Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Monday morning at the Wilkerson household was uneventful, everything seemed to always be the same especially now that it was reaching fall, everyone was set into the routine of things, well…for the most part.

Hal was ready for work, sitting at the breakfast table with his tie and button up, drinking a cup of black coffee, while Lois prepared breakfast for the family in her robe. Dewey wandered over in his pajamas, rubbing his eyes and yawning, his ears sticking out as usual. Malcolm tiredly sat at the table, staring into space next to his father.

No “Good-mornings” were passed around, but that was a typical week-day scenario. Nobody is in the mood to have a polite conversation with one-another, that’s just the way it is. Reese, unsurprisingly, was still asleep, you could hear him snoring all the way from his room to the kitchen.

Lois called out to him to wake up, “REESE!” but there was no response. “REESE!” she had called again, no response. She then instructed Malcolm to rouse his brother, “Malcom, go get your brother. You don’t want to be late again. That wouldn’t be a great start to the week now would it?” he rolled his eyes at the early morning lecture begrudgingly got up from the table. “Don’t you roll your eyes at me mister!!” Malcom wonders how it was even possible for Lois to have seen him roll his eyes, “That woman must have X-ray vision.” he thought to himself.

Malcom slowly rolled over to his and Reese's shared room. He attempts wakes his brother “Reese.” … “Reese.” To his dismay, but not disbelief, Malcom knew it wouldn’t be that easy to wake up his bear for a brother. After many attempts of kicking, hitting, yelling, Reese woke up to a splash of water to the face. Reese’s eyes shot open. “HEY!” and he dashed up out of bed only in his boxers. Malcom couldn’t help but smile as he shrieked running away back to the kitchen as Reese chased after him with plentiful range.

Once Reese finally caught up to Malcom, Lois immediately said “Reese, go put some clothes on, i told you…in order to eat at the table, you need to be wearing at least pants and a shirt! Is that so unreasonable?” She looks at Hal. Hal, now reading the newspaper and wearing his reading-glasses looks up at Lois then at Reese and sips his coffee.

Lois groans and sits down while Reese goes to put on some clothes. The family eventually made it to the table to eat their usual breakfast of scrambled eggs, bacon, and buttered toast. Of course, Reese managed to eat a significant portion of the toast, leaving about one and a half slices for his four other family members, which leads to a smack in the head from Lois.

After some crazy chaos and last-minute rushes, the boys finally made it out the door. That was until Dewey realized he forgot his backpack, and Reese forgot his shoes. Then the three boys were pushed out the door once again.

The boys walked quietly to school. Dewey had picked up this really annoying habit of humming a jingle from some toothpaste commercial which was really starting to get on everyone’s nerves. This led to Reese punching him about eight times before arriving at school that day, but that did not stop Dewey, he kept going which led the boys to groan in unison. The boys eventually dropped Dewey off at his classroom before the two brothers walked in silence to their older-kid area of the school.

“Hey.” Malcom says suddenly as they arrive at the school grounds. “What?” Reese says, annoyed just bluntly because it was a Monday morning, who wants to converse on a MONDAY MORNING?” Malcom suddenly jabs Reese in the stomach with his elbow before running off cackling. Reese is about to chase him when he sees Malcom already entering his classroom.

Reese angrily rolls his eyes and stomps to his own class, “prepare for revenge malcom, i’ll get you back when you least expect it.” He smirks at this vengeful thought. “Today’s gonna be a hell-fest.” The door shuts behind him. 

Chapter Text

Malcom is seated in his usual seat in the Krelboyne classroom amongst his other genius friends. Ms. Burns, their teacher is kind of a lunatic, but Malcom likes her…for the most part.

Ms. Burns begins with the daily attendance check,
“Claire?” “Here!”
“Simon?” “….” “Simon!” “Oh here.” “Lloyd?” “Present.”
Malcom rolls his eyes at Lloyd’s concerningly might he mention consistent ‘presents’ doesn’t he ever just wanna say ‘here?’
“Malcom!?” “Here.”

Ms. Burns finishes roll call and greets the class, mentioning how she hopes everyone had a great weekend, “I hope everybody had a spectacular weekend! Any weekend plans? Anyone?” The class stares right back at her. “Okay…well, my weekend was not great! My boyfriend of nine years….he-“ her voice trembles as the class still robotically stares at her. Her face becomes straight. “You know what never mind.” The class is quiet except for a cough made by a kid named Austin.

“Okay…where was I? Oh right! Well today is an exciting day for our class! Because I have an announcement!! Drumroll please….” The class begins to drumroll loudly. The Krelboyne class has some sort of expertise in the drumroll, they just do it THAT much they might as well have blisters.
“We have a new student joining us today!! Yayyy!” The class erupts in whispers and mumbles in curiosity, why would a student be joining them so late??

