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“Hey Wilbur, why’s your brother in the office?” Schlatt dropped into the seat next to the brunet, a bruise on his jaw.
“He’s what?”
“He’s just sitting in the office, I dunno why.”
Wilbur sighed, rolling his eyes. “I don’t know, Tech probably got all snarky with a teacher again-”
“Nah, it’s not Techno, it’s Tommy.”
With a blink, Wilbur turned towards his friend and squinted slightly. “He’s- Tommy? Blonde, blue eyed, golden child Tommy?” He knew his brother was a gremlin through and through, but usually he was well behaved at school, why would Tommy of all people be in the office?
Schlatt just shrugged. “Yeah, him. It looked like he was getting scolded for something, I dunno what it was about.”
As quickly as he could manage without overturning his chair, Wilbur stood up and grabbed his bag. He needed to see what the hell was up with Tommy, asap.
“Sorry Mrs. Henson, gotta go!” He called out as he ran for the door, swinging his bag over his shoulder and sprinting towards the office.
Worst-case scenarios flickered through his mind – did Tommy get in a fight? Was he hurt, did he accidentally get his hands on something he shouldn’t have?
He knew that Tommy was ten now, the kid was usually pretty smart. But sometimes Tommy had little lapses in judgement that tended to get him in deep shit, and gave all three of the rest of the family heart attacks almost every time. Like the time that he wanted to see how far out on a branch he could walk, until it broke under him and he broke his arm in the fall-
Before he knew it he was slamming into the heavy office door, his shoulder stinging with the impact, before he caught sight of his brother.
Sucking on a candy cane.
Tommy met his eyes and grinned around the candy, waving. “Hey Wil! Why are you here, did you get in trouble too?”
“What did you do?”
He was expecting a moment of shame, or worry, or really anything other than the widening of the blonde’s grin.
“I stabbed the bitch that’s been bullying Clem,” he said proudly.
Wilbur blinked. “You what?”
And then Tommy popped the candy cane out of his mouth, holding it by the still plastic-covered curl and showing off the needle-sharp point that it had at the other end. “I stabbed a bitch.”
“With a candy cane?”
“Obviously, it’s not like I wanna give anyone lead poisoning by stabbing them with a pencil.”
Heaving a sigh, Wilbur put his head in his hands. “Tommy, there’s no lead in pencils, that’s graphite.”
“So I’d be giving him graphite poisoning instead, what’s the difference?”
This time Wilbur simply laughed, coming closer to sit down beside his brother. There were no marks on him that he could see, thank goodness.
“Schlatt said that he saw you in the office, I was worried, Toms.”
“Oh,” the younger boy said with a small voice. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to.”
Wilbur reached over and ruffled Tommy’s hair, putting his arm around his shoulders. “As long as you didn’t get hurt, or kill anyone. You didn’t actually draw any blood, did you?”
Tommy shrugged, leaning his head on Wilbur’s shoulder in turn. He was getting taller now, he almost had to slouch to fit under the brunet’s arm. “Only a little. The pussy cried though, that’s the only reason I got sent to the office.”
“And you’re still eating the candy cane??”
The younger gave a huff of a laugh. “I washed it off, don’t worry, I’m not some vampire drinking pepper-mint flavored blood.”
“You’re disgusting,” Wilbur groaned.
~~~
Later, Wilbur arrived home to see that Tommy was already splayed out across the couch, playing Animal Crossing on his Switch. He had gotten to walk his brother home from school early after the principal had been unable to reach Phil, before the brunet had to get back to class again.
Techno stepped inside with a lazy grin, his newly-pink hair falling into his eyes. “Heard you stabbed a kid, Tommy.”
The blonde sat up with a grin, setting his game to the side. “Yeah! The dickhead was making fun of Clem’s hair, she got a bit of it dyed pink, like yours, so I stabbed him to get him to leave her alone.”
Behind the twins, Phil gave a sigh. “Tommy, you can’t just stab people-”
“Does it count if I do it with a candy cane?”
“You what?”
Wilbur sighed and rolled his eyes as he grinned. It seemed like Tommy would always manage to surprise them in some way or another.
Unfortunately for Phil’s blood pressure, Techno seemed the most intrigued with the kid’s method of violence, sitting beside the youngest.
“I thought that it would’ve broken, isn’t sugar really brittle?”
Tommy shrugged. “I mean, I didn’t exactly check afterwards, I just wanted to clean off my candy cane so I could have the rest of it.”
“Tommy- Toms, please don’t tell me that you kept eating the candy cane after you stabbed a kid with it,” Phil pleaded.
“I have to regretfully inform you that he did, in fact, keep eating the candy cane,” Wilbur put in. “He was still working on it when I found him in the office.”
“That was the same one?”
Tommy cackled at Phil’s expression of horror, which got a laugh from Wilbur as well – the old man looked
very
concerned for Tommy’s well-being. Which- fair.