Author's Notes: Here we have a story I originally conceived and began writing around a year ago. Thanks to much encouragement from poxmaker, along with a couple others, I've gone back to and rewritten what I had, finding the idea was much better than I'd initially thought. This is set around the first, probably, or second season, and if you've read chapter four of Flailings you will already know this is to contain "copious amounts of FLUFF && ANGST!" And as strange as it may seem, nothing inspires me to write Reese/Malcolm more than listening to Colbie Caillat.
Reese wasn't nearly aware of the silly smile his lips spread across his face to form. If he had been, then he wouldn't have been clear on the why, but at any rate he just knew the feeling of contentment, absolute happiness. And of the equally silly, lazier smile of his brother Malcolm.
Reese wasn't aware of how strange it might seem to be fully clothed sharing a bed with one's brother in broad daylight. He wasn't aware of much at all: just the fingers trailing up his arm, and the glacial yet warm eyes of the face he was absolutely drenched in.
Reese wasn't aware he was missing his instinct to aim for the face when Malcolm suddenly called him cute. He simply caught his breath and replied, "You're cute, too."
Reese was only vaguely aware when Dewey walked in and upon a sight he clearly found strange: "I knew you guys were freaks! I'm telling mom and dad, because I'm an evil genius, although there's nothing here showing my genius; I guess I'll just keep rambling. Or I'll do this:"
Hal soon bounded in. Wearing a leotard and tights with "TIGHTROPE CHAMPION" across his chest, he calmly questioned, "What is it? What's wrong?"
"Don't you see, dad?" Dewey flailed, frantic, pointing at his brothers who were entirely unfazed. His voice suddenly became terribly deep: "Aren't you going to punish them?"
Reese jerked awake, indeed finding himself in his bedroom. Although he was lying alone in his underwear, observing night hours. Eventually he unconsciously rolled onto his side and faced the bed his brothers shared. He stared unseeingly, half-pouting, until Malcolm rolled over in his sleep and Reese was suddenly attentive of him. His lips parted, his tongue like it wanted to jump out. Reese pouted more, then muttered, "Cute."
It was another long silence of Reese gazing lazily before he realized what he had said and his eyes bulged open. He would have screamed if not for the face his eyes were locked onto. He was suddenly afraid, afraid to face him.
He rolled over to his side and looked through the wall until Lois came in and rudely awoke Malcolm and Dewey. Then he turned back to see them stretching out of bed like zombies. "School? Really?" Reese asked, having not considered it for a second in all the time he'd been awake. His brothers said nothing as they meandered toward the door. He rose out of bed like them, then quickly managed to flick Dewey in the forehead.
"Ow! What was that for?"
Reese rolled his eyes and said, "Even in my dreams you're still annoying."
Sitting at the breakfast table next to Malcolm, Reese became suddenly paranoid: Maybe it was conspicuous if he only hit Dewey. Maybe he should hit Malcolm, make it even among his brothers. Because, what if they really thought he liked Malcolm? At all? He couldn't know his brothers actually expected no rhyme or reason behind his violent behavior, as he formed a fist and struggled between connecting with and not connecting with Malcolm's face, wanting and not wanting to. In the end Reese brought his hand back to his spoon, acted like nothing had happened.
Malcolm, sounding not angry but just a little inquisitive, questioned, "Why were you going to hit me?" He calmly shoveled more cereal into his mouth.
"What? I didn't."
Malcolm swallowed quickly to say, "Yeah, but you were-"
"No, I wasn't." Reese sneered.
"I saw you."
"I wasn't, okay?"
Reese had raised his voice, and Malcolm pulled a face. "Whatever. Doesn't matter. I was just curious." Then Malcolm cheerily went back to eating.
Reese pretended Malcolm hadn't said anything, and he finished his breakfast sour. He pent up his violence until it was lunchtime at school, and he put on a grin, cracking his knuckles and saying, "I am so kicking some Krelboyne butt today." A kid who had been walking behind Reese acknowledged that heartily, exclaiming that the Krelboynes were freaks, and the next thing Reese knew, the kid was on the ground. And he sat next to Malcolm at dinner, sour once again but trying to hide it.
Lois smiled as she took food from the middle of the table and piled it onto her plate. Conversationally, she asked, "So how was everyone's day? What happened at school?"
Malcolm said, "Nothing much; Reese went to the principal's office."
Hal didn't bother to look away from his newspaper when he said, "Who'd you beat up this time, son?"
"It was Carl Jenkins," Malcolm answered for him.
Reese sat stiffly with a wide-eyed and otherwise blank expression as his mother turned on him, and he quickly, with a cringe, prepared himself for the screaming he fully believed he didn't deserve.
"Why did you do it?" Lois put her arms out with what was like a loony, lopsided grin that Reese would have laughed at under different circumstances. "Huh? Why did you beat up the poor, little kid? I mean, did he look at you funny? Did he take your lunch money? Try stealing your girlfriend?"
"Reese doesn't have a girlfriend." Malcolm felt he had to clarify that.
"Okay. So did he tie you up to the flagpole? Pull your pants down in front of all your little friends?"
"No. ... He ..." Reese broke off.
Lois sighed. "I mean, it's not a surprise, but you'd think you would learn! And you just don't. Reese, if you keep beating people up whenever you feel like it, eventually you'll go to jail. Is that what you want? To go to jail?"
"Do not pass go," Malcolm chimed in again, "Do not collect two hundred dollars."
Reese opened his mouth and nothing came out.
"You are grounded, mister!"
"What!"
"Two weeks!"
Reese gaped. "It's not fair!"
"Unfair? That Carl Jenkins can get two black eyes and a bloody nose - not to mention the emotional scars that are caused by this kind of stuff - and it's not fair - for you to be grounded for two weeks?"
Reese somehow thought better of anything he could have said.
"Go to your room! ... Dewey, how was your day?"
Dewey smiled. "It was okay."
When Lois checked in his room she found Reese sitting at the edge of his bed, looking at his hands - as if he was actually thinking about what he had done; very convincing - and she left satisfied. Reese didn't even budge.
Then Malcolm walked in.
Reese felt much like yelling, but he managed to get across all the emotion he wanted using half his decibels.
"Why did you do that? You knew mom would go ballistic."
Malcolm shrugged and smiled. "Why are you still not hitting me?"
Reese sneered. "You heard mom; I gotta learn."
"Whatever," Malcolm replied, and he smiled as he headed to leave the room.
"What are you doing?"
"Why do you care?"
"I ... mean ... you just walked in here!"
"Yeah," Malcolm simpered.
"What are you doing?"
"Going to watch Dizzy Cat with Dewey."
"What? You said a giant, magical cat who flies people to their dream universes would make a stupid movie. Why do you want to see that?"
Malcolm answered, "Because you can't," and disappeared beyond the doorway.
Reese scoffed and stood steaming, before he let himself fall backwards onto his bed so he could stare at the ceiling. Exasperation gave way until Reese was unclouded by his emotions and left only with torment and confusion. "Grounded; ... Carl Jenkins. ... Dizzy Cat ... Stupid Malcolm. ... No, I shouldn't have ..." Reese froze into the silence. He was facing the ceiling, but his big-eyed stare had nothing to do with what he actually saw but with realizing exactly how he felt. He had held himself accountable for something, if for only four seconds, instead of blaming everyone else and especially Malcolm. That could only mean one thing:
Disaster.