Ms. Burns interrupts the voices by shushing them. “Ok… class quiet down. Now, I want you to all make him feel very welcome! Moving to a new place is always scary, so i want you all to treat him like one of our own. Jacob? Honey? Come up and introduce yourself!” Ms. Burns smiles at the right side of the classroom. Everybody cranes their neck trying to catch a glimpse of the new student, whom they had no idea was even in the room in the first place.

There’s a brief moment of hesitation made by the new student who doesn’t get up, before a sigh is let out and a boy with shaggy brown hair and pale skin comes up to the front of the class.
He’s wearing a grey-t shirt with a navy flannel hung over it, along with a pair of jeans. Casual.

The boy looks at Ms. Burns for reassurance and then looks back at the class.
He clears his throat. “Hi. My name is Jacob, I am from Boston and I..like science.”

Malcom notices the noticeable tooth-gap that Jacob has. Malcom wonders if anyone else noticed, he wonders if Jacob is self-conscious about it.
The boy seems a little nervous, as he fiddles with his hands, but fairly confident compared to how Malcom would’ve been up there in front of everyone.
The class stares back at Jacob, unsure of what to do, should they clap?

Suddenly, Ms. Burns steps in to guide him back to his seat, “Thank you very much Jacob.” Everybody give him a warm welcoming.” Ms. Burns makes a clapping motion with her hands, emphasizing the importance of welcoming Jacob. The class erupts in clapping sounds as they nod their head in agreement.

Ms. Burns moves on with the lesson, and the class goes on like normal. Not a bad start for a Monday.

Chapter Text

The bell rings, and Malcom and his friends rush to sit at their usual lunch table outside. The weather is very nice out today, the sun is out and it’s not too hot, but not too cold. Malcom thinks to himself that “today is gonna be a good day after all”

Malcom, Kevin, Lloyd, and Dabney pull out their brown paper bag lunches, and Stevie pulls out his metal avengers lunchbox, which hits the wooden lunch table with a big-bang that surprises everyone with the loud jolt. They should be used to it by now..it’s been a routinely thing every…single….day.

Malcom eats his sandwich next to Stevie as he picks at his smelly egg salad. Malcom catches a whiff of the salad and wrinkles his nose.
“Dude how do you eat that stuff? You know you can always get school lunch.”
Stevie replies frowning, he isn’t too happy about it either. But his parents think that if he were to eat a singular piece of solid food, he would die immediately, which is very untrue.
“I………..have……….to……….because……-“ He’s cut off when Lloyd starts talking about something else.
Stevie is used to being interrupted at this point, his drawn-out sentences get tiring eventually, to everyone including himself.

“Hey look, it’s that new kid…what was his name again?” He points at the new kid standing in the middle of the lunch-area with a red lunch tray, seemingly alone and unaware of where to sit.
“Jacob.” Kevin replies. “Let’s invite him over!” Lloyd says.
“Uhh guys… i don’t-“ Malcom begins, weary of inviting a new member to their lunch table, what if he’s too cool for us?! Malcom thinks. He’s always so insecure about everything. But before he can state his disagreement he’s interrupted by Kevin yelling towards the new kid.
“Hey! Jacob come over here, we have plenty of room.” Kevin waves him over with a friendly smile. Kevin has always been quite social, and very rarely does this work out in his favor. Malcom just hopes that this is one of those times.

At the yell of his name Jacob turns around startled, but his blue eyes adjust to the smiling (for the most part) group of kids waving him over to their lunch table. Jacob smiles and Malcom stares at his tooth-gap, and Jacob strides over coolly and confidently.

“Hey thanks.” Jacob says, sitting next to Malcom.
Now hearing his voice more closely, the group notices that Jacob has a twang of a southern accent in his voice.
“Yeah.” Lloyd smiles.

An awkward silence passes by until Malcom speaks up. “So…where are you from?”
Jacob looks over at him, bangs messy and in his face. He pushes it out of the way squinting as the sun reflects in his face. “Boston.”
The group “oohs and ahhs”. A lot of them have never even left California.

Dabney interjects, “Then how do you have that accent?” Malcom is sure that him and all the other members of the group’s faces go pale in embarrassment. What if he takes offense to that question.
Malcom makes a mental note to kick Dabney’s butt later. Oh god..Reese is rubbing off on him.
“Oh my accent? Well, originally i’m from Texas, but we move around a lot.” Jacob replies coolly and calmly. The group immediately feels relief at Jacob not getting offended by Dabney’s potentially offenisve question and the group suddenly takes a strong liking to him, finding him to be extremely interesting.

For the next hour, the group asks him question after question.

“So….you said you like science?”
“What was Texas like?”
“Have you ever rode a horse?”
“Why are you in The Krelboyne class?”
“How long did it take you to grow your hair out?”
“Isn’t Boston the prime place for rocket science?”

