up. It takes a moment for his eyes to focus and for the fog to clear, and when he's mostly lucid he's greeted with a sight he's feared for most of his life. Reese is staring at him, and smiling.

Reese is smiling at him.

Years of self-taught self-preservation skills immediately kick in, and the first thing Malcolm thinks to do is say, "Oh God, what did you do?"

This doesn't seem to faze Reese, who is lying in bed next to him. He continues to smile and watch his brother, and after a moment says, "Nothing."

His reply is so calm and genuine-sounding that it scares Malcolm even more. Without much thinking about it, he's up and out of the bed and across the room. He watches Reese warily, who is still just lying there.

"Seriously, Reese," Malcolm says, eyes frantically searching the room for possible danger, "what did you do?"

This time Reese's smile falters, and he sits up in the bed to look at Malcolm more clearly.

"Nothing," he repeats.

Malcolm is still visually searching the room. Nothing suspicious has caught his eye, but the nagging feeling that he's missing something gnaws at him. There was always something.

"Come on, Reese," he says, voice growing more frantic with each syllable. "Just tell me now and we can forget anything happened." When Reese still isn't forthcoming with information, something clicks in Malcolm's mind. "Oh God, it's on me, isn't it? You glued my toes together, or shaved something into the back of my head, or..."

By now the smile is gone from Reese's face, and he is frowning in what is probably disappointment, which Malcolm would have noticed if he weren't so busy being paranoid and worried about himself.

"I didn't do anything!" Reese interrupts him. He throws his hands up in exasperation and gives Malcolm a look that clearly says 'What the hell, man?'

Malcolm stops his searching for just long enough for some clarity to sink in, and he shakes his head to clear it.

"You... didn't?"

Reese's mood has done a complete 180 by now and the look on his face could be described as disdainful. He glares Malcolm down as he says, again, "NO."

Malcolm looks uncertain for a moment, but then rationality begins to kick in, and he has the decency to look ashamed. He rubs one arm self-consciously.

"Oh... Sorry," he says, more than just a little pathetically.

Reese is far from being in an accepting mood, and flops back down facing the opposite direction, muttering angrily under his breath as he does so.

Malcolm, now feeling idiotic beyond belief, creeps back over to the bed and gets back under the sheets. He gets comfortable facing the ceiling, then glances at Reese out of the corner of his eye. He can hear him still muttering under his breath, and his rigid posture suggests that rage is building just under the surface, ready to burst out at any disturbance.

Malcolm doesn't really want to tempt fate, and really would prefer to go back to sleep, but the fact that he is awake and still feeling very much ashamed keeps him awake and thinking. And the more he thinks, the more he realizes he really is an idiot.

He realizes that he had just assumed that Reese's smile had held evil intent. It's true that it normally does, but he'd had no proof. Instead he'd just assumed and panicked, like he normally does.

Thinking about it, Reese's smile hadn't actually looked devious at all. Instead it had been... How to put it? Happy? Glowing? Pleased...

Content.

That was is it, Reese had been content. He hadn't been plotting something against his poor, unsuspecting brother; he'd just been lying there in contentment. His smile had just been reflecting that.

And that's when Malcolm understood.

"Reese," he says, ignoring the feeling that it was a bad idea, "were you... Were you watching me sleep?"

He turns his head to watch for any reaction, or any sign that he is about to be pummeled into the next century, but Reese gives neither. The only thing that could count is a slight twitch of his shoulder. But Malcolm knows better, and takes this as a sign of confirmation.

"Oh," he says. His insides squirm with a mixture of guilt and affection, and he feels that the situation is going to become awkward very soon. "I didn't know."

He hears Reese huff gruffly.

"That's kinda the point," Reese says into the darkness.

Malcolm turns onto his side, fully facing his brother. He scoots forward enough to just be able to feel the heat radiating from Reese's back.

"I'm sorry," he whispers, just loud enough to where he knows Reese can hear him.

Again all he gets is barely a twitch of Reese's shoulder. Feeling this isn't enough, he reaches out and wraps an arm over Reese's middle and pulls himself fully against him. When he isn't immediately elbowed in the stomach, he brings his face to rest against the arch of Reese's neck.

"I really am, Reese."

It's when he feels Reese's arm cover his, and Reese's fingers find the spaces between his own to intertwine with them, that he knows he is forgiven.

A/N: This was actually written, like, a month ago in the middle of the night when I really should have been sleeping because I had Zoology at ten the next morning. I haven't written anything since (both because I have Zoology four days a week, and because of uber writer's block), so this does not mean that I'm back. I would like to be, very, very much so. So... Yeah, we'll see.

Reviewing is not necessary, like always. :D