The whole table listens to Jacob in awe as he talks about the science experiments he did back home in Boston. Everyone sits on the edge of their seat as Jacob talks about the experiments he used to perform back home, including rocketry.

Now once he mentions the word ‘rocketry’
Malcom looks at Stevie,
who looks at Kevin,
who looks at Lloyd,
who looks at Dabney, who is not looking at anyone else but Jacob.
This earns him a kick to the leg by Lloyd who gives him THE look.

Now this look made by all of the members meant one thing, and that one thing is “He is in.”

Chapter Text

The lunch period was going great, everyone was happy and smiling, enjoying their new founded member of their friend group.

Things were good until the boys suddenly felt a looming presence lingering in the air. All of the boys tensed up except for Jacob, who was still rambling about god knows what they were just talking about. Jacob suddenly notices the groups lack of attentiveness and questioningly glances between the five boys.

When suddenly their suspicions were right and Lloyd is the unlucky one to have felt a hand grip threateningly onto his shoulder.
“Hey Lloyd, do you happen to have my homework that I asked you to do for me?” A dark voice that anyone miles away could recognize. Reese. Malcom cringes in agony, oh god not this again. Why can’t he just have one good thing?
Lloyd turns around, his blood running cold, to face Reese. A pained look on his face.
He. Had. Forgotten.
“Oh- uh- h- hey Reese..i must’ve….forgotten…uh-“ Lloyd stammers as Reese’s face turns into a scowl as his eyes squint at Lloyd, gripping his shirt even tighter.
“I’ll see you after school.” Reese growls. Lloyd gulps in terror, dreading the moment where Reese pounds him after school, he knows that no matter what he does, or where he goes, Reese will get to him.

He lets go of Lloyd’s shirt as he begins to circle their lunch table like a hawk hunting for pray.

He looks at Dabney and smirks a menacing expression forming on his face, Dabney quivers in fear, nearly peeing himself..
He promised the guys that he would not do that again.

Reese puts his hands on Stevie’s shoulders whispering “Nerd.” His face changing from a scowl to a menacing smirk.
Stevie gets it easier than the other guys just because he’s a cripple, Reese often says that he’s “off limits.” but he still doesn’t get it off completely. “Nobody deserves it easy.” Reese often says, which Malcom never understood this theory.

Malcom wonders where he gets all these theories from.

When Reese gets to Malcom he punches the back of Malcom’s back, earning a loud groan from Malcom, this is a regular occurrence that happens everyday. And no, that’s not an exaggeration.

After going around messing with his usual circle of who he calls “freaks and geeks”, Reese is caught off guard to see another kid at the table this time. Who would wanna sit with these nerds? Reese smirks, this must be his lucky day.
Cracking his knuckles, he walks over to the kid with shaggy brown hair covering his eyes who stares down at the lunch tray in front of him, Reese wears a smirk on his face.
“Well well well” Reese states teasingly. “Look what we have here..” Reese is about to start spitting insults when Jacob looks up at Reese.

And then, the strangest thing happened, Reese’s face….softened?! That can’t be right…Reese, the school bully’s face has never softened, it’s just not historically accurate.
The moment Jacob looked up Reese’s perpetual smirk and look of pure evil had disappeared and his eyes slowly widened, as if in surprise of…God knows what???.

The boys looked between Jacob and Reese back and forth, numerous times.
Questions swarmed through their head.

“Is Reese gonna pound him?”

“Oh he’s in for it alright.”

“I can’t look.” Lloyd thought to himself, covering his eyes.

Jacob looked up at Reese with a daring expression on his face, as if asking “Do you need something?”
Reese seems to be surprised at Jacob’s smile back at Reese, Reese looked confused at the kid whom he had never seen before, who seemed to be challenging him.

This has never happened, no kid has ever DARED to challenge him.

Reese’s questioning look disappears and another unfamiliar look takes place on his face, and as he looks at Jacob a rosy color paints his cheeks.
A look of….embarrassment? No, it couldn’t be.

He then looks back at the rest of the lunch table, silence seemingly covering the entirety of the playground at that moment.
The boys who sat at the lunch table were frozen in fear, what was Reese gonna do? Explode?

He looked embarrassed and confused, the pink flush still covering his face. He looked back at Jacob once again, and frowned, before walking away.

And that was that.
What. Just. Happened.

Chapter Text

After a loud moment of silence, the lunch table erupted in questions.

“WHAT was that?”

“I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“What just happened….?”

Malcom was especially confused, in all his years of knowing Reese, his WHOLE life, he had never seen Reese back down like that…ever. That’s just not something that Reese does,
Reese would torture someone till the end of time if that meant he was never giving up.

Something was up and Malcom was gonna find out what.

He resumed back to reality to listen to what the group had been saying,

“Maybe he had to use the bathroom?” Kevin suggested.

“He could be sick?” Lloyd offered.

Malcom rolled his eyes at these pathetic theories, no way. He knew his brother, and that wasn’t right, even when Reese was sick he found every possible way to make everyone’s life miserable.

Malcom is about to shut down his friends ideas when Malcom turned to glance at Jacob who appeared to be confused as everybody threw out hundreds of theories.
Oh right. He doesn’t even know who Reese is.
“Guys.” Malcom attempts to interject, but the group continues with their scattered conversation.
He says it again a little louder, “Guys!” the group then stops talking to look at Malcom inquisitively.
“You must be very confused.” Malcom says looking at Jacob.
Jacob nervously chuckles, “Uhh yeah a little.”
“Let’s let Jacob in on what’s happening, shall we?” Malcom says shrugging at the rest of the group.
The boys nod their head, embarrassed at their rudeness of leaving Jacob in the dust of their topic at hand.

A moment passes, the boys unaware of where they could possibly begin.
But before Malcom can open his mouth,

Stevie is the first to describe Reese. “He’s………awful…..”
Lloyd then says “He pushed me into a locker!!”
Kevin interjects “He put my head into the toilet, and gave me a swirlie!”
Dabney begrudgingly state “AND he’s Malcom’s brother..” Jacob’s eyes widen at this in surprise. Malcom rolls his eyes.

Dabney always feels the need to bring that up, as if it is Malcom’s fault for having a brother of such insanity. Malcom is already punished enough for having to live with the guy.
“Please don’t remind me.” Malcom sighs.

Jacob says, “Wait so let me get this straight. This guy-“
“Reese.” The whole lunch table says at the same time.
“-Reese… is the school bully? Then WHY did he leave ME alone? Shouldn’t he have called me a nerd or pour milk down my pants?”
“That’s why we’re confused!” Kevin states frustrated that he can’t figure something out for once.
Jacob seems to be deep in thought, along with the rest of the table before shortly replying with a
“Huh..weird.” Then he shrugs and takes a bite of his apple, “Maybe Lloyd is right, maybe he did get sick.” Lloyd nods encouragingly at this idea, and the rest of the group nods along, unsure..but what else could it have been?

Malcom doesn’t nod along, still stuck on the fact that that idea is not realistic in the slightest. But he decides to just forget about it, he’s sure that Reese will get to Jacob somehow, unfortunately.
He must’ve just gotten lucky today.

Eventually the topic is dropped and the idea of Reese is soon forgotten, and conversation comes back to normal. Jacob is in the middle of having a heated conversation with Kevin about Protons when the bell rings.

The boys head to class, Reese’s strange behavior forgotten.

Chapter Text

Later that day…The Krelboynes arrive to gym class, unfortunately. This is unfortunate because The Krelboynes do not excel in this particular form of skill.

The class is seated in front of Mr. Carter, who is discussing the plans for today's physical education. Malcom is spacing out on the clock, until he is cut out of his space when he sees his fellow peers getting up around him.

He turns to face Kevin, who appears to be listening intently to everything the teacher has to say. It should come as no surprise that Kevin was always a kiss-up with ALL of the professors.
Malcom nudges Kevin in the side with his elbow, Kevin looks back at him as they both get into their lines to go God knows where.

“What?” Kevin asks, seemingly annoyed.

Jeez. “Sorry for existing” Malcom thinks with a roll of his eyes. “Where are we going?” Malcom asks, not having had been paying attention earlier.

Kevin opens his mouth when he is suddenly interrupted by someone turning around in front of them.
Jacob. He grins at them “Outside.” “To play soccer!” He smiles from ear to ear, as Malcom and Kevin groan at playing soccer in THIS heat.
And playing outside at this time only meant ONE thing. The older kids were having recess during this hour.

“Great.” Malcom thought to himself.

“All we need is to embarrass ourself in front of the older kids.”

He turns to face Kevin, who appears to be wearing a similar grimace of disgust.
Kevin looks inquisitively at Jacob. “Why are you smiling? Do you WANT to do this?”
Jacob chuckles at this, gap flashing itself once again. “Why wouldn’t i? I love soccer.”

At last, Malcom recognizes the distinction between him and Jacob.

They walk outside as a class and Malcom lingers behind his friends as they talk. Over the loud sound of chatters as they walked as a class to the outdoors area, he can hear Kevin responce, "You have to be kidding," and he hears Jacob's perplexed remark. "I'm not,"
The class steps outside, including Lloyd, who pushes Stevie down the ramp in his wheelchair.
The sun burns into Malcom’s arms and he already feels the sweat piling into his body.
Mr. Carter has the kids sit on the grass as he gives instructions, Malcom makes sure to pay attention this time, he does NOT feel like asking Kevin again, what a sourpuss.

It was a fairly straightforward game—soccer. They were split into two teams, a red team and a blue team. Malcom was assigned as a red, and so was Stevie, and Lloyd. Then Jacob, Dabney, and Kevin were put on the blue team. Malcom looks back at his group, of course he would be put on the team consisting MOSTLY of girls.

The whistle blows and the game begins, this is gonna suck.

Chapter Text

With his hair blowing in the breeze, Jacob feels liberated as he kicks the oh-so familiar ball.

Jacob felt as if he hadn’t played a REAL game in soccer since they had moved.
His family moved to California in the beginning of the summer, so playing video games alone just became a routine for him, no sports for him and his ‘friends’ that he doesn’t have.

Sure, the game isn’t a big challenge, he kicks all these kids butts. Seriously why do they just stand there?!
But Jacob doesn’t find himself to care the least bit, he smiles and scores goal after goal. The blue team wins the game by eight points to one.

The blue team erupts in cheers. Jacob attempts to first bump a few kids on his team but the fist bump really seemed to have confused a lot of Krelboynes.

“Have they ever had a fist-bump?” Jacob wonders to himself as he drinks out of his water-bottle.

Dabney walks towards him, seemingly limping but having a smile on his face “I have never.. won ANYTHING…in the realm of sports in my….entire life, this is….extremely….exhilarating.”

Looking up at Jacob who pants along with him, sweat beading on his forehead.

“I can agree with you on that one buddy.” Jacob agrees, smile still on his face he says patting Dabney’s sweating back, which he regrets immediately as Dabney jogs back to Kevin to talk about their new found ‘talents’.

The sun shines in Jacob’s eyes as he squints looking at all the kids in his new class. He’s glad he’s made some new friends already, he wouldn’t ever admit it but he was really scared that he wouldn’t make any friends.

He looks over to where Malcom, Stevie, and Lloyd were. They seemed disappointed as Lloyd kicked at the dirt and Stevie layer back in his wheel chair, but Malcom seemed in his own world.
Jacob considered walking over to give them a pat on the back, but he decided against it since he believed it might come across as being condescending, so he decided to continue people-watching.

Jacob had noticed earlier that the older kids had been out here once he entered the outside-area alongside his classmates. He hadn’t thought much of it until they were in the middle of the game.

As Jacob had attempted to retreat the ball, grinning, his head looked up to see none other than the boy who had came up to their table during lunch.

The boy who Jacob could not quite remember the name of.
‘Richard?’
‘Ronald?’
‘Reagan?’

The boy with the spiky hair, big eyes, and perpetual scowl sat on the wooden bench staring right back at Jacob, who had been caught so off-guard that he had lost the ball and SOMEHOW Jenny Chang scored the goal.
Jenny Chang was who Jacob quickly learned was one of the smartest people in the class, and did NOT seem like the kind of person to score a goal in soccer, especially against a pro like Jacob.

It wasn’t just the fact that he had recognized the boy, it’s that look that Jacob just couldn’t understand.
The mean-looking teenager who had approached them at lunch appeared to be a completely different person as he sat by himself, shuffling his feet and wearing a somber expression.

Jacob almost felt sorry for the guy, he’d be suprised that a boy like that wouldn’t have girls flawing all over him, or boys ready to arm-wrestle or talk too loudly and disruptively with.

Jacob notices that the boy had been staring at him once again, Jacob makes the sudden decision to be bold and stare back, he wanted to give the bully a stern and questioning look, as if asking

“What the hell man?” But decided against it, and gave him a blank look instead.

He wanted to see what the older boy had wanted to do.

Was he judging him?
Was he just observing his soccer skills?

Jacob couldn’t help but feel curious about…Reese, is that his name?

He knew it was stupid to think this way but he almost felt as if him and Reese were on good terms for, who knows what reason?
Jacob knew that that theory was a definite wrong, but he liked to think that maybe Reese had been intimidated or jealous of him.

But he had probably been saving him for later…
Jacob gulped at the thought.

But that’s when Reese cracks a smile at Jacob.
Not the menacing smile that he had seen on Reese before.. but a closed tooth, almost shy smile?

Jacob doesn’t know how to respond back to this smile, maybe he thinks he is somebody else?
Jacob stares bank not exactly sure what to do. Should he run?

Reese then mouths something, which appears to be saying “Good job.”
Jacob was completely bewildered.

This couldn’t have been the same guy from earlier, right? This must be another guy..

But Jacob could not help but crack a shy smile back. He found it somehow…endearing to see the boy across the field look flushed in the sun with a bashful smile on his face. He mouths “Thanks.” In response.
The older boy across the field smiles an open toothed smile at Jacob, and gives him a little awkward thumbs up.

Jacob finds this to be incredibly funny and smiles widely back at Reese, gap and all- throwing a thumbs up back.

He can see Reese laugh and cover his mouth as he does so. Jacob repeats this action.

They probably look like complete idiots. Jacob suddenly remembers where he is and becomes very self-aware. He looks around. What if the guys see Jacob talking to their arch nemesis? Their bully? Then what?? He’ll be all alone.

Jacob is relieved to see that the guys had been at the water-fountain, not having had seen anything. Phew.

Jacob looks back at the bench on the other side of the field to see that it’s empty. Reese had left, along with his class. Jacob finds himself feeling a bit disappointed that Reese was gone. He had unfortunately really enjoyed that little moment between the two of them. Jacob almost liked the secrecy of the situation, it felt exhilarating. God his life is sad. And what makes him feel worse is when it dawns on him that he is betraying his brand new friends. The friends that took him in when he was all alone, Jacob suddenly feels very ashamed of how he felt.

But something about Reese drew him in. Maybe the fact that Reese was presumably dangerous and cruel, or how Reese treated Jacob differently than the others “why was he the special one?” or maybe it was just that moment, or that look that Jacob couldn’t shake all day.
The stupid thumbs up, the stupid smile.

It was really starting to bother him now.
Jacob had managed to push the memory out of his brain for the rest of the day. He had finally completed the first day at his new school, and if mostly went well.

That night Jacob had a dream where Reese sat across him on that very same bench, and stared, and Jacob had stared right back.

Chapter Text

Tuesday morning was identical to Monday morning had been, and every week-day before that.

Lois is standing at the stove preparing breakfast while dressed in her robe, while Hal sits at the table sipping at his dark coffee and reads from the daily newspaper with his reading-glasses.

Malcom had woken up at his normal time of awakening and walked slowly to the bathroom as he usually did, yawning.

However, today was different—the door was locked.
Huh? That’s weird.

Malcom walked over to the kitchen to see his mom and dad in the kitchen, and he had seen Dewey asleep next to him when he woke up.

That only leaves….no way.

Malcom listens to hear the shower running and the humming of his older brother.

Reese?!
Taking a shower?!
In the morning?!

There must be a break in the universe's flow because the math was inaccurate.

With his brows knitted once more, Malcom makes his way to the kitchen.
“Mom? Dad? Something’s wrong.”
Lois and Hal look up instant alert in their faces.

With three boys in the house, someone always getting hurt. But surely it was too early in the morning for that. Wasn’t it?!

“Malcom what’s wrong?” Lois asks, worry and concern laced in her voice.

“Has someone gotten hurt?”
“Did someone bring a raccoon into the house again?”

“No, no, nothing like that.” Malcolm reassures.
Lois and Hal both sigh in relief.

“Then what is it son?” Hal asks, seemingly to be getting a little impatient for Malcolm is interrupting his newspaper time.

“It’s Reese….He’s taking a shower.”
Malcom watches as his mom’s eyes widen, visibly extremely conflicted at this. Hal, the same.

The family hears a click from where the bathroom is located and turns around to see Reese walking out of the steamy bathroom whistling, with a towel wrapped around his torso. Reese, seemingly oblivious to the family staring at him, shuts the bedroom door behind him with a loud bang.
The family continues to stare at the door with raised eyebrows when they’re interrupted by a voice.

“Hey mom?” Dewey appears next to her suddenly.
“Oh! Did not see you come in.” Lois glanced down at her youngest. “Yes honey?”

“Our breakfast is on fire.”
Lois’s eyes widen and her smile fades as she looks behind herself to see that the eggs she had been preparing were WAY over done, in complete flames.

“Oh my god! Hal!” Lois shouts.
Hal stares at the fire with his mouth wide open when Lois shouts his name again.
“Hal! Get the fire extinguisher!”

Hal finally comes to his senses and goes to the nearby cabinet to retrieve the fire extinguisher.

“Aha, now that's where the fire extinguisher was hidden." Malcom thought to himself…maybe this is a bad time to be thinking about that.
But their parents had decided to start hiding the fire extinguisher ever since they once left the boys home alone and came back home to a house full of dry chemicals. Before the house had aired out, they had to spend days sleeping in their minivan, but truthfully that wasn't the first time they had to do that.

Malcom shrieks as Dewey wraps his arms around Malcom’s waist in fright, screaming. When Hal comes forward with the fire extinguisher Lois moves to get out of the way, but when she does, she knocks the orange juice off the counter and onto their new white rug below their table.

“Oh no!” Lois shouts.

Hal extinguishes the fire, but when he tried to turn it off he ended up extinguished the entire kitchen, including Malcom, Dewey, and Lois in the process. A moment of silence passes as everyone stares at Hal in definite accusation.

Hal smiles nervously starting to walk backwards, before grabbing his brief case and rushing himself out the door.
“Love you honey!”

When the door shuts behind him, they hear footsteps and a recognizable whistle approaching them.
Reese suddenly walks into the kitchen as his family studies him head to toe.
His hair looks well combed out, he’s wearing a clean shirt, and he smells like…cologne?

Reese stares back with a questioning look on his face.
“What?”

Reese’s family has not seen Reese look this cleaned up since Aunt Hellen’s funeral, and Dewey wasn’t even BORN YET.

Reese suddenly notices that the kitchen was dowsed in complete white.

“Wow. You guys are a mess!” He laughs shaking his head and walking, shutting the front door right behind him.
Malcom stares at the door along with Lois and Dewey in complete confusion.

What is going on with Reese?

First, he was waking up early, then he was showering, then he was wearing cologne, then he was leaving early for school??
Now Malcolm REALLY knows something is wrong.

Chapter Text

Surprisingly, Malcolm had gotten to school on time, along with Dewey right by his side.
Malcolm made sure to thank his mom for driving them, even though it meant she had to be late to work.

Malcolm, however, had observed that the group was abnormally quiet when he arrived over.
He questioned Stevie quietly, sitting next to his wheelchair, "Why is everyone so quiet today?"

To which Stevie answered, "Reese."
Once he muttered the name of the bully the group nodded sadly, because they knew firsthand what it was like.
Being hit a little by Reese isn’t worth mentioning anymore to them, but they all knew that a beating was different.

And in that moment Malcom had remembered what had went down at lunch yesterday. When Lloyd forgot to do Reese’s homework, which earned Lloyd the heaviest glare he’s ever seen, and a whisper in his ears.
Nobody had remembered to ask Lloyd what he had said, after what had happened when Reese ran away from their table suddenly everyone just was hung up on that.

But once Malcom had looked at Lloyd who stared at the floor, sporting a purple bruise on his cheek, he had known that Reese got to him after school JUST as he promised.

Malcolm always feels ashamed when he sees what he does to the other kids, he knows it’s not his fault. But he still feels guilty, as if being related to him was some sort of sin.

It sure felt like it.

The group trades some small conversation, mostly initiated by Malcolm, the MASTER of small talk.

Eventually, everything returned to normal, with Lloyd being so engrossed in the discussion of lasers that he was fortunate enough to forget about the shiner that was sitting on his right cheek.

As time went on, the bruise began to take on a yellow hue.

Kevin suddenly waves, smiling, behind Malcolm, who looks back, to see Jacob walking towards them.
“Hey guys!”

Immediately when Jacob walks over to the group, he takes notice that Lloyd had a bright purple bruise right on his cheek.
Immediately Jacob’s mind had gone on to Reese.
The guilt seethes in the pit of his stomach.
But let’s not jump to conclusion, maybe it wasn’t him..?
Reese considers bringing it up, but he didn’t want to bring the mood down so he decided to ask another one of the guys about it later.

With Jacob around, everyone felt a little more at ease, even Malcolm. Jacob felt almost like a stabilizer for the group.
He reminded Malcolm of a non-Krelboyne, a NORMAL person, who just happened to be smart, just like Malcolm.

Jacob liked sports, he didn’t seem to care too much about anything, and everybody just thought he was really cool.
Soon after, the bell rings and the group heads to class.

Stevie, being in a wheelchair rolls behind the group. Jacob quickly notices and lingers back to walk alongside Stevie’s wheelchair.
“Hey Stevie. How did Lloyd get the bruise?”
Stevie seemed to falter for a moment. But he had quickly seem to make up his mind that Jacob was one of them now, he needed to know.

“One………word.” Stevie says, as he rolls himself closer to the door.
Jacob looks back at him in curiosity.
“….Reese.” Stevie manages to breath out before heading ahead of Jacob and inside the school.

That’s when Jacob slows down.
And all of a sudden Jacob feels sick.

Chapter Text

Malcolm sits down in his seat next to all of his friends, Stevie eventually catches up with them, and soon after Jacob.
After a couple minutes of conversation, Ms. Burns takes attendance while yawning at her desk.

"Now, who wants to be my little helper and take the attendance to the main office?" she asks, holding up the attendance sheet in the air.

The class sits in silence, nobody raising their hand. That’s when Jacob’s hand hesitantly raises into the air.
“I will.” He says.

Jacob found himself staring off into space when he hears Ms. Burns ask someone to take the attendance to the main office.
Nobody raises their hand so he decided that he might as well make a good impression on his new teacher, why not?

Ms. Burns smiles at him, bags sit under her eyes as she hands him the paper. He gives her an awkward closed-mouth smile and walks out of the classroom into the fresh air.

He closes his eyes at the feeling of the sun on his face, if only he could just leave, if only life worked like that.

He knows where the main office is because when he first came to school yesterday that’s where he went first.

Jacob arrives at the main office rather quickly and opens the heavy blue door.
He then goes up to the front desk to see a lady with a short haircut and some terrible highlights sitting in a desk-chair on the phone. He waits for her to get off as she seems to be in no hurry at all..
”Yes! Of course I remember that.” She laughs as if she's talking to her lifelong closest friend on the phone.
She gives him a shady glance and signals for him to "wait" with a raised finger when he meets her gaze.

He continues to stand in front of her, eyebrow raised. Can’t he just leave it at the desk and be on his way?
But then she waves her hand in the direction of the long bench in the office, as if ‘shooeing’ him away. Jacob breathes deeply in annoyance and sits on the hard and quite uncomfortable bench, attendance sheet in hand.

He wonders how much he’s missing in class. Not like he hasn’t missed an entire two months already.

Jacob watches the clock as it ticks second after second, he doesn’t think he’s ever been more bored in his entire life.

And the pattern resumes each time he believes the woman is going to hang up the phone. She always gasps with a "really?!" He watches as the lady twirls her finger around the phone chord habitually.

He hears the office door open and the harsh, almost reprimanding, sound of a man's voice.
“You need to learn to control yourself. Cheating on the test?! Studying is a whole lot easier than getting yourself into this much trouble. You ought to be ashamed of yourself. But you know what? I am not surprised one bit. I would expect this kind of behavior out of you.”
Jacob winces at the harsh words that the teacher is spewing at whoever the student is.

"Ask yourself, what ever happened to the old giving discipline?" a boyish voice asks in response. Jacob can hear the smirk in the kids voice.

Oh boy he’s so done for.

Jacob hears as the teacher sucks in his breath, most likely in attempt to not say anything to get him fired and pushes the kid forward, further into the office.

That’s when Jacob sees who the young voice had belonged to.

Oh no. You’re kidding.

Chapter Text

Right away Jacob notices the blonde tips of the boy, his back to Jacob.

He sees as Reese takes one look at the desk-lady and rolls his eyes, walking back to sit on the bench. Almost as if he knew how this all worked.

Jacob attempts to avoid eye contact, but fails when he knows for sure that Reese stopped in his tracks after recognizing him.
Oh god. He’s gonna beat me up, right here, right now.

Reese sits right beside Jacob on the bench, and Jacob tries his best to seem nonchalant as he swings his feet and glances up at the clock. Beside him, he can feel Reese doing the same. He feels the vibration on the bench as Reese mimics Jacob, and begins to swing his own feet.

That’s when Jacob feels a foot swing into his. Jacob immediately stills, thinking that it was some sort of beginning to a roundhouse.
However, it was soft and undoubtedly an accident. He also observes Reese's stillness, as if mortified by the inadvertent contact.

Without even thinking, Jacob lightly taps his own shoe against Reese's. Raising his eyebrows, Reeses turns to confront Jacob, who is merely staring at the front desk while trying his hardest to suppress a smirk, but failing.
Although Jacob appeared (for the most part) composed, his heart was racing a million miles per hour.

What if he made a mistake?
What if Reese was just as awful as everyone claimed to be?
I mean he beat up Lloyd for crying out loud.

But to his surprise, Reese also displayed a little smile on his face as he tapped Jacob’s foot back, or at least that’s what Jacob saw out of the corner of his eye.
They make eye contact but both quickly look away.

After a moment of nothing, Jacob leans his back on the bench and shuts his eyes, he’s unsure what expression Reese wears as he does this.

Jacob couldn’t stop himself before the words came out of his mouth, ever so quietly.

“It’s not right..what you did to Lloyd.” He mumbles.

Silence. Oh shit. Why did he say that?

Jacob gathers all the courage he has to open one eye to see Reese sitting at the edge of the seat, seemingly picking at his stubs for nails while looking down at his folded hands.
And what Reese says, throws Jacob completely off.

“I know.”

He knows..? Then why does he do it for christ’s sake???

Jacob opens his mouth, intending to question Reese further on what he had just said when he notices the front-desk lady waving her finger at him, as if saying “Come here.”
Jacob quickly gets up, and hands the front desk woman the paper, which now the edges were crumbled at that point. Jacob watches as the lady sports an unhappy face right back at him.
“Thank you.” She says robotically, as if she would want to be any place but here.

He nods at her and steals a glance at Reese as he walks past heading towards the exit, so he can go back to class.
Reese was still in the same position, edge of his seat but this time he was not looking at his hands, but back at Jacob.

On the walk back to class, Jacob muses over his "conversation" (if you can call it that) with Reese as he walks back to class. All he knew is that Reese saying “I know.” threw him off, it just made no sense to him.

But he hopes that he made Reese feel guilty.
Why, exactly, pick on a child that is younger than you? Just for what? Not doing your homework?

Jacob feels resentful towards Reese as he arrives back at his homeroom.

He wonders how long he had been gone.